Anthro Test #2

Understand the role of adaptation, both cultural and biological.

-Human populations adapt both culturally and biologically. In cold environments there are changes in technology, behavior, and body stature. -Small-scale societies usually make very satisfactory adaptations to their environments (e.g. Krajick's research of the Inca show that they used conservation techniques to maximize production). -Archaeologists now have evidence that certain prehistoric societies used their environmental resources wisely. -Some societies now face environmental disaster from economic development (the dry Aral Sea in Uzbekistan).

Recognize the costs and the benefits of industrialized agriculture, especially in terms of environmental impact.

-Industrialization relies on technological sources of energy rather than human or animal energy. -Uses mechanized equipment, chemicals to increase productivity -Commercialized - majority of food today is sold by food producers to non-producers for some form of currency -Requires complex systems of market exchange because of its highly specialized nature -Rise of agribusiness (large-scale agricultural enterprises) accompanied by decline of family farms; decrease in percentage of world's population engaged in food production ~Costs of industrialization: -Machinery and technology are expensive. -Fuel costs are high. -Expenses of processing, transporting, and marketing products -Environmental destruction -Loss of farmers globally

Understand the positive and negative cultural changes brought about by the Neolithic Revolution.

-Produced the first population explosion and allowed humans to be more sedentary -Allowed for specialization and a more complex social structure

Explain the focus of cross-cultural studies of economics.

-Regulation of resources -Production -Exchange

Be able to define horticulture and explain the limitations and the advantages of slash and burn cultivation.

-Simplest type of farming that uses basic hand tools (hoe or digging stick) rather than plows or other machinery driven by animals -Destroys large tracts of both forests and grasslands, Air pollution, Soil erosion reduces long-term productivity of land

Understand the great diversity in formal means of social control and the significant difference in the objectives of legal systems in more and less complex societies.

-When disputes become violent conflicts, they are called crimes. -Song Duels -Intermediaries -Moots: Informal Courts -Oaths and Ordeals -Courts and Codified Law -Warfare

Describe the social and economic organization of egalitarian societies.

1. Food collectors 2. No individual or group has more wealth, power, or prestige than any other. 3. Esteemed individuals cannot transform skills into power or wealth. 4. High status positions constantly change to reflect the number of qualified candidates. 5. As many positions of prestige as there are persons capable of filling them 6. Are usually transformed to non-egalitarian when contact with stratified societies occurs

Recognize the range of socio-economic organization that occurs within stratified societies.

1. Inequality in power, wealth, and prestige 2. Inequality is permanent and formally recognized 3. Access to resources is inherited 4. Arose approximately 5500 years ago with the rise of civilization 5. Population is highly differentiated into role specialization. 6. Two different types of stratified societies: those based on class and those based on caste

Discuss the functionalist interpretation of social stratification.

1. Stratification contributes to the overall well-being of the society. 2. Stratification adequately rewards the most important jobs in society. 3. Fills society's key jobs with the best people 4. Weaknesses a. Greatest rewards not always given to those filling the most vital positions b. Puts barriers in the way of certain segments of the society c. Incorrectly assumes that people in all societies are motivated by the desire to maximize wealth, power, and prestige

Define and identify three dimensions of political organization.

1. The extent to which political institutions are distinct from other aspects of the social structure 2. The extent to which authority is concentrated in specific political roles 3. The level of political integration ranked as band, tribe, chiefdom, or state

2. How would you feel if a product that you use frequently was being produced by children as exploited workers in another country? Would it affect whether you would purchase it again?

??

Understand how state systems have changed over the millennia, particularly in light of globalization.

-Democratization of many nation states -Technological advances in communication mean that governments can no longer control the flow of information. -The information revolution - and the Internet specifically - is significantly impacting political and electoral processes.

Discuss the impact of a culture's environment and technology on its food acquisition strategies.

