ANTH 021 Final Exam
Ethnic groups tend to be very stable and unchanging because they are based on close kinship and blood ties. Latinos in the United States are an excellent illustration of this.
False
Everyday symbols differ from ritual symbols because they make beliefs and behaviors seem especially genuine and intense.
False
Following political theorist Thomas Hobbes, anthropologists believe that human lives are largely "nasty, brutish, and short" unless they have developed formal governmental institutions to create an ordered society.
False
For anthropologists, symbolic meaning is only created and conveyed through language; the social processes of everyday life have nothing to do with it.
False
In India sadhins are men, often eunuchs or intersex individuals, who adopt feminine roles, and are best thought of as "man minus man" or "man plus woman."
False
In Zambia, the term "salaula" refers to ratty old cast-offs sent to the country by wealthy Westerners.
False
The goal of studying ethnopsychiatric theories about mental illness is to demonstrate the validity or strength of those theories to understand what's really going on within an afflicted person's mind.
False
The human institution of marriage evolved largely to promote love, affection, and sex among individuals.
False
Three primary historical trends contributed to the creation of anthropology as a discipline, including _____________, industrialization, and evolutionary theory.
colonialism
Another way in which anthropologists reject simplistic and deterministic approaches to environmental problems is to embrace a theoretical approach called _______ _______ that explores linkages between power, inequality, and ecological destruction.
political ecology
The Hmong recognize many things that can cause illness. But according to Fadiman the most common explanation they give for experiencing illness is the phenomenon of ______ _______.
soul loss
Unlike tribal religions such as totemism or shamanism, ________ ________ communicate messages of universal relevance and are typically closely aligned with ruling governments.
world religions
According to Wilma Mankiller, inaccurate perceptions and stereotypes obscure the fact that Indigenous Peoples have long engaged the broader world and adapted to change.
True
According to anthropologist-physician Seth Holmes, Americans don't often realize how much their foodways are rooted in embodied suffering, such as that experienced by Triqui farmworkers.
True
All of the following are themes found in alcohol advertisements targeted at college students except: 1. Work hard, play hard 2. Accountability 3. Abandonment 4. Time-out drinking
2. Accountability
All of the following are reasons anthropology is a dynamic and engaged discipline except: 1. Although anthropologists know a lot of things, many debates remain unresolved 2. Social problems are an important focus of the discipline, though the range of problems it studies is still very limited 3. Anthropology cross-fertilizes with many other disciplines 4. New questions emerge all the time
2. Social problems are an important focus of the discipline, though the range of problems it studies is still very limited
In her research on how the Gimi of Papua New Guinea interact with a conservation project promoted by an international organization interested in protecting their land, Paige West found all of the following except: 1. The Gimi have a different sense of "being-in-the-world" emphasizing connection between body and territory 2. The Gimi did not place much value on their land, and conservation project arrived at the right time to protect those lands before logging operations destroyed them, thus helping the Gimi maintain their homeland 3. In working only with men, the conservation project misunderstood women's reproductive capacity in relation to non-human animals and birds 4. Gimi encounters with international outsiders have generated a collective sense of loss and dispossession
2. The Gimi did not place much value on their land, and conservation project arrived at the right time to protect those lands before logging operations destroyed them, thus helping the Gimi maintain their homeland
Alisse Waterston asserts that what makes one an anthropologist is not a Ph.D., but a combination of all the following except: 1. Learning by immersion 2. Thinking about anthropology, even when one is asleep 3. Reflexivity 4. Participating in positive social change 5. Understanding that everything has a history and context
2. Thinking about anthropology, even when one is asleep
Why do Americans stigmatize vegetarianism? To answer this from a cultural perspective, we should start by trying to understand:
Cosmological ideas about power over animals and gendered ideas associations of foods
According to Igoe, cattle are so important to Maasai that they have traditionally served as a medium of exchange. What does that mean?
Cows are given for socially-important relationships, such as marriage
The story of sushi's global rise is the result of an interplay between dynamics of transnational industries, markets, and culture. What is the cultural dimension of this story, according to Theodore Bestor?
Cultural control—the close association of sushi with Japanese cultural identity, which is grounded in ethnic biases and flows of labor in the fishing and restaurant industries.
According to Lee Cronk, reciprocity serves a number of social purposes, even to subjugate and show aggression as an expression power. What example would Cronk feel best illustrates his point?
Global superpowers like the U.S. and China trying to outdo each other by giving development aid to poor countries
What is Setha Low's primary insight about the relationship between whiteness and the discourse of 'niceness'?
It is a coded way to talk about and take action against racially difference and a loss of White privilege
How would a critical relativist explain American Indian criticisms of cultural appropriation?
It is important to understand Indian claims from their point of view though it doesn't necessarily mean we should accept them as the only way to view the issue
Which of the following situations is most closely associated with the distinction medical anthropologists make between disease and illness?
Nathaniel tells his primary care physician about a persistent pain in his chest, and after a few tests is sent home because none of the tests can confirm his account.
