The language of anthropology

The language of anthropology

• The following definitions should be used as a starting place for exploring the key concepts through the ethnographic material studied. It is expected and encouraged that students will engage with the key concepts and demonstrate an understanding of how they are used to describe and analyse individuals and groups in their cultural and social contexts.

  • Belief and knowledge - Belief and knowledge is a set of convictions, values and viewpoints regarded as 'the truth' and shared by members of a social group. These are underpinned and supported by known cultural experience.

  • Change - Change refers to the alteration or modification of cultural or social elements in a society. Change may be due to internal dynamics within a society, or the result of contact with another culture, or a consequence of globalization.

  • Culture - Culture refers to organized systems of symbols, ideas, explanations, beliefs and material production that humans create and manipulate in the course of their daily lives. Culture includes the customs by which humans organize their physical world and maintain their social structure. More recent approaches to culture recognize that cultures are not static, homogenous or bounded but dynamic and fluid. Culture refers to the shared social construction of meanings, but simultaneously culture is often also a site of contested meanings. These recent formulations of the concept recognize that culture may be the subject of disagreement and conflict within and among societies and this disagreement may include the definition of culture itself.

  • Identity - Identity can refer either to the individual's private and personal view of the self or to how an individual is viewed from the perspective of a social group. In addition, identity may also refer to group identity, which may take the form of religious identity, ethnic identity or national identity, for example.

  • Materiality - Objects, resources and belongings have cultural meaning, described by Arjun Appadurai as 'the social life of things' (Appadurai 1986). They are embedded in all kinds of social relations and practices. Some anthropologists seek to understand human experience through the study of material objects. This occurs, for example, in contemporary approaches that focus on the materiality of the body.

  • Power - Power is an essential feature of social relations and can be considered as a person's or group's capacity to influence, manipulate or control others and resources. In its broadest sense, power can be understood as involving distinctions and inequalities between members of a social group. Some approaches to power focus on structural power and understand power to be everywhere and to contribute in the production of reality.

  • Social relations - Social relations refer to any relationship between two or more individuals in a network of relationships. Social relations involve an element of individual agency as well as group expectations, and form the basis of social organization and social structure. They pervade every aspect of human life and are extensive, complex, and diverse.

  • Society - Society refers to the way in which humans organize themselves in groups and networks. Society is created and sustained by social relationships and institutions. The term 'society' can also be used to refer to a human group that exhibits some internal coherence and distinguishes itself from other such groups.

  • Symbolism - Symbolism is the study of the significance that people attach to objects, actions, and processes, creating networks of symbols through which they construct a culture's web of meaning.