ablineal A consanguineal relative who is neither a "lineal nor a co-lineal.
aboriginal, Aboriginal Indigenous to a given place. The term is always spelled with upper case ‘A’ when used in reference to the Aborigines of Australia. See indigenous peoples.
acculturation The process of acquiring culture traits as a result of contact. The term was common, especially in American anthropology, until fairly recently.
acephalous Literally ‘without a head’. Acephalous societies are those in which groups operate without formally recognized leaders. They include "foraging and pastoralist societies where political control is vested in collective "bands, other local groups, or "unilineal kin groups.
achievement and ascription Achieved status or authority is that which is earned, while ascribed status authority automatically derives from a person’s inherited social position. The distinction is common in political anthropology.
action, actor Theories which stress social action view social life from the point of view of individual actors (or agents) engaged in social processes, rather than emphasizing the persisting structural features which may be thought to exist and endure irrespective of the actions of particular men and women.
action anthropology The branch of "applied anthropology, or branch of anthropology allied to applied anthropology, which seeks to combat immediate threats to population groups. Action anthropologists thus seek to use their anthropological knowledge for political goals deriving from moral commitment. Promoted originally by "Sol Tax, the field is especially prominent in Germany.
action group, action set An action group is a group of "actors united in common purpose. An action set is a group of actors who operate for political purpose, but without a unified, corporate identity. Both terms were defined in 1960s political anthropology, as part of a broader concern with the classification of different sorts of group and leadership.
actor network theory (ANT) Highly influential theory with roots in science and technology studies, associated with the work of the sociologists Michel Callon, "Bruno Latour and John Law. Analysts working in the broad area of ANT look at the networks linking both human and non-human actors, networks which can and do cross the conventional boundaries separating, say, science from politics, or nature from culture.
adaptation The process of accommodating to the natural or social environment. The term is common in ecological anthropology and evolutionary theory.
adelphic polyandry The marriage of two or more brothers to the same woman.
adhesion "E.B. Tylor’s term for elements of culture which are usually found together. The idea anticipated notions in the "Kulturkreis school, as well as cross-cultural comparisons as understood by "G.P. Murdock.
affine, affinity Relationship through marriage. Usually opposed to "consanguine (related through blood).
agamy Marriage in the absence of a rule of fexogamy or fendogamy.
age-area hypothesis The idea fostered by f Clark Wissler that fculture traits are spread from the centre to the periphery of a fculture area, and therefore that at any given time those at the periphery are older than those in the centre.
age-class systems, age grades, age sets Age-class systems are societies in which formal age grades or age sets are crucial to the social structure. These are especially common in East Africa. Age grades are stages through which individuals pass; e.g. upon initiation or upon being made an elder. Age sets are categories of persons united by age. Often members of an age set are defined as those initiated at the same time. See main entry on age.
agency, agent An agent is a person who is the subject of faction. Agency, then suggests intention or consciousness of action, sometimes with the implication of possible choices between different actions. The concept of agency has been employed by anthropologists and social theorists, especially those influenced by fMax Weber, in contrast to fstructure, which implies constraint on action.
agnate, agnatic An agnate is someone related through the male line. Agnatic is the adjectival form, often used as a synonym of fpatrilineal. See main entries on descent and kinship; cf. fcognate (sense 1), futerine.
agriculture In its widest sense, the production of food, as opposed to the procurement of food from the wild. In a narrower sense, agriculture is often distinguished from fhorticulture as a more labour-intensive, literally ‘field’ (as opposed to garden) based system found in technologically sophisticated and socially complex societies.
alliance theory In kinship, the perspective which emphasizes ties between groups through marriage, rather than ties within a group through descent. Contrast fdescent theory. See main entry on alliance.
alter In kinship, the person or genealogical status to which relationship is traced. Cf. fego.
alterity Literally ‘otherness’. Variously used in recent anthropology to describe and comment on the construction and experience of cultural difference.
ambilineal Used to describe a kinship system in which membership of a group may be acquired through either fpatrilineal or fmatrilineal ties. In the ethnography of Polynesia, ambilineal groups are sometimes called framages.
ambilocal A form of marriage in which post-marital residence can be in either the husband’s or the wife’s place.
amoral familism Term first employed by E. Banfield to describe a characteristic fethos of Mediterranean societies in which loyalties to immediate family take precedence over corporate obligations. See war.
animism The belief in spirits which inhabit or are identified with parts of the natural world, such as rocks, trees, rivers and mountains. In the nineteenth century, writers such as fSir Edward Tylor argued that animism represented an early form of religion, one which preceded theistic religions in the evolution of ‘primitive thought’. The term is sometimes used loosely to cover religious beliefs of indigenous population groups, e.g. in Africa and North America, prior to the introduction of Christianity, and is still widely used to describe the religious practice of so-called ftribal or findigenous groups in areas like Southeast Asia.
anisogamy Marriage between partners of unequal status, i.e. either fhypogamy (in which the bride is higher than the groom), or fhypergamy (in which the groom is higher than the bride). The opposite is fisogamy.
Annates school The school of French historians originally associated with the journal Annates d’his-toire economique et social (now Annates: economies, societes, civilisations), founded in 1929, which has been especially important in the interdisciplinary development of history and anthropology. After World War II, the school became associated with the idea of a history of f’mentalities’, and with F. Braudel’s project for a structural history of the ‘tongue duree\
Annee sociologique The name of a journal (literally, the ‘sociological year’) founded by fEmile Durkheim in 1898 and, by extension, the theoretical persuasion of those who published in it in the early twentieth century. The Annee school included Durkheim, fMauss and other French sociologists whose concern with issues of comparative anthropology ultimately precipitated the development of f structural-functionalism in Britain and structuralism in France.
anomie E. Durkheim’s term for a condition of normlessness, often confused with Marxist uses of the word ‘alienation’.
anthropometry The comparative study of human body measurements, e.g. to determine relationships between different population groups. Biological anthropologists working with living and recent populations (as opposed to ancient fossil populations), have largely replaced anthropometry with genetic studies.
anthropomorphism The attribution of humanlike characteristics to non-human things.
apical ancestor The ancestor at the top of a genealogical table.
applied anthropology Term used to cover the use of anthropological methods and ideas in a variety of practical or policy-related contexts. Applied anthropology has its roots in work on behalf of colonial administrations, but is now firmly established in contexts as diverse as development agencies, health education and social work as well as work for private-sector corporations. See colonialism, development, ethnopsychiatry, medical anthropology.
appropriate technology In development studies, technology (usually low- rather than high-technology) which is designed to be appropriate to the socioeconomic, environmental and cultural needs of the communities under consideration.
archetype C.G. Jung’s term for symbols which are common to all humanity. The notion has found little support among anthropologists.
armchair anthropology An often disparaging description of anthropological research carried out without original fieldwork, but rather through reading the product of the fieldwork of others. Typically, twentieth-century anthropololgists have characterized their nineteenth-century predecessors (and sometimes their contemporaries) with this term.
articulation of modes of production In Marxist analysis, the interaction between different modes of production in the same fsocial formation.