Chrzan believes that it is no wonder that college students drink excessively when the American cultural model of drinking is based on an "____ ___ ______" or time-out approach
all or nothing
According to Clifford Geertz, a ___________ _____________ provides a model of and for reality.
religious symbol
An ____________ anthropologist would typically contract with a government agency or other institution to conduct research to make recommendations about a program or policy that involves social impacts or human services.
applied
If you touched a rabbit's foot earlier today and you believe it is now helping you do better on this quiz, Sir George Frazer would say that your belief is a good example of sympathetic magic and its law of _______________.
contagion
The lag time between the receipt and reciprocation of a gift is called ___________ _________.
delayed reciprocity
In her work on how Zapotec manage conflicts, Laura Nader observed that there is a "harmony _________" that emphasizes "a bad compromise is better than a good fight."
ideology
If high school graduation is a status-changing ritual called a rite of passage, students sitting in a large auditorium in gowns and listening to a speaker occurs during what Victor Turner would call its "_____________" (or transitional) phase.
liminal
Similar to clans, ______________ tend be composed of people who are directly descended from known ancestors.
lineages
The anthropological approach toward gender and sex emphasizes:
maleness and femaleness are constructed categories
___________ __________ is the anthropological term for the objects made and used in any society.
material culture
Ho'oponopono, which means "setting to right," is a Hawai'ian strategy for managing disputes. It is a form of ______________, in which a respected leader calls those involved in the dispute to engage in a process of releasing each other from negative entanglements.
mediation
In the film Shadows and Illuminations, Pak Kereta turns toward a number of distinct healing traditions and healers to diagnose and treat his situation. This is an illustration of:
medical pluralism
Tara Heffernan, who studied American patterns of childbirth, observes that childbirth has been pathologized, home births have been discredited, and laws rewritten to define physician control over birthing. In other words, childbirth has been turned into a medical problem, a process anthropologists call _______________.
medicalization
Witchcraft is common throughout Africa, explaining misfortune and inexplicable events. Why, according to Alexandra Crampton's research in Ghana, is it primarily older women who are most likely to be accused of practicing witchcraft?
older women are often neglected and marginalized within families
The mode of subsistence called ______________, which is based on the movement of people and their herds, typically involves communal land rights to ensure nobody over-exploits the available resources.
pastoralism
A follower of cultural economics explaining the practice of gift-giving at holiday time would emphasize all of the following except:
people always make decisions about what to buy on the basis of getting the lowest price
According to Deborah Cameron, the male conversations and speech she studied demonstrate how men ________ their gender identities and heterosexual masculinity.
perform
According to Toby Lester, some New Religious Movements do well, while many fail. Why?
The ones that do well give people things to do
Why has the concept of 'class' generally been less relevant in Anthropology than in other social sciences, such as Sociology?
with its origins in studies of capitalist industrialization, it doesn't necessarily apply well cross-culturally
One of Lia's healing ceremonies involves sacrificial pigs who are paid spirit money to negotiate with dab spirits who can help bring her lost soul back. This is a good example of a ________________ therapeutic process.
symbolic
Which statement best reflects the central findings of my (Luis Vivanco's) research on the intersections of sustainability and bike culture in Bogotá, Colombia?
"Attitudes toward bicycle use are complicated by social inequalities and unequal access to secure urban spaces."
Which of the following statements best expresses a central finding of Don Stull's ethnographic research on meatpacking plants?
"It would seem that American society is more concerned about the welfare of animals they eat than the workers who process the food"
If the world is not becoming homogenized, what is actually happening? According to Welsch and Vivanco, most anthropologists would say:
"Persistent border-crossing, media flows, and so on generate hybridity, or the intermingling and fusion of cultures."
Which statement would be most likely to be uttered by an anthropologist?
"Sexuality is not a deep essence of a person, but rather learned actions, preferences, and performances"
Which statement about sustainability is least likely to be made by an anthropologist?
"Sustainability entails the ability to meet our present needs while maintaining natural resources and reducing our impacts so that future generations can also meet their own needs."
Remember World Systems Theory? Which statement would best characterize how an adherent to this approach would explain the situation facing the Cly family in "The Return of Navajo Boy?"
"The structural forces aligned against the Clys have resulted in long-term social marginality, labor exploitation, and resource extraction."
Which statement best describes how a World Systems Theorist would explain the situation of Western-style malls showing up in India as we saw in the film clip "Mallamall?"
"The structural forces at work here could mean that traditional modes of farming, retail, and consumption are undermined and replaced, generating even greater levels of global inequality."
Which of the following statements best expresses how an anthropologist approaches social inequality?
"There is nothing in human nature that makes us treat humans who are different from us as superior or inferior. Social inequality is a cultural process upheld by beliefs and practices like prejudices and discrimination."
According to Hsain Ilahiane, the institutions of zakat and waqf have long provided social services and economic assets in Muslim societies. From an economic anthropology point of view, which statement best characterizes what these institutions are about?
"These institutions provide a moral foundation for redistributing wealth across society."
Which of the following statements best illustrates how a Formalist anthropologist would understand economic activity and the creation of value?
"Value is created when people use rational decision-making processes to satisfy their needs"
Which of the following would most likely be said by an activist anthropologist?
"We're not sure where this project is headed; we are defining it as we go in collaboration with the community."
Which of the following is the best explanation for why every society has a lot of rules around drinking? 1. "Culture is inherently conservative and places rigid rules on everything people do" 2. "It's a matter of a powerful few seeking to control the masses" 3. "Intoxication creates tension because it tests human behavior morally and socially" 4. "Because alcoholism is a dangerous life pathway that is easy to get on but difficult to get off."
