Anthropology Final Free Essay Example

What is anthropology?

The exploration of human diversity across time and space

The main goal of cultural anthroplogy is to…

Understand why people behave and think the way they do

What are the four subfields of American anthropology?

Anthropologists who use anthropological data, perspectives, theory and methods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary problems are doing

Applied Anthropology

Cultural anthropologists carry out their fieldwork…

In all kinds of societies

True or false : Culture is best defined as “the effects of biological heredity on human behavior”

False

Culture :

Is acquired by humans as members of society through the process of enculturation

Rest on certain features of human biology that make culture,which is not biological, possible

True or false : Adaptation refers to the process by which organisms cope with environmental forces and stresses, such as those posed by climate and topography

True

True or False : Humans can adapt to their surroundings through both biological and cultural means

True

Over time, humans have become increasingly dependent on which of the following to cope with the range of environments they have occupied in time and space?

Cultural means of adaptation

Early toolmakers whose products survive in the archeological record

Emphasize the evolutionary basis of culture

People have to eat to survive, but culture teaches us what, when, and how to do so. This is an example of how…

Culture takes the natural biological urges we share with other animals and teaches us how to express them in particular ways

True or False : Culture helps us define the world in which we live, to express feelings and ideas, and to guide out behavior and perceptions

True

What do anthropologists mean when they say culture is shared?

Culture is an attribute of individuals as members of groups

Anthropologist Clifford Geertz defined culture as ideas based on cultural learning and symbols. For anthropologist Leslie White, culture originated when our ancestors acquired the ability to use symbols. What is a symbol?

Something verbal or nonverbal, within a particular language or culture, that comes to stand for something else.

True or False : Much of the history of anthropology has been about the roles and relative prominence of culture and the individual

True

The actions that individuals take, both alone and in groups, in forming and transforming cultural identities are referred to as…

Agency

Microcultures, or subcultures, can be formed on the basis of…

All of the above

A cultural relativist would view contemporary American culture as…

Just as interesting and worthy of study as any other

The tendency to apply one’s own cultural values in judging the behavior and beliefs of people raised in other culture is known as

Ethnocentrism

True or False : Only people living in the industrialized, capitalist countries of Europe and the United States are ethnocentric.

False

In anthropology, cultural relavitism is not a moral or epistemological position, but a methodological one. It states that :

In order to understand another culture fully, we must try to understand how the people in that culture see things.

According to the code of ethics of the American Anthropological Association, the anthropologist’s first responsibility is to…

Protect the people studied from harm related to the research

True or False : The idea of universal and inalienable human rights that are superior to the laws and ethics of any culture can conflict with some of the ideas central to cultural relativism.

True

What component of cultural anthropology is comparative and focused on building upon our understanding of how cultural systems work?

Ethnology

One thing about which most cultural anthropologists agree is…

The importance of doing fieldwork

During his time in the Trobriand Islands during World War I, Bronislaw Malinowski pioneered a research method in cultural anthropology that involves living in a community for an extended period while gathering data. This method is called :

Participant observation

Ethnography is :

All of the above
-The main way cultural anthropologists present their findings
-The act of writing descriptively about a culture
-An important aspect of anthropological research
(The scientific description of the customs of peoples and cultures.)

A key factor that helps in selecting a research project is…

All of the above
-Finding a topic that has been neglected or overlooked by previous research
-A certain degree of intuition or luck
-Relating to a current issue of importance such as refugee movements or globalization
-Finding a place that was studied long ago and merits restudy

True or False : The success of building rapport during fieldwork may be influenced by microcultural factors such as gender, age, race, or ethnicity.

True
Rapport = relationship where understand each other’s feelings and ideas

Traditional ethnographic research focused on the single community of culture, which was treated as more or less isolated and unique in time and space. However,

There has been a shift within the discipline toward a recognition of ongoing and inescapable flows of people, technology, images, and information

Which TWO of the following statements are false?

True or False : Race and gender are examples of socially – constructed systems of classification used to interpret biological diversity within and between human communities and to assign rights and responsibilities.