Asiatic mode of production Marx’s term for a mode of production in which villages are relatively self-sufficient, but surpluses are drawn off by a despotic state. In fK. Wittfogel’s Oriental Despotism (1957), this was used for a grand model of Asian fhydraulic civilizations, which also served as a thinly disguised critique of Soviet state power. The concept received further theoretical attention in French Marxist anthropology in the 1960s and 1970s.
atom of kinship Levi-Strauss’s term for the unit of kinship consisting of the relations husband/ wife and brother/sister, and father/son and mother’s brother/sister’s son.
avunculocal Marriage involving postmarital residence with the husband’s mother’s brother. This form of residence is common in strongly fmatrilineal societies in which men control the affairs of each matrilineal group. When repeated throughout society, it has the effect of uniting men of each matrilineal group and dispersing the women through whom they are related. See avunculate.
ayllu Term used in Andean societies to describe a form of kinship – and territory-based social grouping. See Americas: Native South America (Highland).
B In kinship studies, the symbol for the genealogical position of the brother.
band The basic unit of hunter-gatherer social organization. Typically bands number from twenty or thirty (often erroneously called the fpatrilocal or fpatrilineal band) to over 300 (the composite band). Hunting and gathering societies are often described as band societies, i.e. societies whose primary political unit is the band.
barbarism In nineteenth-century evolutionary theory, the stage of development between fsavage and civilized. It is characterized by agriculture and the use of pottery.
bare life Concept invoked by fAgamben in his ideas about sovereignty and the fstate of exception.
Bare life is the condition of those placed outside the political community by the decision of the sovereign power.
barter Exchange of goods without the use of money.
base and superstructure In Marxist theory, the base (or infrastructure) is the material basis of society (technology, resources, economic relations) which is held ultimately to determine the superstructure, or ideological levels of society (law, religion, etc.).
behavioural level Especially in kinship studies, the level of analysis which describes people’s actions, in contrast to the fjural and fcategorical levels.
behaviourism, behaviourist The school of psychology which emphasizes learned behaviour over innate cognitive propensities.
bifurcation, bifurcate collateral, bifurcate merging In kinship, bifurcation refers to the terminological distinction of father’s and mother’s sides, relatives on each side being called by different terms. For example, one’s MB would be distinguished from one’s FB. Bifurcate collateral refers to the terminological distinction between both father’s and mother’s sides and between flineals and ^collaterals. Bifurcate merging refers to the terminological distinction between father’s and mother’s sides where the same-sex siblings of lineals are equated with lineals themselves.
bilateral Relations on both the mother’s and father’s sides.
bilineal A synonym for fduolineal or fdouble descent.
binary opposition In structuralist anthropology, an opposition between two paired terms (e.g. nature and culture, fright and left, male and female); more formally a distinction marked by the presence or absence of a single fdistinctive feature.
biomedicine Term used in medical anthropology for conventional Western medicine.
biopolitics, biopower Terms used by writers working in the shadow of Michel Foucault to denote the workings of modern forms of power that work directly on the body through modern disciplines and technologies (epitomized by certain sorts of biomedical intervention).
blood feud A ffeud carried through generations on the basis of family or flineage membership.
bricolage, bricoleur A bricoleur is a kind of French handyman who improvises technical solutions to all manner of minor repairs. In The Savage Mind (1962) Levi-Strauss used this image to illustrate the way in which societies combine and recombine different symbols and cultural elements in order to come up with recurring structures. Subsequently bricolage has become a familiar term to describe various processes of structured improvisation.
bride capture Marriage in which the groom or his kin forcibly take the bride from her family. Nineteenth-century scholars (notably fMcLennan) assumed real bride capture as a norm at certain stages of evolution. The fiction of bride capture is enacted in many societies.
brideprice, bride-service, bride wealth Terms for various sorts of marriage payment. Brideprice is an alternative, and generally old-fashioned, term for bridewealth. Bride-service is labour performed by a groom or recently married man for his wife’s parents; it is common among hunter-gatherers and can last ten years or more. Bridewealth is a marriage payment from the groom or his kin to the kin of the bride, usually to legitimate children of the marriage as members of the groom’s flineage; it is common among pastoralists. Cf. fdowry.
Bureau of American Ethnology A government bureau established by Congress in 1879, after fJohn Wesley Powell successfully argued that such an institution would be useful in the government’s dealings with Native peoples. A central institution in the developing anthropology of Native North America, it is perhaps best known for its illustrious researchers (including fF. Cushing and F. Boas) and its annual reports and other publications.
carrying capacity A term used in ecological anthropology to describe the maximum potential population which can be supported from a given resource base.
carrying mother The woman in whose womb a foetus develops. The term is employed especially in reference to a woman who is neither the genetic mother nor the future social mother of the child. See conception, reproductive technologies and cf. "genetrix, "mater.
case study A detailed ethnographic example which focuses on specific individuals or incidents. In the 1950s and 1960s, the use of extended case studies was characteristic of the "Manchester school of "Max Gluckman and his students.
cash crops Crops grown for the market rather than for subsistence or internal redistribution.
categorical level Especially in kinship, the level of analysis which focuses on classifactory structures as revealed in indigenous categories (e.g. in prescriptive relationship terminologies). See "jural level and "behavioural level.
centre (or core) and periphery A construct which depends on the opposition between a socioeconomic centre, wherein activities dominate peripheral areas. The opposition has been important in social geography and Marxist anthropology, especially in approaches influenced by world-system theory.
charisma In "Max Weber’s terms, authority based on the personal characteristics of the leader.
chiefdom A unit or level of social organization in which chiefs govern. Chiefs can be elected or, more commonly, given their status through descent.
choreometry The measurement or formal recording of dance and movement.
circulating connubium The term invented by Dutch anthropologists to characterize a marriage system in which groups are linked by "affinal ties and women circulate in "generalized exchange. In such systems, common in Southeast Asia, no one group has predominance over the others, though an ideology of "hypogamy is usually found.
circumcision In males, the removal of the foreskin of the penis. Circumcision is practised in many cultures throughout the world as part of male initiation. Female circumcision, or removal of part of the clitoris (clitoridectomy), is rare except in parts of Africa, where it has become the focus of intense controversy. Cf. "subincision.
civilization In nineteenth-century evolutionary theory, the level of society more advanced than "barbarism, It is characterized by factors such as irrigated agriculture, writing, complex organization, and cities.
clan Usually defined as a "lineage or cluster of lineages in which the exact genealogical connections between all members cannot be traced. The term is generally applied to a "corporate group with a strong identity. Although the term comes from a Gaelic word which designated a "bilateral kin group, in anthropology it is usually applied to "unilineal kin groups. In "G.P. Murdock’s usage, it designated specifically "matrilineal kin groups (patrilineal ones being called gentes). See also "gens, "sib.
code, code-switching A code is a particular level or style of speech determined by social factors such as degree of formality. Code-switching is the process of changing from one linguistic code to another, according to social circumstances.
cognate (1) In kinship, a "consanguine related through either the mother’s or father’s side (i.e. "bilaterally). The term is derived from Latin cogna-tus (a consanguineal relative who is not a member of one’s own "patrilineal group), as distinct from agnatus (English "agnate, being a member of one’s "gens.). See cognatic societies. (2) In linguistics, a word which has the same origin as another word, to which it is being compared, e.g. German Hund and English hound. The term may be used as either a noun or an adjective. Contrast "loan word.