.3. "Intoxication creates tension because it tests human behavior morally and socially"
All of the following are examples of how cultural dynamics can affect current patterns of human evolution except: 1. An individual is born with a genetic mutation that is new and unfamiliar to medical science 2. Large numbers of people die in a pandemic because they lack access to healthcare 3. A genetic condition like sickle cell anemia expands throughout a country several generations after people from a part of the world where it is endemic migrated to that new country 4. A community that requires its members marry only within the community experiences high levels of mortality due to a debilitating genetic condition common among its members
1. An individual is born with a genetic mutation that is new and unfamiliar to medical science
All of the following are key points made by Brian Ferguson about war except: 1. Culturally-specific values play a very minor role in the reasons for and conduct of war 2. War shapes society to its own ends 3. Leaders favor wars because war favors leaders 4. War is not an inescapable dimension of the human experience 5. The human species is not hardwired to engage in war
1. Culturally-specific values play a very minor role in the reasons for and conduct of war
Which of the following best illustrates the "social support" theory of healing? 1. Jill's mother and a sibling travel to Burlington from their home in New York to be with Jill when she catches the flu. 2. You catch a contagious disease. You go into isolation and your friends stay away from you so they don't get sick too. 3. When Eric tests positive for COVID-19, the university moves him into a quarantine dorm with other infected students. 4. Luis is enrolled in a study of COVID-19 vaccines, and he does not know if he received the placebo but everything seems to be going well for him even though all of his close friends are all sick with COVID.
1. Jill's mother and a sibling travel to Burlington from their home in New York to be with Jill when she catches the flu.
Anthropologists would consider all of the following as illustrations of "disguised discrimination" except: 1. Jim Crow laws 2. A security officer following a young Black man visiting a supermarket 3. A media report about a crime, singling out the perpetrator's ethnic identity as Latino 4. Educational disadvantages experienced by minorities and the poor 5. Unequal incarceration rates between Whites and Blacks
1. Jim Crow laws
According to Karen Ho, the cultural practices of Wall Street bank workplaces produce all of the following except: 1. Stringent commitment to ethical codes and practices 2. Pervasive job insecurity 3. An attitude of superiority and productivity that workers believe the rest of corporate America lacks and needs to imitate 4. That class and educational pedigrees endow workers with unique smartness
1. Stringent commitment to ethical codes and practices
Witchcraft and witchcraft allegations persist in Ghana and around the world because they serve social functions, including all of the following except: 1. They equalize social relations because everybody is equally susceptible to being accused of being a witch 2. They can help answer existential questions about misfortune and loss 3. They allow for people to air interpersonal conflicts 4. They uphold the social order and harmony because the nobody really wants to be accused of being a witch
1. They equalize social relations because everybody is equally susceptible to being accused of being a witch
All of the following have been big puzzles in the anthropology of foodways except: 1. how evolutionary patterns led all members of our species to eat basically the same things 2. how food symbolism creates meaning and taste 3. the effects of the nutrition transition on contemporary lives 4. the socio-environmental impacts of industrialized agriculture 5. how and why different subsistence patterns help people procure and produce food
1. how evolutionary patterns led all members of our species to eat basically the same things
Approaching religion as a system of symbolic action is most useful for helping us understand all of the following except: 1. why many Christians believe that Jesus died for their sins and was later resurrected 2. how the practice of scapularmancy informs where and when a Siberian reindeer hunter will track his prey 3. why people in Jolo handle serpents, hold burning objects, and speak in tongues 4. why someone might join a community like the Twelve Tribes or People's Temple and participate in its rites, even if they don't necessarily accept the theological beliefs right away 5. why baseball players might wear certain clothing and act in certain stylized and repetitive ways before a game
1. why many Christians believe that Jesus died for their sins and was later resurrected
Social currencies, such as Tolai shell money, are important because:
1.They are not as scarce as national cash money and they allow people to compensate others for important life events and relationships 2. Their circulation throughout a community reinforces social relationships and contributes to resilience in the face of adversity
When cultural anthropologists examine families in different cultures, they use cultural analysis to understand all of the following except: 1. who looks after children in typical households 2. the genetic differences among different members of the extended family 3. how popular media in the society being studied shapes people's expectations of married life 4. why it makes sense for people to get married or not to get married in terms of the economic costs of establishing a separate household
2. the genetic differences among different members of the extended family
Which of the following is not an illustration of the "Jones effect?" 1. A professor decides to teach her course online for the first time because colleagues in her department have been doing it and having good results 2. A UVM student buys a sweatshirt emblazoned with the university logo because others around campus seem wear them a lot 3. A group of believers moves to a jungle settlement to practice their religion because their leader directly orders them to 4. Farmers in Papua New Guinea shift to growing sweet potatoes in order maintain their alliances and exchange networks with other farmers who already made the switch
3. A group of believers moves to a jungle settlement to practice their religion because their leader directly orders them to
Which of the following is not associated with a 'harm reduction' approach to drinking? 1. Learning how to set and maintain an intoxication goal 2. Identifying practices of "adult" drinking 3. Drinking is preventable with effective educational programs 4. Few students really "know how to drink" but can learn how to do it moderately
3. Drinking is preventable with effective educational programs
All of the following are ways of intensifying the yields on a farm except: 1. Using a larger labor force 2. Selective breeding 3. Livestock exchanges that limit herd size 4. Weeding and fertilizing 5. Irrigation
3. Livestock exchanges that limit herd size
All of the following are true about the Satanic Panic phenomenon of the 1980s and 90s except: 1. Some fundamentalist Christian groups promoted the idea of widespread Satanic rituals to further their own political rise 2. Over time, fears about horrifying Satanic rituals conducted on children moderated as solid evidence of their actual existence never materialized 3. The explosion of Satanic rituals during the 1980s was associated with an explosion of new religious movements based in heavy metal music fan groups 4. Concern over Satanists eventually migrated to more explicitly secular and political groups, including QAnon.
