Anthropology and Contemporary Issues
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Course Introduction
This course explores how anthropological theories and methods illuminate pressing contemporary issues across the globe. Students will critically examine topics such as globalization, migration, identity politics, environmental challenges, technological change, social justice, and cultural resilience. Through case studies and ethnographic analyses, the course highlights the role of anthropology in understanding and addressing complex societal problems, fostering cross-cultural awareness, and contributing to policy solutions in a rapidly changing world.
Recommended Textbook Essentials of Cultural Anthropology 2nd Edition by Kenneth J. Guest
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Chapter 1: Anthropology in a Global Age
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Q1) Human beings have long been migrant, moving themselves, their material goods, and even ideas from one part of the world to another. What makes this process, which is now called globalization, seem so different today than in the past?
A) four-field approach
B) holism
C) intensification
D) ethnocentrism
Answer: C
Q2) The Chinese government counts nearly 230 million internal migrants floating in China's cities. What draws most of these internal migrants?
A) work opportunities
B) more affordable housing
C) higher education
D) social movements
Answer: A
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Chapter 2: Culture
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Q1) Which of the following industries has the primary goal of creating a desire for goods and services?
A) banking
B) manufacturing
C) advertising
D) higher education
Answer: C
Q2) The differences in menu items in McDonald's restaurants around the world is a counterexample to what potential consequence of globalization?
A) hegemony
B) consumer culture
C) coercion
D) homogenization
Answer: D
Q3) Which anthropologist advocated most explicitly for thick description?
A) Clifford Geertz
B) Bronislaw Malinowski
C) Ruth Benedict
D) Margaret Mead
Answer: A
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Chapter 3: Fieldwork and Ethnography
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Q1) One recent development in ethnography includes a kind of "full disclosure," in which anthropologists can discuss the length of fieldwork and their relationships with their research subjects. This is seen as valuable because it:
A) maintains a level of impersonal reflection.
B) helps ensure ethnographic loyalty from informants.
C) is how an ethnographer builds the personal framework.
D) clarifies the nature of ethnographic authority.
Answer: D
Q2) What did Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) specifically encourage fellow anthropologists to do in his guidelines?
A) Clearly document the kinship system of the people being studied.
B) Take time to learn the local language of the people being studied.
C) Carefully document the geographical setting of the people being studied.
D) Conduct in-depth analysis of a culture from an armchair.
Answer: B
Q3) Define zeros and explain their significance for ethnographers.
Answer: Zeros are the elements of a story or picture that are not told or seen; they are key details omitted from the conversation. This omission offers insight into which topics are too sensitive to discuss publicly.
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Chapter 4: Language
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Q1) What do we call the system of human communication based on a set of symbols and signs with learned and shared meanings?
A) grammar
B) paralanguage
C) phonology
D) language
Q2) Linguistic anthropologists have discovered that the languages spoken in Europe-such as Latin, English, German, and Greek-are derived from an earlier language, which is called ________.
A) Proto-Indo-European
B) Pre-Modern European
C) Pan Archaic European
D) Proto-Germanic
Q3) When anthropologists emphasize how culture, society, and a person's social position shape language, what kind of anthropology are they describing?
A) cultural preservation
B) sociolinguistics
C) psychological anthropology
D) historical linguistics
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Page 6
Chapter 5: Race and Racism
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Q1) A person who believes that Italians are somehow inferior and therefore refuses to give an Italian person a job is demonstrating what kind of racism?
A) color-blind racism
B) individual racism
C) institutional racism
D) colonialist racism
Q2) What specific term do we use for the process of categorizing, differentiating, and attributing a particular racial characteristic to a person or group of people?
A) miscegenation
B) racialization
C) phenotype
D) hypodescent
Q3) What would physical anthropologists be more likely to consider in their work with the physical characteristics of Homo sapiens?
A) culture
B) genotype
C) phenotype
D) lineage
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Chapter 6: Ethnicity and Nationalism
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Q1) What do anthropologists call the phenomenon when a particular ethnic community desires to create and maintain a nation-state?
A) citizenship
B) diaspora
C) nationalism
D) imagined community
Q2) In a brief essay, compare and contrast how the Bafokeng have formed corporations to achieve specific goals. Use specific examples from the class to illustrate your answer.
