Chapter 8

Question 1

What is the focus of Political Anthropology?

Answer 1

Organized use of public power in society, human behaviour and thoughts related to public power, cross cultural modes of politics and political organizations.

Question 2

What do political organizations maintain?

Answer 2

Social order, group right, safety from external threats.

Question 3

What are the 5 forms of political institutions?

Answer 3

Band, chiefdom, tribe, state, nation.

Question 4

What is a band?

Answer 4

Small group of linked households connected by kinship.

Question 5

Do bands have leaders?

Answer 5

Not formal leaders, but some people may have influence or authority, not power

Question 6

What is power?

Answer 6

Ability to bring about results with the potential or use of force.

Question 7

What is authority?

Answer 7

Ability to bring about results based on status.

Question 8

What is influence?

Answer 8

Ability to bring about results by exerting moral or social pressure.

Question 9

What are tribes?

Answer 9

Social groups more formal than bands which are comprised of several bands/lineage groups.

Question 10

Do tribes have leaders? What are their roles?

Answer 10

They have tribal headmen who have authority and influence. In charge of conflict resolution, migration, hunting, etc..

Question 11

What is big-man/woman leadership?

Answer 11

Individuals build political base and prestige from personal wealth and then subsequent redistribution system (feasts).

Question 12

What are the responsibilities of a big man or woman?

Answer 12

Internal/external affairs. crop cycles, feasts, trade, war, councils.

Question 13

What is moka?

Answer 13

Strategy for developing political leadership in Papua New Guinea, involves gift giving, feasts, and having many pigs.

Question 14

What is a chiefdom?

Answer 14

Centralized and socially complex social group that has permanently allied tribes and villages under one leader who possesses power.

Question 15

How is chiefdom achieved?

Answer 15

Can be inherited or bc of social stratification.

Question 16

What is the role of the chief?

Answer 16

Regulate production and distribution, solve internal conflicts and lead wars and raids.

Question 17

What power did Iroquois women have in chiefdoms?

Answer 17

Since they controlled the maize production they could refuse to produce maize to support a certain war or raid, therefore vetoing it.

Question 18

Who is in charge of connected chiefdoms?

Answer 18

“Big chief”

Question 19

What is a state?

Answer 19

Centralized political unit with citizens that maintains a territory.

Question 20

What does the state have the power to do?

Answer 20

Define citizenship (rights and responsibilities), maintain law, maintain social order, maintain armies, collect tax, keep track of citizens.

Question 21

How does the state manipulate information?

Answer 21

Censorship, propaganda, control.

Question 22

What is secularism?

Answer 22

Separation of church and state.

Question 23

What is a nation?

Answer 23

Group of people who share language, culture, territorial base, political organization, but definitions can vary.

Question 24

What are imagined communities?

Answer 24

Building a sense of belonging and commitment among diverse communities in order to make a nation. Ex. One national language, monuments, museums, unified media messages

Question 25

What is the nation/state situation in Puerto rico?

Answer 25

Puerto rico is neither a full state of the us or an independent political unit. Difficult bc many puerto ricans life off the island and many people have migrated to P.R.

Question 26

What is the nation/state conflict in kurdistan?

Answer 26

Kurdish people want to establish as an independent state, right now part of several different countries but race language restrictions in Turkey, oppression in Iraq and etc..

Question 27

What are the three types of power defined by Eric Wolf?

Answer 27

Interpersonal power, organizational power and structural power.

Question 28

What does Karl Marx say about Idxeology?

Answer 28

Ideology is a form of power.

Question 29

How does Gramsci define domination and hegemony?

Answer 29

Domination: Physical and violent coercion Hegemony: ideological control and manipulation

Question 30

Normalization

Answer 30

Social process in which some practices are deemed normal and some aren't.

Question 31

What does Edward Syed say about Orientalism?

Answer 31

It's the western style of thought that creates a false opposition between the east and west.

Question 32

What does legal anthropology study?

Answer 32

Forms of social control, social conflict, social justice, and human rights, across different cultures.

Question 33

How does social control function at a state level?

Answer 33

Increased specialization of roles, formal, based on codified law, use of capital punishment.

Question 34

What is critical legal anthropology?

Answer 34

Approach that examines how law and justice institutions uphold systems of oppression and protect powerful people.

Question 35

What are examples of weapons of the weak?

Answer 35

Desertion, false compliance, humour, foot dragging.

Question 36

What is militarism? Where is it a big problem?

Answer 36

Dominance of military in administration of social control and state. Papua New Guinea

Question 37

What is informal social control vs formal social control? (examples)

Answer 37

socialization, education, peer pressure (amis and mennonite) vs. codified rules

Question 38

How is social control maintained in small scale societies?

Answer 38

Interpersonal resolution, shaming, ostracizing, elders as a court.

Question 39

How do Sumba in Indonesia see breaking a promise?

Answer 39

Breaking a promise means that your ancestors are mad and they send damage to crops, illness or death of relative or destruction of property.

Question 40

What is a global-local conflict?

Answer 40

Big and powerful country colonize smaller country, control their wars.

Question 41

What are the theories as to why the Yanomami peoples in Amazonian rainforest were observed as violent by Napolean Chagnon?

Answer 41

Marvin Harris: Protein scarcity and population dynamics Brian Ferguson: violence caused by western presence Patrick Tierney: Chagnon's presence caused the conflict and violence

Question 42

What is democratization?

Answer 42

Process of transformation from authoritarian regime to democratic regime or just less authoritarian.

Question 43

What is Carneiro's theory about the future of state?

Answer 43

One superstate is the future of the world.

Question 44

What are cultural anthropologists perspective of critical cultural relativism about the UN?

Answer 44

UN provides a place to air global disputes and support NGOs and grassroots, but those are doing the real work.