3. The explosion of Satanic rituals during the 1980s was associated with an explosion of new religious movements based in heavy metal music fan groups
Chrzan observes that American relationships with alcohol are closely related to ideas about morality and time. All of the following are key dimensions of this issue, except: 1. How we use time is closely related to ideals about self-control, which are linked to ideas about morality and character 2. We live on 'clock time' which dictates, regulates, and scripts our everyday patterns of activity and productivity 3. Leisure time is when we can let loose and socialize; alcohol is closely associated with that 'time-out' 4. Americans avoid drinking during liminal times, which are key periods during rites of passage
4. Americans avoid drinking during liminal times, which are key periods during rites of passage
All of the following would greatly interest anthropologists who study the intersections of food, culture, and meaning except: 1. Changes and adaptability that occur in foodways due to broader social or environmental changes 2. The relationship between social identities and food preferences 3. Beliefs about the mystical dynamism of foods 4. The most appropriate tools horticulturists use to prepare soils 5. A society's notion of what constitutes a 'perfect meal'
4. The most appropriate tools horticulturists use to prepare soils
Although most Americans think that kinship is basically about biological relatedness, anthropologists have long recognized that kinship is about relationships that can also be established though which of the following linkages? 1. by behaving like a relative 2. by being related to someone who is related to you 3. by religious rites like christenings that identify a non-relative as a relative (such as a godfather or a godmother) 4. all of the above 5. only the first two
4. all of the above
The themes of reciprocity and gift exchange are critical to anthropologists because: 1. they are economically-significant in market-based economies 2. the exchange of gifts is the economy in many societies 3. reciprocity is deeply embedded in social relations 4. all of the above 5. only b and c
4. all of the above
According to anthropologists, all of the following are true about secularism except: 1. as symbolic systems of meaning and purpose, secular world views are analogous to religious world views 2. many religious communities have maintained relevance by becoming more politically active and challenging the secular world view and social changes associated with it 3. the secularization of modern society is not nearly as complete as many people think 4. secular worldviews have effectively replaced religious world views, which have been in decline for several hundred years 5. none of the above
4. secular worldviews have effectively replaced religious world views, which have been in decline for several hundred years
All of the following are ways of looking at "the social life of things" except: 1. what happens when Western objects, like used t-shirts, flood local markets in the global south 2. how objects mediate relationships between people 3. the biography-like aspects and trajectories of everyday objects 4. perceptions and meanings people create about things 5. how artistic objects and the people who make them have a special human genius
5. how artistic objects and the people who make them have a special human genius
Political anthropologists who pay close attention to informal mechanisms of social control would be interested in all of the following except: 1. the idea that rumor and gossip have super-communal, even divine origins, as expressed in Ancient Greek culture by the existence of the goddess Pheme 2. song duels 3. social media shaming 4. feuds in a community 5. the power that goes along with being president of a country
5. the power that goes along with being president of a country
In "Can White Men Jump?" Shenk observes that sports excellence around the world emerges in geographic clusters. Why?
A combination of cultural values and practical life conditions favor it in certain communities
Pak Kereta ultimately finds a measure of comfort and well-being when he dons an old army uniform. What do you think this demonstrates?
A combination of symbolic therapy with the power of the placebo
The Hmong concept of qua dab peg ("the spirit catches you and you fall down"), from which Lia suffers, is understood by her family and community to be:
A difficult but blessed condition that could make her a healer
Which of the following does not illustrate the social power and authority of medicine in Fadiman's book?
A txiv neeb and a physician collaborating to decide on the course of Lia's treatment.
Chrzan argues that, although Americans have many meanings surrounding alcohol, a dominant one is our dualistic relationship with alcohol. What does she mean?
An all or nothing attitude that leads to "time-out" drinking and intoxication
Which of the following best illustrates the ideals of "public anthropology" as described by Brondo?
An anthropology professor writing a weekly column for an online news site like the Washington Post about cultural dynamics in our society
If there is an anthropological point to make about George Orwell's essay "Shooting an Elephant" it is that:
Beliefs, dogmas, and ideologies can persuade people to participate in their own domination
Breakdancing and its relationship with kung fu films produced in Hong Kong is a good illustration of the anthropological concept of "cultural convergence."
