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Dominant group/Anthropology

< Dominant group

With respect to any dominant group in anthropology, or dominant anthropological group; i.e., the term dominant group within the subject area of anthropology, use in context may indicate its reason for use or may signify importance of research results that usually need to be explained by theory and interpretation of experimentation.

Cast members of the play "White's Lies" pose for this photograph. Here used to represent a dominant anthropological group. Credit: Cristina V.

Anthropology is divided into fields: archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and social anthropology.

The entity, dominant group, like the anthropologist who writes an article using the term, seems to find purpose within each.

Dominant group

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Main resource: Dominant group

Are dominant group and possibly some or all of its synonyms artifacts?

Is anthropology the field of the two-word term dominant group?

What ethnic group originated the first use of a term that has been translated into English as dominant group?

Is there some fundamental ethnographic concept associated with dominant group?

What is the origin and first use of the term or its primordial concept and usage?

Artifact hypothesis: dominant group may be an artifact of human endeavor or may have preceded humanity.

Bad group hypothesis: dominant group is the group that engages in discrimination, abuse, punishment, and additional criminal activity against other groups. It often has an unfair advantage and uses it to express monopolistic practices.

Entity hypothesis: dominant group is an entity within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.

Identifier hypothesis: dominant group is an identifier used by primary source authors of original research to identify an observation in the process of analysis.

Obvious hypothesis: the only meaning of dominant group is the one found in Mosby's Medical Dictionary.

Def. "a social group that controls the value system and rewards in a particular society"[1] is called a dominant group.

Primordial hypothesis: dominant group is a primordial concept inherent to humans such that every language or other form of communication no matter how old or whether extinct, on the verge of extinction, or not, has at least a relative synonym for dominant group.

Regional hypothesis: dominant group, when it occurs, is only a manifestation of the limitations within a region. Variation of those limitations may result in the loss of a dominant group with the eventual appearance of a new one or none at all.

Experimentation

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Main resources: Dominant group/Experimentations and Experimentations

To gather data, use "dominant group" in quotes and anthropology or ethnography as additional search terms to explore the internet using search engines listed under External links.

Humanities

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Main resource: Humanities

"The term 'humanities' includes, but is not limited to, the study and interpretation of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life." --National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, 1965, as amended.[2]

The Division of Research Programs for the National Endowment for the Humanities encourages research and writing in all areas of the humanities, including the study of history, literature, philosophy, religion, and foreign cultures. Through grants to individual scholars and institutions, the division fosters work that enables Americans to understand the world.

What aspects of anthropology are considered to be part of the humanities?

Anthropology

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Main resources: Anthropology/Lecture and Lectures

Def. "[t]he holistic scientific and social study of humanity, mainly using ethnography as its method"[3] is called anthropology.

"Anthropology is distinguished from other social science disciplines by its emphasis on in-depth examination of context, cross-cultural comparisons, and the importance it places on long-term, experiential immersion in the area of research."[3]

Biological anthropology

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Main resources: Anthropology/Biologicals and Biological anthropology

Some thirty-two vervet monkey infants in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, are observed from August 1983 to June 1985.[4]

An external factor making it costly for an animal to maintain access to a food item is threats by a high-ranking group member.[4]

"Interactions with dominant group members may thus provide infants with the raw material for recognizing variation in food quality."[4]

"A final possibility is that infants' fear of dominants overrides the importance of food quality."[4] Dominants "may instill a general level of fear in infants, regardless of food types, and thus abandon distance in infants is not expected to vary by food category."[4]

Cultural anthropology

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Main resources: Anthropology/Culturals and Cultural anthropology

Most nativistic movements "have as a common denominator a situation of inequality [that] ... may derive either from the attitudes of the societies involved or from actual situations of dominance and submission."[5]

In the Southwest, the Anglo-Americans dominate Indians and Mexicans alike.[5]

"[T]he technological superiority of European culture has, until recently, rendered the dominance of colonial groups secure."[5]

"Nativistic movements tend to arise only when the members of the subject society find that their assumption of the culture of the dominant group is being effectively opposed by it, or that it is not improving their social position."[5]

Analysis: three apparent dominant groups are identified:

  1. whites,[5]
  2. Anglo-Americans,[5] and
  3. colonial groups.[5]

Dominant group is used to refer to the group of whites, Anglo-Americans, and colonial groups, each of which is in turn a dominant group.[5] These dominant subgroups are identified as indicated by respective links. "Colonial groups" refers to several groups of immigrants to America. North America has been divided into European immigrant territories based on control such as British America, French America, Spanish America, Russian America, Dutch America, and Norse America.

The relation to one another is that they are dominant groups of individuals, or peoples, originating in Europe. The population is North Americans in the location of North America.