Q3) In the opening discussion of Chapter 7, the author discusses how Jerome and Kevin-Prince Boateng have become soccer stars. Their father was Ghanian and their mothers were German; one played soccer for the German national team and the other played for the Ghanian national team. In a brief essay, explain how they can have different nationalities that allow them to play on different national teams. Do they have different ethnicities as well? Why?
Q4) Identify three things that are used as ethnic boundary markers, and explain in what cultures they are used and how.
Q5) Explain what is meant when we say that a nation is an imagined community, and give an example.
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Chapter 7: Gender
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Q1) Explain how feminist research on gender stratification and gender roles has changed since Margaret Mead's pioneering research, paying particular attention to the approaches and findings of Sherri Ortner, Michelle Rosaldo, and Annette Weiner. What do we understand about how gender should be studied today?
Q2) The phrases "boys will be boys" and "it's a girl thing" reflect what aspect of gender?
A) stratification
B) genetic variation
C) stereotypes
D) intelligence
Q3) Which best describes the learned behaviors perceived as masculine or feminine?
A) sexual dimorphism
B) alternate sexualities
C) cultural constructions
D) gender stratification
Q4) How have women's roles in the U.S. military evolved over the last few years? What are the tensions that still exist? Explain how women in the U.S. military serves as an example of gender stratification and highlights the relationship between gender and power in the U.S.
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Chapter 8: Sexuality
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Q1) Roger Lancaster found that in Nicaragua, men who received anal intercourse were stigmatized while men who penetrated other men during anal intercourse were still considered properly masculine. What does this reveal about the concept of machismo?
A) Machismo has nothing to do with sexuality.
B) Only heterosexual men can fulfill the ideals of machismo.
C) Machismo stigmatizes every type of homosexual behavior.
D) Machismo creates a strong contrast between aggression and passivity.
Q2) Under the rules of machismo, the machista is considered what kind of person?
A) a manly man
B) a cochon, or gay man
C) a type of sex worker
D) a weak man
Q3) Using historical and cross-cultural examples provided in the text, evaluate the anthropological approach to sexuality. What do historical and cross-cultural cases of sexuality tell us about sexual norms? Did you learn anything in this chapter about sexuality that you had previously taken for granted? If so, what did you learn? If not, provide an example of something discussed in the chapter that you think someone might be surprised to learn.
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Chapter 9: Kinship, Family, and Marriage
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Q1) In 2004, the American Anthropological Association (AAA)-the largest association of anthropologists in the United States-issued a statement regarding same-sex marriages and what was then a contentious piece of legislation, the Defense of Marriage Act. What position did the AAA take on same-sex marriages? Did the AAA have research data to substantiate its position? Do you think that professional associations such as the AAA should make formal position statements about issues that are part of a "culture clash"? Why or why not?
Q2) While the notion of a romantic marriage predominates thinking in the United States, what is another common reason for marriage prevalent in other countries?
A) to ensure domestic bliss
B) to stabilize the tax base
C) to create a strategic alliance
D) to ensure accurate paternal identification
Q3) The Nandi of Kenya and the Nuer of Sudan are examples of societies that:
A) practice polyandry.
B) have no recognizable marriage practices.
C) allow women to marry other women.
D) have arranged marriages.
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Chapter 10: Class and Inequality
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Q1) Why might theorist Pierre Bourdieu have decided to examine his theory of social mobility-the interrelationships between culture, class, and power-in the French school system as opposed to, say, the workplace of adults?
A) Schools afforded him the opportunity to study how children entered the workplace.
B) Schools offered the chance to look across multiple generations.
C) Schools afforded a quieter, more stable environment.
D) In theory, success in school does not depend on individual students' talent and motivation.
Q2) Economists report that the income and wealth gaps in the United States are widening. What is the difference between income and wealth? Can an individual have high income but little wealth? What are some explanations for the income and wealth disparities that exist in the United States today? Why are the U.S. income and wealth gaps widening despite economic globalization and access to educational opportunities? How do income and wealth affect one's social mobility? How do other systems of social stratification affect an individual's income and wealth??