False
If you were a cultural anthropologist studying the traditional ethnobiological knowledge systems of an indigenous community in the Amazon, you would be most likely to:
Emphasize how the community's ethnobiological knowledge is rooted in certain belief systems and moralities that also play a role in their resource management practices
Anthropological approaches to globalization based on hybridization theory:
Emphasize that cross-border mixing, fusion, and innovation are common features of cultures all over the world
Until ethnographic studies clarified the details of egalitarian and unequal societies, European social philosophy tended to veer between two poles in its own explanations of these things. What were they?
Ethnocentrism and romanticism
A marriage between a woman and her dead husband's ghost is a good example of polyandrous marriage
False
According to Anne Fadiman, the Hmong cannot withstand the pressure to assimilate into U.S. culture, and their distinctive identity and traditions are likely to soon disappear into the melting pot that is America.
False
According to George Gmelch, the use of fetishes, taboos, and rituals by athletes is an expression of irrationality that should have place in the modern game of baseball.
False
According to James Igoe, the Maasai have historically been unappreciative of the wildlife in their midst, and the success of nature conservation is that they now understand why wildlife is important.
False
According to Natalie Bourdon, one of the problems with service learning and study abroad programs focused on poverty in the Global South is that there simply aren't enough American college students willing to go and make a difference in the lives of the poor.
False
All cultures basically have the same understanding about what nature is and the boundaries between it and humans.
False
Anthropological interest in political power is mostly focused on the formal roles, constitutions, and laws of a society; the actual processes through which people gain and hold onto power are less important.
False
Anthropologists who study problems of sustainability tend to downplay the environmental and health risks of industrial agriculture and landscape change, and tend to focus instead on how economic growth is the necessary key to long-term sustainability.
False
Anthropologists widely accept the "drunken monkey hypothesis," which explains that alcoholism is a genetic predisposition that all primates have to become dependent on ethanol.
False
As talked about in the random question about the debate over abortion, Americans make a separation between biological birth and social personhood, just as many societies around the world do.
False
By giving people a sense of identity, a social role, and rules and expectations about important matters like marriage and residence, kinship systems around the world prevent social and sexual tensions before they arise.
False
Capitalism, which is based on the private ownership of the means of production, is a homogeneous economic phenomenon that is practiced similarly around the world.
False
Chrzan is skeptical that drinking accomplishes anything other than temporary escape from the stresses of college life.
False
Ellick and Watson insist that building a successful career is based on carefully choosing the right major while you are in college.
False
Emily Martin's work on cultural models of male and female reproductive systems in science textbooks concludes that the language of biological science is objective and culturally neutral.
False
In contemporary anthropology, understanding religion is primarily about understanding the supernatural forces and spirits represented in ritual symbols.
False
In the Trobriand Island gift exchange systems like the Kula and Sagali, an individual's prestige and status come primarily from accumulating the greatest number of objects.
False
Like most sciences, anthropology is divided into 'pure' and 'applied' practices, and it is rare for an anthropologist to cross the boundary between them.
False
Most anthropologists are employed within academia
False
The majority of new religious movements survive by transforming themselves into a mainstream or orthodox religion.
False
The origin of religion in the genus Homo starts two millions years ago with evolving brains that can imagine the world differently and make meaning. As early as 1 million years ago we also see the rise of formal religious institutions, monuments, sanctuaries, and altars.
False
The primary reason social groups eat the foods they do is because of the nutritional value of the food itself.
False
The principle of ethnocentrism emphasizes that anthropologists should always try to understand, even defend, all the things that people in other cultures do.
False
The substantivist approach in economic anthropology asserts that economic activities are best understood as the exchange of goods and services in which individuals with limited means compete with others to get what they want and need in the marketplace.
False
Throughout history and across cultures, the primary reason people use alcohol is to get drunk.
False
Violence is violence. It always means the same thing, whether you observed it, it happened to you, or how the society as a whole views it.
False
Looking to the future, anthropologists are reasonably certain that:
Human diversity will persist
Feminist anthropologists emphasized all of the following in their critique of kinship studies except:
Kinship studies had long argued that male and female are not natural categories based in biological differences.
"Art" is a problematic category for anthropologists. Why?
Many cultures identify creativity and arts as a special domain of human existence
While new religious movements are often aligned with and emerge out of world religions like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. do they always have to originate in an explicitly "religious" community?
Not necessarily. They might start out in more or less secular contexts, but they eventually drift toward religious meanings and intentions.
The Hostile Terrain 94 exhibit we learned about in class, and that some of you visited, is a great illustration of how anthropologists can understand and work with materiality. How so?
Objects can be used to comprehend and communicated about complicated, even tragic, social relationships, political dynamics, and cultural processes
Is "native anthropology" really possible? According to Japanese-American anthropologist Takeyi Tsuda:
Perhaps, but even native anthropologists and the people they study in their community have meaningful differences between them.
Though there is tremendous diversity among Indigenous Peoples around the world, Wilma Mankiller asserts that they are increasingly connected by:
Shared values, experiences of colonial discovery and oppression, and resilience
In his article on Peruvian immigrant men in New York coming out as gay, Ernesto Vasquez del Aguila argues that a Peruvian cultural idiom "God forgives the sin but not the scandal" captures an important dimension of the dilemmas that face these men. What is that dilemma?
