Anthropology of Contemporary Issues
Midterm Exam
Course Introduction
Anthropology of Contemporary Issues explores how anthropological theories and methods illuminate pressing global and local challenges faced by societies today. The course examines topics such as migration, globalization, inequality, environmental change, technology, and identity from a cross-cultural perspective. Students will engage with current case studies, ethnographic research, and critical debates to analyze how cultural practices, power dynamics, and social structures shape responses to contemporary problems. Through this lens, the course fosters skills in critical thinking and cultural analysis, equipping students to better understand and address the complex issues of our modern world.
Recommended Textbook
Cultural Anthropology 4th Canadian Edition by Barbara
D. Miller
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15 Chapters
1776 Verified Questions
1776 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: The Nature of Anthropology
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134 Verified Questions
134 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which factor contributed most to the development of anthropology as a distinct field for studying human diversity?
A) the discovery of diverse peoples during biblical days
B) the rise of cultural imperialism,which promoted intellectual development in Europe
C) attempts during the 18th century to explain human behaviour scientifically in terms of natural laws
D) the application of biblical mythology to explain human diversity
Answer: C
Q2) Why do sociocultural anthropologists strongly encourage non-North American ethnographers to do fieldwork in Canada?
A) They are often better-educated than Canadian ethnographers.
B) As outsiders,they may have insights that insiders might overlook.
C) They need the work.
D) Canadian ethnographers only focus on overseas work.
Answer: B
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3
Chapter 2: The Nature of Culture
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98 Verified Questions
98 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following statements about society and culture is correct?
A) Culture involves our understanding of belief and behavior while society just reflects current behavior.
B) Culture is something portable,a society exists in a fixed place.
C) Culture describes temporary expressions of belief while society is permanent.
D) Sociologists are interested in society while anthropologists are interested in culture.
Answer: B
Q2) Why were the Acadians of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia expelled by the British government?
A) They refused to pay taxes.
B) They refused to sign an oath of allegiance to the Crown.
C) They refused to return to France.
D) They refused to cede their land to the British colonists.
Answer: B
Q3) Canada is the only society in the world today that is a cultural mosaic.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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4
Chapter 3: The Beginnings of Human Culture
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111 Verified Questions
111 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) How big was the brain of Homo erectus,as compared to other hominins?
A) It was significantly smaller than that of modern chimpanzees.
B) It was about the same as that of Homo habilis.
C) It was larger than that of all earlier hominins.
D) It was significantly larger than that of Homo sapiens.
Answer: C
Q2) What climatic change coincided with the addition of meat to Homo habilis's diet?
A) cooler,wetter weather
B) cooler,drier weather
C) an increase in frost-free days
D) increased rainfall
Answer: B
Q3) Why was bone,antler,or wood used to press off small flakes from a flint tool core?
A) to produce the first razors for shaving
B) to give the toolmaker greater control over the tool's shape
C) to allow for the production of the first three-dimensional stone tools
D) to work low-quality flint
Answer: B
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Chapter 4: Language and Communication
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120 Verified Questions
120 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the term for the smallest classes of sounds that make for differences in meaning?
A) allophones
B) morphemes
C) allomorphs
D) phonemes
Q2) Paralinguistic expressions such as oh-oh,shh,uh-huh,and uh-uh are learned and vary from culture to culture.
A)True
B)False
Q3) You are a non-English-speaking linguist using a minimal-pair test to study the sound system of English.You pronounce two short words that are exactly the same except for one sound: "bat" and "vat." Then you ask your informants if the difference in sound has any effect on meaning.They say,"Of course-wouldn't you prefer to have your dinner cooked in a vat instead of a bat?" What are these two sounds examples of?
A) phonemes
B) vocal qualifiers
C) vocal segregates
D) morphemes
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Page 6
Chapter 5: Making a Living
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133 Verified Questions
133 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is another way of saying "food acquisition strategies"?
A) patterns of subsistence or subsistence rounds
B) patterns of procurement or subsistence rounds
C) patterns of subsistence or cyclical subsistence
D) methods of subsistence or subsistence cycles
Q2) What did the Ojibwa do after moving onto the Plains?
A) They adopted Plains rituals into their own culture.
B) They abandoned their woodlands heritage entirely.