True

Lynn Morgan’s essay, “When Does Life Begin?” demonstrates that…

With the term SEX, anthropologists are referring to biological differences. In contrast, they define GENDER as…

The cultural construction of whether one is female, male, or something else

The tasks and activities that a culture assigns to each sex are known as…

Gender roles

True or False : The specific roles assigned to each gender vary from culture to culture

True

Ethnographic evidence reveals that, traditionally, Pawnee women worked wood, and among the Hidatsa, women made boats, but that in most other societies these activities are done exclusively by men. This suggests that…

Patterns of division of labor by gender are culturally general, but they are not culturally universal

True or False : Cross – culturally, women’s roles tend to be focused on activities associated with the home, but men are more active in the public domain

True

True or False : Cross – culturally, the contributions of men and women to subsistence are roughly equal

True

True or False : Adding together subsistence activites and domestic work, and comparing between men and women in diverse societies around the world, men tend to work more hours than women

False

In which type of society would you expect women’s status to be highest relative to men’s status?

Foragers, where the gender division of labor is the least rigid

Recent cross – cultural studies of gender roles demonstrate that…

The relative status of women is variable, depending on such factors as the type of subsistence strategy employed, the importance of warfare, and the prevalence of a domestic – public dichotomy

True or False : In the United States, attitudes regarding the role of women in the workplace have varied according to economic needs

True

Of the following factors, which is historically correlated with the LOWERING of women’s status in the United States?

European immigration after 1900

True or False : With the baby boom and the increase in industrialization in America since World War II, women have contributed more and more to the workplace while receiving pay equal to that of their male coworkers.

False

The recent change in policy in the United States Armed Forces, to remove restrictions against women taking part in ground combat :

Reflects changes in gender as a social construct in contemporary American society

Which of the following is MOST STRONGLY determined by biology?

Sex

True or False : Emily Martin’s article, “The Egg and the Sperm,” shows how scientific knowledge about reproductive biology is influenced by gender stereotypes

True

Race, like gender, is…

A socially – constructed category rather than a biological reality

An anthropological understanding of ethnicity and race requires exploring how people and institutions define, negotiate, and even challenge their identities in society. One way anthropologists – and social scientists in general – do this is by studying STATUS, which refers to…

Any position that someone occupies in society, no matter what its level of prestige

What is an ascribed status? A status that…

People have little or no choice about occupying

Social ranking on the basis of race in the United States is :

An example of the application of ascribed status

In theory, a biological race is a genetically distinct subdivision of a species. Humanity (Homo sapiens) lacks such races because :

Human populations have not been isolated enough from one another to develop such discrete groups

True or False : There is a greater biological and genetic variation within each of the traditionally defined races than between them.

True

In understanding the problems that have arisen in attempts at human racial classification, why is it important to understand the difference between genotype (genetic makeup) and phenotype (observable characteristics or traits)?

Attempts at human racial classification typically used phenotypic traits like skin color as markers of common ancestry, but many such traits do not reflect the existence of shared genetic material. Instead, they are often the result of different populations biologically adapting to similar environmental stressors in similar ways

Which of the following statements about attempts to assign humans to discrete racial categories based on common ancestry is TRUE? They are…

Culturally arbitrary, even though most people assume them to be based in biology

True or False : Phenotypic similarities and differences always have a genetic basis

False

Traditional racial classification assumed that biological characteristics such as skin color were determined by heredity and remained stable over many generations. We now know that…

A biological similarity such as skin color is also the result of natural selection working among different populations that face similar environmental challenges

True or False : Higher amounts of melanin in the skin inhibit the body’s ability to manufacture vitamin D. This confers an adaptive advantage in environments with sun exposure, leading to darker skinned populations near the equator, and light skinned populations in higher northern latitudes

True

True or False : Interracial, biracial, and multiracial identities are becoming more and more common in the United States. This is due in part to changes in the relative social status of different, racially – defined groups.