The apparent tolerance of open secrets and turning a blind eye, even while there is a strong stigma around homosexuality
Mary Douglas said that we can understand the line between symbols of purity and pollution by examining their association with "holiness." What does that mean?
Symbols of purity are aligned with a people's concept of wholeness and unity
What does the work of Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, who studied Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Sudan, demonstrate about cultural relativism?
That it should not paralyze us because anthropologists can be intercultural brokers between international human rights activists and local communities.
How much do college students actually drink? According to Chrzan:
The vast majority simply don't drink enough to suffer lasting consequences like course failure and interpersonal conflict
When he purchased a cow for !Kung hunter-gatherers at Christmas time and was mocked and harshly and criticized for it, Richard Lee learned an important lesson about cross-cultural misunderstanding and ethnocentrism. What was it?
Their mockery and criticism, which he initially took personally, was an effort to impose humility on him, which is a key value in their culture.
According to David Graeber, societies in which gift-giving is at the heart of the economy have currencies but they differ from our own. How do they differ?
They are 'social currencies' that encourage ongoing exchange and relationship
Why were early American anthropologists like Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, and Zora Neale Hurston so influential in reshaping scholarly perspectives on 'race' in the social sciences?
They showed how culture and social categories were more important than biological facts in shaping human differences
"Taste" is interesting to anthropologists because of its overlapping qualities of meaning, social distinction, and sensory experience.
True
A sect like the one in Jolo succeeds because it cultivates deep community ties, inverts the social order, and gives its members a feeling of worth.
True
All objects change over time, one reason for this being that when objects change hands they change meanings.
True
Although alcohol is a liquid, intoxicant, and food, perspectives on the materiality and the "social life of things" can be helpful to frame human relationships with it.
True
Anne Fadiman believes that Lia's life was ruined, not by a hospital-acquired septic shock or non-compliant parents, but by cross-cultural misunderstanding.
True
Anthropologists insist that solutions to public health problems around the world cannot work effectively without understanding the local cultures of health-related belief and behavior.
True
Anthropologists study body rituals of groups like the Nacirema because they tell us a lot about that culture's norms, beliefs, and values.
True
Chrzan believes that the culture of northern European drinking emerged in part because mead and beer are not easily stored for long periods, and because patterns of patronage and authority legitimated periodic binging.
True
Chrzan thinks it is unfortunate that we tend to shy away from the pleasures of alcohol because we so often dwell on its excesses.
True
Concerns around dormcest and floorcest exist primarily because of their potential to disrupt social bonds and relationships beyond the individuals engaging in sexual relations.
True
Cultural anthropologists agree that knowing what to do in the present does not require an ability to predict the future.
True
For anthropologists, owning things is less about the things and more about the social interactions, rights, and symbolic claims involved in ownership.
True
For centuries, the Hmong have viewed mobility and migration as a way of preserving their culture and autonomy.
True
Humans lie, cheat, and steal, but when anthropologists talk about the most destructive things people do we often focus on a phenomenon like ethnocide.
True
In Western cultures, the goal of settling a dispute is to win. But in some societies the goal is to essentially end with a tie, restoring harmony and repairing strained relationships.
True
In the article on the Pulse Nightclub mass shooting, the anthropologist Zachary Shane Kalish Blair asserts that an anthropological perspective demonstrates how violence does not emerge 'out of nowhere' but is the result of seemingly disconnected social, political, and economic processes that work to produce violence.
True
Keri Brondo argues that no matter where they are employed—academia, government, or the private sector—most anthropologists share in common a commitment to using theories about culture to engage with the problems of our times.
True
Materiality is the social processes through which people create, imagine, and interact with objects.
True
Modes of subsistence like foraging and pastoralism persist in the world because they can be effective ways for a small population to secure a sustainable food supply.
True
Mormonism was widely considered a deviant and threatening religious movement in 19th century America. But one reason it grew and thrived is that, like many new religious movements, it provided people with the fulfillment of important social, economic, and emotional needs.
True
Multi-sited ethnography, which is one method anthropologists use to study transnational phenomena, is a version of the comparative method.
True
One of the things that distinguishes cultural anthropology from other social sciences is its holistic perspective, which involves an effort to understand interrelationships between the domains of a society, such as religion, politics, and economics.
True
Political and economic stratification are key elements of societies with pervasive social inequality, as are cultural attitudes that justify and reinforce that inequality is natural and inevitable.
True
The concept of racialization helps explain how and why Africans living in the U.S. during the sixteenth century were symbolically and socially transformed from free, even admired, members of colonial society into enslaved people.
True
The consensus in anthropology is that cultural ideologies and social relations that impose lower status on women, not biological differences, are the main cause of gender inequality.
True
The latest findings of paleoanthropology suggest that the hominin capacity for culture appeared before our speciation as Homo sapiens.
True
The primary goal of economic anthropology is the creation of abstract models of economic practice to identify laws of human behavior.
True
The primary goal of the "corporate group" is to look after the needs of members of a family.
True
The role of a txiv neeb in Hmong culture is to mediate between the spirit and human realms.
True
What a group considers an illness or abnormal health condition may only be weakly or not at all connected to what is happening biologically.
True
When anthropologists confront a puzzling situation like the one involving Mudarruba, they are often guided by multiple theories of culture to help make sense of it.