-Environment does not determine food-getting patterns but rather sets broad limits on possible alternatives. -Technology helps people adapt to their specific environment. -Variation in technological adaptation does not imply less ability to cope with the environment. -Carrying capacity -The environmentally-determined upper limit on the productivity of any food-getting system and the size of the population it can support -Consequence of exceeding the carrying capacity is damage to the environment -Optimal foraging theory suggests that foragers and collectors maximize their caloric return for the time they spend in food-getting

Discuss the contradictions between the ideology and the actual experience of social mobility in the United States.

-According to U.S. national mythology there is a good deal of social mobility. -The reality is that most people do not change class in lifetime.

7. Why is it important to society to regulate sexual conduct?

...

Understand how warfare serves as a mechanism of social control outside one's own group or society.

Reasons foraging societies were not warlike: -Had no centralized governments that could finance and coordinate number of people needed for military campaigns -Absence of food surpluses precluded prolonged combat -Did not control land or territorial boundaries - major motivations for warfare -Exogamous bands not likely to become hostile toward other bands into which relatives have married

Understand the difference between redistribution and market economy.

Redistribution a. Goods are given to a central authority and then given back to people in a new pattern b. Involves two stages: an inward flow of goods and services to a social center, followed by an outward dispersal of these goods and services back to society Market Exchange a) Goods and services are bought and sold, often through the use of a standardized currency. b) Less personal than exchanges based on reciprocity or redistribution

Explain and give examples of endogamy and exogamy.

Rules of exogamy - marrying outside of a certain group Rules of endogamy - marrying within a certain group

Understand the large variation in human sexual behavior across cultures.

Sexual behavior in the U.S. is becoming more permissive. -Young people are becoming more sexually active at an earlier age. -The percentage of sexually active youngsters is increasing. -Sexual activity is becoming more frequent for those who are sexually active.

Recognize the great importance of informal means of social control for complex state organizations as well as for bands and tribes.

Socialization- Every society, if it is to survive, must pass on social norms from one generation to the next. Public Opinion- In all parts of the world most people want the approval of other members of their society. Corporate Lineages- Play a dominant role in most small-scale societies Supernatural Belief Systems- Belief in supernatural forces such as gods, witches, and sorcerers

Define political organization.

a set of customary procedures that accomplish decision making, conflict resolution, and social control.

Explain why anthropologists discuss gender differences rather than sex differences.

C. The definitions of femaleness and maleness varies widely from society to society. D. Gender 1. The way members of the two sexes are perceived, evaluated, and expected to behave 2. Biological differences influence social definitions of maleness or femaleness to varying degrees. 3. Not all cultures limit humans to two genders. 4. Not always possible to determine the extent to which culture or biology determines differences in behaviors or attitudes between the sexes

Recognize the importance of cultural rules for kinship classification that may not account for biological factors.

All kinship systems are founded on biological connections. 1. Each society classifies its kin according to a set of cultural rules that may or may not account for biological factors. 2. The ways in which societies sort and categorize kinship relationships is as much a matter of culture as it is a matter of biology.

Identify five major food-procurement categories found among the world's populations.

Hunting and Gathering Horticulture Pastoralism Agriculture Industrial agriculture

Give a cross-culturally valid definition of family.

In all known societies, people recognize a certain number of relatives who make up the basic social group called the family. B. Family is a social unit characterized by 1. Economic cooperation 2. Management of reproduction and child rearing 3. Common residence 4. Includes both male and female adults who maintain a socially approved sexual relationship 5. Family members recognize certain rights and obligations toward one other.

Give a clear definition of kinship and distinguish this from the concept of family.

Kinship refers to the relationships - found in all societies - that are based on blood or marriage (consanguinal and affinal relationships). B. Every society defines the nature of kinship interaction by determining which kin are more socially important than others, terms to classify kin types, and expected forms of behavior between them. C. Fictive kinship - people who are not related by either blood or marriage

Give a cross-culturally valid definition of marriage.

