Month: February 2025

Culture-Historical Approach: A method that focuses on understanding the development of particular cultures through history and archaeology.

Functionalism: The view that cultural practices and institutions serve specific functions within a society, helping to maintain social order and stability.

Structuralism: A theory that seeks to understand the underlying structures of human thought and culture through language and myths.

Historical Particularism: A school of thought that emphasizes the uniqueness of each culture’s history and rejects the idea of universal stages of development.

Evolutionism: A theoretical framework in anthropology that suggests that human societies evolve from simpler to more complex forms over time.

• Colonial Anthropology: The study of indigenous societies during the colonial period, often focusing on their ‘primitive’ nature or behaviors as seen through Western eyes.

Pre-Scientific Anthropology: Early human understanding of society and culture, primarily through myths, legends, and observations.

Cultural Relativism: The idea that cultures should be understood and evaluated based on their own values and context, rather than through the lens of another culture.

Ethnocentrism: The belief that one’s own culture or group is superior to others, often leading to misinterpretation or bias.