Glossary of Terms
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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- A -
societya society in which political power is diffused to the degree that they lack institutionalized political leadership roles such as chiefs and kings. Bands and tribes are acephalous. Most foragers and simple horticulturalists have highly egalitarian, acephalous societies. The word "acephalous" is Greek for "without a head."
age-based categories of people recognized by a culture. In North America, for example, we generally label people as children, teenagers, adults, middle aged, and elderly or senior citizens. See age sets.
age grades that are clearly recognized in a culture as distinct identifiable groups of people. They consist of people of similar age and usually of the same gender who share a common identity and maintain close ties throughout their lives. They also pass through age-related statuses together as a group. The transition between these statuses is usually marked by a rite of passage.
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anti-miscegenation
laws
- laws prohibiting sexual intercourse and marriage between people of different "races".
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- B -
the level of political integration in which a society consists only of an association of families living together. Bands are loosely allied by marriage, descent, friendship, and common interest. The primary integrating mechanism is kinship ties. There is no economic class differentiation. All adults of the same gender are more or less equal as far as community decision making is concerned. However, some individuals in a band may stand out for their skills and knowledge. These often are the people who have the best memories, are the best hunters, most successful curers, most gifted speakers, etc. Such people become informal leaders. Most often they are given authority by community consensus arrived at through casual discussion without the need for a formal vote. Leaders generally have temporary political power at best, and they do not have any significant authority relative to other adults within their band. Subsequently, bands are essentially acephalous societies. The total number of people within these societies rarely exceeds a few dozen. Bands are found among foraging societies.
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bureaucracy
- an administrative system that divides governing tasks into specific categories carried out by different individuals and/or departments. Members of a bureaucracy are referred to as bureaucrats.
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chiefdom
- the level of political integration in which a society has a more or less permanent political leader (chief or "big man") but no bureaucracy of professional administrators. The chief provides direction and authority for the society as a whole. Sometimes there is an advisory council as well. In a few of the more complex chiefdoms in Africa, there are paramount chiefs and lesser chiefs who perform some administrative functions. Chiefs and their families generally have a higher standard of living than ordinary people within their society. This is especially true in African and Hawaiian chiefdoms. What makes this possible is that chiefs usually perform a society wide economic redistribution function that is cloaked in the guise of ritual gift giving. This essentially siphons off surplus agricultural products from farmers and then redistributes them throughout the society. In the process, a small amount is held back in order to support the chief's somewhat more lavish life style. The ritualized redistribution of surplus food and other commodities in chiefdoms is, in a sense, the rudimentary beginnings of a taxation system. It is tolerated by people because of the economic advantages that it can provide in addition to social stability. The larger territorial size of chiefdoms often encompasses diverse environmental zones with somewhat different products. The redistribution of agricultural surpluses can serve as a method of providing greater food variety for the populace as a whole. Chiefdoms commonly have a population of tens of thousands of farmers. The large population size generally means that the people have less in common than do those in the smaller societies of bands and tribes. Disputes inevitably arise that cannot be settled by informal means based on kinship and friendship. A chief usually functions as an arbitrator and judge in these cases.
- common law
- a law that has evolved over time and is part of the cultural tradition rather than being created by enactment in legislatures or by rulers. In large-scale societies, many laws derive from old common laws but are now formalized by being written down in penal codes. Virtually all laws in small-scale societies are unwritten common laws.
- crime
- a deviation from the social norm that is of such magnitude as to go beyond what would be considered bad manners or odd behavior. Societies respond to such exceptionally deviant actions by creating laws to curb and sometimes punish them. There is no universal agreement between the societies of the world about what constitutes criminal behavior or how it should be dealt with. Sufficient ethnographic data have been collected over the last century to show that societies with different kinds of economies have radically different sorts of laws and legal concerns. See tort.
- culture
- the full range of learned behavior patterns acquired by people in the process of growing up in a society. Culture includes the knowledge, beliefs, customs, language, and practices acquired through learning.
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descent
- socially recognized links between ancestors and descendents, such as the bond between children and their parents.
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- eminent
domain
- the right of a government to take legal possession of private property for public use. In most Western countries, the property owner is financially compensated for the loss based on what is considered to be fair market value. An example of eminent domain is a government taking someone's house and land in order to build a road through the property.
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ethnography
- anthropological research in which one learns about the culture of another society through fieldwork and first hand observation in that society. Ethnography is also the term used to refer to books or monographs describing what was learned about the culture of that society.
