Chapter 2 - Cultural Anthropology

Who was responsible for the theory of functionalism?

Bronislaw Malinowski

All humans are born with some culture.

False

A focus on ________ in a culture allows an anthropologist to understand what people hold to be near and dear

values

Activities that are biologically based, such as eating and sleeping, are universally the same for all humans.

False

Cultural relativism is important because it helps anthropologists understand and defend anything done by people in other cultures.

False

Culture consists of the collective processes that make the artificial seem natural.

True

If you wanted to understand the norms of a society, you would be most likely to focus on

everyday interactions

The perspective that aims to identify and understand cultures in the entirety is called

holism

An ________ approach to culture, such as that promoted by Geertz, Turner, and Douglas, emphasizes that culture is a shared system of meanings.

interpretive

Culture is

learned and shared

The structuralist approach to culture theorizes that

people make sense of the world through binary oppositions

The application of a holistic perspective to understand changes in everyday practices, such as eating breakfast cereals, reveals

the interconnections between different domains of a society