Anthropology Final Exam
________ is a system of power based on wealth, income, and status that creates an unequal distribution of a society's resources.
Class
________ society is based on the sharing of resources to ensure group success and has relatively low hierarchy and violence.
Egalitarian
Melanie Medeiros's research on the impact of a new tourism industry on families in Brogodo, Brazil, demonstrates which pattern?
Expanding economic opportunities for women are linked to a rapid rise in divorce.
What was one of the surprising results that Kinsey and his research revealed about sexual behavior in the United States?
Fantasies and same-sex attraction were much more common than expected.
How did Margaret Mead's work contribute to a greater understanding of human sexuality?
It challenged the assumption that U.S. attitudes toward sexuality were universal traits fixed in human nature.
Since the mid-1970s, how has class inequality in the United States changed?
It has increased due to decreasing tax rates for the wealthy and stagnating salaries for the middle class.
What function does reciprocity serve?
It helps build social ties and prestige.
With which of the following statements about human behavior would an anthropologist be most likely to agree?
It is a combination of nature (biology) and nurture (enculturation).
Bridewealth is prevalent in many African societies and parts of the Middle East and frequently means that the groom's family gives cattle, cash, or other goods to the family of the bride-to-be. What is the goal of bridewealth?
It stabilizes the marriage through establishment of mutual, vested interest.
Roger Lancaster found that in Nicaragua, men who received anal intercourse were stigmatized whereas men who penetrated other men during anal intercourse were still considered properly masculine. What does this reveal about the concept of machismo?
Machismo presents a strong contrast between aggression and passivity.
E. E. Evans-Pritchard conducted fieldwork among the Azande and rebuffed Max Weber's earlier assertion that science and modernization would lead to the decline of magic. What was a key element of magic that was highlighted by Evans-Pritchard's work?
Magic is rational
________ are people who sacrifice their lives for the sake of their religion.
Martyrs
________female college students will experience some form of sexual assault.
One in 5
Anthropologists typically conduct fieldwork as participant observers, living in and coexisting with the people they study. Why is it that anthropologists believe religion can also be successfully studied in this manner?
Religion is lived out in a community of people.
According to Marx, why were the proletariat unable to develop a political awareness of their class position while the bourgeoisie were able to do so?
The proletariat were continually occupied with the struggle to make ends meet, while the bourgeoisie developed ways to keep the proletariat divided.
In 1871, hundreds of small monarchies were united to form the nation-state of Germany. After World War I, it became the Weimar Republic until the Nazis came to power in 1933. After World War II, Germany was divided into East and West, then it was reunited at the end of the Cold War. What characteristic of states do these changes demonstrate?
They are uniquely constructed and constantly reshaped.
What is true about systems of class and inequality?
They create an unequal distribution of a society's resources.
Why are cross-cultural studies important for our understanding of sex and gender?
They demonstrate that biology alone cannot predict the roles men and women play in a given culture.
In Japan, the second Monday of January is a national Coming of Age Day. Young people who have turned twenty years old in the past year wear traditional clothing, attend ceremonies in local government offices, and celebrate at parties afterward. Coming of Age Day is an example of
a rite of passage.
When did the subfield of political anthropology emerge?
after World War II
Michel does not have an erotic or sexual interest in anyone. Which term best describes Michel's sexual orientation?
asexual
What do anthropologists call a small, kinship-based group of foragers who move around in a particular territory?
band
The mati in Suriname are women who form intimate spiritual, emotional, and sexual relationships with other women but may maintain a "visiting" relationship with men for the purposes of children and economics. To some of those viewing their dynamic through a Western lens, this might suggest that these women are
bisexual.
Early anthropologists believed that collecting cross-cultural information about kinship would enable them to
discern patterns of social structure that could be used to categorize and compare societies.
The Hadza are a small hunter-gatherer group in Tanzania, who have no tribal or governing hierarchy. They are
egalitarian
Families and kinship networks have the power to provide support and to nurture. What else do kinship networks do in a society?
ensure reproduction of the next generation
Anne Allison found that Japanese corporate masculinity
eroticizes the idea of women as submissive.
