Upon successful completion of this chapter you should be able to: - Propose a reason why ethnographers for many years spoke of their studied cultures in the ethnographic present.
- Contrast the present of some well-known cultures in anthropology with
what they might have been like in the past.
- Explain why tempocentrism leads to error in understanding culture.
- Distinguish between indigenous innovation and diffusion as concepts,
and explain why the distinction might be difficult in cases of stimulus
diffusion.
- Describe specific ethnographic examples for the concepts of acculturation,
syncretism, and revitalization, as well as for culture change that is
intentional versus unintentional, and perceived versus unperceived.
- Describe five methods by which cultural anthropologists can answer the
temporal question.
- Explain the generalized model of culture change and apply it to a specific
ethnographic example.
- Give examples of the three approaches to the future taken by
anthropologists.
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