cognitive anthropology In general, any anthropological approach to the study of cognition, In particular, it refers to a specific subdiscipline or theoretical perspective which emphasized the formation of cultural categories through semantic distinctions. It was popular in the 1960s in the study of colour and relationship terminologies, and its premises remain prominent in "ethnozoology and "ethnobotany. See componential analysis, ethnoscience.
cohort A group of people involved in the same action, e.g. an age cohort who are all initiated into adulthood at the same time. The term, originally from the Latin for a Roman military unit, is also used in biology and biological anthropology for a subdivision of a phylogenic class.
co-lineal A "consanguineal relative who is the same-sex sibling of either an ancestor or a descendant of a given person. Cf. "collateral, "lineal, "direct relatives.
collateral A consanguineal relative who is neither an ancestor nor a descendant of a given person. Contrast "direct relatives.
collective consciousness "Durkheim’s term (conscience collective) for the common consciousness shared by individuals belonging to the same society or social group. The French conscience may be translated as either ‘conscience’ or ‘consciousness’; thus the conscience collective is at once both cognitive and moral.
collective representation Any "representation held in common: "Durkheim’s term for the specific components which make up the "collective consciousness of a society or social group.
commensality Eating together. Rules of com-mensality may imply social status or relations of exchange. See also food, pollution and purity.
commodity Any object which has a value in relation to other goods, and can therefore be the object of economic exchange. Sometimes commodities are distinguished from gifts, whose value lies in the social relations created between giver and receiver, rather than in the "exchange value of the goods themselves. See also "fetishism.
communalism The term has various meanings, all relating to communities or communal living. It is most often used in modern anthropology to refer to what is called communalism in South Asia: attachment to a particular religious or caste community, to the detriment of the nation or the broader society (e.g. as in the use of ‘communal violence’ to refer to Hindu-Muslim violence in India).
communitas "Victor Turner’s term for the experience of heightened "sociality which occurs in certain ritual contexts, such as the "liminal phase of rites of passage or during pilgrimage.
comparative religion The academic discipline which examines different religions in comparative perspective.
complementary dualism A pervasive division into two opposing parts in a social or symbolic order. "Moiety systems and symbolic classes such as Chinese Yin and Yang are examples.
complex structure "Levi-Strauss’s term for a structure of alliance characterized by negative marriage rules. Cf. "elementary structure.
component Within componential analysis, a unit of meaning. The term is synonymous with "significatum.
concubinage The institutionalized taking of a sexual partner in addition to one’s spouse or spouses.
conjectural history The reconstruction of evolutionary development through logical speculation. The term was invented by Dugald Stewart to describe favourably the methodology of many eighteenth-century writers, but it came to prominence in anthropology through Radcliffe-Brown’s attack on the method as it was employed by late nineteenth-century evolutionist and diffusionist writers.
connotatum Within componential analysis, a feature which has meaning but whose meaning is literally not significant (see "significatum) for definition, i.e. which connotes rather than signifies. For example, avuncular behaviour might be a connotatum of the English word ‘uncle’, but it is not a distinguishing feature in the same sense as the significata male, collateral and first-ascending generation.
consanguine, consanguineal, consanguinity Literally, somone who is related through shared ‘blood’; usually opposed to "affines and affinity, which refer to relations through marriage.
consociate A term, used by the social "phenom-enologist Alfred Schutz and later by "Clifford Geertz, to describe any individual with whom a person has actual social relations.
contagious magic "J. Frazer’s term for magic based on the notion that things which were once in contact can have an influence over each other. Frazer considered this an advance over "sympathetic magic.
contract An agreement between two parties. One half of "Sir Henry Maine’s vision of a world which has progressed from "status to contract. See also "social contract.
controlled comparison Comparison of specific features of two or more societies, where the range of variables is narrowed by the choice of societies which are similar. Often controlled comparison is regional, i.e. based on comparison of societies which are culturally related and geographically contiguous. See comparative method.
corporate group A group, e.g. a flineage, which possesses a recognized identity. The term was of great importance in the heyday of British fstruc-tural-functionalism, when some anthropologists, drawing on the ideas of fMaine (corporations aggregate) and fWeber, restricted the term to a group with a single legal personality, e.g. a lineage which holds property in common.
counter-hegemony Opposition to hegemonic modes of cultural domination. The term was popularized through fRaymond Williams’s reworking of concepts from fGramsci.
couvade So-called ‘false pregnancy’, institutionalized for men in some cultures while their wives are bearing a child.
creole A language which originates from extended contact between two linguistic communities, one of which is usually dominant. Creoles generally begin as fpidgins, but the defining feature of a creole which distinguishes it from a pidgin is that a creole is spoken as a native language by at least some individuals. Thus it takes at least one generation to produce a creole.
creolization The process of forming a fcreole language. In recent anthropology the term has been widely used (especially following the Swedish anthropologist fUlf Hannerz) to refer to the creation of inter-cultural hybrids as a result of processes of fglobalization. See complex society, world system.
cross-aunt An aunt related through an opposite-sex sibling link, i.e. a FZ or MBW.
cross-cousin, cross-cousin marriage A cousin related through an opposite-sex sibling link. In other words, a father’s sister’s child or mother’s brother’s child, in contrast to a fparallel cousin (cousin by same-sex sibling link). ‘Classificatory cross-cousins’ are those classified by the same term as first cross-cousins. The practice of cross-cousin marriage (marriage, usually with a classificatory cross-cousin) forms the basis of alliance theory and Levi-Strauss’s theory of felementary structures.
cross-cutting ties Ties between individuals which cross-cut each other: e.g. two people may live in the same village but belong to different descent groups and different fage grades.
cross-relative Any relative whose relationship is traced through an opposite-sex sibling link, e.g. a fcross-cousin. Contrast fparallel relative.
cross-uncle An uncle related through an opposite-sex sibling link, i.e. a MB or FZH.
Crow terminology In fG.P. Murdock’s classification of relationship terminologies, one otherwise like fIroquois but in which FZD is called by the same term as FZ. Often such terminologies are found in strongly fmatrilineal societies, the principle being that female members of one’s father’s matrilineage are all called by a single term. See Crow-Omaha systems.
cultural anthropology One of the ffour fields (with linguistics, archaeology and physical anthropology) which combine to make up North American anthropology. Broadly comparable to European social anthropology, although the use of ‘cultural’ indicates significant historical differences in their intellectual genealogies. In the 1950s and 1960s the differences between social and cultural anthropology were the stuff of fraught controversy within anglophone anthropology; since the 1970s these differences have become less and less important.Determinism Any perspective which treats culture itself as determining the differences between peoples, e.g. in personality type. It is associated especially with relativism of various kinds.
culturalism, culturalist Any anthropological approach which gives first priority to explaining a culture in its own terms; employed as a term of mild abuse by British anthropologists of the 1950s. See culture.
culture area A geographical region whose inhabitants share similar or related culture. The concept was of theoretical importance in early twentieth-century studies of Native North Americans and in subsequent work in ecological anthropology.
culture bearer A person who possesses and transmits a given culture.
culture-bound syndrome Term used in medical anthropology for certain conditions which, it can be argued, are only experienced by people from certain specific cultures (e.g. depression for Euro-Americans, amok for Malays). See ethnopsychiatry.
culture complex Especially in early twentieth-century American anthropology, a cluster of "culture traits functionally related to each other. For example, the East African cattle complex includes not only cattle but also nomadism, bride-wealth, patrilineal kinship, acephalous politics, etc.
culture contact The meeting of two cultures, especially where one becomes culturally dominant over the other; the term was popular in the 1930s as a euphemism for colonial domination.
culture core In "Julian Steward’s terminology, those aspects of a given culture which are most strongly influenced by environmental and sometimes technological factors.
culture history The history of a culture reconstructed through comparison with closely related cultures. The idea was prominent among diffu-sionists and students of Franz Boas, as a reaction against "conjectural history.
culture of poverty A term first used by "Oscar Lewis to suggest that poverty is not simply a lack of material resources, but entails in addition a set of associated cultural values which drastically limit the capacity of the poor to change their own circumstances. The concept has come in for much criticism, particularly through its application to problems of race and poverty in the United States.
culture trait A single cultural attribute. In the early twentieth century, the idea that such traits were linked in larger complexes became prominent.
customary law Indigenous legal rules and practices, usually as codified (and thus transformed) by colonial governments. See law.
cybernetics A field which stresses the relation between elements in a system of interrelated actions. It is used in engineering, computer technology, psychology and education, but its significance in anthropology comes largely through the work of "Gregory Bateson, who helped develop the field in the 1940s.
cyborg A hybrid, part human and part machine. The idea has been explored by feminist anthropologists (most notably Donna Haraway) and those working in the new field of the anthropology of science.
D In kinship, the symbol for daughter.
deconstruction "Jacques Derrida’s term for a strategy of critical analysis which serves to expose underlying metaphysical assumptions in a particular text, in particular assumptions which would appear to contradict the surface argument of the text itself. The term has become synonymous with postmodern theory of various sorts and is often applied much more loosely to refer to the taking apart, or unpacking, of a particular term or concept.
deep and surface structure In linguistics, where the distinction was introduced by "Chomsky, the deep structure of a particular language contains the rules for generating the surface structure, i.e. the structure of what is actually said. At its most abstract, deep structure is common to all human languages.
deictic, deixis In linguistics, deixis is the aspect of language which relates the speaker, the hearer and their spatio-temporal context. A deictic is a word which specifies in the context of deixis, such as a personal pronoun (e.g. ‘I’, ‘you’) or an adverb indicating place or time (e.g. ‘here’, ‘now’). Deixis is especially important in recent work in "pragmatics.
deme An ancient Greek word for ‘people’. It was introduced into anthropology by "G.P. Murdock to describe social units which are based on both common descent and locality and which are essentially "endogamous. Demes have been found not only in ancient Greece, but more particularly in Southeast Asia and Madagascar.
denotatum Within componential analysis, a member of a given category. For example, father’s mother and mother’s mother (more properly in kinship notation, FM and MM respectively) are the denotata making up the category designated by the English word ‘grandmother’. See also fdesignatum.
dependency theory A theory of development,in which underdevelopment is analysed as part of broader relations of domination and dependency operating at the level of world capitalism.
descent theory In kinship, the perspective which emphasizes ties within descent groups, rather than between groups through marriage. Contrast falliance theory. See main entry on descent.
descriptive and classificatory kinship In the study of relationship terminologies, descriptive ones are those in which specific terms represent specific genealogical positions and classificatory ones are those in which a large number of genealogical positions are labelled with the same term. L.H. Morgan coined the term ‘descriptive’ specifically for those systems in which fdirect relatives and ^collaterals are classified by different terms, and ‘classificatory’ for those which classify any collateral by the same term as a lineal, e.g. when a single term is employed for siblings and fparallel cousins alike. Later writers made finer distinctions between different terminology structures and thereby rendered Morgan’s distinction obsolete.
designatum Within componential analysis, a term which designates a category, e.g. the English word ‘grandmother’ for the category which includes an English-speaker’s father’s mother and mother’s mother. See fdenotatum.
developmental cycle More fully, the developmental cycle of domestic groups, this term describes the culture-specific pattern of household or hamlet composition as it changes in respect of age structure. It came to prominence through the work of f Meyer Fortes and others working in West Africa, where domestic units expand through marriage but contract through death and division, e.g. when brothers previously occupying the same unit move apart to head new units when their parents die. See family, household.
diachronic Literally, ‘through time’. Diachronic perspectives include evolutionist and diffusio-nist ones, in which time depth is the significant factor. The opposite is ^synchronic.
dialect Any variety of speech or language in reference to a larger linguistic unit. In a more restrictive sense, the term very often refers to a regional or class-determined variety of a given language. Many linguists would now argue that the real distinction between a dialect and a language is political: i.e. a language is a dialect formalized and institutionalized by a state. Cf. fspeech community.
dialectical materialism Another term, like ^historical materialism, for the theoretical approach of fMarx and his followers in which f Hegel’s dialectical style is married to a materialist concern with the production of human needs.
dialogic, dialogical Terms employed by the Russian literary theorist fMikhail Bakhtin to indicate that language and meaning are never fixed in themselves, but only work in situations of dialogue, where meanings and understandings are contingent on other meanings and understandings. In this context, dialogue refers to a broader idea of language in use than simply conversation between two people.
dijferance In postmodern terminology, differance is fDerrida’s punning term (combining the French for ‘differ’ and ‘defer’) for the endless slippage of meaning from sign to sign, such that any appeal to some real, foundational meaning is always ‘deferred’.
difference In feminist theory, the word difference has been used to challenge the self-evidence of gender differences; instead differences of gender are but one case of more pervasive structures of difference, some marked some unmarked, which together make up the identity, or f subject-position, of particular gendered persons.
diglossia The presence of two ways of speaking, often one ‘high’ and the other ‘low’, in the same language. Each is appropriate to a different set of social conditions.
direct exchange In kinship, the exchange in marriage of members of one’s own group with those of another. The notion is central to Levi-Strauss’s theory of felementary structures. Also called ‘restricted exchange’, in opposition to fgeneralized exchange.
direct relatives In kinship, flineal relatives plus fco-lineals. Contrast fcollateral.
disembedded fKarl Polanyi’s term for economies which have been institutionally separated from other areas of social life, and thus may be analysed independently of their social context (e.g. through the formal procedures of Western economics). Premodern economies, in contrast, are said to be embedded in other social relations, such that religion or kinship may play the part taken by abstract, impersonal market transactions in the modern West. See formalism and substantivism.
disharmonic regimes In Levi-Strauss’s theory of "elementary structures, those kinship systems which possess one rule of descent and a contradictory rule of residence, i.e. "patrilineal descent with "uxorilocal residence, or "matrilineal descent with "virilocal residence. The assumption is that both descent lines and residential groups are "exogamous, thereby creating a minimum of four intermarrying ‘sections’ such as those found among the Kariera of Western Australia. Cf. "harmonic regimes.
disposition In the works of "Bourdieu, a propensity for some specific action. The culturally determined set of dispositions available to any particular actor is called the "habitus.
distinctive feature In linguistics (especially phonology), a feature whose presence or absence distinguishes between otherwise identical forms. For example, the distinction between the bilabial stops /p/ and /b/ is that /p/ is unvoiced and /b/ is voiced. Thus the distinctive feature of ‘voicing’ defines both /p/ (which lacks it) and /b/ (which possesses it). Levi-Strauss was influenced by "Jakobson’s account of distinctive features, and employed analogous devices in his early structural analyses.
domestic mode of production "Marshall Sah-lins’s term for a mode of production, supposedly characteristic of a broad range of kinship-based societies, in which both production and consumption are exclusively or mainly oriented to the requirements of the household or domestic sphere. See peasants.
double descent A descent system which has both patrilineal and matrilineal groups. Each member of the society belongs to one such patri-lineal group and one such matrilineal group. The classic examples are mainly in West Africa (e.g. the Yako of Nigeria) and, disputably, in Aboriginal Australia. Also known as ‘double unilineal descent’ and ‘dual descent’.
dowry A marriage payment from the bride’s family to the groom or his family. In some societies it represents the woman’s inheritance, taken with her to her marital home. Common in the Mediterranean and South Asia. Cf. "bridewealth.