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- F -
- feuding
- prolonged hostility and occasional fighting between individuals and their supporters. It is a universal form of aggression that mostly occurs between members of the same society, though it can occur between people from separate societies as well. It is caused by a desire for revenge for a perceived prior wrong. Usually, both sides in feuds believe that they have been wronged and seek to settle the score. Inherent in feuds is a failure in communication between the feuding parties and the belief that there needs to be "an eye for an eye." Without adequate retribution, there is minimally a loss of face for the families involved.
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fictive
kinship
- a socially recognized link between individuals created as an expedient for dealing with special circumstances, such as the bond between a godmother and her godchild. Fictive kinship bonds are based on friendship and other personal relationships rather than marriage and descent.
- foragers
- people who live in more or less isolated, small societies and obtain their food by foraging wild plants and hunting wild animals. Foragers generally have a passive dependence on what the environment contains. They do not plant crops and the only domesticated animals that they usually have are dogs. Most foraging societies do not establish permanent settlements. Rather, they have relatively temporary encampments with tents or other easily constructed dwellings. The length of time that they stay in any one location is largely determined by the availability of resources. Foragers are also referred to as hunters and gatherers.
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herbivorous
- eating only vegetable foods. Animals that have this sort of diet are herbivores or vegetarians.
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horticulturalists
- people who obtain most of their food by low intensity farming. This subsistence pattern involves at least part time planting and tending of domesticated food plants. Pigs, chickens, or other relatively small domesticated animals are often raised for food and prestige. Many horticultural societies supplement their farming subsistence base with occasional hunting and gathering of wild plants and animals. They usually practice slash and burn field clearing methods and do not add additional fertilizer or irrigate. Multi-cropping is common. They often have a partial reliance on foraging for wild foods. Their societies are usually larger and more sedentary than those of foragers but still are at a low technological level and relatively small-scale.
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- I -
- informal negative sanction
- an "unofficial", non-governmental punishment for violations of social norms. Informal negative sanctions usually are in the form of gossip, public ridicule, social ostracism, insults, or even threats of physical harm by other members of the community. See negative sanction and positive sanction.
- inner directed personality
- a personality that is guilt oriented. The behavior of individuals with this sort of personality is strongly controlled by their conscience. As a result, there is little need for police to make sure that they obey the law. These individuals monitor themselves. The inner-directed personality is one of the modal personality types identified by David Riesman in the early 1950's.
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intensive agriculture
- internalization of the moral code
- the situation in which people accept society’s moral code and do not need police or other external means of social control to get them to follow it. They feel guilty if they do something “wrong” and punish themselves or turn themselves in for punishment.
a subsistence pattern characterized by full-time farming in which large beasts of burden or highly mechanized farm equipment (e.g., rototillers and tractors) are used to prepare the land for planting and later to harvest crops. Intensive agriculture usually involves the use of irrigation or other forms of water management. Often there is mono-cropping with heavy applications of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. This form of agriculture is highly productive but generally capital intensive.
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- J -
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- K -
- kinship
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- L -
- large-scale society
- generally a society with cities, industry, intensive agriculture, and a complex international economy. Such societies have socio-economic classes and a government with hierarchies of officials. The importance of kinship is diminished in comparison to the common pattern of small-scale societies.
- law
- a society's rules of conduct that are usually based on social norms and generally recognized by its members as binding or enforceable. See common law.
- levels of political integration
- a term referring to general types of political systems used to organize and manage societies. As a society's population size and territory grow, it must develop new political solutions to keep from splitting apart. In the 1950's, the American Anthropologist, Elman Service described four levels of political integration that have have been used around the world to solve this problem--the band, the tribe, the chiefdom, and the state. While there are some unique cultural variations of each of these levels, they are remarkably similar from one society to another. Subsequently, classifying a society in terms of its level of political integration has proven to be a useful tool in comprehending the wide range of human cultures and societies from small foraging communities to modern nation states.
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modal personality
- the most common personality type within a society. In reality, there is usually a range of normal personality types within a society. See inner-directed personality, other-directed personality, and tradition-oriented personality.
- mono-cropping
- planting a crop of only one species in a farm field. This is a common practice with intensive agriculture. While this can be a highly efficient farming strategy, it results in crops that are more susceptible to being wiped out by insects and other parasites. Mono-cropping is also known as "mono-culture". See multi-cropping.
- multi-cropping
- planting a farm field with more than one species. This is a common practice among horticulturalists. Multi-cropping reduces the chances of total crop failure due to insects and other parasites. However, it is far more labor intensive to plant, tend, and harvest. See mono-cropping.