Anthropology 101
All of these forms of reciprocity except _____.
distributive
Anthropologists agree that male dominance is a historical and contemporary feature of all societies
false
Because language is culturally situated, people who speak different languages and are from different cultures are unable to communicate.
false
Because myths are untruths that many primitive people tell themselves, they have no real value.
false
Because the capitalist endeavor increases the economic sustainability of most countries, it has little to no negative moral, political of cultural implications.
false
Bio-cultural adaption - such as sickle cell anemia - always positively effects people's genetic makeup by making them better adapted to their environments
false
Like class system, caste systems afford all peoples in the society equal access to goods, services and prestige
false
Most anthropologists consider rituals to be purely sacred happenings.
false
Racial categories have always existed around the world and therefore should be considered innate and universal.
false
The berdache are individuals with sex anomalies and whose gender is perceived as being the archetype of Indian society.
false
Women participate in the entire Ainu Bear Ceremony
false
ethnocentrism is purely an American - Western-phenomenon
false
Biopower
forms of power preoccupied with bodies, both the bodies of citizens and the social body of the state itself.
The shaping of local conditions by powerful worldwide forces on an ever-intensifying scale is the concept of
globalization
By keeping track of its citizens (e.g., via the issuing of birth and death certificates), states exercise a form of government called_____.
govermentality
The exercise of at least some control over their lives by human beings is called....
human agency
Biocultural Adaptation
human cultural practices influenced by natural selection on genes that affect human health.
The logic and reason used to justify unequal social arrangements can be called______.
ideology
for the Azande, witchcraft
is a substance in the body of witches
Habitus
is one of Bourdieu's most influential yet ambiguous concepts. It refers to the physical embodiment of cultural capital, to the deeply ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions that we possess due to our life experiences.
All of these are characteristics of culture except that -
it is stagnant
Multiculturalism
living permanently in settings surrounded by people with cultural backgrounds different from one's own and struggling to define with them the degree to which the cultural beliefs and practices of different groups should or should not be accorded respect and recognition by the wider society.
Gift exchange
non-capitalist forms of economic exchange that are deeply embedded in social relations and always require a return gift.
_______refers to the smallest set of meaningless sounds which compose meaning-bearing units called_____. E.g. the letters h-a-t have no meaning on their own but together spell the word "hat"
phonemes, morphemes
Each of these are kinds of spousal systems except____.
pluralistic
Human rights
powers, privileges, or material resources to which people everywhere, by virtue of being human, are justly entitled.
legal ciiizenship
refers to citizenship rights and/or obligations as noted by state law
cultural relativism
requires us to take many things into account before we form opinions about other cultural practices
Which of the following statements accurately represents Arjun Appadurai's understanding of secularism in India?
secularism arrived in India with British colonialism, but it has become, over time, indigenized, customized, domesticated <i> Indian </i> secularism
The process of nested groups opposing each other at different hierarchical levels is known as______.
segmentary opposition
"Race"
social groupings that allegedly reflect biological differences.
Sapir/Whorf Hypothesis
states that the structure of a language determines or greatly influences the modes of thought and behavior characteristic of the culture in which it is spoken.
Myths
stories that recount how various aspects of the world came to be the way they are. The power of myths comes from their ability to make life meaningful for those who accept them. The truth of myths seems self evident because they effectively integrate personal experiences with a wider set of assumptions about the way society, or the world in general, must operate.
Liminality
the ambiguous transitional state in a rite of passage in which the person or persons undergoing the ritual are outside their ordinary social positions.
Medical Pluralism
the coexistence of enthnomedical systems alongside cosmopolitan medicine.
Syndemic
the combined effects on a population of more than one disease, the effects of which are exacerbated by poor nutrition, social instability, violence, or other stressful environmental factors.
Naturalizing Discourse
the deliberate representation of particular identities as if they were a result of biology or nature, rather than history or culture, making them appear eternal and unchanging.
Cultural Imperialism
the idea that some cultures dominate others and that domination by one culture leads inevitably to the destruction of subordinated cultures and their replacement by the culture of those in power.
Medical Anthropology
the specialty of anthropology that concerns itself with human health - the factors that contribute to disease or illness and the ways that human populations deal with disease or illness.
Semantics
the study of meaning.
Syncretism
the synthesis of old religious practices with new religious practices introduced from outside, often by force.