Dominance appears to result from

  1. surrounding,[5]
  2. armed force, and
  3. technological superiority initially.[5]

These may have been replaced to some extent by distinctive powers and privileges, since the culture pattern of the dominant group of European-ancestor North Americans now preclude the use of forcible methods.[5]

"Having established that cultural/language differences between the dominant group and the schools, on the one hand, and the minorities, on the other, existed, and that the difficulties in social adjustment and academic performance experienced by minority children might be due to such cultural/language differences, anthropological research developed into a second stage. ... [S]ome minority groups do well in school even though they do not share the language and cultural backgrounds of the dominant group that are reflected in school features and practices."[6]

"The difference, as writers like Talal Asad within anthropology and Norman Fairclough within linguistics (Language and Power, 1989) would argue, is that the notion of hegemony problematises how a common social-moral language-a given discourse- achieves and reproduces its dominance, whereas earlier accounts of culture appeared to accept at face value the representations of the dominant group and their claim to speak for all."[7]

Ethnography

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Main resources: Biogeography/Ethnography and Ethnography

Def. "[t]he common characteristics of a group of people"[8] is called ethnicity.

Def. the science and scientific descriptions of "specific human cultures and societies"[9] is called ethnography.

"Ethnography (from Greek ἔθνος ethnos = folk/people and γράφω grapho = to write) is a qualitative research design aimed at exploring cultural phenomena. The resulting field study or a case report reflects the knowledge and the system of meanings in the lives of a cultural group.[10][11][12] An ethnography is a means to represent graphically and in writing, the culture of a people."[13]

Def. "[t]he branch of anthropology that studies and compares the different human cultures"[14] is called ethnology.

Ethnology (from the Greek ἔθνος, ethnos meaning "people, nation, race") is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.[15]

Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct contact with the culture, ethnology takes the research that ethnographers have compiled and then compares and contrasts different cultures.

"Anthropology is not just ethnography; in fact, the meanings which can be attached to ethnographic case studies depend on wider schemes, on classifications of societies, and on polemics which generate interest in particular projects at particular times."[16]

"I. M. Lewis has argued that spirit possession frequently provides a means for oppressed or deprived groups such as women to exert pressure upon or attack the dominant group (Lewis 1986: 23-50).4 Once a claim of this kind has been made, either on the basis of ethnographic descriptions or theoretical expectations, further ethnographic material cannot be introduced in a neutral way."[16]

"So, an ethnographer who enters the scene on the presumption that the social arrangements in a particular school or classroom will favor the interests of a dominant group is undeniably looking for hegemonic practices."[17]

"The problem becomes more complex when it is realized that in Kanuri-dominated towns such people often accept the dominant group's term and claim they are Kirdi."[18]

"While the human groups are many and diverse, they are conveniently combined in two categories: first, the natural or consanguineal or kinship group in which the unit is the ethnos; and second, the artificial or essentially social group in which the unit is the demos. The ethnos, or ethnic group, is the homologue of the varietal or specific group of animals; it is the dominant group in lower savagery, but its influence on human life wanes upward, to practically disappear in enlightenment except as retained in the structure of the family. The demos is the product of intelligence applied to the regulation of human affairs; it has no true homologue among animals; its importance waxes as that of the ethnos wanes from savagery through barbarism and civilization and thence into enlightenment."[19]

Linguistic anthropology

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Main resources: Anthropology/Linguistics and Linguistic anthropology

"In the case of Aboriginal Australia, differences between economic and political systems, at least using the categories usually quoted in relation to language replacement, are largely absent. Australian Aboriginal societies are classless and stateless, and it seems highly unlikely that any form of centralised organisation and elite hierarchy existed in the past."[20]

"Pidginisation occurs where there is a close economic relationship between two peoples; the pidgin is derived from the language of the dominant partner in the relationship. Such a relationship and the dominance of one side could be inferred from archaeological evidence, independently."[20]

"Such a relationship may just as well result in the adoption of the dominant group's language as a lingua franca without significant pidginisation."[20]

"Other aspects which have been suggested as crucial for pidgin simplification to occur are: (a) an attitude on the part of the dominant language speakers that their language cannot or should not be learnt by foreigners except in a simplified /'debased1 form; (b) a degree of actual complexity/difficulty in the dominant language."[20]

Analysis: members of the dominant group are in the relationship of being "dominant partner"s.

The population is "Aboriginal societies" in the location of Australia.

