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Typology. A system of classification, in this case, based on forms of human society. Ethnocentrism. T he opinion that one’s own way of life is natural or correct, and indeed, is the only true way of being fully human. Five sub-fields:. Biological anthropology Cultural anthropology
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Typology • A system of classification, in this case, based on forms of human society
Ethnocentrism • The opinion that one’s own way of life is natural or correct, and indeed, is the only true way of being fully human.
Five sub-fields: • Biological anthropology • Cultural anthropology • Linguistics • Archaeology • Applied anthropology
Biological Anthropology • Oldest specialty in the discipline. • It developed in the 19th c. as a by-product of centuries of European exploration and colonial expansion.
People who were being dominated were seen as different from “white” Europeans because they had a different skin colour and because of their different languages and customs, and their simpler technology.
Herbert Spencer • Social Darwinism
Biological Determinism • The idea that our biology determines, or is at the root, of all the complex events of human life.
Races • Social groups that allegedly reflect biological differences.
Racism • The systematic oppression of members of a socially defined race by another socially defined race. • Justified in terms of the supposed inherent biological superiority of the rules and the supposed inferiority of those they rule.
Franz Boas • A German Jew who in the early 1900s founded the first department of Anthropology in the United States, at Columbia University.
Biological Anthropology • Today: Pays attention to patterns of variation within the species as a whole.
Unilineal Cultural Evolutionism • A theory that classified all world societies according to their place in the supposed stages of societal evolution.
Political Economy • The use of power (politics) to protect and enhance material interests (economy) considered central by a society.
Social developments: Population growthBanking classJoint stock culture
Enculturation • Process through which a human being adopts the practices and beliefs of a new cultural group.
World System • A global system in which nations are economically and politically interdependent.
Joint Stock Company • A firm that is managed by a centralized board of directors, but owned by shareholders.
Dutch East India Company (VOC) • Founded in 1602 • Model for joint stock companies • Chartered by the Dutch government to hold the monopoly of all Dutch trade with the societies of the Indian and Pacific oceans.
The VOC was accountable only to its shareholders. • For two centuries, the VOC distributed profits of 15% to 50%. • Direct control of many islands in the Indian Ocean.
Capitalism • An economic system dominated by the supply-demand-price mechanism called the market. • An economic system where commodities are produced for sale, as opposed to being produced only for their use value. • Main goal is to maximize profits.
In small-scale societies • Traditional social obligations protected members from poverty.
Colonialism • A social system in which political conquest of one society of another leads to cultural domination with enforced social change. • Involves the active possession of a foreign territory and the maintenance of political domination over that territory.
Ways of extracting labour power: • Forced labour: One of the key elements of European expansion. Its most extreme form was African slavery. • Peonage: The practice of holding a person in bondage or partial slavery in order for them to work off a debt or to serve a prison sentence.
European enslavement of African peoples • Between the 15th and 19th centuries, around 12 million slaves were exported from Africa to the Americas. • Anywhere from one to five deaths are calculated for each slave that actually got to the Americas.
Economic effects • Profits made by slave shippers and plantation owners. • Impoverishment of areas from which slaves were drawn.
Neocolonialism • The persistence of profound social and economic entanglements linking former colonial territories to their former colonial rules despite political sovereignty.