True

All systems based on inequality (such as “race,” ethnicity, caste, etc.), regardless of their local specificities share this feature :

All of the above
-Those who have greater entitlements control those who have lesser entitlements
-Underprivileged groups may rebel against the system
-Members of dominant groups work to keep their position
-People are regulated to particular levels of entitlement

In Clarence Gravlee’s article, “How Race Becomes Biology,” he demonstrates all of the following EXCEPT

None of the above

Understanding kinship systems is an important part of anthropology because:

Kinship ties are important to the people anthropologists study; they are a key component of people’s everyday social relations, and they relate to rights and responsibilities of control over a range of resources.

Which set of three factors best identifies the key elements of kinship?

Descent, sharing, and marriage.

Anthropologists are interested in kinship calculation, which is…

The system by which people in a society reckon their kin relationships.

Anthropologists distinguish between kin terms and genealogical kin types. What is the difference?

Kin terms are the words used for different relatives in a particular language, but genealogical kin types refer to the actual genealogical relationship.

What is the name of the family in which a child is raised and learns the basic elements of her culture?

The family of orientation.

What makes up ego’s nuclear family of procreation?

Spouse and offspring

True or False : Although nuclear families are found in many societies around the world, this phenomenon is not a cultural universal.

True

True or False : U.S. kinship calculation is bilateral, traced equally through males and females; for example, father and mother.

True

True or False : In unilineal descent, one’s ancestry is traced through only one line of descent.

True

Unilineal descent systems…

…

A unilineal descent group whose members demonstrate their common descent from an apical ancestor is a(n)

Lineage

The system of descent in which kinship is traced through the female line is called

Matrilineal

True or False : With patrilineal descent, someone takes his or her father’s last name but recognizes descent through both parents.

False

In the Sudan, a Nuer woman can marry a woman if her father has only daughters but no male heirs. This is done to maintain the patrilineage. The “wife” has sex with one or more men until she gets pregnant. The children born are then accepted as the offspring of both the female husband and the wife. What is important in this example is:

Social rather than biological paternity, illustrating how kinship is socially constructed.

Brideprice refers to

A gift to the bride’s family from the groom’s side.

True or False : A progeny price is paid to the bride’s family so that her children will permanently belong to the husband’s group.

True

True or False : Polygynous marriages often serve important economic and political functions, including that the number of wives a man has serves as an indicators of his wealth, prestige, and status.

True

What term refers to the culturally sanctioned practice of marrying someone within a group to which one belongs?

Endogamy

Descent, represented by a family’s membership is a caste and subcaste, is an important consideration in evaluating the suitability of a potential partner.

What is the name of the postmarital residence pattern in which the married couple is expected to establish its own home?

Neolocality

In North America, the relatively high-incidence of expanded family households in the lower class is

An important strategy the urban poor use to adapt to poverty.

Although the nuclear family remains a cultural ideal for many Americans, nuclear families accounted for just 22.5 percent of American households in 2007. In fact, other domestic arrangements outnumber the traditional US household more than four to one. All of the following are among the reasons for these trends EXCEPT that

Contrary to expectations, kinship is becoming more important in contemporary nations.

What does it mean that kinship, like race, is culturally constructed?

Some genealogical kin are considered to be relatives whereas others are not, and the rules underlying such considerations vary across cultures.

What does EGO stand for in a depiction of a kinship system?

The point of reference used to determine which kin terms go where.

The research tool showing the relatives known by an individual or “EGO” is called a(n)

Kinship diagram.

All cultures have taboos against ______________, which can be defined as sexual relations with someone considered to be a close relatives, although precisely what constitutes a close relative varies across cultures.

Incest

Each of the following is a form of polygamy EXCEPT

A man who marries, then divorces, then marries again, then divorces again, then marries again, each time to a different woman.

Unlike a family, a household may include

People who are not related by kinship.

Neolocal residence for married couples is associated with

…

In a patrilineal kinship system, a married couple is most likely to reside

With or near the parents of the groom.

Compared to a nuclear household, an extended household

All of the above.
-Establishes a wider base for child care
-Creates tensions among co – resident wives
-Establishes a larger pool of resources that can be shared
-Helps care for others

True or False : Most cultural anthropologists would accept as the minimal definition of marriage as a “union between two or more people.”

True

True or False : One major difference between economists and economic anthropologists is their research methods.

True

Economic anthropologists have been concerned with two main questions, one focusing on systems of human behavior and the other on the individuals who participate in those systems. The first question is, how are production, distribution, and consumption organized in different societies? The second question is,

What motivates people in different cultures to produce, distribute or exchange, and consume?

True or False : Changes in economic power in the later part of the twentieth century have created a global economy.

True

True or False : Most cultural anthropologists see economic globalization as beneficial, while economists emphasize its negative effects in noncapitalist settings.

False

One topic where many economists and economic anthropologists both do research is

…

True or False : Anthropologists can easily and comprehensively sort the global diversity in ways of making a living into a small number of distinct categories.

False

In the 1970s, an anthropologist named Yehudi Cohen developed the term “adaptive strategies” to describe the different systems of economic production found around the world. This concept emphasizes:

Associations or correlations between the economies of societies and their social features.

True or False : A mode of production is a way of organizing relations among people and between people and resources, whereas the means of production include factors like land, labor, and technology.

True

What are relations of production?

The way a society’s social relations are organized to regulate access to and control over resources necessary for generating the society’s subsistence and energy needs.

Which mode of livelihood has characterized most of human existence?

Foraging

Despite differences arising from environmental variation, all foraging economies have shared one essential feature, their

Reliance on available natural resources for their subsistence, rather than controlling the reproduction of plants and animals.

Property relations in foraging societies are best understood as

Based on the concept of use rights

Which of the following is MOST characteristic of foragers

High mobility and small groups with flexible membership and affiliations

Maintaining a fallow period is essential for the sustainability of which adaptive strategy?

Horticulture

True or False : Compared to pastoralism and horticulture, agriculture is a more land-intensive strategy.

True

True or False : Horticulture refers to low-intensity farming, often using slash-and-burn techniques to clear the land.

True

A horticultural system of cultivation is characterized by

Periodic cycles of cultivation and fallowing

Why do slash-and-burn cultivators stop using a plot of land every two to three years?

They do not use fertilizer and thus their crops exhaust the soil quickly.

Because nonindustrial economies can have features of both horticulture and agriculture, it is useful to discuss cultivators as being arranged along a cultivation continuum. Which of the following phenomena generally occurs toward the more intensive end of the cultivating continuum?

Increasing economic specialization

Intensive agriculture…

Has significant environmental effects such as deforestation, water pollution, and reduction of ecological diversity

True or False : Agriculturalists tend to live in permanent villages that are larger and closer to other settlements than the semipermanent settlements of horticulturalists.

True

Pastoralism…

Is a mode of livelihood based on domesticated animal herds and the use of their products, such as meat and milk

The gender division of labor in the agricultural mode of production…

Is more segregated than in temperate foraging societies

Compared to family farming, corporate farming is…

More geared to production for sale

What does it mean that nonindustrial economic systems are embedded in society?

The economic system cannot be easily separated from other systems, such as kinship.

Which of the following kinds of exchange is characteristic among the members of a family?

Generalized reciprocity

True or False : According to anthropologist David Graeber, barter was the primary mode of exchange in human societies before the invention of currency.

False

True or False : With balanced reciprocity, the giver expects something in return equal to what was given.

True

True
(Rich ceremonial feast at which possessions are given away or destroyed to display wealth or enhance prestige)

Which of the following statements about potlatching is NOT true? Potlatching…

…

The current anthropological definition of religion says that it is…

A set of beliefs and behaviors concerning supernatural beings and powers

True or False : Emile Durkheim, an early scholar of religion, stressed what he termed religious effervescence – the bubbling up of emotional intensity generated by worship. Anthropologists, too, have stressed the collective, shared, and enacted nature of religion, the emotions it generates, and the meanings it embodies.

True

Which of the following statements about religion is NOT true? Religion…

Is a cultural construct, and thus not a reality

Which of the following anthropologists is recognized as the founder of anthropology of religion?

Sir Edward Burnett Tylor

Animism, polytheism, and monotheism are the…

Stages through which religion has evolved, according to E.B. Tylor

What term refers to the manipulation of the supernatural to accomplish specific goals?

Magic

Magic…

Is most likely to be practiced in situations of uncertainty.

If someone were to collect bits of your hair and nail clippings to use in a magical ritual, this person is practicing…

Contagious Magic

(………) magic is based on the belief that whatever is done to an object will affect a person who once had contact with it

Contagious

Religion and magic don’t just explain things and help people accomplish goals – they also enter the realm of human feelings. In other words,

They serve emotional needs as well as cognitive ( i.e. explanatory) ones

True or False : According to Bronislaw Malinowski, religion provides people with emotional comfort during problematic times.

True

True or False : A people’s worldview always includes a religious element.

False

True or False : A major difference between rituals and plays is that the participants in rituals are performing with sincerity, while participants in a play are merely acting.

True

True or False : By participating in a ritual, participants signal that they accept the common social and ethical order prescribed by their religion.

True

True or False : Sacrifice is most likely the oldest form of ritual.

True

An example of a life – cycle ritual, or rite of passage, is…

A coming – of – age ceremony for young men or women

Induction into the U.S. Marine Corps and the vision quests performed by members of certain North American Indian societies are examples of…

Rites of passage

According to Victor Turner, all rites of passage have three phases : separation, liminality, and incorporation. Of these three, the liminal phase is typically characterized by…

Symbolic reversals of ordinary behavior

Carnival in Brazil and Mardi Gras in New Orleans are public festivals in which moral standards are relaxed or ignored for a specific period of time. These are examples of…

Rituals of inversion

Which of the following statements about rites of passage is TRUE?

Beliefs and rituals can, ironically, both diminish and create anxiety and a sense of insecurity and danger.

True or False : Religion can be used as a powerful means of controlling society.

True

Like ethnicity and language, religion also is…

Associated with social divisions within and between societies and nations.

Which of the following statements about religion is NOT true?

Religion serves only to maintain social solidarity; it does not create or maintain societal divisions

Which of the following phenomena functions to limit deviant social behavior and tends to be directed at socially marginal individuals?

Witchcraft accusations

True or False : Religious syncretism refers to the merging of a religious belief or practice from one religion with another.

True

Which of the following is NOT a general feature of African religions?

They prohibit elements of syncretism with other religious and privilege orthodoxy and doctrinal purity

Christianity is the worlds largest religion, with some 2.1 billion adherents, followed by Islam, which has approximately 1.3 billion practitioners. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. Islam has spread by adapting successfully to many national and cultural differences, including the presence of other religions that were already established in these areas prior to Islam’s introduction. An important result of this process is that…

Islam is far from homogeneous – the faith reflects the increasingly diverse areas in which it is practiced.

Cargo cults are syncretic religions that mix Melanesian and Christian beliefs, and are understood by anthropologists to be…

A religious response to the expansion of the world capitalist economy, often with political and economic consequences.

True or False : Antimodernism describes a rejection of the modern in favor of what is perceived as an earlier, more pure, better way of life.

True

Religious fundamentalism is found in various religions around the world. Fundamentalist movements often reject modern or foreign ways of life in favor of strict interpretations of scripture, tradition, or prophecy in an effort to return to what is perceived to be an earlier, purer, better way of life. Ironically,

Religious fundamentalism is itself a modern phenomenon, based on a strong feeling among its adherents of alienation from the perceived secularism of the surrounding modern culture

True or False : Most anthropologists today believe that E.B. Tylor was correct in predicting the end of religious belief and practice and the triumph of scientific, secular modernity.

False

The subfield of cultural anthropology that addresses issues of social order and conflict resolution cross – culturally is called…

Legal anthropology

True or False : Anthropologists study political systems and organization globally and comparatively, and examine non – state societies and the states and nation – states usually studied by political scientists.

True

Learning Elman Service’s typology of political organization – bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states – is analytically useful for students of anthropology; however, it is important to remember that…

None of these political entities, or policies, can be studied as self – contained forms of political organization today, because all exist within nation – states.

Foraging economies are usually associated with which type of sociopolitical organization?

Band

True or False : In bands, the leader occupies an official office with coercive control over the members of the community.

False

True or False : Since bands lack formalized legal codes, they have no way of settling disputes.

False

Which of the following statements about political leaders in foraging bands is true? They…

Have no means of forcing people to follow their decisions

Tribal societies are typically organized by village life or membership of descent groups, and they tend to be politically egalitarian. However, egalitarianism diminishes…

As village size and population density increase

In the context of tribal societies, what is a “big man”?

A person who creates his reputation through entrepreneurship and generosity to others.

How does a big man increase his status?

Big men do not keep the wealth they accumulate; instead, they redistribute it to create an maintain alliances with political supporters.

A big man’s position depends on all of the following EXCEPT…

Inherited inequality

True or False : In tribal societies, the village head leads by example and through persuasion; he lacks the ability to force people to do things.

True

It is important to remember that “chiefdom” and “state,” like many categories used by social scientists, are ideal types because they…

Are labels that make social contrasts seem sharper than they really are

One of the key distinguishing features of a state is the presence and acceptance of…

Stratification
(Arrange or classify into groups and or classes)

Which of the following forms of political organization is most likely to include formal, bureaucratized taxation :

State

Which of the following statements about non – state societies is TRUE?

Economic, political and religious activities are often embedded in one another.

True or False : With the rise of states, the role of kinship in society has continued to grow and dominate daily activities.

False

True or False : States are complex systems of sociopolitical organization that aim to control and administer everything from conflict resolution to fiscal systems to population movements.

True

The form of political organization identified by anthropologists and other scholars as a “state” is characterized by…

All of the above
-A standing army
-Control of information (propaganda)
-A way of maintaining demographic record about its citizens
-Its ability to define membership through the concept of citizenship

Anthropologists make a conceptual distinction between a “state” and a “nation.” A nation is a group of people who share a…

All of the above
-Language
-Culture
-Territorial base
-Political organization

Pierre van den Berghe, in his critical and polemical essay “The Modern State : Nation – Builder or Nation – Killer?” argues that the modern form of nationalist state that became globally dominant in the 20th Century is a fatal mutation, with grave consequences. He argues that a “modern state” is characterized by…

All of the above
-Industrial means of control and destruction
-An ideology of sovereignty of the people
-Displacement or replacement of external enemies by internal enemies in state propaganda

Hegemony is…

A stratified social order in which subordinates comply with domination by internalizing their rulers’ values and accepting the ‘naturalness’ of domination

According to French social theorists Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault,

It is easier and more effective to dominate peoples minds than to try to control their bodies; that is, cultural hegemony is more powerful than physical force

True or False : Social controls refer to the elements of the social system – beliefs, practices, and institutions – that are most actively involved in the maintenance of norms and the regulation of conflict.

True

In their essay “Say ‘Cheese!’ The Disney Order That Is Not So Mickey Mouse,” Clifford Shearing and Philip Stenning examine the operation of social control in Disney World, arguing that a number of techniques lead to control being consensual. The techniques in use at Disney World are :

All of the above
-Constant instruction to guests, which minimizes opportunities for disorder
-Physical barriers that severely limit the visitors’ choice of action
-Surveillance by omnipresent employees, some of them in costume, who detect and rectify the slightest deviation

The Bisha ritual – as illustrated in the film Bisha : The Awesome Fire Test and analyzed in the essay by Al – Krenawi and Graham – has both social and spiritual elements. Which of the following accurately describes Bisha :

All of the above
-It is performed only when reconciliation between two or more parties in dispute cannot be achieved by negotiation or discussion
-It is used as a mechanism to achieve justice among Bedouins of Egypt and Israel, who are a tribal society with no formal institutions of policing, legal process, or punishment
-Participants in the ritual are subject to a transcendent power that conclusively reveals their innocence or guilt
-If an accused person licks the white hot pan three times and no blisters, or burns, or other marks appear on their tongue, they are pronounced innocent

Band

A group of people who have common interest or purpose -> a subgroup of a tibe

Tribe

A social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader

Chiefdom

Sociopolitical organization in which political and economic power is exercised by a single person or group of people, over many communities

State

Political organization of society, through order and security with laws and enforcements, has boundaries ruled by sovereignty