week 11

Question 1

Anthropologists have a long engagement with games and sports, focusing on the ways in which games and sport intersect with:

Answer 1

• Gender and sexuality
• Physicality and movement
• Race and ethnicity
• Class and identity
• Nationalism and Patriotism

Question 2

Sport is a cultural behaviour inwhich humans engage in ritualized behaviours common in other religious ritual contexts:

Answer 2

• Collective singing
• Collective movement
• Use of material devices to effect outcomes.

Question 3

Why do we value sports

Answer 3

Sport is an important societal phenomenon because of its ritualistic overtones

Question 4

Sports anthropologists have identified four motifs around which character contests in
North America revolve:

Answer 4

• Courage
• Gameness
• Integrity
• Composure

Question 5

Why do we value athletes

Answer 5

Sporting incidents singled out and applauded by the media as examples of heroic action are used to support the idea that athletes are significant social figures because they are
capable of representing important societal values

The athlete’s role is incumbent with power to mediate between the individuals who comprise the audience and the moral order of the
community

Sport has ritual significance when character based on valued social attributes is demonstrated. In such situations, the athlete is an exemplary figure who embodies the moral values of the community and thus serves as a
symbol of those values

Question 6

Drive-discharge theory

Answer 6

War and sports are substitutes in the
release of aggression. Sport is an adaptive mechanism that redirects human need to discharge aggression toward a more contained
and localized form of violence.

Question 7

Cultural-pattern theory

Answer 7

Violence is not innate but a learned behaviour. The more culturally acceptable violence is in a society, the more likely warlike sports will be found in that society.

Question 8

Warlike sports are

Answer 8

contact sports that emphasize the importance of group physical force and technical application of the force over opponents. (Rugby,
American Football, Hockey).

Question 9

Anthropologists often use the ______ for cross-cultural study.

Answer 9

Human Relations Area Files

It is a comprehensive database of thousands of ethnographic studies of human cultural behaviours from around the world, searchable and coded for thousands of activities

Question 10

t/f Cross-culturally, games of chance are not
closely associated with religious activities
than games of strategy

Answer 10

false: they are closely associated

Question 11

Card and board games also have aspects of
ritualized play and rules of interaction

Answer 11

• Poker
• Chess
• Scabble
• Risk
• Role playing games

Question 12

Dungeons and Dragons

Answer 12

game developed in the 1970s and published in 1974. Developed further through 1970s and
subsequent years into different editions with
expanded rules and settings. By the late 1970s, D&D was played by 10s of thousands of children and young adults across the English-speaking world.

The game has elements of chance, as the chance of success in the encounters with monsters or other features of the environment is dependent upon a character’s skill, which is translated into a probability.

In short, roleplaying games are a way to explore alternative ways of experiencing and living in world that is socially created (and thus unlike literature or other forms of media, which is the work of an individual)

D&D viewed as a rule book for entering into the occult.

D&D becomes an escape from a drab and burdensome life. (sexual violence)

Question 13

1983: D&D sources of anxiety

Answer 13

1.) D&D is a shared creative and immersive alternative reality that was thought to blur the distinction between real and make-believe.
2.) D&D incorporates elements of religious ritual that are role-played as part of the game.
3.) D&D includes in its game universe the presence of deities, devils, demons, undead and unholy priests that players may encounter.

Question 14

1983 - 1992 “Satanic Panic

Answer 14

A widespread belief, popularised by the
media, that across North America (and
to a lesser extent Western Europe and
Australia) there were multiple instances of
underground satanic rings that participated in child abuse and murder

Thus, the claims have a surface plausibility. According to these claims-making groups, because such play represents “consorting with the Devil,” one should expect insidious and
diabolical consequences, corrupting naïve players who become involved in the game without knowing its dangerous effects.

Theories of collective behaviour suggest that rumours and panics arise from shared sources of social stress, underlying conditions which cause widespread anxiety and frustration.

The geographic patterning in rural communities suggests a socioeconomic basis: Economic stresses are particularly acute in rural and small
town areas.

Rural fundamentalist Protestant communication networks actively disseminated Satanic cult stories.

Question 15

ontological systems

Answer 15

Refers to the specific systems of meaning within
define our sense of reality, or at least are thought to be plausible

Question 16

Deviancy Amplification

Answer 16

constant preoccupation with the breakdown of the moral order by older adults, complaining how youth are becoming more violent and immoral than ever before.

Question 17

Moral panics are

Answer 17

features of society, fueled by underlying social stress and amplified by gossip, rumor and (in modern contexts) the media.

Question 18

Role playing games like D&D are important vehicles for exploring alternative social realities, and some of these alternative realities have ____ and ______ codes that differ from those held by contemporary people (conservative)

Answer 18

moral and religious codes