ANTH101 Exam 1 & 2 Questions

Which of the following is NOT a necessary element of religious systems?

A belief that all animals, plants, and things have a soul or distinct spritial essence which "animates" them and allows them to have agency

What is the differnce, according to Karl Marx, between fetishism and commodity fetishism?

A fetish is an object made by humans that is endowed with the power to affect people, wheras commodity fetishism in capitalist socieites is when objects take on social dimensions and human relationships are reduced to material relations

According to Karl Marx, the estrangement of people from the products of their labor refers to:

A phenomenon that occurs in capitalist socieites which he calls "alienation"

Marriage, as normal conceived in Western society, is an example of which of the following?

A social institution

What is an example of commodity fetishism?

Believing that a commodity - for example, Nike brand shoes, have an inherent ability to make you into a superstar athlete if you buy them, believing that the value of a commodity is intrinsic to the object itslef, rather than a result of the human labor used to make and advertise the commodity

What is the difference between "ethniciity" and "race"?

Both are social constructions, but ethnicity has more to do with perceived culutral similarity and differnce, whereas race is an ideology that links visible traits to other less visible characterisitcs

When formulating the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, some differences between Standard Average European and Hopin languages, were examined. What were Whorf's findings?

Both languages employ a significant amount of metaphors and symbols to describe everyday phenomena and SAE objectifies concepts and makes time quantifiable, while Hopi is more subjective and experiental

How is the Arawete conecpt of perspectivism an example of cultural metaphor?

Categories of what is considered "human" can in Arawete culture sometimes include jaguars, because both humans and jaguars are top-level hutners and predators in the lowland forests of South Africa

In the film "Life and Debt" about the effect of neoliberal policies on the country of Jamaica, what happened to Jamaica's farming industry when the country's lenders forced them to eliminate trade barriers, allowing imported produce to enter the market?

Cheaper, subsidized produce from the US entered Jamaica, undercutting Jamaican produce and decimating the agricultural sector

Miners' fear of the Tio from The Devil's Miner originated from

Colonial Spaniards' exploitation of indigenous Bolivians; they threatened them into working in the mines despite unsafe conditions and a widespread, indigenosu Andean belief about mines and devils that goes back for millenia

Does anthropology generally explain variation in human behavior through explanations involving cultural determinsim, or biological determinism? Why?

Cultural determinsim, because most variablility in human behaviors can be explained by different cultural cateories, beliefs, values, and social norms

Bororo, upper Amazon Basin

Cultural metaphor, "We are parrots"

Which of the following is true about the concept of "cultural metaphor"?

Cultural symbols act through metaphorical associations, cultural metaphors are about enacting, expressing, and reinforcing and ideal moral order, and understanding moral causality, cultural metaphors involve the construction of cultural categories that involve associations between differnt things, and these associations may or may not make sense to people outside of the cultural context

Ambilineal descent

Descent and kinship is determined by choice; each family unit chooses residecne and affinity based on economic advantages

Bilineal descent

Descent and kinship is traced equally through the mother and father - in other words, the child is equally related ot the families of both parents

Cognatic descent

Descent and kinship is traced through both mother's and father's lineage to some degree; this can occur in various ways

Patrilineal descent

Descent for both males and females is traced along the father's lineage only

Matrilineal descent

Descent for both males and females is traced along the mohter's lineage only

Which of the following is a characterisitic of globalization?

Flexible accumulation: companies seek to move their production facilities and activities abroad in search of cheap labor, lower taxes, and fewer regulations

What are some of the ethical dilemmas encountered in the introduction to "Righteous Dopefiend" excerpt?

Giving money to participants: potential distorition of relationship from "researcher" to "friend" or "patron", Law enforcement: their presence as researchers could draw law enforcement's attention to the addicts' community, Privacy: researchers did not want their work to harm the participants, but the particpants struggle for self-respect and wanted their stories told

In the textbook, the auhtors told a story of Fernando, a recent widower in the Mixtec village of Nuyoo. One day he brought a case of beer to the family of a widowed woman he barely knew and proposed to her. When he was rebuffed, he said that it was ok - becuase he had another case of beer and was going to propose to a different woman the next day. Why?

In Nuyoo, a successful domestic unit was believed to require both a man and a woman, who performed complementary types of labor; Fernando was seeking a new wife as quickly as possible because he wanted to provide a good, successful household in which to raise his children

What is one difference between a capitalsit and a deomestic mode or production, according to Karl Marx?

In a capitalist mode of production, the means of production are owned by capitalists, while in a domestic mode of production, the means of production are collectively owned

Why does David Graeber say that barter is "carried out between people who might otherwise be enemies"?

In reality, most exchange in pre-monetary societites takes place through gifting or relying on people with whom one has a social relationship; barter is done between people who feel no sense of mutual responsiblity or desire to develop ongoing relations

Which of the following is an example of the concept of "partible maternity"?

