Ethnohistory Discussion: Seminar #3
Key Concepts
The majority of the following concepts are used in the three articles which you will read. See how many of these terms you can define as you read through the articles and consider how each might be relevant to the study of ethnohistory.
- diachronic / synchronic
- science / humanity
- historical linguistics
- bias
- primary sources
- oral history
- culture as a lens
- fieldwork
- armchair anthropologists
- direct historical method
- evolutionism
- functionalism
- historical particularism
- cultural determinism
- simple to complex
- Indian Claims Commission
- Upstreaming
- critical use of documents
- memory ethnography
- area age hypothesis
- glottochronology
- linguistic drift
- archaeology
- linguistic borrowing
- contact analysis in linguistics
- language - race - culture
- monogenesis / polygenesis
- ethnographic present
- ethnocentrism
- direct historical method
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR CLASS:
- How do Hobbes and Rousseau stack up as ethnohistorians?
- What were the cultural lenses each man wore when looking at 'primitive' people?
- How does history enhance anthropology?
- How does anthropology enhance history?
- How do these three articles contribute to your ability to write a major research paper for this class? What will you now do differently when working on your paper than before?
- What does theory have to do with facts?
- Is ethnohistory a discipline or a methodology?