Q3) Compare the water crises of the poor urban settlers in Mumbai, India, and the residents of Flint, Michigan.
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Chapter 11: The Global Economy
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Q1) According to the author, what conditions led to the emergence of dependency theory?
A) African scholars argued that industrialized countries were using the land and rain in East Africa to grow crops for export.
B) Anthropologists observed that inadequate natural resources made former colonies across the globe dependent on help from industrialized nations.
C) Latin American scholars observed that the global economy was structured to extract resources from less developed nations and transfer them to industrialized nations.
D) European scholars argued that flows of migrants from the global north to the global south made Europe dependent on immigrants as a labor source.
Q2) Development is frequently considered to be a way to spur economic growth and a path toward what?
A) balanced trade
B) environmental sustainability
C) alleviating poverty and raising living standards
D) financial stability in the global economy
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Chapter 12: Politics and Power
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Q1) According to Service's typology, a transitional form between the simpler political structures of tribes and the more complex political structures of states is a(n):
A) band.
B) chiefdom.
C) tribe.
D) ethnic group.
Q2) An autonomous regional political structure with a central government authorized to make laws and use political, economic, and military force to maintain order and defend its territory is referred to as what?
A) group
B) band
C) state
D) chiefdom
Q3) Compare and contrast the concept of power, in general, with state power, and give an example of each.
Q4) What is agency? Give two examples of people or groups that have exerted their agency.
Q5) Describe the effects militarization has on a society. Provide two examples.
Q6) Explain what hegemony is and give an example that illustrates your explanation.
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Chapter 13: Religion
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Q1) E. E. Evans-Pritchard conducted fieldwork among the Azande and rebuffed Max Weber's earlier assertion that science and modernization would lead to the decline of magic. What was a key element of magic highlighted by Evans-Pritchard's work?
A) Magic is irrational.
B) Magic is scientific.
C) Magic is ritualistic.
D) Magic is rational.
Q2) Anthropologists typically conduct fieldwork as participants, living and coexisting with those they study. Why is it that anthropologists believe religion, as a set of beliefs about how the world ought to be, can also be successfully studied in this manner?
A) Religion can only be understood by participating in formal religious services.
B) Religion is also lived out in a community of people.
C) Participant observation can also reveal if a religion is true or false.
D) Religion is also useful as a theoretical understanding of daily life.
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Chapter 14: Health, Illness, and the Body
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Q1) A Dutch woman's attitude toward childbirth:
A) reinforces the values of hard work, endurance, and tolerance of difficulty.
B) sees it as a natural process.
C) views it as personal and fulfilling accomplishment.
D) is filled with anxiety and she often cries out in distress.
Q2) How do medical anthropologists distinguish between disease and illness?
A) as a pathological condition versus an imagined reality
B) as a natural entity versus personal experience
C) as a natural entity versus a condition defined by the state
D) as a natural entity versus a psychologically treatable condition
Q3) Travelling to Tijuana to buy high blood pressure medicine, making a pilgrimage to visit a saint's shrine for healing, and going to the rainforest to participate in a ritual guided by a Shaman are all examples of:
A) medical migration.
B) biomedicine.
C) the movement of germs and disease.
D) the globalization of biomedicine.
Q4) What is biomedicine, and how do its practitioners view and treat diseases? Discuss two criticisms that anthropologists have about the European biases in the model.
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Chapter 15: Art and Media
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Q1) Why is Morrinho important to anthropologists?
A) It exposes the intersections of class, poverty, power, and kinship through a miniature city.
B) It reveals the fascination Brazilians have for models.
C) It displays the ways that foreign powers have infiltrated Brazil's art world.
D) It acts as a channel for the local population to expose corruption.
Q2) Define the term kinetic orality and describe the circular relationship Kyra Gaunt documented between the games black girls play and commercial hip-hop culture, especially as it pertains to the construction of gender.
Q3) From an anthropological perspective, who is eligible to create and experience art?
A) all groups
B) non-Western populations
C) skilled performers
D) trained artists
Q4) Evaluate this statement: "As people become frustrated with the lack of intimacy provided by electronic technologies, this form of communication will become less important in coming decades." Is it true or false? Use examples from the text to support your conclusion.
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