In the mixtec village of Nuyoo, Oaxaca, Mexico, children and parents are believed to be linked by the sharing of blood, but breast milk is one "form" of blood; thus, when a child is born of one woman but breast fed by antoher, the child can be said to have two biological mothers

Which of the following is true about how social group identity is formed?

It can involve collective effervescence, which Durkheim described as enthusiastic ritual expressions of solidarity and helps creates feelings of emoitional attachment to a social group, it can form from a set of common interents, what Durkheim called "consciousness of a kind"

Which is NOT true about unilineal cultural evolution?

It is a new theory that is still being debated in current research

Which of the following is true about gift exchange?

It often implies a debt or obligation which will be repaid eventually, and which maintains a social relationship in the meantime

Raramuri, western Mexico

Kincentric ecology

Example of cultural relativism

Learning about the cultural context of female genital cuttings before passing moral judgment

It is impossible for an ethnographer to remain truly __________ about their observations

objective

Gender roles can mistakenly be seen as reflecting stable, fixed identities that fall into one of two oppositie extremes. But in reality, gender is an identity that is expressed through action and behavior, a pheonomen known as gender ___________________

performance

The saa sa'a festival in the Mixtec village of Nuyoo is a large fiesta which is financed over time through ___________________, in which the mayordomos, or couple charged with organizing the activiites and meals, rely on contributions from friends, neighbors and family members. In turn, the mayordomos are expected to contribute in kind when other Nuyootecos must ocme up with supplies to thrown their own festivals

reciprocal exchange

The term "language ideologies" refers to

representations about the characeristics of different kinds of people based on how they speak

One way that religions enhance social solidarity and form communiites is through routinized ______________, often involving offerings or sacrafices, which bring believers together through shared expereince and participation

rituals

Margaret Mead's fieldwork in Samoa is called into question because:

she did not speak the language will fluency, she only stayed for a few months, not the typical year, she did her fieldwork with a specific goal in mind

Anthropologists do not generally worry about whether a "strange" or "bizzare" belief is actually true or not, because it is consdidered a __________________ which inform the ways in which people in that society understand the world and act within it

social fact

The way you percieve yourself based on your membership in various socail gorups is called your ____________________

social identity

Lonas that are made to governments to make up for financial shortfalls by institutions such as the IMF often come with a condition of __________________, which require the governments to change their policies in ways that promote neoliberal values

structural adjustment

Redlining- a systematic denial of various services to residents of specific neighborhoods or communities- is both a result of, and helps to perpetuate:

structural racism

In Marx's theory of social structure, the _____________ consists of the institutions of education, family, religion, politics, media, culture, and so forth, which collectivley serve to maintain an ideology which legitimizes and justifies the existing relations of production

superstructure

The theoretical approach known as ______________ anthropolgy sees cultural as a public, shared system of symbols, metaphors, and understandings of the world, concerned primarily iwth the meanings of cultural actions and events

symbolic

Early British ethnographies based in colonialism are problematic because:

they often ignored the impact of colonialsim on culture, the anthropologists were usually ehtnocentric and didn't see the need to conduct fieldwork, they viewed the culture as static and unchanging

What does it mean to essentialize culture?

to say that a culture's trits are inherent qualiites or natural inclinations, to assume that cultures are static, unchanging, and fixed in time

A levirate is ....

when a man is expected to marry the wife of his deceased brother

Which of the following is an example of relational personhood?

Many societies in Melanesia believe that persons are "dividual", that is, defined by relationships with other social, cultural, and non-human collectives, rather than something inherent to an individual

How does the film "Two Spirits" provide an example of culturally constructed categories that are different from our own?

Navajo culture holds that there are four genders, including two for feminine men and masculine women, which reflects their belief that some persons caontain two spirits in their bodies

Which of the following is NOT a part of the process of "racial formation"?

Racial categories ultimately derive from real biological differences which are cleary defined; once formed, teh socail stereotypes associated with each race never change because they are linked to natural tendencies

What is true about the term "racial ideology"?

Racial ideologies are social constructions which don't have any objective basis in biology

Which of the following is NOT a policy consistent with neoliberal ideology?

Raising taxes on wealthy investors to raise government funds which can be put towards infrastructure modernization

Bolivian miners, Potosi, Bolivia

Religious syncretism

Which of the following is FALSE about marriage practices around the world?

Romantic love is always a factor in deciding who will marry each other, because if people don't love each other they won't stay together in the long run

Why is Balinese cockfighting considered a "gendered" activity?

Roosters are cultural symbols for male pride and masculitinity and cockfighting is an efficient means to settle social disputes and increase one's social status

Hopi native Americans, North America

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

What is the difference between "sex" and "gender", in anthropological terms?

Sex refers to biological differnces in development and reproductive systems, whereas gender refers to one's identity as a man or a woman, and behaviors of all genders are culturally constructed

What is the term that refers to the complex interactions between people of similar or different characterisitcs and social categories?

Social relations

What do we mean when we refer to a person as a subject?

Someone who, through the processes of individuation and socialization, experiences or organizes their own reality through conscoius beliefs, biases, imaginings, and perceptions of the world

Which of the following was discusses as an important component of participant-observation?