Investigating the source of dominance includes

"While no relic language or group can be identified amid the southern Pama-Nyungan block of languages, the Yolngu languages of north-eastern Arnhem Land clearly constitute a northern offshoot of Pama-Nyungan entirely surrounded by non-Parna-Nyungan languages."[20],

"[T]he fact that in this myth this change in technology also accompanies a change from female to male control of circumcision ritual might encourage us to give consideration to ideas that radical change in ritual and social organisation has occurred and its traces can be detected."[20], and

"These are areas where Macassan influence was also strong."[20]

Dominance may refer to "surrounded", "strong influence", or new technology and an accompanying "prehistoric change from matrimoieties to patrimoieties"[20].

Physical anthropology

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Main resources: Anthropology/Physicals and Physical anthropology

"The Aztecs who conquered the city of Xaltocan in ancient Mexico around 1435 may have fundamentally changed the genetic makeup of the people who lived there ... maternal DNA from 25 residents of Xaltocan prior to the conquest did not match that found after. ... Xaltocan was the capital of a pre-Aztec city-state ruled by the Otomi, an indigenous people who lived in Mexico. ... Colonial records from the 1500s onward told tales of the Otomi fleeing the city en masse in 1395. "It's likely that some people did leave, probably the elites who no longer had the same social roles," Overholzer said. "It's also possible that when some people left, more valuable land was made newly available and so people moved around within the site.""[21] Ruling elites is a relative synonym for dominant group.

Social anthropology

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Main resources: Anthropology/Socials and Social anthropology

"For ethnic groups, [Niominkas and Serer people,] Wolofs and Lebus, Tukulors and Fulas, Bambaras and Soninkes, Diolas and Manjaks were respectively grouped together since the social structure and historical background of each member of the pair were closely related."[22]

Ethnicity is a central concept in social anthropology and traditionally considered as prominent in determinism of behavior.[23]

"In Senegal, Wolofs and Lebus represent the dominant group (43 per cent of total population) as well as the oldest one in the Dakar area."[22]

Hypotheses

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Main resource: Hypotheses

Examples from primary sources are to be used to prove or disprove each hypothesis. These can be collected per subject or in general.

  1. Accident hypothesis: dominant group is an accident of whatever processes are operating.
  2. Artifact hypothesis: dominant group may be an artifact of human endeavor or may have preceded humanity.
  3. Association hypothesis: dominant group is associated in some way with the original research.
  4. Bad group hypothesis: dominant group is the group that engages in discrimination, abuse, punishment, and additional criminal activity against other groups. It often has an unfair advantage and uses it to express monopolistic practices.
  5. Control group hypothesis: there is a control group that can be used to study dominant group.
  6. Entity hypothesis: dominant group is an entity within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
  7. Evolution hypothesis: dominant group is a product of evolutionary processes, such groups are the evolutionary process, produce evolutionary processes, or are independent of evolutionary processes.
  8. Identifier hypothesis: dominant group is an identifier used by primary source authors of original research to identify an observation in the process of analysis.
  9. Importance hypothesis: dominant group signifies original research results that usually need to be explained by theory and interpretation of experiments.
  10. Indicator hypothesis: dominant group may be an indicator of something as yet not understood by the primary author of original research.
  11. Influence hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article containing original research to indicate influence or an influential phenomenon.
  12. Interest hypothesis: dominant group is a theoretical entity used by scholarly authors of primary sources for phenomena of interest.
  13. Metadefinition hypothesis: all uses of dominant group by all primary source authors of original research are included in the metadefinition for dominant group.
  14. Null hypothesis: there is no significant or special meaning of dominant group in any sentence or figure caption in any refereed journal article.
  15. Object hypothesis: dominant group is an object within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
  16. Obvious hypothesis: the only meaning of dominant group is the one found in Mosby's Medical Dictionary.
  17. Original research hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article by the author to indicate that the article contains original research.
  18. Primordial hypothesis: dominant group is a primordial concept inherent to humans such that every language or other form of communication no matter how old or whether extinct, on the verge of extinction, or not, has at least a synonym for dominant group.
  19. Purpose hypothesis: dominant group is written into articles by authors for a purpose.
  20. Regional hypothesis: dominant group, when it occurs, is only a manifestation of the limitations within a region. Variation of those limitations may result in the loss of a dominant group with the eventual appearance of a new one or none at all.
  21. Source hypothesis: dominant group is a source within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
  22. Term hypothesis: dominant group is a significant term that may require a 'rigorous definition' or application and verification of an empirical definition.

Dominant group or its earliest synonym may have originated only in cultures north of Earth's equator or in cultures spanning the equator to the North.

