Cultural Anthropology Exam 2

Question 1

Unilinear Evolution

Answer 1

Every society would discover the same things, just at different times.
Issues - Ethnocentric thinking, rationalized colonization, “progress” focused.

Question 2

Diffusionism

Answer 2

Innovations spread from one culture to another. Was there to show how interconnected societies in a region are.
Issues - Limited to scholarly worldview, didn’t explain and only described, often used with extremist views.

Question 3

Functionalism

Answer 3

Tells about the purpose of things in a society
Issues - Sameness in explanation, doesn’t explain origin of customs or how culture change through time.

Question 4

Historical Particularism

Answer 4

Valued fieldwork and history as critical methods of cultural analysis.
Issues - Depended on diffusionism that was undatable, unfocused recording of cultural knowledge, only interested in trying to reconstruct pre-contact cultures

Question 5

Structuralism

Answer 5

A mode of knowledge of nature and human life that is interested in relationships rather than individual objects

Question 6

Cultural Ecology

Answer 6

How societies adapt to different environments

Question 7

Interpretive anthropology

Answer 7

It tries to understand a culture from the participant’s point of view

Question 8

Marxist Anthropology

Answer 8

Focuses on social conflict within societies, asymmetrical relationships of power and wealth

Question 9

Psychological Anthropology

Answer 9

Anthropology through a psychological lens

Question 10

Cultural Materialism

Answer 10

Material aspects of culture (economics, reproduction) often determine social and ideological matters

Question 11

Which person is associated with what?

Answer 11

Edward Taylor - Unilinear Evolution
Claude Levi-Stauss - Structuralism
Marvin Harris - Cultural Materialism
Franz Boas - Historical Particularism
Bronislaw Malinowski - Functionalism
Ruth Benedict - Psychological Anthropology
Margret Mead - Psychological Anthropology
Julian Stewart - Cultural Ecology
Clifford Geertz - Interpretive Anthropology
Cora Du Bois - Psychological Anthropology
Lewis Henry Morgan - Unilinear Evolution

Question 12

Why is Franz Boas important in the history of American anthropology?

Answer 12

Established academic anthropology in the United States in opposition to Morgan’s evolutionary perspective. His approach was empirical, skeptical of overgeneralizations, and eschewed attempts to establish universal laws.

Question 13

How would a cultural materialist explain India’s taboo on killing cattle?

Answer 13

They would see it as being born from economic factors

Question 14

How would a structuralist view myths?

Answer 14

That myths are universal

Question 15

Hunting and Gathering

Answer 15

Small nomadic groups that rely on wild plants and animals, though trading does also happens.
Men hunt while woman look for plants.
Example: !Kung San of southwestern Africa.

Question 16

Horticulture

Answer 16

Domesticated crops, cultivated with hand tools.
Slash-and-burn (swidden) method (temporary fields).
Requires more labor than foraging but produces more food.
Example: The Yanomamo of South America

Question 17

Agriculture

Answer 17

Lots of land and permanent fields. Can support a large population but poor nutrition due to lack of variety.
Example: The United States of North America

Question 18

Herding

Answer 18

Subsistence revolves around herds (cattle, sheep, goats, llamas, camels, reindeer). Herders might be nomadic or sedentary, in many different environments.
Example: The Masai of Kenya and Tanzania

Question 19

Which of the four subsistence types represents the largest societies and why?

Answer 19

Agriculture. It can support the most amount of people due to the amount of land and water that it uses.

Question 20

Intensive Agriculture

Answer 20

Ancient form that depends of human and animal labor.
Families grow crops that they can consume. Surplus is sold or used as tribute to government or temples.

Question 21

Industrial Agriculture

Answer 21

Recent form that has developed since the 1800s. Depends on complex machinery/technology.
Families grow crops that they cannot directly consume. The crops are sold to companies, and families use the proceeds to buy food.

Question 22

Terracing

Answer 22

Modifying steep hills into stair case-like levels to be able to grow crops.

Question 23

How much do Foragers have to work to find enough food to eat?

Answer 23

Quite a lot. It’s a big part of being a hunter/gatherer society.

Question 24

Transhumance

Answer 24

Herding strategy that involves moving to the uplands in the summer and the lowlands in the winter.

Question 25

Monocropping

Answer 25

Growing only one kind of crop.

Question 26

What is distinctive about traditional Inuit diet, and how can it be healthy?

Answer 26

Traditional Inuit foods include arctic char, seal, polar bear and caribou — often consumed raw, frozen or dried. The foods, which are native to the region, are packed with the vitamins and nutrients people need to stay nourished in the harsh winter conditions.

Question 27

Production

Answer 27

Production can rely on human labor, animal labor, land, knowledge, time, technology, and land use rights.
Production often involves that society’s idea of a division of labor by gender and/or age.

Question 28

Why and How do people develop different economies?

Answer 28

Not all societies value or recognize ‘profit’
Goods may be produced, exchanged, and consumed for social prestige or to promote peace among communities.

Question 29

Social prestige and how it drives economies

Answer 29

How much people recognize you and respect you.
It drives people to participate in an exchange of goods for social standing.
Example: The Kula exchange arm shells and necklaces across islands to earn prestige.
The Yanomamo exchange pottery with each other for social points.

Question 30

Generalized Reciprocity

Answer 30

Sharing with no specific expectation of equal repayment.
There is a general expectation that those you share with will share with you.

Question 31

Balanced Reciprocity

Answer 31

Balanced reciprocity reflects greater social distance.
There is an expectation of future repayment in kind and of equal value.

Question 32

Negative Reciprocity

Answer 32

Occurs among individuals, such as strangers, where there is much social distance.
Expectation of immediate repayment of goods of equal or greater value.