C) They retained their original conjuring powers.
D) They adopted woodlands floral designs.
Q3) Which environment is nomadic pastoralism best suited to?
A) land too dry,steep,or cold for farming
B) land too wet for farming
C) land too fertile for farming
D) land too overgrown for farming
Q4) Congregating in one season and dispersing in another is common among food foragers.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Critique the Western notion of "progress" from an anthropological viewpoint.
Page 7
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Chapter 6: Economic Systems
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120 Verified Questions
120 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following statements about levelling mechanisms is true?
A) They are more common in foraging societies than in agricultural communities.
B) They result in one family becoming wealthier than others.
C) They are found where property must not be allowed to threaten an egalitarian social order.
D) They are more common in industrial societies than in agricultural societies.
Q2) Technology is one of the most influential driving forces behind globalization.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Which of the following is NOT one of the productive resources used by all societies to produce goods and services?
A) raw materials
B) labour
C) technology
D) weather
Q4) Which of the following is an example of conspicuous consumption?
A) eating your lunch in front of strangers
B) buying fruit from a farm stand
C) buying sunglasses that display a designer logo
D) buying your mother a drink
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Chapter 7: Sex and Marriage
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124 Verified Questions
124 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following best describes serial monogamy?
A) an individual living with more than one partner at the same time
B) a man being married to more than one woman in the same household
C) a person marrying or living with a series of partners,but not at the same time
D) a form of trial marriage between two or more consenting adults
Q2) What determines a person's sexual identity?
A) whether that person is male or female
B) the identity that person takes to indicate whether he or she is single or married
C) whether that person is more masculine or feminine
D) the identity that person takes based on his or her sexual preference
Q3) Today in India,when couples marry,a dowry is expected by law.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What factors must be taken into consideration when arranging a marriage in India? Describe.
Q5) Compare and contrast three explanations of the incest taboo.Why is the incest taboo of central importance for anthropology?
Q6) Define and explain the function of the levirate and the sororate.
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Chapter 8: Family and Household
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111 Verified Questions
111 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Extended families are most apt to be found in cultures based on hunting and gathering.
A)True
B)False
Q2) What was the effect of industrialization on nuclear families?
A) increased dependence on extended kin for aid during difficult times
B) greater isolation because of the mobility required of an industrial labour force
C) greater conflict among members of the nuclear family over scarce jobs
D) more instances of polygyny
Q3) In North American children,self-awareness tends to lag behind children in other cultures.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Of all the various types of family organization,the nuclear family is the only one that does not impose anxiety and stress upon its individual members.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Identify and discuss the problems inherent in the "traditional" nuclear family.
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Chapter 9: Kinship and Descent
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Sample Questions
Q1) How did kinship play a role in sorting out disputes over band membership of the Micmac of Maine?
Q2) When did the first large-scale urban settlements in the world appear?
A) 20,000 years ago
B) 15,000 years ago
C) 9,000 years ago
D) 4,000 years ago
Q3) What is the least complex system of kinship terminology,with the fewest terms for kin?
A) Eskimo
B) Hawaiian
C) Iroquois
D) Crow
Q4) Which statement about matrilineal descent systems is true?
A) The strongest male-female relationships are between a wife and her brothers.
B) A son will inherit property from his mother's sister.
C) Disputes between a woman and her children will be settled by her brother.
D) Males generally reside in a men's house.
Q5) Discuss the intersection of kinship and genetics as told in the story of Cheddar man featured in "The Anthropologists World."
Page 11
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Chapter 10: Social Stratification and Groupings
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102 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Describe the motive,means,and opportunity for the destruction of Africville.
Q2) Carl Linnaeus tried to classify humans in the 1700s.What was Linnaeus's scheme?
A) He put whites on top,Asians next,and blacks on the bottom of his hierarchy.
B) He came up with an elaborate classification of 14 sub-race categories based on skin and hair.
C) He established four colour types,descending in civilization level from white,red,and yellow to black.
D) He based his scheme on skull shape and physical stature as indicators of fitness.
Q3) What is the term for associations that result from a conscious act of joining?
A) castes
B) age sets
C) common-interest associations
D) kindreds
Q4) Which of the following customs is most forbidden in the Hindu caste system in India?