Dravidian kinship The Dravidian languages are those (such as Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada) spoken in the southern part of India. Their relationship terminologies imply prescriptive bilateral "cross-cousin marriage, and apparently similar ‘Dravidian systems’ have been identified in Lowland South America and among some Australian Aborigines. See preference and prescription, "sister’s daughter marriage.
duolineal Literally, ‘having two lines’. In the study of descent systems, a synonym for "double descent.
duolocal Residing in both places, i.e. marriage in which the bride maintains residence in her natal home, and the groom in his. This form of residence is rare, but does occur in a significant minority of families, in some West African societies.
dysfunction A function which is not adaptive and which may contribute to disequilibrium. The term is more common in sociology than in functional anthropology.
E In kinship, the symbol for spouse (from French Spouse).
e In kinship, the symbol for older (elder), e.g. FBDe means ‘father’s brother’s daughter, who is older than "ego’.
economic man In economic theory, a hypothetical individual (Homo oeconomicus) who always acts in an economically rational way, i.e. to secure the most benefit in any given economic context. Since Malinowski’s assault on the idea of ‘primitive economic man’, the concept has been much criticized by economic anthropologists.
ecosystem A theoretically ‘closed’ system embracing interrelated parts of the environment. In ecological anthropology, the term often describes the relation between a particular people and their environment.
egalitarianism Equality between individuals in a social system. This ideal is often ascribed to hunting-and-gathering communities. It is theoretically important as a baseline for the comparison of societies on the basis of social hierarchy, including those ‘advanced’ hunting-and-gathering societies whose subsistence pursuits (e.g. intensive fishing) have led to the development of hierarchical systems. In a rather different context, fLouis Dumont has systematically explored the intellectual roots of the modern Western ideology of egalitarianism.
ego In kinship, the person (who may be real or hypothetical) from whom relationship is traced. The term is from the Latin for ‘I’; its opposite is falter (meaning ‘other’).
eidos fGregory Bateson’s term for the distinctive cognitive or intellectual pattern of a culture, as opposed to the fethos, which refers to the emotional tone of a culture.
elderhood The status of being an elder, which is important especially in societies which recognize formal fage grades and fage sets.
elementary structure Levi-Strauss’s term for a kinship system based on positive marriage rules, e.g. one must marry someone of the category f’cross-cousin’. Levi-Strauss classifies elementary structures into fdirect (or restricted) and fgeneral-ized. The contrast is a fcomplex structure, and Levi-Strauss also identifies an in-between type, a Crow-Omaha structure, which is a form of complex structure where the choice of spouse is so narrow that the system functions in a similar manner to an elementary structure.
empiricism In philosophy, the doctrine that knowledge depends on experience, in contrast to rationalism which posits that knowledge is structured by mind. More broadly in anthropology and the other human sciences, empiricism is used (often pejoratively) to characterize any approach which places the collection of empirical evidence before the construction of theoretical schemes.
enculturation The process of acquiring a culture. The term is more or less synonymous with socialization.
endogamy Marriage within a given group or category. The opposite is fexogamy.
entitlement theory In economics, the theory which explains the distribution of goods and services, not so much in terms of supply and demand,but in terms of the ‘entitlements’ which people bring to a situation. So, for example, Amartya Sen has argued that many famines are less the product of an absolute shortage of food (because food is available but is too expensive for people to obtain) but have to be explained as a failure of entitlements. See food.
environmental determinism The view that the environment determines aspects of culture or social organization. Absolute environmental determinism is generally rejected by ecological anthropologists in favour of the more moderate view that the environment limits or constrains aspects of culture and social organization.
eschatology The branch of theology which deals with the ‘last things’, death and the end of the world.
Eskimo terminology In fG.P. Murdock’s classification of relationship terminologies, one (such as English) in which siblings are distinguished from cousins and no distinction is made between fparallel and fcross-cousins.
ethnic group, minority Any group of people, or minority within a nation-state (ethnic minority), who define themselves as a group by reference to claims of common descent, language, religion or race.
ethno-A prefix which usually (but not always) treats the substantive concept in light of indigenous explanations. See fethnobotany, fethnomedicine.
ethnobiology A broad term for any culture’s indigenous knowledge of ‘biology’, which may cover fethnobotany, fethnomedicine and fethnozoology.
ethnobotany The study of the indigenous botanical knowledge of a given people.
ethnocentrism The tendency to view the world from the perspective of one’s own culture, or the inability to understand cultures which are different from one’s own. The accusation of ethnocentrism is a severe one when levelled at anthropologists, as ethnocentrism is seen, especially among exponents of relativism, as the antithesis of anthropology itself. See fsecondary ethnocentrism.
ethnocide Systematic destuction of the culture (or the members themselves) of a particular ethnic group. Cf. genocide.
ethnographic present A hypothetical time frame, characterized by the use of the present tense, employed in ethnographic writing. Normally it coincides with the time of fieldwork, which is not necessarily the time of writing, or indeed of reading.
ethnohistory The field which comprises the boundary area between ethnography and history. In some usages, it implies the use of indigenously defined historical data, whereas in others it implies documentary evidence relating to marginal, often illiterate, peoples.
ethnology Broadly, a synonym for "social or "cultural anthropology. In early nineteenth-century Britain, the term often implied a "monogenic theory of humankind, whereas ‘anthropology’ implied a "polygenic theory. Often in Continental usage, ‘ethnology’ means social anthropology and ‘anthropology’ means physical anthropology. In yet another usage, Radcliffe-Brown distinguished ethnology (the study of culture history and relationships) from social anthropology (the study of society).
ethnomedicine The study of indigenous healing systems.
ethnomethodology A style of analysis developed by the sociologist Harold Garfinkel, in which the purpose is to construct models of the knowledge, or methods, which particular actors bring to bear in everyday social situations. The prefix ‘ethno-’ is intended to suggest its similarity to anthropological approaches to the collection of indigenous knowledge (e.g. ethnoscience), although in practice it has had surprisingly little impact outside sociology.
ethnomusicology The study of indigenous musical systems. See music.
ethnos Literally a ‘people’, the term is applied in some Continental traditions to a set of culture traits which make up a given cultural tradition.
