Holism : The idea that the parts of a system interconnect and interact to make up the whole.
Hominins : Species that are regarded as human, directly ancestral to humans, or very closely related to humans. / Humans and humanlike ancestors.
Human variation : The range of forms of any human characteristic, such as body shape or skin color.
Human adaptation : The ways in which human bodies, people, or cultures change, often in ways better suited to the environment or social context.
Indigenous : Refers to people who are the original settlers of a given region and have deep ties to that place. Also known as First Peoples, Aboriginal Peoples, or Native Peoples, these populations are in contrast to other groups who have settled, occupied, or colonized the area more recently.
Empirical : Evidence that is verifiable by observation or experience instead of relying primarily on logic or theory. / Verified through observation and experiment.
Law : A prediction about what will happen given certain conditions; typically mathematical.
Hypotheses : Testable statements that potentially explain specific phenomena observed in the natural world
Scientific Method : An empirical research method in which data are gathered from observations of phenomena, hypotheses are formulated and tested, and conclusions are drawn that validate or modify the original hypotheses.
Scientific Law : A statement of fact describing natural phenomena.
Historical archaeologists : Archaeologists who excavate and analyze material remains to supplement a society’s written records.
Prehistoric archaeologists : Archaeologists who survey, excavate, and analyze material remains to study civilizations that lacked written records.
Ethnography : is a research strategy where the approach is to get as much information as possible about a particular culture. The ethnographer, or cultural anthropologist, tries to get information from many angles to see whole picture–again, striving for that holistic view.
Ethnology (cross-cultural comparison) :
- Cross-cultural comparison is employed by cultural anthropologists in order to understand the similarities and differences among cultures; this can help us to better understand the processes of change and adaptation in human culture.
- It may be called the science that deals with the study of origin, operations, behavior, institutions and organizations of diverse societies to understand their similarities and differences. The discipline has gone through a gamut of alterations with changes taking place in human lines and their ways of living.
- Systematic comparison and analysis of data from a large number of different societies.
Ethnohistory : this approach requires library and archival research; ethnohistorians attempt to reconstruct the history of a people using both their own accounts and those of outside observers. In this manner, ethnohistorians try to understand the modern condition of a people by understanding the historical events and processes that got the group to where they are now.
Informant : an informant is a key individual—usually someone with a lot of knowledge about the group being studied. This individual is interviewed and used as a contact point with the group. The problem with this is that the researcher only gets a small picture of what’s going on.
Hypothesis: Explanation of observed facts; explains how and why observed phenomena are the way they are. Scientific hypotheses rely on empirical evidence, are testable, and are able to be refuted.
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis : The principle that the language you speak allows you to think about some things and not other things. This is also known as the linguistic relativity hypothesis.
Theory : An explanation of observations that typically addresses a wide range of phenomena.
Participant observation :
- A research method common in cultural anthropology that involves living with, observing, and participating in the same activities as the people one studies.
- This the hallmark of anthropology. This method was pioneered by Branislaw Malinowski. Using this method, the ethnographer not only observes but participates in the activities of the culture. In this manner, anthropologists attempt to record the emic, or insider’s view of the behavior, as opposed to the etic, or outsider’s view. This does not mean that the emic and etic are mutually exclusive; they can compliment one another by giving both subjective and objective interpretation.
- Involves participating in day-to-day life of the people being studied by living with them over an extended period of time.
Cultural relativism : The anthropological practice of suspending judgment and seeking to understand another culture on its own terms sympathetically enough so that the culture appears to be a coherent and meaningful design for living.
Ethnocentrism :
- The opinion that one’s own way of life is natural or correct and the only true way of being fully human.
- Creates prejudice against other ethnic groups .
- Tendency to view one's own culture as superior and to apply it's own cultural values in judging the behavior and beliefs of people raised in other cultures.
Deterministic : relating to the philosophical doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes regarded as external to the will.
Probabilistic : based on or adapted to a theory of probability; subject to or involving chance variation.
Unambiguous : not open to more than one interpretation.
Colonialism : the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.
Diversity : a range of many people or things that are very different from each other/ the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.
Variety : the quality or state of being different or diverse; the absence of uniformity or monotony/ variety (of something) several different sorts of the same thing.
Universal : relating to or done by all people or things in the world or in a particular group; applicable to all cases.
Science :
- Oxford English dictionary:
- Webster's 7th Collegiate dictionary:
- (in terms of Anthropology):
- It is a variable which depends on something else, usually treated as the effect in the causal model. It is usually designated as Y variable.
- Variable that the researcher wishes to explain.
- Presumed cause is the independent variable. It is also called as predictor variable, experimental variable or the explanatory variable. It is designated as X. (Education (X) – income (Y)).
- Variable expected to explain the change in the dependent variable.
- Presumed cause of changes in dependent variable.
- Variables that come between dependent and independent variables are intervening variables (Z). They are the means by which X produces Y.
- Clear-cut demarcation between two or more variables.
- No clear cut demarcation between two or more variables.
- Classification into two or more mutually exclusive categories which may not show any variation in degree (cannot be placed in a particular order).
- Two or more mutually exclusive categories which explicitly vary in degree.
- Two variables may be correlated without being causally related. This correlation may be due to the two factors being outcomes of a third factor. This is also symbolized as Z.
Conceptualization :
- Represents reality in the abstract.
Operationalization :
- Precisely defining what is meant by the concept.
No comments:
Post a Comment