A) exogamy
B) hereditary occupations
C) rituals of purity
D) dietary customs
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Page 12
Chapter 11: Political Organization and the Maintenance of Order
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115 Verified Questions
115 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) In the Original Study article titled "Social Movements" by Liam Kilmurray,he discusses two levels that must be studied in order to understand social movements.What are those two levels?
A) The protests are studied at the operational level along with instrumental action level.
B) The protests themselves are studied at the personal level along with the organizational level.
C) The protests themselves are studied along with the political structures that they operate in.
D) The protests are studied at the financial support level and the material mobilization level.
Q2) (1)The use of wealth to support the tonowi's power;(2)the belief in the divine right of kings to rule;and (3)the oldest living male becoming the head of the Dahomey state of West Africa:What are these all elements of?
A) a system of centralized authority
B) a legitimate basis of political authority in a particular society
C) a legal authority for using force
D) a society based on foraging
Q3) How can we define "law" cross-culturally,without ethnocentrism?
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Chapter 12: Religion and the Supernatural
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which type of culture is typically associated with a belief in male godheads?
A) economies based on herding and male labour
B) food-foraging societies
C) groups where a close relationship between children and their fathers is common
D) matrilineal descent systems
Q2) Describe the role of religion in culture stability and culture change.Use current examples to show how religion can be a force for conservatism as well as for change.
Q3) What is one of the most controversial aspects of missionism mentioned in the text?
A) the ethics of offering religious conversion for food and medical aid
B) the ethics of supporting indigenous warfare
C) the ethics of offering religious conversion to obtain access to resources
D) the ethics of converting Anglicans to Catholics
Q4) Which diseases do Swazis NOT attribute to supernatural causes?
A) lung and respiratory diseases
B) malaria
C) sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)and other contagious diseases
D) common colds and flu
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14
Chapter 13: The Arts
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Sample Questions
Q1) Many famous biographies or novels about artists in the West stress the individual creativity of the artist (for example,James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man).Artists are portrayed as people who have the vision to rise above and beyond the social and cultural conditions into which they were born,sometimes even crossing the boundaries of normality as typically defined by society.How is this vision different from the concept of the artist held by many non-Western societies?
Q2) What example of art that conveys practical information to its viewers does the author give?
A) rock art on rivers depicting canoe manufacturing
B) rock art on rivers depicting ancient migrations,teachings,or ceremonies
C) art on pottery depicting the manufacture and firing of pottery
D) art on pottery containing images that convey traditional recipes
Q3) The earliest multinote,playable musical instrument is 8,000 to 9,000 years old and was found in China.Which family of instruments does it belong to?
A) harmonica
B) flute
C) harp
D) zither
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Chapter 14: Anthropology at Work
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110 Verified Questions
110 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) How is the field of salvage archaeology or cultural resource management related to business and development in Canada? What are some of the ethical concerns that might be a problem in the field of cultural resource management?
Q2) Why is cultural resource management (CRM)consulting archaeology valuable to developers who excavate lands for buildings and highways?
A) The developers receive the profits from the sales of any artifacts that are discovered on their lands.
B) The federal government compensates the developers for any time spent assessing or excavating artifacts.
C) The developers are allowed to charge the end users a premium on development costs if the preservation of archaeological sites is involved.
D) The developers receive approval for their project and assurance that they are not destroying valuable public heritage assets.
Q3) Applied anthropologists must first remain loyal to the objectives of their clients,who pay for the research they do.
A)True
B)False
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16
Chapter 15: Cultural Change and the Future of Humanity
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174 Verified Questions
174 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following concepts is exemplified by the idea that any American child can grow up to become President?
A) self-development
B) an urban myth
C) hegemony
D) the American dream
Q2) What is Dr.Henry Morgentaler best known for?
A) his dedication to legalizing abortions in Quebec
B) his opposition to abortion clinics in Canada
C) his advocacy of a woman's "right to choose"
D) his crusade against the medical authorities
Q3) Which of the following is true about cultures?
A) They often never change.
B) They are in a state of change at all times.
C) They always change by decade.
D) They are constantly progressing.
Q4) Other than Quebec,there are no other groups in Canada advocating political and cultural self-determination.
A)True
B)False
Page 17
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