True
An environmental anthropologist trained since the 1980s would be most interested in conducting which kind of research project?
a study of indigenous environmental struggles in the face of encroachment by industrial agriculture
A biocultural anthropologist would emphasize: a. Western cultures are fairly unique worldwide in terms of how they focus on biological features to differentiate groups. Most societies emphasize cultural characteristics as more important in differentiating groups. b. The rise of racial pharmacogenomics reflects ongoing efforts by policymakers, scientists, and powerful corporations to identify, manage, and profit from the idea that racial differences are rooted in biology. c. Human populations, or clusters where individuals find mating partners, pretty accurately map onto the dominant categories used to identify racial groups. d. The clinal dynamics of human populations are closely tied to processes of biological evolution like natural selection, and cultural dynamics like migration which contribute to gene flow a and b b and c c and d a, b, and c a, b, and d
a, b, and d
In the anthropological study of kinship, endogamy is:
an expectation that an individual will marry within his/her descent lineage
A landscape modified by human action, whether it is intentional or unintentional, is an _____________ landscape.
anthropogenic
Although economists and anthropologists both study how economic systems work, there are some key differences between them. What is the most important difference?
anthropologists assume that economic rationalities, systems, and transactions are diverse
Objects come to represent our goals and aspirations because: a. Objects have aesthetic qualities that have the power to bring great pleasure b. We can tell the story of where we come from through objects c. Objects can be used to shape, guide, and even control who we want to be and how we live our lives d. We express our identities and status through objects a and b b and c b, c, and d
b, c, and d
Cartesian dualism, which separates mind and body, is a limited way to think about the human condition. The _______________ perspective is helping us rethink older topics like human evolution, cognition, emotions, and sleep.
biocultural
In India, the distinction between "caste" and "jati" is:
caste is an ideal system of ranking, jati is the actual groupings
The curious outcomes of Willie Nelson's inquiry into his own kin relations illustrates the importance of the ______________ aspect of kinship, which is one of kinship's three key dimensions.
categorical
Alcohol is both gift and commodity, which can contribute to its moral ambiguity. Generally anthropologists believe it is possible to convert a [__________] into a [________], but not the other way around.
commodity, gift
Marvin Harris' theoretical approach to human-nature relations, called _________ _________, explains that customs develop as adaptations to local environmental conditions.
cultural materialism
Norms, values, and traditions ensure the stability and predictability of human __________________.
culture
The rise of industrialization and the circulation of commodities have created a ________ ___ _________ _____________, which refers to the social processes and cultural perspectives involved in how goods are bought, sold, and used in contemporary capitalist societies.
culture of mass consumption
Leading an 'anthropological life' involves habitual ____________, like asking random questions.
curiosity
The concept of ___________ used in Bourdon's article refers to the ways uneven global development patterns, overconsumption in wealthy countries, and geopolitics are obscured in programs focused on helping the poor.
depoliticization
The concept of _________ refers to the sheer variety and multiplicity of ways of being human in the world.
diversity
The practice of ________, which involves a payment to the groom's family by the bride's family, ensures that the woman will be taken care of in her new home and will not make any claims on the groom's estate if he dies.
dowry
Anthropologists tend to reject simplistic statements about overpopulation causing environmental problems, focusing instead of who consumes what. They will often use the tool ________ _______ which seeks to identify what people consume and the waste they produce.
ecological footprint
One of the central goals of fieldwork is to gain access to the __________ _________, which is a formal expression that means an insider's view on their culture and is akin to the "native's point of view."
emic perspective
According to Keri Brondo, some anthropologists practice _______ scholarship, which is a values-driven approach to research that is collaborative, reciprocal, and generates new knowledge that is shared by partners in the research.
engaged
People reshape their environments to fit their needs, and nature only sets the groundwork of possibilities for cultural expression; these are two of the strongest arguments against __________ ____________.
environmental determinism
If you were going to conduct ethnographic research on the relationship between social hierarchy and power in student government, your research would involve:
experiential immersion, particularism, and inductive reasoning
The terms anthropologists use to identify a patient's own culturally-embedded understanding of their affliction is _______________ __________ __ ___________. "The spirit catches you and you fall down" is the Hmong version of this for the seizure disorder we call "epilepsy."
explanatory model of illness
Pibloqtoq, hikikomori, nervios, and maybe even what Pak Kereta in the film Shadows and Illuminations is suffering from: each of these is a good example of an ethnopsychiatric condition anthropologists call a "culture-bound syndrome" or ________ ________.
folk illness
There are important cross-cultural variations in _____________________, which are the structured beliefs and behaviors involved in the production, distribution, and consumption of food.
foodways
In nearly every society, religious and political institutions are deeply engaged with each other, and are even the same. In the U.S., religious ________________ is an example of how religious organizations have become prominent actors in political and public spheres.
fundamentalism
Anthropologists were among the first to use the term _______ to refer to the culturally-specific patterning of male or female behaviors. Today this concept, often referred to as 'gender/sex system,' refers to fluid intersections of sex, internal senses of self, outward expressions of identity, and cultural expectations about how to perform that identity in appropriate ways.
gender
The portability and mobility of the dollar bill and credit card are typical of ________ ________ money.
general purpose
David Shenk's article asserts that _________ are only one of several agents among the complex and dynamic factors that shape athletic ability.