ethnosociology (By analogy with ethnoscience) the system of sociological knowledge possessed by a given people, or (by analogy with "ethnohistory) the study of a cultural group in light of its own sociological knowledge and the unique aspects of its social structure. The term has been most systematically used in the anthropology of South Asia, to describe the attempt, by McKim Marriott and his associates, to construct an account of South Asian societies in South Asian terms.
ethnozoology A given culture’s indigenous knowledge of zoology. See ethnoscience.
ethology The study of behaviour. Ethology is variously a part of zoology and psychology, and human ethology seeks to differentiate universals from cultural peculiarities by the comparative study of behaviour in different cultures. Human etholo-gists may also compare the behaviour of humans to non-humans in order to find universals wider than the human species, e.g. "territoriality.
ethos In anthropology, the emotional tone or ‘feel’ of a particular culture. The term was popularized by culture and personality theorists like "Gregory Bateson, who drew a contrast between the ethos (the emotional tone) and the "eidos (the intellectual style) of a culture, and revived by symbolic anthropologists like "Clifford Geertz, who contrasted ethos and "worldview.
eugenics The doctrine or practice of selective breeding in order to ‘improve’ the human genetic pool.
evil eye A supposed power or capacity to harm others, deriving from envy or other wicked thoughts. The idea is found in many peasant societies, where it is believed that an individual’s wicked thoughts can cause harm to others, often involuntarily.
exchange value In economics and economic anthropology, the value of something as defined by what it can be exchanged for. It is distinguished from "use value, which measures the utilitarian purpose of something. Marx’s labour theory of value was largely an attack on the notion of exchange value.
exegesis A term common in theology to mean explanation. In anthropology, it may be used to describe an indigenous exegesis, or informant’s explanation or interpretation of something.
exogamy Marriage outside a given group or category (the opposite of "endogamy). The term was coined by "J.F. McLennan as part of his theory of social evolution to explain the phase of "bride-capture and what came after, when groups developed rules against taking mates from within. It is commonly used today to designate any kind of out-marriage, including both rules and practice.
extended family Loosely, any family unit beyond the fnuclear family (e.g. including grandparents, cousins, etc.). The term can be used in either an egocentric or a sociocentric sense, depending on context.
extension, terminological In kinship theory, the classification of a distant relative as equivalent to a nearer relative. For example, the usage for a Trobriand father’s sister’s son may be described as an ‘extension’ of the genealogical position ‘father’ since both FBS and F are termed tama and F is the closest representative of this category. However, the notion of terminological extension has come under much criticism, since it privileges some genealogical positions over others on the basis of distinctions which are formal and not necessarily of any cultural significance.
F In kinship, the symbol for the genealogical position of the father.
feedback In fsystems theory, a mechanism which results from some action within a fcybernetic system, usually when an effect returns to the point in the system from which it originally emanated. The term is commonly used in ecological anthropology to describe the results of environmental or socially induced change.
fetish, fetishism, fetishization A fetish is an object which is believed to have spiritual power, such as a magical charm. The concept was used especially in late nineteeth-century anthropology to describe ritual objects used in supposedly ‘primitive’ societies. (For the history of the concept see main entry on religion.) Fetishization is the act of treating something as if it were a fetish. The term is often used to describe a process by which a culture or a social group irrationally overrates something (that which it fetishizes). In this sense, the object does not have to be material but may be, for example, a theoretical idea in anthropology. In this sense, the term becomes an accusation which is levelled against theoretical opponents. In a famous passage in Capital, Marx used the image of the fetish to illustrate the way in which people misapprehend the true nature of ^commodities by treating them as persons, thus attributing power and agency to things, while treating people (who really do have agency) as things, mere repositories of labour power for sale in the market.
feud A long-running, structured dispute between groups. In the ethnographic record, feuds are often violent and involve raiding or warfare between two groups who see themselves in opposition, or even define their identity as groups in terms of their place in a system of feuding kinship or local groups. The Nuer of southern Sudan, studied by fEvans-Pritchard, are the classic example in the anthropological literature. See violence, war.
fictive kinship Social relations which are perceived as analogous to kinship, but which are based on some other criterion, e.g. godparenthood, blood-brotherhood, or ‘fraternal’ solidarity in the trade union movement. See adoption and fostering, compadrazgo.
filiation In English usage, relation to a given side of the family (mother’s or father’s) or to kin groups of that side (not necessarily one’s own funilineal group). The term was coined by fMeyer Fortes, who used it especially in reference to complementary filiation. However, in French, filiation is simply the word for ‘descent’.
fission and fusion Splitting and coming together. In anthropology the terms are used in reference to flineages in those fsegmentary societies, such as the Nuer, in which political alliances are so formed and dissolved.
folk culture A term sometimes applied to traditional, especially rural, aspects of culture which have escaped changes taking place in urban centres. The concept is associated with European folklore studies, and in America, with the work of fRobert Redfield. Its critics, however, argue that it is value-laden in its apparent assumption that folk culture is inferior to cosmopolitan forms.
folk-urban continuum fRobert Redfield’s term for the range of cultural variation within a given society between rural peasants and the urban bearers of the great tradition.
foraging society An alternative term for hunt-ing-and-gathering society. Many anthropologists employ this term in reference to the ‘hand-to-mouth’ ideology often found in foraging societies. However, others prefer to see ‘foraging’ as an essentially animal activity (in contrast to humans, who ‘gather’ food).
forces of production In Marxist theory, the material forces (technology, raw materials) which combine with the social "relations of production to form the economic "base, or infrastructure of a particular society. See mode of production; cf, "means of production, "relations of production.
form That which is defined by relations rather than essences. Loosely, it is often equated with structure (see structuralism), although sometimes distinguished as being more abstract (see "structural form). The opposite is "substance.
formal analysis The methods, popular in American anthropology especially in the 1960s, through which given cultural items were described according to their formal, non-culture-specific features. Methods of formal analysis include componential analysis and "transformational analysis, as well as the use of classical economic modelling by the so-called formalists in economic anthropology.
four-field approach The idea of anthropology as consisting of four interrelated subject areas, namely "cultural anthropology, biological anthropology (or physical anthropology), anthropological linguistics, and prehistoric archaeology. The four-field approach has been the basis of the organization of most anthropology departments in North America until recently, although recent controversies have suggested it is under increasing pressure from the split between ‘interpretive’ and ‘scientific’ tendencies within the discipline.
Fourth World A term employed to characterize either (1) the extremely impoverished members of Third World societies, or (2) highly marginalized minority groups such as hunter-gatherers or indigenous peoples, who are dominated by other groups or by state bureaucracies.
function This is a commonly used term of no agreed definition. As a verb, it has been applied in its mathematical sense (by A.R. Radcliffe-Brown), in the sense of a part fitting the whole (by "Herbert), and in the sense of elements of social structure interrelating with each other. As a noun, it commonly means ‘purpose’, but generally connotes also the idea of interrelationship, which is crucial to most functionalist theory in anthropology. See functionalism, "manifest and latent functions, "structural-functionalism.
fundamentalism Any doctrine, especially a religious one, marked by a putative return to basics.
