Question 1

Despite the increasing popularity of team research among anthropologists, the best ethnographies are always the product of individual work.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 2

In survey research, a sample should

Accepted Answer

A) include the entire population in question. 
B) include anyone who will be interviewed by the ethnographer. 
C) target only one social, cultural, or environmental factor that influences behavior. 
D) be constituted so as to allow inferences about the larger population. 
E) be invariant.

Question 3

Despite the differences among theoretical paradigms of practitioners as varied as Harris (cultural materialism), White (neoevolutionism), Steward (cultural ecology), and Mead (configurationalism), all of them have what in common?

Accepted Answer

A) a strong sense of determinism, leaving very little (if any) room for the exercise of individual human agency 
B) a well-founded suspicion of the claims of science 
C) an embrace of reflexive anthropology 
D) a sense of moral duty to help the people they studied to accelerate their path to civilization 
E) a strong concern for the future of anthropological education

Question 4

Longitudinal research is the long-term study of a community, region, society, culture, or other unit, usually based on repeated visits.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 5

In survey research, what term is used to refer to the attributes that vary among the members of a population?

Accepted Answer

A) unknowns 
B) questionnaires 
C) interviews 
D) variables 
E) random samples

Question 6

In survey research, what is sampling?

Accepted Answer

A) the collection of a study group from a larger population 
B) the interviewing of a small number of key cultural consultants 
C) a form of participant observation 
D) the collection of life histories of every member in a community 
E) a collection reflecting the emic perspective

Question 7

As investigators who illustrated the functionalist approach in anthropology, both Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown performed ethnographic research focused on

Accepted Answer

A) myth and ritual and the ways these aspects of culture created social cohesion. 
B) the evolutionary history of present-day cultural patterns. 
C) the role of cultural traits and practices in contemporary society. 
D) the symbolic value that cultural traits and practices held with members of contemporary society. 
E) the role of cultural traits and practices aimed at conflict resolution.

Question 8

The work of which of the following anthropologists illustrated a renewed interest in cultural change and even evolution (although of a very different sort than Tylor and Morgan had in mind)?

Accepted Answer

A) Ruth Benedict 
B) Max Gluckman 
C) Victor Turner 
D) Julian Steward 
E) Margaret Mead

Question 9

How have anthropologists tried to bring evolution into the study of human culture? Have these approaches succeeded, or failed? Why? Do you see any way in which evolution and culture could be united into a broad and effective explanatory paradigm?

Accepted Answer

The answer of How have anthropologists tried to bring evolution...

Question 10

The view that each element of culture, such as the culture trait or trait complex, has its own distinctive history, and that social forms (such as totemism in different societies) that might look similar are not comparable because of their different histories, is known as

Accepted Answer

A) historical particularism. 
B) cultural generalism. 
C) the Boasian approach. 
D) structural functionalism. 
E) comparative functionalism.

Question 11

This chapter's survey of the major theoretical perspectives that have characterized anthropology highlights all of the following EXCEPT

Accepted Answer

A) a continuous concern with how to define and study culture. 
B) the theoretical and methodological shift from complexity to models that simplify human diversity. 
C) a continuous concern with scientific fundamentals and whether or not anthropology's research subject is best studied scientifically. 
D) attention to whether or not anthropological data ought to be comparative across time and space. 
E) the discipline's profound commitment to understanding human diversity.

Question 12

Traditionally, ethnographers have tried to understand the whole of a particular culture.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 13

An agreement to take part in research after having the nature, procedures, and possible impacts of the research explained is known as

Accepted Answer

A) a research protocol briefing. 
B) the do no harm directive. 
C) informed consent. 
D) etic and emic protocols. 
E) implied consent.

Question 14

An anthropologist has just arrived at a new field site and feels overwhelmed with a creepy, profound feeling of alienation, of being without some of the most ordinary, trivial (and therefore basic) cues of his culture of origin.What term best describes what he is experiencing?

Accepted Answer

A) culture shock 
B) diachrony 
C) synchrony 
D) configurationalism 
E) agency paralysis

Question 15

Briefly describe the nine characteristic field techniques of the ethnographer.How do they compare with the research techniques you have learned about in courses or readings in other academic disciplines?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Briefly describe the nine characteristic field techniques...

Question 16

Among the classic works of processual approaches to culture is Edmund Leach's Political Systems of Highland Burma.This study made a tremendously important point by taking a regional rather than a local perspective.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 17

Which of the following is NOT an example of participant observation?

Accepted Answer

A) administering interviews according to an interview schedule over the phone 
B) helping out at harvest time 
C) dancing at a ceremony 
D) buying a shroud for a village ancestor 
E) engaging in informal chit-chat

Question 18

Really good key cultural consultants will actually end up recording most of the data needed to write an ethnography.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 19

Which is the key assumption in Claude Lévi-Strauss's structuralism?

Accepted Answer

A) All myths can be classified as either good or evil. 
B) The human propensity to classify phenomena in certain ways is acquired through enculturation. 
C) There is a very specific role for human agency in culture, and the structure of cultural patterns determines that role. 
D) Cultural patterns determine the human propensity to classify things in certain ways. 
E) Human minds have certain universal characteristics that originate in common features of the Homo sapiens brain and lead people everywhere to think similarly regardless of their society or cultural background.

Question 20

Given the realities of the contemporary world, anthropologists need to apply methods that protect their analyses from biases caused by external forces.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Exam 3: Method and Theory in Cultural Anthropology

Despite the increasing popularity of team research among anthropologists, the best ethnographies are always the product of individual work.

In survey research, a sample should

Despite the differences among theoretical paradigms of practitioners as varied as Harris (cultural materialism) , White (neoevolutionism) , Steward (cultural ecology) , and Mead (configurationalism) , all of them have what in common?

Longitudinal research is the long-term study of a community, region, society, culture, or other unit, usually based on repeated visits.

In survey research, what term is used to refer to the attributes that vary among the members of a population?

In survey research, what is sampling?

As investigators who illustrated the functionalist approach in anthropology, both Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown performed ethnographic research focused on

The work of which of the following anthropologists illustrated a renewed interest in cultural change and even evolution (although of a very different sort than Tylor and Morgan had in mind) ?

How have anthropologists tried to bring evolution into the study of human culture? Have these approaches succeeded, or failed? Why? Do you see any way in which evolution and culture could be united into a broad and effective explanatory paradigm?

The view that each element of culture, such as the culture trait or trait complex, has its own distinctive history, and that social forms (such as totemism in different societies) that might look similar are not comparable because of their different histories, is known as

This chapter's survey of the major theoretical perspectives that have characterized anthropology highlights all of the following EXCEPT

Traditionally, ethnographers have tried to understand the whole of a particular culture.

An agreement to take part in research after having the nature, procedures, and possible impacts of the research explained is known as

An anthropologist has just arrived at a new field site and feels overwhelmed with a creepy, profound feeling of alienation, of being without some of the most ordinary, trivial (and therefore basic) cues of his culture of origin.What term best describes what he is experiencing?

Briefly describe the nine characteristic field techniques of the ethnographer.How do they compare with the research techniques you have learned about in courses or readings in other academic disciplines?

Among the classic works of processual approaches to culture is Edmund Leach's Political Systems of Highland Burma.This study made a tremendously important point by taking a regional rather than a local perspective.

Which of the following is NOT an example of participant observation?

Really good key cultural consultants will actually end up recording most of the data needed to write an ethnography.

Which is the key assumption in Claude Lévi-Strauss's structuralism?

Given the realities of the contemporary world, anthropologists need to apply methods that protect their analyses from biases caused by external forces.