genes
Fadiman's notion that she was suspended in a bowl of "fish soup" while learning about Hmong culture strongly parallels the anthropological concept of __________, which refers to the ways different aspects of a society are integrated and overlapping.
holism
Swidden agriculture is another term for the mode of subsistence called __________________.
horticulture
A cultural anthropologist who studies alcohol use in society would be most interested in what?
how social institutions, ideologies, and practices shape how people get and consume alcohol
The ______________ theory of social inequality emphasizes that social hierarchy develops because it helps a society with growing population function more or less smoothly.
integrative
The theoretical approach to studying religion developed by Clifford Geertz, which emphasizes analysis of the worldviews and underlying symbolic and cultural meanings of religion, is the _______________ approach.
interpretive
The idea that people join a religious community for social relationships and then later embrace the beliefs and faith is called _______ ________.
interpretive drift
The circumstantial interplay of prejudice and discrimination with factors like race, class, gender, sexuality, and other identity markers is called _______________ .
intersectionality
Doing ethnographic fieldwork is not as simple as "collecting data." An anthropologists' insights about any culture emerge out of relationships with other people, and they are thus neither subjective nor objective. This is the concept of __________________.
intersubjectivity
One of environmentalism's alternative frameworks is called "co-management," which strives for a more collaborative approach to nature protection with indigenous communities. Why can it be so challenging?
issues like jurisdiction, institutional structure, community capacity, and benefits are often unsettled or contested because the conservation groups often maintain effective control
A culturally-relativistic view of the Indian hijra would emphasize that:
it is only sensible within a specific set of ideas about gender relations
All of the following are important effects of medicalization except:
it supports medical pluralism
According to Shalini Shankar, the fact that some Desi teens in Silicon Valley aim to speak like "model minorities," while other Desi teens (so-called "FOBs"—Fresh Off the Boat) resist that mode of speaking, suggests that something important is at work in that community's patterns of language use. What is it?
language ideology
Americans have a long and complicated history with alcohol. For example, during the 18th century, a culture of [___________] existed, but during the nineteenth century it shifted to a culture of [________]
moderation, sinfulness
The key term _______________ refers to the social processes that make race and other markers of difference and inequality part of the natural order of things.
naturalization
________ _______ is a type of exchange in which strangers or adversaries attempt to haggle their way to a favorable outcome.
negative reciprocity
In Tibet, fraternal polyandry is________, and a functionalist analysis of it would be most likely to focus on_________:
one wife with multiple husbands; how fraternal polyandry works to ensure that land stays in the men's family and does not get subdivided across generations.
Anthropologists believe that gender variant identities are established by:
performing the role socially
Anthropologists make a distinction between games and _______ as social activities; the first has determinate outcomes while the second is more emergent.
play
During the past forty years, political anthropologists largely shifted their attention from the study of how people maintain social order through political systems to the study of how political power actually works. Why?
politics also involves dynamic processes like manipulation, resistance, persuasion, and other techniques to gain and hold onto power
The phenomenon of _____________ encompasses both polyandry and polygyny.
polygamy
When you see a friend on campus and walk past them before turning around and pausing to greet them, you are communicating something important about how busy you are. The term anthropologists use to refer to this use of space to communicate is ____________.
proxemics
You wake up one day feeling like you've got a bad cold. Your roommate insists you stay in bed instead of going to class and goes to the cafeteria to get you chicken soup. Anthropologists would say that you and your roommate are enacting a model of appropriate behavior for a person who is ill, which is called the _______ ________.
sick role
According to Ellick and Watkins, a useful way to approach an anthropology education is not in terms of the title of the degree but in terms of the very practical ________ it provides that employers want.
skills
The division of a society into distinct subgroupings, and the centralization of control in the society, are illustrations of what anthropologists call _________ ___________ .
social complexity
The concept of "fortress conservation" would be applicable to all of the following situations except:
the construction of eco-tourist facilities to protect visitors from wandering lions in the Serengeti
Dynamics of structural violence, such as those identified in Paul Farmer's research on Haitians' health are important to anthropologists who study power because:
they point to the bodily harm caused by political, economic, and social structures
The reason that a man in a matrilineal kinship system is expected to marry his father's sister's daughter is:
to ensure that bridewealth stays in the lineage if death or divorce occur
In the College Admissions scandal that's been in the news lately, a number of wealthy parents were exposed to be manipulating and paying money to elite colleges to get them to accept their children. People were outraged and saw it as immoral. But most people wouldn't be at all morally outraged to learn that those same parents manipulated and bargained at a car dealership to purchase a luxury car for those kids. What anthropological concept best captures the difference between those two exchanges?
transactional order
According to Chrzan, a common __________ in the design of alcohol advertising is "escape," based on the myth of time-out drinking.
trope
All of the following are key characteristics of the anthropological perspective except: universalistic, interpretive, reflexive, holistic, historical
universalistic
A key concept at the heart of economic anthropology, ________ , is not the same as price; it is a culturally-relative and symbolic assessment of worth.
value
One of the main ideas of Dwight Heath's "cultural rules of alcohol" is that alcohol is not reliable in its effects cross-culturally. Why not?
values, norms, and drinking practices influence the effects of drinking on behavioral patterns like inhibition