Speaking the language of the culture your are studying and living amoung the people you are studying

__________________ is a form of social stratification expressed in social and political structures and institutions. It can be subtle and often leads to forms of invisible privilege for socially dominant racial groups, as refleced in disparities regarding wealth, income, criminal justice, employment, housing, helath care, and other factors

Structural racism

A. R. Radcliffe-Brown

Structural-functionalism

Claude-Levi Strauss

Structuralism

Today, the racial demographic composition of the NBA league is predominantly black, but in the early part of the 20th century, the top basketball teams and leagues were dominanted by Jewish poeple. What does this historical fact indicate?

That racial stereotypes, and the qualities associated with racial categories, are plastic and change in response to changing social realities

Which of the following is an historical example of "making" a nation-state?

The French nation-state in the 1800s, involving a system of infrastructure projects uniting the country geographically, and a new education system implemented on a huge scale

The exchange of Kula in the Trobriand Islands, as document by Malinowski, involved making long voyages to give away shell objects which had little apparent functional use. Why did the Trobriand Islanders desire these objects? In other words, what was the value of the Kula based on?

The Kula built up an owner's renown and status, because some bracelets and necklaces were associated with particularly renowned and well-regarded men through a chain of ownership of specific Kula

In "Kincentric Ecologies", iwigara means:

The belief that all life shares the same breath, and ultimately is related by common origin

Which of the following is a feautre of the Potlach ceremony, which is a famous ethnographic example documented in Kwakuitl tibres in the American Pacific Northwest region?

The ceremony involved chiefs giving away large amounts of goods and objects of wealth to their quests, the ceremonies were ways to gain status and prestige by competing with other chiefs, to demonstrate how much wealth one could accumulate and afford to give away, the ceremonies were a form of "gift exchange" because chiefs and their followers who gave things away by hositng one potlatch may be guests at other potlatches, thus receiving objects of wealth

Consider the two statements about the nature of identity Identity is performed, or acted out in society, and can change depending on social context. Identity is imposed on people by social institutions and cultural beliefs based on natural or essential characteristcs of any given person Which of the following answers best characterizes these two statements?

The first statement is true, but the second is only sort of true: the characteristics of socially imposed idenity aren't acutally natural- they are only made to seem that way.

What does Benedict Anderson mean when he refers to nation-states as "imagined communities"?

The way in which governments forge 'shared' expereinces, histories, culture, and sense of destiny out of a group of millions people, spread over a large territory, who will probably never meet each other

Which of the following is true about language ideologies?

They are often related to other areas of cultural discouse, such as the nature of persons, of power, and of a desirable moral order

_____________________ refers to a kind of ethnography that includes not only descritpion and observation of human behavior and beliefs, but also includes a close study and analysis of the context in which that behavior occurs

Thick description

Lewis Henry Morgan

Unilinear cultural evolution

Which of the following is NOT an example of gender policing?

Wearing women's clothings when your gender as a woman

What is cultural relativism?

Willlingly suspending judgment until you learn more about a cultural practice, understanding that a person's beliefs, values, and practices are based on that person's own culture

Genotype

based in biology

Texture of hair and color of skin

based in biology

Ethnicity

based in culture

Gender role

based in culture

Race

based in culture

The capability of all languages to refer to communicate ideas in the abstract, outside of the here and now, is known as _______________

displacement

One reason it is dangerous to _____________ culture is because it invites, and even demands, the "natural" linking of people with cultural or moral characteristics that are actually the result of historical and social processes

essentialize

Ayareo, Paraguay forest

first contact

Ruth benedict was one of the foremost proponents of a theoretical approach that can be called ____________________, which aruged that each society has its own unique hisotry that must be understood on its own terms, and cannot be reduced to a universal scheme

historical particularism

__________________ is the term used to describe a system of ideas, beliefs, and values that a person or group of people ahve for non-factual reasons. These ideas reflcet subjective expereince of the nature of the world, or how the world should be

ideology

Clifford Geertz

interpretive anthropology

In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' analysis of capitalism, the social dominance of the capitalist class is based on their control and ownership over the ____________________________, which includes things like the machines, factories, land, and raw materials used to make commodities

means of production

Skin tone, lactose intolerance, and blood type are all examples of biological traits that vary continuosly among a population within a geographic area; in this type of variation, known as a ___________, a trait may be more common in one area than antoher, but variation is gradual and continous with no sharp peaks

cline

The two main ways of recognizing and forming kinship relations are affinity and ________________, although how exactly these are conceptualized can vary culturally.

consanguinity

Categories of gender, race, ethnicity, and even personhood are all examples of ______________________ - that is, they are not rooted in natural biology, but are ideologies that vary from culture to culture

cultrual construction

Leslie white

cultural ecology

Franz Boas' ideas about historical particularism and cultural relativism were largely formulated in reaction agiainst the theorgy of _____________________, which calimed that all human socieites could be fint into a single universal set of progressive stages

cultural evolution