Study Questions

Anthropology V02 - Spring 2013
Monday & Wednesday 9:30 & 11:30

Study Questions Weeks 1-4

Anthropology is distinguished by five 'hallmarks': cultural relativism, subjective understanding, holism, fieldwork, and comparison. Explain what each of these terms means.

The four subfields of anthropology are Archaeology, Physical Anthropology, Linguistics, and Social/Cultural Anthropology. Describe or give an example of one kind of investigation for each subfield.

Anthropologists use both emic and etic approaches in ethnography. What do these terms mean? Describe one example of an aspect of a culture from the readings, lectures, or films, a) from an emic perspective, and b) from an etic perspective.

Define ethnocentrism. What is the difference between ethnocentrism and etic analysis?

A(n) ___________ is the anthropological description of a particular contemporary culture by means of direct fieldwork.

Who are the Nacirema? How do the Nacirema view the human body? What is the point the author is making?

According to Leslie White and others, the ability to symbolize is the single most important aspect of humans that separates us from the other animals. Give one example of this aspect of culture.

Three major characteristics of culture are that it is shared, learned, and largely unconscious. Give one example for each of these aspects from your own life. Give one example of how someone in a different culture might misunderstand your actions based upon cultural difference.

Give 3 examples of something that you think, feel, or do, that someone in any culture would understand. What do you call this phenomenon (things that people in all cultures have in common)?

Briefly describe the 'nature vs. nurture' controversy. According to lecture, what is the current view of most anthropologists in this regard?

What is wrong with this statement: "The XYZ have lived in the same way for thousands of years."?

Invention and diffusion are two processes by which cultures change. Define these terms and give one material and one non-material example of each.

Give one example of biological adaptation among animals or humans. Give one example of cultural adaptation. What is one advantage that cultural adaptation has over biological adaptation? Describe one example of how cultural adaptation can be disadvantageous.

Explain how the introduction of guns and snowmobiles to the Inuit hunters on the Alaskan tundra can be considered both adaptive and maladaptive.

Briefly explain what is meant by the 'organic analogy.' What does it imply about the introduction of something new into a culture? Give one example.

What is an "armchair anthropologist"? How did the division of labor between anthropological data gathering on the one hand, and theorizing about culture on the other, change after the 19th century (how was it done before, and how was it done after the turn of the century)?

In the film, A Man Called Bee, what were 3 kinds of data that Chagnon collected? What were 3 of the methods he used? Which of these methods provided an emic perspective? Which ones were used for an etic analysis?

From the film, A Man Called Bee, and the handout regarding Chagnon's fieldwork among the Yanomamö, describe 3 of the difficulties that Chagnon encountered in conducting his fieldwork.

Define cultural relativism and ethnocentrism. Describe one aspect of Yanomamö culture from an ethnocentric viewpoint. Describe the same aspect from a culturally relative one.

What is enculturation? When does an individual's enculturation begin? The film, A Man Called Bee, shows some examples of enculturation. Describe one of them.

Use the following terms to describe Chagnon's fieldwork among the Yanomamö: cultural relativism, culture shock, subjective understanding, holism, participant observation, emic, etic, and bicultural perspective. (Note: you must describe these in a way that indicates your understanding of the terms).

Give one example of a cultural norm among the Yanomamö. Name one subculture in the U.S. and describe how their norms differ from those of the dominant culture.

Describe the difference between statistical cross-cultural comparison and controlled comparison. Beatrice Whiting and Siegfried Nadel both studied witchcraft using comparative methods. Describe how these two studies illustrate the two different types of comparisons.

How does Nadel's research on witchcraft exemplify a scientific approach to anthropological theory? In other words, explain how he arrived at his frustration-aggression hypothesis, and how it both explained and predicted correlations between witchcraft accusations and other aspects of culture.

What were two of anthropology's 'roots' prior to the 19th century? What prompted or gave rise to theorizing about culture?

What was the major theoretical rubric or paradigm of the 19th century that greatly influenced anthropological theorizing about culture?

Comte, Darwin, Spencer, and Marx were some of the non-anthropologists in the 19th century whose ideas were influential in the development of anthropological theory. Choose two of these thinkers and describe how each of them influenced thinking about culture and history.

Karl Marx was the 'founding father' of the materialist perspective in the 19th century. Briefly explain the basics of this theory. In other words, what is at the base of society that determines the rest of it? According to Marx, what is the driving force of society, history, and change? Name one subsequent anthropological theory based on Marx’s ideas.

Lewis Henry Morgan and Edward Tylor were two major figures in 19th-century anthropology. Describe their cultural evolutionist view (unilineal evolution), and their explanation for why cultures differ. How was their explanation for cultural differences, and their concept of the "psychic unity of humankind" progressive in terms of previous 'degeneration' explanations for cultural difference? Include a definition of "psychic unity of humankind", and an explanation of the "degeneration" theory.

