Contemporary Issues in Anthropology Study Guide
Questions
Course Introduction
This course explores the major debates and current topics shaping the field of anthropology today, focusing on how anthropologists engage with contemporary social, political, and cultural challenges. Students will critically examine issues such as globalization, migration, identity, climate change, indigenous rights, technology, and ethics from cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives. Through readings, discussions, and case studies, the course encourages students to analyze how anthropological research contributes to understanding and addressing urgent real-world problems, and to reflect on the evolving role of anthropology in society.
Recommended Textbook
Cultural Anthropology The Human Challenge 13th Edition by William A. Haviland
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16 Chapters
1469 Verified Questions
1469 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: The Essence of Anthropology
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107 Verified Questions
107 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) One well-known forensic anthropologist is _______________.
A)Sheilagh Brooks
B)Bernardo Arriaza
C)Jennifer Thompson
D)Clyde C.
Snow
E)none of these
Answer: D
Q2) Like other scholars who study people,anthropologists are holistic in their approach.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q3) Ethnographic fieldwork is never done in Western societies.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 3
Chapter 2: Characteristics of Culture
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103 Verified Questions
103 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The term ___________________________ is the economic foundation of a society,including its subsistence practices.
A)social structure
B)infrastructure
C)superstructure
D)external structure
E)internal structure
Answer: B
Q2) _______________ argued the universality of certain biological and psychological needs,insisting that the institutions making up each culture are functionally to meet these needs.
A)Maybury-Lewis
B)Ember and Ember
C)Malinowski
D)Boaz
E)Mead
Answer: C
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Page 4
Chapter 3: Ethnographic Research: Its History, methods, and
Theories
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114 Verified Questions
114 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The first generation of formal anthropologists began their careers working for
A)explorers
B)multinational corporations
C)national governments
D)universities
E)museums
Answer: E
Q2) Anthropology has sought directly to do each of the following except
A)document the practice of culture
B)impose a Western and modern approach to life
C)document disappearing cultural practices
D)reconstruct traditional ways of life
E)educate its audience on the importance of culture
Answer: B
Q3) Acculturation studies led to applied anthropology.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Page 5
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Chapter 4: Becoming Human: the Origin and Diversity of Our Species
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86 Verified Questions
86 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The hypothesis that modern human originated through a process of simultaneous local transition from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens throughout the inhabited world is called the _______________.
A)Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
B)acculturation hypothesis
C)recent African origins hypothesis
D)diffusion theory
E)multiregional hypothesis
Q2) Homo habilis is associated with advances in tool-making.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The concept of race is has powerful symbolic significance in many countries as a ________________ category.
A)cultural and social
B)community and social
C)social and political
D)political and educational
E)social and medical
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Chapter 5: Language and Communication
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79 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following statements about the theory of linguistic relativity is correct?
A)It was first formulated by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf.
B)It may be briefly explained with the phrase,"Language does not determine the reality which speakers of the language perceive."
C)It may be briefly explained with the phrase,"Language is reality--it only mirrors what people perceive."
D)It is expressed in this example: if in a factory a metal drum is labeled "full",people will perceive it as empty and do things with it that may create a fire hazard (such as storing it near a furnace);it as a first hazard and treat it more carefully,but if it is labeled "empty" of gaseous fumes,people may treat it more carefully.
E)None of the above is incorrect.
Q2) Wampum belts were used to convey a variety of messages through the use of symbols.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 6: Social Identity, personality, and Gender
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92 Verified Questions
92 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) An individual's personality _______________.
A)is a product of enculturation
B)is influenced by an individual's genetic makeup
C)is a kind of cognitive map functioning throughout an individual's lifetime
D)is an integrated,dynamic system of perceptual assemblages,which includes the self and its behavioral environment,that develops over time
E)all of the above
Q2) Biomedicine is the predominant medical system found in _______________.
A)Hindu cultures
B)Native American societies
C)indigenous societies
D)Asia,Africa,and Latin America
E)Euramerica
Q3) What has seemed to be "normal" in the past,would through enculturation,remain normal in the future.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Ruth Benedict did a study comparing gender in three NEW Guinea societies.
A)True
B)False
8
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Chapter 7: Patterns of Subsistence
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94 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Among food foragers,wealth is a sign of deviance.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Since food foragers make no attempt to accumulate surplus foodstuffs,they live constantly on the verge of starvation.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The average weight of an individual's personal belongings among the Ju/'hoansi is _______________ lbs.
A)25
B)35
C)40
D)55
E)100
Q4) An anthropologist would probably find it difficult to define what "progress" is.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Urbanization encourages equality.
A)True
B)False
Page 9
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Chapter 8: Economic Systems
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69 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) In most societies,cooperation takes place in the basic unit of the _______________,where both production and consumption occur.
A)household
B)men's club
C)factory
D)church
E)local hotel
Q2) The produced resources used by all societies to produce goods and services include
A)raw materials
B)labor
C)technology
D)labor unions
E)all but d
Q3) ?Market exchange is defined as the exchange of goods through face-to-face bargaining in a market place.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 9: Sex, marriage, and Family
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96 Verified Questions
96 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) An important source of contacts in trying to arrange an Indian marriage is/are the
A)social club
B)newspaper personals
C)internet chat rooms
D)match making businesses
E)temple
Q2) Which form of marriage in the United States is currently being re-evaluated since the introduction of NEW reproductive technologies?