The expectations of thought and behavior that each culture assigns to people of different sexes is
gender
The growing issues around women serving in leadership and combat roles in the U.S. military serve to highlight the deep tensions between
gender and power.
What is the growing field that focuses on research into masculinity and femininity as cultural constructs?
gender studies
A megachurch refers to a large, often evangelical or Protestant church that employs business practices, showmanship, rock music, and spectacle to attract congregations. Many megachurches televise their sermons, reaching audiences who are too far away to attend in person. These churches reveal how technology and marketing, as well as the larger force of ________, are changing religion today.
globalization
Hayk purchases the most expensive tier membership to the Museum of Modern Art. He developed an appreciation for art when his parents took him to museums as a child. During the special members' viewings, he moves with ease, confidence, and a sense of entitlement through the collections with other well-heeled art enthusiasts. How would Pierre Bourdieu describe this young man's attitudes and behaviors with respect to art?
habitus
In response to theological shifts, scientific advances, and social movements, our cultural norms with respect to sexuality
have been in flux for several generations.
Even anthropologists who focus on biological explanations of human sexuality recognize that attraction and desire
have both biological and cultural components.
The ability of a dominant group to create consent and agreement within a population without the use or threat of force is called
hegemony.
In India, the devotees of the Hindu goddess Bahuchara Mata, who are identified as "neither man nor woman" are called
hijras.
As discussions of race have tended to focus on racial minorities instead of whiteness, discussions of sexuality have tended to focus on ________ instead of ________.
homosexuality; heterosexuality
What does the size of a band depend on?
hunting and ritual cycles as well as conflict and alliances
About 1.7 percent of all babies born between 1955 and 2000 had a combination of male and female genitalia, gonads, and/or chromosomes, leading many scholars to believe that sex can occur on a continuum. These babies are referred to as
intersex.
Marwan planned to move to Denmark for the opportunity to not only work as a programmer but to also fulfill his dream of having a boyfriend, something his religious family would have disapproved of had he continued living at home. Marwan
is a sexual migrant
In the United States it is illegal as well as socially frowned upon to marry certain relatives. This is an example of a society that practices
kindred exogamy.
The system of meaning and power created to determine who is related to whom and to define their mutual expectations, rights, and responsibilities is
kinship.
What are the two types of descent groups distinguished by anthropologists?
lineages and clans
The kinship unit of mother, father, and children is called a
nuclear family.
The Chen descent group is a
patrilineal descent group that practices exogamy.
Worldwide, what is the most prevalent strategy in use today to track kin group membership?
patrilineality
After a round of golf, the wealthy housewives gossip about their absent friend's son who had to go to his "safety school" (a state college instead of the Ivy League universities that accepted their children). The fact that this was considered scandalous reflects the fact that
people of the same social class share similar life chances.
Jade is an anthropologist who studies the differences in behavior and language use of male and female political candidates. She observes their physical demeanor and the kinds of language they use in speeches and debates. What aspect of gender is Jade studying?
performance
The origin, construction, and organization of states are frequently the focus of which branch of anthropology?
political anthropology
Micronesian individuals and groups build prestige through
politics
Which of the following types of marriage specifically involves the marital union of one woman to two or more men?
polyandry
Which of the following types of marriage specifically involves the marital union of one man to two or more women?
polygyny
The ability or potential to bring about change through action or influence is
power
While a shoe-shine entrepreneur and a Silicon Valley venture capitalist are both bourgeois, their means of making a living differ in
prestige
In a ranked society, ________ are stratified.
prestige and status
In the United States, interracial marriage is no longer illegal; however, data on marriage patterns suggests that Americans continue to practice
racial endogamy.
Single mothers are more likely to face poverty, hunger, and illness than single fathers. This is an example of
structural gender violence.
Anthropologist Clifford Geertz suggests that religion is essentially a system of ideas surrounded by powerful
symbols.