Distinct from the institution of marriage a. A series of customs formalizing the relationship between male and female partners within the family b. A socially approved union that regulates the sexual and economic rights and obligations between two people c. Involves explicit contract or understanding entered into with the assumption that it will be a permanent union d. Until recently no country in the world permitted same-sex marriage

11. Global wealth inequity is enormous. How fair or just is our world in its allocation and use of resources?

p.309

12. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the Internet in fostering democratization?

p.323

Explain the significance of the concepts of production, distribution, and consumption for anthropological economics.

production- the process of obtaining goods from the natural environment and transforming them into usable objects distribution- systems of exchange are essential for every economy. Economics focuses on production, distribution, and consumption as observed in the industrialized world.

Explain three functions of marriage.

A. Creates fairly stable relationships between men and women that regulate sexual mating and reproduction B. Provides a mechanism for regulating sexual division of labor C. Creates a set of family relationships that can provide for material, educational, and emotional needs of children for a long period of time

Appreciate the idea of global stratification between the rich and poor countries of the world.

A. Not only are people stratified within a society, but societies themselves are stratified. 1. Per capita gross national income varies from $140 (Burundi) to $43,000 (U.S.). 2. Poor countries have a number of negative characteristics: a. Highest birth rates b. Lowest life expectancy c. Poorest health facilities d. Poorest education

Understand the social and ethnical challenges that accompany new reproductive technologies.

A. The revolution in information technology now enables people to learn more about their distant relatives. B. Research on kinship generalizes from systems and relationships that are not neat and tidy in real life. C. Kinship systems are constantly experiencing changes through contact with external forces. D. Kinship systems are the most intimate, intense, and long-lasting set of social relationships. E. Even well-integrated kinship groups are changed by external pressure. F. Today new reproductive technologies (e.g., in vitro fertilization, sperm banks, surrogate mothers) are causing us to rethink kinship theoretically, legally, and ethically.

Discuss whether or not women are universally subordinate and the dimensions in which women's status varies.

Apartheid of gender 1. Two-thirds of all illiterate people in the world today are women. 2. The world's women are concentrated in lowest-paid occupations and receive less pay and fewer benefits than men. 3. Increasing number of women are being pushed into the informal economy 4. The "feminization of poverty" 5. Reproductive health issues are problems in developing countries. 6. Women do not have access to credit. 7. Women, approximately half the world's population do two-thirds of the work, earn one-tenth of the world's income, and own less than one percent of the world's property. 8. Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM)

Discuss how research on gender in other cultures demonstrates that it is not biology alone that is responsible for differences in women's and men's behavior.

Before the 1960s there was little research on comparative sexuality. B. Although no society fails to regulate sexual conduct, some are permissive and some more restrictive. C. There are a wide variety of attitudes and behaviors concerning male homosexuality

Contrast the four types of political structures discussed by Ferraro in his description of the continuum of variation from acephalous societies to state systems.

Class versus caste (Ferraro) a. Differ in social mobility b. Class is associated with achieved status. c. Caste is associated with ascribed status. d. Caste and class systems may overlap each other.

Understand the practice of bridewealth and why it is important to recognize its social, as well as economic, aspects.

Compensation given upon marriage by the family of the groom to the family of the bride Performs functions for the well-being of the society- Security or insurance for the good treatment of the wife Monetization of bridewealth - use of money as the medium of exchange

Understand the factors leading to the high divorce rate in the United States.

Divorce in the U.S. has increased dramatically in last half century for many reasons: 1. Industrialization and urbanization have undermined traditional family functions. 2. Rise of individualism has led people to be less willing to make sacrifices for family. 3. Romantic love makes marriage vulnerable when sexual passion subsides. 4. Much less of a stigma attached to divorce today. 5. Divorce has become relatively easy to obtain.

Explain what gender ideology is and be able to argue whether those ideologies represent only a male perspective.