A)cousin marriage
B)polygynous marriage
C)affinal marriage
D)same-sex marriage
E)nontraditional marriage
Q3) Divorce can be easier in matrilineal societies such as the Hopi,where the woman need only put her husband's things in the fire to burn them up.
A)True
B)False
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11
Chapter 10: Kinship and Descent
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Sample Questions
Q1) If you are a member of a patrilineal descent group,_______________.
A)descent is traced exclusively through females
B)your sisters belong to the same patrilineal descent group that you do
C)you are likely to live in a horticultural society
D)your brothers belong to the same descent group but your sisters do not
E)you do not have a mother
Q2) It is possible in some descent systems for a man to belong to both a patrilineage and a matrilineage at the same time.
A)True
B)False
Q3) A phratry is a unilineal descent group composed of two or more _______________ that believe they are related to each other.
A)moieties
B)totems
C)kindred
D)lineages
E)clans
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Chapter 11: Grouping by Gender, age, common Interest, and Class
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Sample Questions
Q1) The gangs known as "Bloods" and "Crips" are examples of which of the following?
A)Age grading
B)Gender related common-interest groups
C)Age sets
D)Political problems
E)Common-interest groups
Q2) A social _______________ is a set of families that enjoy equal or nearly equal prestige according to a system of evaluation.
A)phratry
B)kindred
C)class
D)set
E)group
Q3) The director of the African Burial Ground Project was biological anthropologist
A)Jennifer Thompson.
B)Bernardo Arriaza
C)Sheila Brooks
D)Michael Blakey
E)Clyde Woods
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Chapter 12: Politics, power, and Violence
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Sample Questions
Q1) The use of wealth to support the tonowi's power;belief in the divine right of kings to rule;the oldest living male becoming the head of the Dahomey state of West Africa--what do all these have in common?
A)They have to do with a system of centralized authority.
B)They represent what is considered to be the legitimate basis of political authority in that particular society.
C)They all have to do with the use of force.
D)They all have to do with the use of kinship as a basis of political power.
E)They all are associated with food foraging.
Q2) In a number of societies women have enjoyed political equality with men,as among the Iroquoian tribes of New York.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Since their appearance some 5,000 years ago,states have proven to be stable political systems.
A)True
B)False
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Page 14
Chapter 13: Spirituality, religion, and the Supernatural
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93 Verified Questions
93 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Ibibio make a distinction between which two practitioners?
A)sorcerers and magicians
B)witches and sorcerers
C)magicians and witches
D)shamans and magicians
E)witches and shamans
Q2) Three sacred mountains are shared by three religious traditions.The mountains are Mount Ararat,Mount Horeb,and Mount Moriah.The three religious traditions are
A)Christian,Jewish,and Muslim
B)Christian,Jewish and Buddhist
C)Muslim,Christian and Hindu
D)Buddhism,Jainism,and Hinduism
E)Hinduism,Christian,and ancient Greek
Q3) Although many North Americans suppose witchcraft is something that belongs to a less enlightened time,in fact,it is alive and well in the United States today.
A)True
B)False
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15
Chapter 14: The Arts
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83 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Rarely has a culture been reported to lack any kind of music.Bone flutes and whistles as much as _______________ years old have been found by archaeologists.
A)40,000
B)75,000
C)100,000
D)500,000
E)1 million
Q2) ?Some form of visual art is a part of every historically known human culture.
A)True
B)False
Q3) From the study of people's myths,an anthropologist can learn how the people define their world and the nature of their relationship to this world.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Poetry is not found among the Bedouin because they consider it un-Islamic. A)True
B)False
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Chapter 15: Processes of Change
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Sample Questions
Q1) Acculturation differs from other types of processes of change because it always involves an element of _______________.
A)force
B)improvement
C)cultural decline
D)religious change
E)innovation
Q2) Conservative ______________________ of North America are a good example of a faith-based community that resists change.
A)Mennonites
B)Christians
C)Mayans
D)Asians
E)Indians of the Americas
Q3) Revolution is a phenomenon that began some _______________ years ago.
A)14,000
B)12,000
C)5,000
D)4,000
E)500
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Chapter 16: Global Challenges local Responses and the
Role of Anthropology
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87 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) The major problem associated with cultural pluralism has to do with
A)cultural relativism
B)egocentrism
C)fear of strangers
D)cultural negativism
E)ethnocentrism
Q2) The term __________________________ refers to the public policy for managing cultural diversity in a multi-ethnic society.This policy stresses mutual respect and tolerance for cultural differences within a country's borders.
A)multiculturalism
B)anti-ethnocentrism
C)international Respect for Others
D)nationalization
E)ethnonationalism
Q3) In the Sudan,the young girl is told that circumcision and infibulation are done to her not for her.
A)True
B)False
Page 18
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