The gendered behaviors encouraged in sports, such as rewarding boys for competitiveness and encouraging girls to play "nicely," reflect what aspect of a larger cultural framework?
the construction and maintenance of gender roles in a society
What is a primary component of the so-called "fag discourse" in C. J. Pascoe's study of a North-Central California high school?
the enforcement of masculinity
Anthropologists are primarily interested in which aspect of religion?
the everyday religious practice of people in their local communities
Some people envision sex workers walking on the street while trying to solicit strangers for money in exchange for sex. The account of the hostess bars in Japan offers a different portrait of sex workers. What are these hostesses selling that makes them part of the sex industry and, thus, sex workers?
the idea of sex
What was one consequence of the emergence of warriors to defend surpluses of food from marauders?
the rise of the state
In Mary Douglas's exploration of "The Abominations of Leviticus," which key concept did she borrow from Durkheim for understanding Jewish dietary laws?
the sacred and the profane
Most descent groups in the United States are based on consanguinity. What is the basis of this relationship?
blood
A society's ideas about what is moral, appropriate, and natural with respect to sexuality
can be used to create unequal access to society's power, privileges, and resources.
The dramatic increase in global migration among women has helped create what new occupational niche?
caregiving as an international occupation
Ancient Hawaiian society was based on a strict caste system ruled over by a political specialist to whom commoners paid tribute. They were a
chiefdom.
People whose gender identity and performance correspond with their birth sex are
cisgender.
Your college experience leads eventually to your graduation, a ritual process that ushers you into the "real world," where you are expected to find a job and be a productive member of the larger society. In the model of ritual that Victor Turner describes, the entirety of your experience, including the graduation ceremony itself, helps to promote
communitas.
Archaeological evidence suggests that human evolutionary success relied on
cooperation and sharing.
Spanish conquistadors and missionaries were struck by the Aztecs' use of human sacrifice and cannibalism in some of their religious ceremonies. One anthropologist argued that these rituals of human sacrifice and cannibalism developed because there were not enough protein sources in the Valley of Mexico, and therefore protein from humans (who were almost always consumed by the elites) filled the void. This explanation is an example of what theory of religion.?
cultural materialism
A chief in a ranked society performs an act of gift giving that shares accumulated wealth while also enhancing his prestige. What do anthropologists call this process?
redistribution
Karl Marx argued that ________ played a key role in keeping the working poor from engaging in revolutionary social change that he believed was necessary to improve their situation.
religion
Émile Durkheim believed ________ could play a key role in addressing anomie in society and could thus reduce the number of suicides.
religion and ritual
The text discusses a tiny courtyard in India where a Muslim healer named Amma meets dozens of patients daily. Amma's healing room crosses seemingly rigid gender boundaries, since she is a female healer in a position of spiritual leadership. What other seemingly rigid boundaries does Amma's healing room cross?
religious boundaries, since followers of many religions come to see her
Where do most remaining foragers live?
remote areas such as rain forests, arctic tundra, and deserts
Travel to facilitate commercial sexual relations between tourists and local residents in destinations around the world, usually organized through the tourism sector, is called
sex tourism
Differences in male and female genitals, breast size, hair distribution, height, and pitch of the voice are examples of
sexual dimorphism.
The complex range of desires, beliefs, and behaviors that are related to erotic physical contact and the cultural arena within which people debate about what kinds are right, appropriate, and natural is termed
sexuality
What do anthropologists call a part-time religious practitioner with special abilities to connect individuals with supernatural powers or beings?
shaman
What is the movement, both upward and downward, of one's class position in a society?
social mobility
The DREAMers, the Tea Party, and the Animal Liberation Movement have very different goals, but they are all
social movements
An autonomous regional political structure with a central government that is authorized to make laws and use political, economic, and military force to maintain order and defend its territory is referred to as a
state
The increasing concentration of wealth into the hands of a smaller number of persons, in part due to globalization, is part of which accelerating process?
stratification
Which of the following terms can describe a person whose gender identity and performance do not correspond with the biological category assigned to them at birth?
transgender
The Bhils are an egalitarian Indian Adivasi ethnic group whose leadership is based on kinship and personality. They are a
tribe
What common result occurs when patterns of social stratification emerge?
unequal access to resources
What kind of descent do both matrilineal and patrilineal descent groups reflect?
unilineal