See also: Control groups, Proof of concept, and Proof of technology

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ Farlex (2009). "The Free Dictionary by Farlex: Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition". Elsevier. Retrieved 2011-09-07.
  2. ↑ National Endowment for the Humanities (December 2012). "About NEH". Washington, D.C., USA: www.NEH.gov. Retrieved 2012-12-30.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "anthropology". Wiktionary (San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc). http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anthropology. Retrieved 2013-01-27. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Marc D. Hauser (September 1993). "Ontogeny of foraging behavior in wild vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops): Social interactions and survival". Journal of Comparative Psychology 107 (3): 276-82. doi:10.1037/0735-7036.107.3.276. http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/publications/animalcommunication/ontogforag.pdf. Retrieved 2011-08-29. 
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 Ralph Linton (April-June 1943). "Nativistic movements". American Anthropologist 45 (2): 230-40. doi:10.1525/aa.1943.45.2.02a00070. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1943.45.2.02a00070/full. Retrieved 2011-07-26. 
  6. ↑ John U. Ogbu (December 1987). "Variability in Minority School Performance: A Problem in Search of an Explanation". Anthropology & Education Quarterly 18 (4): 312-34. doi:10.1525/aeq.1987.18.4.04x0022v. http://noah.echoduet.net/Barika/PDFs/sector164992.PDF. Retrieved 2012-05-12. 
  7. ↑ Brian V. Street (1993). David Graddol. ed. Culture is a Verb: Anthropological aspects of language and cultural process, In: Language and Culture. Clevedon, United Kingdom: Multilingual Matters Ltd. pp. 23-43. ISBN 1-85359-207-2. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=U2NTxpfrapkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA23&ots=mw2ji1CTOB&sig=4X_Woz32aHIHIXI0GNgXZS8Umds. Retrieved 2012-05-12. 
  8. ↑ "ethnicity". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. December 14, 2012. Retrieved 2013-01-27.
  9. ↑ "ethnography". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. October 17, 2012. Retrieved 2013-01-27.
  10. ↑ Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture.
  11. ↑ In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (pp 3-30). New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers
  12. ↑ Philipsen, G. (1992). Speaking Culturally: Explorations in Social Communication. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press
  13. ↑ "Ethnography". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. January 24, 2013. Retrieved 2013-01-27.
  14. ↑ "ethnology". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. November 3, 2012. Retrieved 2013-01-27.
  15. ↑ Newman, Garfield (2008). Echoes from the past: world history to the 16th century. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd. ISBN 0-07-088739-X. 
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Nicholas Thomas (July 15, 1996). Out of Time: History and Evolution in Anthropological Discourse Second Edition. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. pp. 176. ISBN 0-472-08377-5. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=dSdX8FshfzYC&oi=fnd&pg=PP13&ots=K2txLHIiu1&sig=pcjN8TTrVNWnhShEraLlvKPSe6s. Retrieved 2012-02-17. 
  17. ↑ L Brodkey (June 1987). "Writing critical ethnographic narratives". Anthropology & Education Quarterly 18 (2): 67-76. doi:10.1525/aeq.1987.18.2.04x0666p. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aeq.1987.18.2.04x0666p/abstract. Retrieved 2012-02-17. 
  18. ↑ Ronald Cohen (1978). "Ethnicity: Problem and Focus in Anthropology". Annual Review of Anthropology 7: 379-403. http://www.worlduc.com/UploadFiles/BlogFile/24/766028/ethnicity.pdf. Retrieved 2012-02-17. 
  19. ↑ W J McGee (July 1899). "The Trend of Human Progress". American Anthropologist New Series 1 (3): 401-47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/658811?&Search=yes&searchText=%22dominant+group%22&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoAdvancedSearch%3Fq0%3D%2522dominant%2Bgroup%2522%26f0%3Dall%26c1%3DAND%26q1%3D%26f1%3Dall%26wc%3Don%26Search%3DSearch%26sd%3D1890%26ed%3D1900%26la%3D%26jo%3D&prevSearch=&item=3&ttl=3&returnArticleService=showFullText. Retrieved 2011-09-20. 
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 20.5 20.6 20.7 Patrick McConvell (1990). "The linguistic prehistory of Australia: Opportunity for dialogue with archaeology". Australian Archaeology (31): 3-27. http://www.library.uq.edu.au/ojs/index.php/aa/article/viewFile/1330/1324. Retrieved 2011-08-27. 
  21. ↑ Tia Ghose (January 31, 2013). "Aztec Conquerors Reshaped Genetic Landscape of Mexico". Yahoo! News. Retrieved 2013-01-31.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Didier Fassin and Emile Jeannee (April 1989). "Immunization Coverage and Social Differentiation in Urban Senegal". American Journal of Public Health 79 (4): 509-11. PMID 2929817. http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/reprint/79/4/509.pdf. Retrieved 2011-08-29. 
  23. ↑ R. Benedict (1980). Patterns of Culture. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 

Further reading

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