Vocab

Relativism: basically "to each his/her own".  This is key to anthropology and based on the idea that what other people do makes sense to them.  It may not be something you, yourself want to do, think or believe but it is part of another person's culture.

Ethnocentrism: The belief that one's own culture is inherently superior to that of others.  This may be implicit and unconscious but it is the work of anthropology to uncover such bias and think through it.

Emic: from an internal/insider's perspective

Etic: from an external/observer's perspective

Semiotics: The linguistic study of signs and symbols, how we make meaning cross-culturally.

Linguistics: The study of language, signs, signifiers, signifieds, etc.  It is its own branch of anthropology but is also part of social anthropology. (See the attachment below for a more complete list of linguistics vocabulary.)

Rites of Passage: Fundamental to the cross-cultural study of religion and ritual which is ultimately at the heart of anthropology.  All rites of passage are able to be analyzed in terms of the three phases: separation, liminality/transition, and re-aggregation(re-incorporation).  The concept originates from Arnold VanGennep in 1908.

Dialectic: The mutually constitutive relationship between two elements of a social structure.  For example, one cannot have the concept of the "individual" without the idea of "society".  They define, create and reproduce the concept of the other.

Structuralism: The branch of anthropology largely credited to Claude Lévi-Strauss that looks for the underlying relationships and organizing principles of society.  These are generally argued to be based upon the principle of binary oppositions, resolved through the dialectical interaction of socially constructed and reproduced values that are specific to cultures as epiphenomena.  The surface level differences are just that, surface and superficial.  What matters are the fundamental structures which are shared.

Functionalism: Typically associated with Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski but also others, the idea is that those features of society that are at the core are those that have a functional purpose fulfilling the "basic needs" such as shelter, food, reproduction.  This approach is largely critiqued because it does not account for meaning nor belief.

Structure-Functionalism:

Fission-Fusion: Typically associated with the West African scholars who emerged from British Social Anthropology such as Meyer Fortes.  The principle of alignment is that we identify with our moiety/kin/clan group as a primary construct.  This group will then align with others who may be distinct.

Social Oscillation:

The Panopticon: