Anthro Quizzes

Which of the following situations is most closely associated with the distinctions medical anthropologists make between disease and illness? a.) Chauncey goes to a pharmacy without a prescription and leaves with a bag full of pills. b.) In the early 1980's, a Hmong family arrives at a California hospital with their child in seizures; the emergency room doctor immediately asks if "the spirit has caught her" c.) Clarissa walks into a hospital and tells the staff she feels like she has a tumor, and they immediately start chemotherapy. d.) Nathaniel tells his primary care physician about a persistent pain in his chest, and after a few tests is sent home because none of the tests can confirm his account. e.) none of the above

d.) Nathaniel tells his primary care physician about a persistent pain in his chest, and after a few tests is sent home because none of the tests can confirm his account.

According to anthropologists, all of the following are true about secularism except: a.) many religious communities have maintained relevance by becoming more politically active and challenging the secular world view and social changes associated with it b.) as symbolic systems of meaning and purpose, secular world views are analogous to religious world views c.) the secularization of modern society is not nearly as complete as many people think d.) secular world views have effectively replaced religious world views, which have been in decline for several hundred years e.) none of the above

d.) secular world views have effectively replaced religious world views, which have been in decline for several hundred years

If you were going to conduct ethnographic fieldwork on the relationship between campus social hierarchies and student government at UVM, your research would most likely involve: a) listening, documentation, and one-time or short-term interactions b) hypothesis building, testing, and falsification c) observations, interviews, and experimental procedures d) mapping, deductive reasoning, and holism e) experiential immersion, particularism, and inductive reasoning

e.) experiential immersion, particularism, and inductive reasoning

Three primary historical trends contributed to the creation of anthropology as a discipline, including _________, industrialization, and _________ theory

Colonialism, evolutionary

Norms, values, and traditions ensure the stability and predictability of human ________

Culture

Tara Heffernan, who studied American patterns of childbirth, observes that childbirth had been pathologized, home births have been discredited, and laws rewritten to define physician control over birthing. In other words, childbirth has been turned into a medical problem, a process anthropologists call ______-_______ __________

Culture-bound syndromes

In the Kula ring, there is often a long lag time between the receipt and reciprocation of a gift. Anthropologists call this phenomenon _______ ___________.

Delayed reciprocity

Dormcest and floorcest at UVM feel awkward to us because our view of romantic relationships is that they should be _______, or outside the immediate social group.

Exogamous

The terminology anthropologists use to identify a patient's own culturally-embedded understanding of their affliction is ________ _______ ________. "The spirit catches you and you fall down" is the Hmong version of this for the seizure disorder we call "epilepsy."

Explanatory model of illness

A cognatic lineage is one in which an individual's rights, inheritance, and obligations come only through the mother's side.

FALSE

According to Anne Fadiman, the Hmong cannot withstand the pressure to assimilate into U.S culture, and their distinctive identity and traditions are likely to soon disappear.

FALSE

For anthropologists, symbolic meaning is only created and conveyed through language; the social processes of everyday life have nothing to do with it.

FALSE

The consensus among anthropologists is that human lives are basically "nasty, brutish, and short" unless they have developed formal governmental institutions to create an ordered society.

FALSE

The primary goal of economic anthropology is the creation of abstract models of economic practice to identify laws of human behavior.

FALSE

The principle of ethnocentrism emphasizes that anthropologists should always try to understand, even defend, all the things that people in other cultures do.

FALSE

When medical anthropologists study cultural conflicts such as those between Lia's family and the hospital, their most important goal is to explain which party is the more objective and correct one.

FALSE

In the Apostolic Pentecostal community Judith Casselberry studied, women actively subvert male authority by promoting the use of feminine symbols in their rites, because they do not accept female subordination.

FALSE (Casselberry's argument is that women accept their subordination, and emphasize their righteousness, they don't rebel)

In contemporary anthropology, understanding religion is primarily about understanding the supernatural forces and spirits represented in ritual symbols.

FALSE (This is an old view)

Anthropologists who study sustainability issues tend to downplay the environmental and health risks of industrial agriculture and landscape change, and tend to focus instead on how economic growth is the necessary key to long-term sustainability.

False

There are important cross-cultural variation in __________, which are the structures beliefs and behaviors involved in the production, distribution, and consumption of food.

Foodways

Anthropologists were among the first to use the term _______ to refer to culturally-specific patterning of male or female behaviors. Today this concept refers to fluid intersections of sex, internal senses of self, outward expressions of identity, and cultural expectations about how to perform in appropriate ways.

GENDER

There are three types of gift exchange relationships that maintain social boundaries, including ________, _______, and ________ reciprocities.

Generalized, balanced, negative

Cultural anthropology is different from other social sciences due to its _________ perspective, which involves an effort to understand interrelationships between the domains of a society, such as religion, politics, and economics.

Holistic

For anthropologists who study globalization and its relationship with cultural change, the concept of ____________ is useful because it highlights the dynamics of open-ended cultural fusion and mixing that characterize many cross-cultural encounters.

Hybridization

The theoretical approach to studying religion developed by Clifford Geertz, which emphasizes analysis of the worldviews and underlying symbolic and cultural meanings of religion, is the ________ approach.

Interpretive

Most anthropologists consider that _____ _________ _________ such as the Ahmadis, Cao Dai, the Raëlians, and the Twelve Tribes, are often at the cutting edge of religious change.

New religious movements

The polygamous marriage type found in the Tibetan plateau called fraternal _________, in which multiple brothers share a wife, helps maintain large estates and a steady ratio of persons to land.

Polyandry

If high school graduation is a status-changing ritual called a ______ ____ ___________, students sitting in a large auditorium in gown and listening to a speaker occurs during what Victor Turner would call its "liminal" (or transitional) phrase.

Rite of passage

One of Lia's healing ceremonies involves sacrificial pigs who are paid spirit money to negotiate with dab spirits who can help bring her lost soul back. This is a good example of a ________ therapeutic process.

Symbolic

If you picked up a "lucky penny" on the way into class this morning and you believe it is now helping you do better on this quiz, Sir George Frazer would say that your belief is a good example of __________ ___________ and its law of ________.

Sympathetic magic, contagion

Modes of subsistence like foraging and pastoralist persist in the world because they can be effective ways for a small population to secure a sustainable food supply.

TRUE

Political and economic stratification are key elements of societies with pervasive social inequality, as are cultural attitudes that justify and reinforce that inequality is natural and inevitable.

TRUE

The Cartesian notion of mind-body separation has been challenged by recent anthropological findings on matters like cognition, neural plasticity, healing, and psychological states.

TRUE

The method of participant-observation is less focused on finding out whether or not the native's point of view corresponds to reality and more on understanding how culture shapes the meanings and social relations people take for granted.

TRUE

According to George Gmelch, the use of fetishes, taboos, and rituals by athletes is an attempt to control the uncertain outcome of their performance on the field.

TRUE (A central element of magic is that it tries to control uncertainties)

Oaxacan muxes and Indian hijiras demonstrate that other societies around the world recognize that people don't need to be either male or female. Anthropologists refer to this phenomenon as ______ ________.

Third gender

A key concept at the heart of economic anthropology, _______, is not the same as price; it is a culturally-relative and symbolic assessment of worth.

Value

Although economists and anthropologists both study how economic systems work, what is the most important difference between them? a.) anthropologists assume that economic rationalities, systems, and transactions are diverse b.) anthropology's quantitative methods are useful for identifying laws of human behavior c.) economists approach economic activists more holistically than anthropologists d.) economists downplay the idea that 'the economy' is a special domain of human activity e.) none of the above

a.) anthropologists assume the economic rationalities, systems, and transactions are diverse

A substantivist anthropologist studying a non-industrial gift exchange system, such as the one that exists in Ongka's community, would be most interested in:

a.) the creation of long-term social inequality as Big Men capture more and more property through negative reciprocity b.) the selfish motives of those who participate in gift exchange c.) how the transactions involved in gift exchange are embedded in social relationships of mutual support and intertwined with political processes d.) the scheming, cajoling, and rational calculations that an aspiring Big Man would engage in to get the most out of his gift-giving. e.) none of the above

Anthropologists are interest in the connections between the domains of politics, gender, and kinship because: a.) they are a means of sorting and organizing people into social roles and managing conflict and tensions b.) most societies manage these issues in surprisingly similar ways c.) tribal societies make strong distinctions between these domains d.) anthropologists are drawn to exotic and unusual arrangements e.) none of the above

a.) they are a means of sorting and organizing people into social roles and managing conflict and tensions