Gender ideology is a system of thoughts and values that legitimize gender roles, statuses, and customary behavior. 1. Religion - women excluded from holding major leadership roles or participating in certain ceremonies 2. Women associated with pollution 3. Foods procured by men are more highly valued than those procured by women. 4. Women treated legally as minors 5. The dominant trend is toward male-biased parental favorites.

Explain the universal use of gender and age for allocation of economic tasks.

Gender specialization a. Theories to explain common, if not universal, division of labor by gender 1) Men's greater body mass and strength makes them better equipped for hunting, warfare, and land clearing. 2) Women's tasks compatible with child care. 3) Men tend to be more expendable so they engage in dangerous activities. b. Men and women are often assigned roles because of social, political, and historical forces operating in individual societies. 3. Age Specialization a. Because of lack of knowledge and physical strength, children are often excluded from certain tasks. 1) In a growing number of countries children under 14 are working full time in the global economy. 2) Negative effects of child labor include working long hours under deplorable condition for low wages. b. Elderly, because of waning physical strength, often prohibited from certain tasks or are expected to engage in different activities from earlier years.

Distinguish among three types of reciprocity.

Generalized reciprocity: An exchange system based primarily on generalized reciprocity is common among food collectors and contributes to their very survival. Balanced Reciprocity: An exchange system involving the expectation that goods and services of equivalent value will be returned within a specified period of time Negative Reciprocity: A form of exchange between equals in which the parties attempt to take advantage of each other

Describe modern-day family structure and its functions.

In the U.S. today we see increasing numbers of multigenerational households due to poverty. 2. There are growing nontraditional, alternative family patterns, such as single headed female households. 3. In countries such as Korea single mothers are rarely found because they are ostracized by society. 4. No longer a "typical" family in the United States

Define incest and summarize four theories explaining why the incest taboo is universal.

Incest Taboo - most common form of prohibition against mating with certain types of kin defined by the society as inappropriate sexual partners A. Natural Aversion Theory (early twentieth century)-There is a natural aversion to sexual intercourse among those who have grown up together B. Inbreeding Theory (late nineteenth century)-Focuses on potential harmful effects of inbreeding on the family, Mating between close kin tends to produce a higher incidence of genetic defects C. Family Disruption Theory - Malinowski- Mating between a mother and son, father and daughter, or brother and sister would disrupt family functioning as a unit of economic cooperation and socialization D. Theory of Expanding Social Alliances- Marrying out of the immediate family creates a wider network of interfamily alliances.

Recognize there are alternative ways of allocating natural resources other than the principle of private property.

Notion of personal property is absent in most societies that base livelihood on food collecting, pastoralism, or horticulture.

Know the five basic residence rules that operate in human societies.

Patrilocal residence- Married couple lives with or near husband's father Matrilocal residence- Married couple lives with or near relatives of the wife Avunculocal residence- Married couple lives with or near the husband's mother's brother Ambilocal (bilocal) residence- Married couple has a choice of living with either relatives of wife or relatives of husband Neolocal residence- Married couple forms an independent place of residence away from the relatives of either spouse

Understand how the increased social and technological complexity of chiefdoms over bands or tribes is reflected in their political organization.

Political authority is likely to reside with a single individual, acting alone or in conjunction with an advisory council 2. Integrate a number of local communities in a more formal and permanent way 3. Differing levels of prestige and power 4. Chiefships are often hereditary. 5. Chiefs are centralized and permanent officials with higher rank, power, and authority than others in the society. a. Authority to make judgments, punish wrongdoers, and settle disputes b. Authority to distribute land, recruit people into military service, and recruit laborers for public works projects c. Authority usually reinforced by alleged supernatural powers 6. Control a redistributive system

Describe the political organization of state societies and the basis for the authority of the state.

Power organized on a suprakinship basis - a person's membership in a state is based on place of residence and citizenship rather than on kinship affiliation Authority rests on two foundations: a. State holds exclusive right to use force and physical coercion. b. State maintains its authority by means of ideology.