Perhaps the most profound lesson we can learn from the Kiowa experience of Christianity is...
the way in which Kiowa Christians have been able to transform what began as an exercise in cultural imperialism into a reaffirmation of traditional Kiowa values challenges the presumption that "authentic cultures" never change
Liminal, from the Latin word limen, means
threshold
Structural Violence
violence that results from the way that political and economic forces structure risk for various forms of suffering within a population.
artists in non-western societies
work with symbols that are of central importance to their societies.
Orthodoxy
"correct doctrine"; the prohibition of deviation from approved mythic texts.
Subjectivity
"the felt interior experience of the person that includes his or her position in a field of relational power"
The establishment of hegemony involves _____.
1) the persuasion of subordinate groups 2) the effective dissemination of an elite ideology 3) the incorporation of material benefits to subordinate groups
Symbols can be used as instruments of power when
1) they are under the direct control of a person wishing to affect the behavior of others. 2) they are used for reference or in support of certain conduct. 3) some people are able to impose their metaphors on others.
Pidgin
a language with no native speakers that develops in a single generation between members of communities that possess distinct native languages.
Redistribution
a mode of exchange that requires some form of centralized social organization to receive economic contributions from all members of the group and to redistribute them in such a way as to provide for every group member.
Transformist Hegemony
a nationalist program to define nationality in a way that preserves the cultural domination of the ruling group while including enough cultural features from subordinated groups to ensure their loyalty.
Ritual
a repetitive social practice composed of a sequence of symbolic activities in the form of dance, song, speech, gestures, of the manipulation of objects, adhering to a culturally defined ritual schema, and closely connected to a specific set of ideas that are often encoded in myth.
A ritual that serves to mark the movement and transformation of an individual from one social position to another is called....
a rite of passage
Rites of Passage
a ritual that serves to mark the movement and transformation of an individual from one social position to another.
Grammar
a set of rules that aim to describe fully the patterns of linguistic usage observed by speakers of a particular language.
When one's social identity is based on his or her medical diagnosis, he/she is experiencing a kind of ______.
bio-sociability
Class vs caste
caste - a ranked group within a hierarchy stratified society that is closed, prohibiting individuals to move from one caste to another. classes - ranked group within a hierarchically stratified society whose membership is defined primarily in terms of wealth, occupation, or other economic criteria.
An approach that views human beings and environments as open systems that modify each other is called
coevolutionary
Metacommunication refers to
communication about communication
Meta-communication
communication about the process of communication itself.
Institutions
complex, variable, and enduring,forms of cultural practices that organize social life.
Each of the following help to define what makes human language distinctive except_____?
context
Sets of learned behavior and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society, together with the material artifacts and structures humans create and use, is an anthropological definition of.....
culture
The process by which human beings living with one another must learn to come to terms with the ways of thinking and feeling considered appropriate in their respective cultures is....
enculturation
The center post is revered because the bear is sacrificed against it. What is wrapped around the center post, as part of a ritual offering?
evergreen garlands
Some social groups have a _____ in which kinship is traced through mother-child links while other societies may recognize an equal relatedness through both the mother and father's lineage. This is known as____
matrilineage, bilateral descent
Clifford Geertz, as quoted in the text, observes that human beings raised in isolation would be
mental basket cases
Diaspora
migrant populations with a shared identity who live in a variety of different locales around the world; a form of trans-border identity that does not focus on nation building.
When people live permanently in a setting in which they are surrounded by people with cultural backgrounds different from their own and are struggling to define with them the degree to which the cultural beliefs and practices should or should not be accorded respect and recognition, they are said to live in a
multicultural society
Changes in the volume, tone or rhythm of speech in language is known as prosody.
true
Most anthropologists agree that production, distribution and consumption are the three major phases of economic activity.
true
Pidgin languages tend to be the product of colonialism or commercial domination
true
Racism and racial thinking are cultural constructions based in ideology not biology
true
Sickness that are specific to particular cultural groups are kinds of culture-bound syndromes
true
Stratification is based heavily on culturally invented differences between groups of people.
true
The notion of one culture dominating the other without the recognition of non-westernized cultural diffusion is known as cultural imperialism
true
endemic diseases are always present in population
true
The anthropological definition of cultural relativism requires that we make an effort to ________ the practices of other cultures.
understand
Cultural Relativism
understanding another culture in its own terms sympathetically enough so that the culture appears to be a coherent and meaningful design for living.