Approaching religion as a system of symbolic action is most useful for helping us understanding all of the following except: a.) why many Christians believe that Jesus died for their sins and was later resurrected. b.) how the practice of scapularmancy informs where and when a Siberian reindeer hunter will track his prey c.) why people in Jolo handle serpents, hold burning objects, and speak in tongues d.) why someone might join a community like the Twelve tribes or People's Temple and participate in its rites, even if they don't necessarily accept the theological beliefs right away e.) why baseball players might wear certain clothing and act in certain stylized and repetitive ways before a game

a.) why many Christians believe that Jesus died for their sins and was later resurrected

Is "native anthropology" really possible? According to Japanese-American anthropologist Takeyi Tsuda: a.) No, because native anthropologists tend to be rejected by their communities when they become anthropologists. b.) Perhaps, but even native anthropologists and the people they study in their community have meaningful differences between them c.) yes, but non-natives have a superior ability to understand the culture being studied because they are more objective. d.) yes, and all anthropologists at some point who grasp the native's point of view become natives.

b.) Perhaps, but even native anthropologists and the people they study in their community have meaningful differences between them.

Which of the following does NOT illustrate the social power and authority of medicine in Fadiman's book? a.) physicians taking a "veterinary" approach to treating Lia. b.) A txiv neeb and a physician collaborating to decide on the course of Lia's treatment. c.) Lia's physicians not asking her parents what they think she is suffering from. d.) Lia's physicians sending her to foster care because they think her parents aren't following their instructions for care. e.) Lack of hospital accountability for apparently worsening her condition.

b.) a txiv neeb and a physician collaborating to decide on the course of Lia's treatment.

During the past forty years, political anthropologists largely shifted their attention from the study of how people maintain social order through political systems to the study of how political power actually works. Why? a.) they unlocked the code of how people really govern themselves: they use informal mechanisms of social control b.) politics also involves dynamic processes like manipulation, resistance, persuasion, and other techniques to gain and hold onto power c.) they began to appreciate how formal political institutions shape and control the organizational patterns of everyday life d.) because political chaos is rife and universal, especially in non-Western societies e.) all of the above

b.) politics also involves dynamic processes like manipulation, resistance, persuasion, and other techniques to gain and hold onto power

Which statement would be most likely to be said by an economic anthropologist? a.) "the goal of an economy is to maximize profit for the greatest number of people." b.) "the shame of losing the bean game undermined Luis' self esteem." c.) "in many economies, the point is not to accumulate things; it is to accumulate relationships." d.) "Has anyone noticed that Wall Street has enjoyed booming profits in recent years?" e.) none of the above

c.) "in many economies, the point is not to accumulate things; it is to accumulate relationships."

Witchcraft is common throughout Africa, explaining misfortune and inexplicable events. Why, according to Alexandra crampton's research in Ghana, is it primarily older women who are most likely to be accused of practicing witchcraft? a.) male religious leaders are trying to disempower women b.) older women tend to be stingy, selfish, and domineering in Ghana c.) older women are often neglected and marginalized within families d.) there is pervasive disrespect for older adults in Ghanian culture e.) none of the above

c.) Older women are often neglected and marginalized within families

In the film Shadows and Illuminations, Pak Kereta turns toward a number of distinct healing traditions and healers to diagnose and treat his situation. This is an illustration of: a.) sick role b.) disease-illness distinction c.) medical pluralism d.) social support theory of healing e.) medicalization

c.) medical pluralism

What does the work of Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, who studied Female Genital Mutilation in Sudan, demonstrate about cultural relativism? a.) that it is always incompatible with the idea of universal human rights. b.) that anthropologists should never offer their expertise to international debates regarding human rights. c.) that it should not paralyze us, because anthropologists can be intercultural brokers between international human rights activists and local communities d.) that dialogue is impossible between those who practice FGM and those who reject and criticize it.

c.) that it should not paralyze us, because anthropologists can be intercultural brokers between international human rights activists and local communities.

Dynamics of structural violence, such as those identified in Paul Farmer's research on Haitian's health and Nancy Scheper-Hughe's work on mother-infant bonding in Brazil, are important to anthropologists who study power because: a.) they illustrate how violence is structured into the human condition b.) they demonstrate how religious and political institutions work together to create disadvantage c.) they point to the bodily harm caused by political, economic, and social structures d.) they point to the bodily harm caused by political, economic, and social structures e.) all of the above

c.) they point to the bodily harm caused by political, economic, and social structures