The concept has special meaning within American anthropology, where anthropology itself was pitted against fundamentalist Christianity in the 1980s over the issue of contradictions between evolutionary theory and the biblical creation story.
funeral rites Rites involving the disposal of the physical remains of a dead person and often the transition of that person’s spirit from one culturally defined realm to another. Funeral rites may include burial, reburial, cremation, or other means of disposal. See death.
game theory By analogy with competitive games, the notion that in political or economic activities individuals calculate the advantages they may have by making certain ‘moves’, and likewise the probable consequences of their opponents’ ‘moves’. While game theory has been widely applied in other areas of the human sciences, from economics to sociobiology, it has had very little impact on anthropology, apart from some 1960s work in political anthropology.
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft One of the most enduring of many nineteenth-century characterizations of the so-called "great divide, "F. Tonnies’s distinction between the traditional kinship-based world of ‘community’ (Gemeinschaft), and the modern, impersonal world of ‘association’ (Gesellschaft).
generalized exchange In kinship, Levi-Strauss’s term for a form of "elementary structure in which women are ‘exchanged’ in one direction only. For example, group A gives its women as wives to group B, who give their women to group C, etc. A man is not allowed to marry someone from a group into which his female kin marry. These systems are common in Asia, where a hierarchy (either ‘wife-givers’ or ‘wife-takers’ being designated as superior) is often established or maintained through such marital links. See "hypergamy, "hypogamy.
generation A group of related people who occupy the same genealogical level. More loosely, any group of people of roughly the same age.
generational terminology In kinship, a relationship terminology which distinguishes neither "parallel from "cross-uncles and aunts, nor "lineal from "collateral relatives. In other words, the term for M, MZ and FZ will be the same, and the term for F, FB and MB will be the same.
generative Having rules which determine either an outcome or a more visible form in the social structure. The term, borrowed from linguistics, has been commonly used by structuralist anthropologists, as when (deep structures generate surface structures.
genetrix The presumed ‘genetic’ or ‘biological’ (as opposed to a social or (carrying) mother. Cf. (genitor.
genitor The presumed ‘genetic’ or ‘biological’ father (as apart from the legal or social father or ■(pater). Most kinship specialists use the term as a cultural description. Thus the true genetic father is irrelevant, and indeed a given culture may have a notion that more than one male can contribute to the physical substance of a given child.
genotype The genetic make-up of an organism. See genetics, contrast (phenotype.
gens The Latin term for (‘clan’ (i.e. the Roman (patrilineal kin group). It was used by L.H. Morgan in reference to the (matrilineal clans of the Iroquois, and has at times since been used by American anthropologists as an alternative term for ‘clan’, especially a patrilineal clan. The plural is gentes.
Gestalt theory In psychology, the approach which argues that phenomena should be studied as wholes, through their configuration or internal relations, rather than merely in part. This idea influenced the culture and personality school in American anthropology.
ghost marriage The practice, described by (Evans-Pritchard for the Nuer, of a woman marrying a dead man so that he becomes genealogical (pater to her children.
globalization The tendency towards increasing global interconnections in culture, economy and social life. Belatedly noticed by sociologists and social theorists in the 1980s. See complex society, world system.
godparenthood A ritual relation common in some Christian communities, in which an often unrelated adult sponsors a child at baptism. This (fictive kinship relation may continue through life, and may involve compadrazgo between the child’s godparents and its real parents.
great divide Mildly disparaging term for the pervasive theoretical postulate of a qualitative division in human history between the modern (or civilized or simply ‘us’) and the traditional (or pre-modern or primitive or simply ‘them’), a division often said to be accompanied by different modes of thought. See primitive mentality.
green revolution The introduction since the 1960s of new, more productive strains of rice, wheat, etc., especially in Asia. While these new (high yielding varieties (HYV) have greatly increased overall productivity in many Asian agricultural systems, critics have argued that this has been at the expense of widening inequalities, increased landlessness, and environmental degradation.
group marriage In kinship theory, the notion of a group of men all being married collectively to a group of women. The idea was common in the nineteenth century but has little basis in ethnographic fact.
gumsa and gumlao Two forms of social organization described by (Edmund Leach in his Political Systems of Highland Burma (1954). The gumsa Kachin are hierarchical, and their high-ranking lineages are believed to have close association with the ancestors of all of them. The gumlao Kachin are egalitarian, and each lineage is believed to have equal access to the ancestors. Leach’s analysis showed how two very different forms of social organization could be viewed as poles in a single system of oscillating equilibrium. Leach’s argument was formulated while he worked at the London School of Economics, where it so impressed his colleagues that for many years it served as an unacknowledged model for the Department of Anthropology’s internal administrative structure.
H In kinship, the abbreviation for the genealogical position of the husband.
habitus A term taken by (Bourdieu from the work of (Mauss, to denote the total set of (dispositions which shape and constrain social practices. Habitus is Bourdieu’s central notion, and he uses it to acknowledge the appearance of structures in the social world, while allowing the reality of individual strategy.
harmonic regimes In kinship, Levi-Strauss’s term for "elementary structures in which the rule of descent coincides with the rule of residence. In other words, these systems have "patrilineal descent and "virilocal residence, or "matrilineal descent and "uxorilocal residence. In Levi-Strauss’s theory, harmonic regimes entail "generalized exchange. Cf. "disharmonic regimes.
Hawaiian terminology In "G.P. Murdock’s classification of relationship terminologies, one in which cousins are called by the same terms as siblings. This structure is common in Polynesia and in parts of Africa.
headman A term for many kinds of local leader recognized by colonial authorities. More technically, in chiefly societies, a leader of lower rank than a chief. In other societies, especially "foraging and pastoral societies, any recognized leader.
hegemony Domination or power of one person or group over another. The term was used by "Gramsci to describe the cultural processes through which the ruling classes maintain their power, and has been widely employed in ethnographic studies of domination and resistance. Cf. "counter-hegemony.
heliocentrism Literally, belief in the centrality of the sun. In anthropology, it usually refers to the British diflusionist school of "G. Elliot Smith and WJ. Perry, who believed that significant features of nearly all of the world’s cultures are derived from those of the sun-worshipping ancient Egyptians.
hermeneutics The practice of interpretation. In anthropology, it refers to the theoretical position which sees ethnographic practice as one of interpreting, or ‘reading’, cultures as if they were texts.
heteroglossia "Bakhtin’s term for the variety of different ‘languages’ at work in any given social context. In opposition to structural linguistics, Bakhtin argued that the idea of a single linguistic system ("langue in "Saussure’s terms) is a political project, which is always resisted by the tendency for languages to fragment into new multiplicities. See "dialogue, dialogical.
heteronormativity A term employed in gender theory and queer theory to denote the unreflexive assumption, used by many writers, that heterosexual relations and relationships constitute the normal state of human affairs and therefore require neither comment nor analysis.
hierarchy A system of individuals, social classes or groups ranked from high to low in status. Hierarchy has been important in many areas of anthropology, especially for Marxists and other evolutionists and for those who have carried out field research in highly stratified societies. On the basis of his work in South Asia, "Louis Dumont has suggested a more specific definition of hierarchy as characterized by a holistic relationship of encompassing to encompassed. His argument has been more widely applied, especially in French anthropology, in a range of ethnographic contexts.
high yielding varieties (HYV) General term for a range of new crop strains introduced as part of the so-called "green revolution in the 1960s and 1970s.
historical materialism "Marx’s theory of society and social change, based on the analysis of the material forces at work in the unfolding of human history.