Give examples of male gender bias and the impact it has on women in our culture and in other cultures.

Question now is whether women accept the ideological justifications for their subjugation 1. Male ethnographers may have distorted interpretations of gender ideology. 2. Recent studies, written from a woman's perspective, are important because they serve as a corrective to male gender bias in previous work.

Understand the distinction between race and ethnicity.

Race means an inbreeding population whose members share a greater number of traits with one another than they do with people outside the group. 1. Different societies have different categories of classification (U.S. and Brazil). 2. Race is only a statistical statement about the occurrence of physical traits. Ethnicity refers to cultural traits that are passed on from generation to generation. 1. Ethnic group members define themselves and members of their group as "us." 2. Ethnic groups tend to cut across socioeconomic lines.

Understand conflict theory's interpretation of stratification as exploitation by the upper levels of hierarchy.

The natural tendency of all societies is toward change and conflict. 2. Stratification exists because people at the upper levels are willing and able to use wealth, power, and prestige to exploit those below them. 3. Derived from writings of Karl Marx 4. Economic forces are the main factors shaping a society. 5. There is a classic struggle between those who control the means of production and those who provide labor. 6. A false consciousness is created to keep workers from revolting. a. A class consciousness would allow workers to recognize their own exploitation as well as their collective power to change their situation.

Present a clear description of the variety of markets that exist and their distinct functions.

Variety of Markets a. Extent to which markets are responsible for distribution of goods and services varies widely b. Every economy is a blend of both government control and free markets. c. U.S. market - there is virtually nothing that cannot be bought or sold in the market. d. Small-scale economies - little labor specialization, small surpluses, and limited range of goods and services exchanged e. All societies have both formal and informal (unregulated) economies. f. Societies with well-developed market economies struggle with question of how much to rely on forces of the market or on government to regulate the economy

Explain three theories that account for the formation of state societies and recognize that independent cases of state formation might require more than one theory for adequate explanation.

Voluntaristic Theory of State Formation -Development of intensive agriculture created increase in occupational specialization -Necessitated wider form of political integration to mediate between and protect special interest groups and to provide the economic superstructure to enable them to work in an efficient manner Hydraulic Theory of State Formation -Small-scale irrigation farmers came to see economic advantages to surrendering their autonomy and merging into a larger political entity capable of large-scale irrigation. Coercive Theory of State Formation -Force is the mechanism by which political evolution has moved to the state.

Explain three factors involved in social ranking.

Wealth- Forms of wealth vary. Power- The ability to achieve goals and objectives even against the will of others Prestige- Social respect, esteem, or admiration that society confers on certain people

Understand questions raised by economic anthropologists about the universal nature of economic behavior.

Western economists assume that individuals as well as corporations are motivated by desire to maximize material well-being. -Other societies' economic principles may be based on reciprocity or redistribution which emphasize cooperation and generosity. -Even in the United States there is an increase in the extent to which people fail to maximize their economic well-being.

6. In the U.S., less than 25 percent of all doctoral degrees in mathematics, computer science, and engineering are awarded to women. How do you account for this?

p.279

1. Considering the environmental damage done by industrialized agriculture, is the argument valid that it is more productive than other forms of plant cultivation?

p. 171

3. How could an arranged marriage benefit a bride and groom?

p. 213

4. Does the term "bridewealth" stress the economic implications of the marriage exchange over more important social implications?

p. 222

5. It is often said that kinship is not important in societies such as the United States. How would you argue against this? How do our kinship relationships still have significance?

p. 234

8. How is feminization of poverty found in the United States? What can improve the supply of resources available to women and children?

p. 281

9. Why do egalitarian societies change so much when they come into contact with stratified societies?

p. 288

10. Contrast what functionalists mean when they say that some jobs require more talent and hard work than others with the conflict theorist arguement that the people at upper levels of the hierarchy are harmed by their own exploitation of the workers.

p. 306