Franz Boas is considered the father of American anthropology. What were 3 of the basic tenets or views of his American Historicism school of theory regarding what anthropology should be about? What were two things that Boas was adamantly against?

During the first part of the 20th century, functionalism was being developed in British social anthropology. Briefly describe this theory. How is functionalism related to the organic analogy?

Malinowski and Radcliff-Brown were two of functionalism's major figures, but they each took slightly different approaches to the explanation of how society works. What was this difference?

Malinowski conducted his fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands during the first World War. How did he help to change ideas about fieldwork? How did he apply the theory of functionalism to the Kula Ring (trading of shell arm bands and necklaces around the islands)?

In the 1920s Margaret Mead began working in the Culture and Personality school that developed out of the Boasian tradition. What was the major thrust of her research in psychological anthropology? In other words, describe Mead's research among adolescent girls in Samoa, and with men and women in New Guinea, and what she was trying to show.

Leslie White developed a neo-evolutionist theory of culture. Describe his basic ideas about culture, technology, and what drives change. In what ways was his theory influenced by Marx?

Explain the basics of Julian Steward's cultural ecology. How is Steward's 'multilinear' cultural ecology different from Leslie White's universal evolutionary model? Were these two theorists coming from a materialist or an interpretivist perspective?

Briefly describe the basic ideas of Claude Levi-Strauss's structuralism: binary opposition, the structure of the brain, and psychic unity of humankind. How was his theory influenced by linguistics?

What do cognitive anthropology and ethnoscience attempt to do? Where is the locus of culture according to this approach? Is this approach emic or etic?

Marvin Harris developed the school of cultural materialism. Describe this approach to explaining culture. Describe how Harris applied this approach in his analysis of vegetarianism among Hindus. Is his approach emic or etic?

Victor Turner and Clifford Geertz were two major figures in symbolic anthropology, but their approaches to the analysis of symbols were different. Briefly describe each of their approaches, and how this difference reflected their different theoretical backgrounds: Turner in the U.K. (structural-functionalism) and Geertz in the U.S. (Boasian cultural anthropology). In other words, describe how each of these men viewed symbols and in relation to culture.

Give one example of Victor Turner's concept of "antistructure." According to Turner, what is the function of antistructure?

How would Turner analyze the American flag? What would Geertz's analysis of the flag focus on?

The interpretivist theoretical school grew out of the work Geertz's symbolic anthropology. Compare this interpretivist approach to the materialist perspective.

Feminist anthropologists beginning in the 1970s had several important concerns and questions that drove their research. What was one of them?

In The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Friedrich Engels lays out his theory of how women came to be subordinate to men. His narrative includes the development of private property, the patriarchal family, the domestic/public divide, and production for exchange. Describe Engels's narrative and explain how each of these factors affected the status of women.

What was Margaret Mead's major contribution in the development of feminist anthropology and thinking about gender?

Describe two contributions that feminist anthropology has made to the study of culture.

Describe two of the basic ideas associated with what is popularly called "postmodernism."

The culture of a group of people includes the belief that a particular sacred plant that is used for medicine can only be harvested on certain days of the year, and by certain people. How would you investigate and attempt to explain this behavior from a materialist perspective? How would you investigate it from an interpretivist perspective?

Give one example of how culture influences language through the elaboration of vocabulary.

What is the basic premise of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? Give one example that supports this hypothesis.

With respect to men and women, who talks more according to Deborah Tannen? How does Tannen explain the contradictory beliefs regarding who talks more?

Spencer – organic analogy, social progress, evolution of social systems toward more complexity, 'survival of the fittest'

Marx and Engels – materialism, infrastructure (economic base/means and relations of production/subsistence) determines superstructure (religion, law, social organization, ideology), societies evolve through stages based upon modes of production, class struggle

Durkheim – organic and mechanical solidarity, forerunner of structural-functionalism

Diffusion, anti-evolutionist, anti-racist, cultural relativism, inductive method, historical particularism, fieldwork

Radcliffe-Brown – structural-functionalism: parts of society function for benefit of society as a whole

Mead – life stages and gender culturally constructed, not biologically determined

White – technology drives cultural evolution by harnessing more energy, thermodynamic law (E x T = C), layer cake model (technology and economy->social organization->ideology), materialist

Steward – multilinear evolution, adaptation to specific environments, similar environments produce similar technological solutions

Lévi-Strauss – binary opposition, myths and symbols, structure of the mind, psychic unity

Sapir and Whorf – emic, language and culture, language determines view of world

Harris – causal explanations, etic, infrastructural determinism, material constraints, interaction with environment, technology, anthropology is science, Marx

Turner – structural-functional, symbols are vehicles for social solidarity, anti-structure

Geertz – interpretive, symbols are public, carriers of cultural meaning, culture as text

Feminist Anthropology - androcentrism, subjective methodology, sex vs. gender

Postmodernism - Rejection of grand theory and possibility of objective science, power relations, collaborative, humanistic