Question 33

Redistribution

Answer 33

Occurs in complex societies. Flow of surplus goods into and out of common pool (granaries, tribute, taxes, etc.).
Chiefs or officials may control central point of distribution.

Question 34

Market Economy

Answer 34

Market Economy or market exchange entails central markets where goods are exchanged for formal currency. The currency can be multi-purpose money or limited-purpose money

Question 35

Potlatch

Answer 35

Happens among Northwest Coast Native Americans. Big Men gather food, blankets, masks, copper items, etc. to give away at feasts. The more the Big Men give away, the greater their prestige.

Question 36

What does each of the three forms of reciprocity suggest about social distance between the participants?

Answer 36

Generalized: Among friends, close kin–little social distance
Balanced: Exchange of feasts, etc. Greater social distance
Negative: Among strangers. Far social distance.

Question 37

Ethnicity

Answer 37

Tends to be a voluntary label that people place on themselves. It often is not stressed.

It involves the idea of common descent and often shared cultural attributes (language, religion) but it also can include place of origin.

Question 38

Race

Answer 38

It is a label that people force on each other, and it is not necessarily how people see themselves.
The labels imply that races are biologically distinct. However, there is no ‘race gene.’

Question 39

Are races distinctly real and definable as biological entities?

Answer 39

HELL NO

Question 40

Why did ancient humans evolve different skin colors?

Answer 40

To deal with different levels of UV radiation in their environment.

Question 41

Melanin

Answer 41

Cells that, depending on how much you have, determine your skin color.

Question 42

Pigmentocracy

Answer 42

A society or state of affairs in which skin color determines socioeconomic standing.

Question 43

Symbolic ethnicity

Answer 43

An ethnic identity that emphasizes concerns such as ethnic food or political issues rather than deeper ties to one’s ethnic heritage.

Question 44

Hypodescent

Answer 44

A person of mixed race is designated as being of a single race.

Question 45

Gender classification in the U.S, Brazil, and Japan

Answer 45

U.S: White people and Black people
Brazil: Hundreds of races that includes mixes and how westernized you are.
Japan: Once had a caste, now don’t. However, families will still look into other families to see where they used to be in the caste system of Feudal Japan.

Question 46

Exogamy vs. Endogamy

Answer 46

Exogamy: Marry outside the community
Endogamy: Marry inside the community only

Question 47

Achieved status vs. Ascribed status

Answer 47

Achieved: We acquire through personal achievement, either negative or positive: spouse, student, etc.
Ascribed: We inherit through birth right: being a son or daughter in a family or a royal lineage, a member of a clan, a member of a caste, etc.

Question 48

Egalitarian Societies (Bands and Tribes)

Answer 48

Everyone has equal opportunities and access to resources. Achieved status more valued. There is no limit on leaders, don’t have much power, and they lead similar lives.
Example: The Inuit

Question 49

Ranked (Chiefdoms) Societies

Answer 49

Some people have more access to resources than others and better opportunities based on birthright. Ascribed statuses more valued. Limit on leaders but have power and lead different lives.
Example: Polynesia Chiefs

Question 50

Stratified (States) Societies

Answer 50

Some people have more access to resources than others and better opportunities based on birthright. Ascribed statuses more valued. Class or caste define social relationships. Limit on leaders but have power and lead different lives.
Example: Inca and the United States

Question 51

Class vs. Caste

Answer 51

Class: Flexible
May be endogamous
Can limit career and marriage choices.

Caste: Typically fixed from birth.
Endogamous.
Limits career and marriage choices.

Question 52

Why is art difficult to define?

Answer 52

Not all societies have same idea of what ‘art’ is or if it exists as a separate category of objects or behavior.

Question 53

What characteristics does art have according to lecture?

Answer 53

1. Humanly created (could include training of animals to produce art they wouldn’t others create).
2. Created through exercise of physical, conceptual, or imaginative skill
3. Intended to affect our senses
4. Share stylistic conventions with other art of the same culture.
5. Can be visual art, performance art, or both.

Question 54

Do all societies have the same concept of what art is?

Answer 54

Nope

Question 55

Why did the Maori wear tattoos?

Answer 55

Linked to mana or a sense of pride and prestige.

Question 56

Why do the Navajo create sand paintings?

Answer 56

Used in curing ceremonies in which the gods’ help is requested for harvests and healing.

Question 57

Sex vs. Gender

Answer 57

Sex: Refers to a person’s biological status, genetically constructed and physically expressed. Two sexes.
Gender: Refers to a person’s social status, culturally constructed and behaviorally expressed. Gender consists of roles, behavior, and associated statuses. A society may define more than two genders.

Question 58

Transgender and/or Third gender examples in other cultures

Answer 58

We’wha was a lhamana (Zuni for third gender or male/female category)
Many woman in many African societies have taken on male roles, such as Nne Uko of Nigeria.
Hijas of South Asia: Biological males who function in society as woman.
Sworn virgins of Albania: Woman who became men and live like men only if they swore to forever stay a virgin.

Question 59

Gender inequality

Answer 59

Unbalanced treatment between the sexes and established genders.
It’s done through pay wages, education level, age, wealth, hate crimes, etc.

Question 60

In what types of societies do you tend to find the most gender inequality?

Answer 60

Non-industrial food-producing societies.

Question 61

A Masai woman’s life, duties, and rights.

Answer 61

They live to bare children, build and take care of things, and to look after their assigned number of cattle.
Their rights are non-existent.

Question 62

How much control over their lives do Masai Women have?

Answer 62

Without getting into trouble, they have none.

Question 63

How do Masai myths rationalize male dominance?

Answer 63

In Masai myth, the woman originally watched over the livestalk. However, they didn’t take watch and care of them and are punished for eternity for their mistake.