Anthropology Exam 2 (Ch. 7-8)

How does a big man increase his status?

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

How do chiefdoms differ from states

Chiefdoms lack socioeconomic stratification and stratum endogamy.

Which of the following statements about nonstate societies is true?

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

Which of the following statements about irrigation is

Irrigated fields typically increase in value through time. The Betsileo of Madagascar used irrigation intensively. Irrigation usually enriches the soil. Irrigated fields are labor intensive compared to swidden (burned over) fields.

Which of the following statements about irrigation is FALSE?

Irrigation is one of the defining characteristics of foraging societies.

Which of the following statements about shifting cultivation is true?

It requires cultivators to change plots of land, with the fallowing durations varying in different societies.

Which of the following statements about potlatching is NOT true?

Potlatching is a case that proves that the profit-maximizing motive is a human universal.

What happens as one moves along the cultivation continuum?

The use of land and labor intensifies.

In recent times, many foraging groups have been exposed to the idea of food production but have not adopted it. Why?

Their own economies provided a perfectly adequate and nutritious diet, with a lot less work.

Why is it important to remember that the chiefdom and the state, like many categories used by social scientists, are ideal types?

They are labels that make social contrasts seem sharper than they really are.

Which of the following statements about peasants is NOT true?

They are not part of the world market.

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

They have no means of forcing people to follow their decisions.

Which of the following was a characteristic shared by recent foraging communities?

They lived in marginal environments that were of little interest to food-producing societies.

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?

What is an age set?

a group uniting men born during a certain span of time in some pastoral African societies

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

a person who creates his reputation through entrepreneurship and generosity to others

Which of the following is the most important factor in determining an individual's power and prestige in a state?

ancestry

Tribal societies, which are typically organized by village life or membership in descent groups, tend to be egalitarian. However, egalitarianism diminishes

as village size and population density increase.

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

band

Noting that chiefdoms created the megalithic cultures of Europe, such as the one that built Stonehenge, Kottak reminds us that

chiefdoms and states can fall as well as rise.

Which of the following was NOT used by traditional Inuit to handle disputes?

courts of law

A big man's position depends on all of the following

creation of wealth superior to that of others. generosity. personal charisma. hard work.

Anthropologist Susan Kent notes a tendency to stereotype foragers, to treat them as all alike. They used to be stereotyped as isolated, primitive survivors of the Stone Age. Another common, more recent, stereotype of foragers sees them as

culturally deprived people forced by states, colonialism, or world events into marginalized environments.

Which of the following is a characteristic of most foraging societies?

egalitarianism

As an example of how virtually no one is immune from larger political and economic forces, the Yanomami tribal society of Brazil has suffered recent changes as a result of

encroachment by gold miners and ranchers.

In the anthropological study of political systems, social control maintains social norms (cultural standards) and regulates conflict. Which of the following is NOT a form of social control?

exogamy

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

generalized reciprocity

Intensive agriculture

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

Which of the following is most characteristic of foragers?

high mobility and small groups with flexible affiliations

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 generally occurs in moving toward the more intensive end of the cultivation continuum?

increasing economic specialization

Generalized reciprocity

is the characteristic form of exchange in egalitarian societies.

According to Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault,

it is easier and more effective to dominate people in their minds than to try to control their bodies.

Despite the analytical usefulness of learning about anthropologist Elman Service's typology of political organization into bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states, it is important to remember that

none of these political entities, or polities, can be studied as a self-contained form of political organization, because all exist within nation-states.

What kinds of societies typically are associated with slash-and-burn cultivation?

nonindustrial societies

The Yanomami of Venezuela and Brazil have descent groups, which span more than one village and are

patrilineal and exogamous in nature.

A horticultural system of cultivation is characterized by

periodic cycles of cultivation and fallowing.

Which of the following is NOT characteristic of band-organized societies?

permanent villages

A comparison between the Basseri and Qashqai, two Iranian nomadic tribes, illustrates how as regulatory problems increase,

political hierarchies become more complex.

In the southern United States before the Civil War, gatherings of five or more slaves were forbidden unless a white person was present, because

resistance is most likely to be expressed openly when people are allowed to assemble.

Who are peasants?

small-scale farmers with rent fund obligations

According to Max Weber, prestige is the basis of

social status.

Economic relationships are characteristically embedded in other relationships, such as kinship, in all of the following kinds of societies EXCEPT

states.

The presence and acceptance of which of the following is one of the key distinguishing features of a state?

stratification

Yehudi Cohen's adaptive strategies

suggest an association between the economies of societies and their social features.

Throughout the many years that Kottak has been doing research among the nonindustrial Betsileo of Madagascar, he has witnessed the impact of globalization on their livelihood. All of the following have threatened the traditional fabric of Betsileo life EXCEPT

the increased presence of anthropologists collaborating with local leaders to preserve their ancestral lands.

Which of the following economic principles is generally dominant in industrial society?

the market principle

Unlike in industrial societies, where economic alienation is common, in nonindustrial societies

the relations of production, distribution, and consumption are social relations with economic aspects.

What is a mode of production?

the way a society's social relations are organized to produce the labor necessary for generating the society's subsistence and energy needs

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.

In which of the following forms of political organization is it most likely that the most important leaders will acquire their positions based upon personal background or ability, rather than heredity?

tribal societies

The influential sociologist Max Weber defined which three related dimensions of social stratification?

wealth, power, and prestige