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.

Race is not a meaningful biological classification

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.

Search for wonders

Search for wealth

Political Economy The use of power (politics) to protect and enhance material interests (economy) considered central by a society.

Technological developments: The caravel

Social developments: Population growth Banking class Joint stock culture

Missions

Enculturation Process through which a human being adopts the practices and beliefs of a new cultural group.

Francisco Pizarro

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.

Indonesia

Colonialism is tied to the rise of capitalism

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 15 th and 19 th 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.

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