historical particularism The work of Boas and his followers who emphasized the need to reconstruct the particular histories of different cultural items, rather than attempt to place them in grand, usually evolutionary or diffusionist, theoretical frameworks.
historicism In general, a term which indicates a need to be sensitive to the historical dimension of society and culture. More specifically it can either refer to any "diachronic approach, which emphasizes the unfolding of processes in time (however broad), or to the need to attend to the particular historical context of social and cultural practices.
holism Any approach which treats the whole as greater than the sum of its parts. In anthropology, this includes perspectives such as functionalism and structuralism. In contrast, non-holistic approaches such as transactionalism emphasize the role of the individual rather than the total social or cultural system in which he or she operates.
homology Similarity of structure or appearance (but not necessarily of function or purpose).
horticulture Gardening, as opposed to growing crops in fields ((agriculture). The distinction is not a precise one, but generally horticultural societies are taken as those whose efforts at food production are on a small scale, and whose social organization is, in evolutionary terms, at a lower level of complexity.
hot and cold societies Levi-Strauss’s distinction between those (hot) societies in which social differentiation and social change are taken for granted – which explain themselves through their history – and those (cold) ones which are relatively undifferentiated and static, and which explain themselves through their myths. Levi-Strauss’s distinction was not intended to deny the reality of change and historical transformation in so-called ‘cold’ societies, but only to suggest that history and change had a more limited place in their self-understandings.
Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) A massive database of ethnographic information, originally appearing on index cards with copies housed at Yale University and other institutions. Their founder, (George Peter Murdock, devised the HRAF as an aid to statistical cross-cultural comparison.
hydraulic civilization (K. Wittfogel’s term for societies, such as ancient Egypt, dependent on irrigated agriculture. Cf. (Asiatic mode of production, (Oriental despotism.
hypergamy Marriage of a woman to a man of higher status (e.g. in North India, where ‘wife-takers’ are often considered superior to ‘wife-givers’). Cf. (anisogamy, (hypogamy, (isogamy.
hypogamy Marriage of a woman to a man of lower status (e.g. in Southeast Asia, where ‘wife-givers are often considered superior to ‘wife-takers’). Cf. (anisogamy, (hypogamy, (isogamy.
hypostasis The true, underlying nature of something as distinct from its surface characteristics.
hysteria A term used in the past in Western medicine for a variety of supposedly ‘feminine’ emotional conditions. Rarely used in clinical contexts now, it may be thought a good example of a (culture-bound syndrome.
icon, iconicity In (semiotics, an icon is a (sign whose physical form in some way resembles that which is being signified. Iconicity refers to non-arbitrary, or motivated, signification in general.
ideal type (Max Weber’s term for a deliberately simplified and abstract representation employed for heuristic purposes. The term is sometimes used synonymously with (model.
illocutionary A (speech act in which the utterance is equivalent to an action. For example, ‘I order you to go’, ‘I apologize’. Cf. (locutionary, (performative, (perlocutionary.
immediate and delayed return A distinction first made by (James Woodburn in the late 1970s and which is important in hunter-gatherer studies. Immediate-return economies are those in which investment in work effort yields an immediate result, e.g. food-gathering. Delayed-return economies are those in which time must be spent in order to yield subsistence later, e.g. through making complex fishing nets or through investing in livestock production or agriculture. The overwhelming number of the world’s societies are delayed-return.
imperialism Literally, the seeking or propagation of empire. In (postcolonial times, the term often connotes a reputed residual domination over a country or people by economic or cultural forces (e.g. anthropology) from Europe or North America.
index, indexical The word index has a range of meanings in anthropology, philosophy, (semiotics and linguistics, all based on some idea of an index as something which stands for or indicates something else. So, in linguistics, an indexical feature of someone’s language use is something (accent, intonation, etc.) which marks them as belonging to a particular social class or occupational category. In semiotics an index may be something associated through ‘natural’ properties (e.g. a flower as an ‘index’ of spring). And in philosophy indexicals are terms whose purpose is to pick out a particular thing – obviously personal names, but also words like ‘this’, ‘here’ and ‘today’ – but which nevertheless also apply to other things when the same word is used in a different context.
indirect rule In British colonialism, the policy of ruling through indigenous or pseudo-indigenous political structures, rather than directly.
Indo-European language family The family of languages which includes Indic, Slavic, Italic, and Germanic languages, i.e. the languages of the northern Indian peninsula and most of Europe which share a putative common ancestor known as Proto-Indo-European.
infanticide The killing of small children, usually at birth. In many parts of the world, infanticide (especially female infanticide) is either culturally sanctioned, tolerated or ignored.
informal economy The term coined by Keith Hart to describe those economic activities which take part outside official or recognized arenas and therefore usually escape both regulation and the official record. Sometimes referred to as the ‘informal sector’.
informant A person who gives information to an ethnographer. Some ethnographers utilize the services of a great many informants, e.g. in census work. Others rely on just a few, e.g. individuals who are singled out as experts in some aspect of their own culture, such as ritual, herbal medicine, or oral history. See ethnography, fieldwork, methodology.
infrastructure In Marxist writings, a synonym for ‘base’. See "base and superstructure.
inheritance Property transferred from one generation to the next, usually upon the death of its owner. The term is sometimes used in a loose sense to include "succession, but since "Rivers, kinship specialists have generally distinguished between the two.
initiation A ritual which marks the transition from one status to another. For example, initiation often marks the passage from childhood to adulthood, and the term is most often used in this sense. Another common example is initiation into a secret society. See rite of passage.
institution In "structural-functionalist theory, an element of a social system. Institutions (e.g. bride-wealth, marriage, the family) are said to make up systems (e.g. kinship), which in turn make up society.
internal colonialism Colonialist-like tendencies within a given nation-state. For example, the elite of some newly independent nation-states have been likened to former colonial oppressors. The term has gained widest currency, though, in discussions of minorities, nationalisms and proto-nationalist movements, such as those of the Bretons and Basques, within European nation-states.
International African Institute Originally the International Institute of African Languages and Culture, it was founded in 1926. It has fostered both pure and applied studies, especially in the colonial period, and published the quarterly journal Africa. In particular, Malinowski’s successful bid for funding from the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1920s cemented British social anthropology’s relations with the Colonial Office as well as reinforcing his growing intellectual domination in British anthropology. See British anthropology, Malinowski.
interpretive anthropology Anthropology which is informed by a concern with problems of interpretation, or "hermeneutics. The term usually applies to that kind of symbolic anthropology practised by "Clifford Geertz.
intersubjective In philosophy, that which occurs between subjects, in other words all that makes the communication of subjective meanings possible between people.
intertextuality In "literary criticism, the relations between texts. A term widely used in postmodern and "poststructural criticism, as part of a general tendency to avoid questions of authorial intention by treating texts as relatively autonomous.
involution Term employed metaphorically in "Clifford Geertz’s Agricultural Involution (1963), a classic early study in ecological anthropology,to characterize a situation of socioeconomic stagnation accompanied by increasingly baroque cultural elaboration.
Iroquois terminology In "G.P. Murdock’s classification a relationship terminology in which a distinction is made between "parallel and "cross-cousins. In these terminologies, parallel cousins are usually termed as siblings.
isogamy Marriage between people of the same social status. Cf. "anisogamy, "hypergamy and "hypogamy.
