Contemporary Issues in Anthropology
Test Preparation
Course Introduction
This course explores current debates, theories, and problems shaping the field of anthropology in the 21st century. Students will examine topics such as globalization, identity politics, medical ethics, environmental change, migration, technological impacts, and post-colonial theory. Through readings, discussions, and case studies, the course emphasizes how anthropologists critically engage with societal issues and contribute to public discourse. Emphasis is placed on understanding the diverse methodologies and ethical responsibilities inherent in contemporary anthropological practice across different global contexts.
Recommended Textbook
Cultural Anthropology 4th Canadian Edition by Barbara D. Miller
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15 Chapters
1776 Verified Questions
1776 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/study-set/1038
Page 2
Chapter 1: The Nature of Anthropology
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134 Verified Questions
134 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The University of British Columbia was the site of the first Canadian department of anthropology.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) Why did Canadian anthropologists NOT study the cultural significance of hockey in Canada until recently?
A) Academics don't take hockey seriously.
B) Hockey was seen as too local and familiar to be a topic for ethnographic research.
C) Hockey has become an international game.
D) Hockey was seen as merely a game.
Answer: B
Q3) Which of the following is NOT an example of popular culture?
A) television drama series
B) fashion,including hairstyles and clothing
C) First Nations land claims
D) rap music
Answer: C
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Chapter 2: The Nature of Culture
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98 Verified Questions
98 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the term for small subcultures that may emerge from particular aspects of popular culture.
A) ethnicities
B) mini-cultures
C) micro-cultures
D) trend-cultures
Answer: C
Q2) From an anthropological perspective,how would the role that kindergarten plays in the lives of young children in Canada best be described?
A) It is an integrative force.
B) It is an enculturative force.
C) It is a pluralistic force.
D) It is a functional force.
Answer: B
Q3) A modern definition of culture emphasizes the values,beliefs,and rules that lie behind behaviour,as well as observable behaviour itself.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Page 4
Chapter 3: The Beginnings of Human Culture
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111 Verified Questions
111 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the "Eve hypothesis"?
A) the belief that humans did not evolve,but were created by God
B) the evidence that modern humans are descended from a single African population
C) the fossil evidence that Neanderthal was wiped out by modern humans
D) the evidence that one highly evolved woman gave rise to all Homo sapiens
Answer: B
Q2) By 11,000 years ago,humans were exploiting maritime resources in coastal Peru.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) All primates have a number of characteristics in common,and these are an indication that primates are adapted to living in one particular environment.Which environment?
A) on the ground
B) in the trees
C) on the open grasslands
D) in a temperate climate
Answer: B
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5
Chapter 4: Language and Communication
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120 Verified Questions
120 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What does kinesics research indicate about language and culture?
A) Extralinguistic sounds that accompany speech have the same meaning in all languages.
B) Gender signals communicated through posture are biologically based rather than learned.
C) The body language used when people are greeting each other is similar all over the world.
D) All cultures have the same gestures for "yes" and "no."
Q2) In Montreal,how do businesses successfully accommodate to bilingualism?
A) by strictly adhering to Bill 101,Quebec's French Language Charter
B) by carefully determining the language politics of each new customer by listening for phonological and grammatical cues
C) by acknowledging that it is virtually impossible to know the language background of each customer
D) by speaking only English in all commercial situations,regardless of the language used by the customer
Q3) The chimpanzee Washoe taught signing to Loulis,her adopted offspring.
A)True
B)False
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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 obstacles has most negatively affected Canadian mechanized agriculture?
A) interference from European big business
B) poor yields and locusts
C) low commodity prices,rising expenses,and debt
D) competition among inheriting siblings
Q2) What were the Ojibwa one of the first groups to do after the arrival of Europeans?
A) engage in the fur trade
B) reject the horse
C) become sedentary bison hunters
D) reject their traditional woodlands heritage
Q3) From the perspective of subsistence,how do the Aka of South Africa compare to the Blackfoot of western Canada?
A) Both follow a subsistence strategy based on foraging.
B) The Aka are foragers,the Blackfoot are horticulturalists.
C) Aka and Blackfoot foraging strategies are strikingly similar.
D) Both lived in stockade villages.
Q4) What are the characteristics of intensive mechanized agriculture,and what challenges does it present?
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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 statement best describes children's contribution to the economy in many nonindustrial societies?
A) It is nonexistent,since they are not considered competent to work.
B) It is roughly the same as in modern North America.
C) It is limited to assisting their mothers in the house.
D) It includes caring for siblings,helping with food preparation,and working in fields.
Q2) All societies have the same division of labour according to age:children play until their late teens while adults do the work.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The development schemes of Western aid agencies often fail to help impoverished people in nonindustrial parts of the world.In large part,what can this be attributed to?
A) conflict in those parts of the world that disrupts the flow of goods
B) the failure of Western agencies to understand local economic systems
C) people are often ill and too deprived of food to be able to help themselves
D) aid agencies themselves,because their personnel cannot adapt to local conditions
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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) What does Pharaonic circumcision involve?
A) removal of only the clitoral prepuce,or hood
B) removal of just the tip of the clitoris
C) removal of the entire clitoris and the labia minora
D) removal of all external genitalia,with suturing/stitching of the opening
Q2) What effect have traditional healers had in helping AIDS sufferers in southern Africa?
A) They do more harm than good and facilitate the spread of AIDS.
B) They provide personalized,culturally appropriate and holistic health care.
C) Their impact is roughly neutral;the harm they can cause is outweighed by the good they do.
D) They do not have a success with the physical symptoms but provide psychological support.
Q3) Describe and compare traditional same-sex female forms of marriage of the Nandi in Africa with North American same-sex female marriage.
Q4) The Western ideal that an individual should be free to marry whomever he or she chooses is unusual by global standards.
A)True
B)False
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Page 9
Chapter 8: Family and Household
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111 Verified Questions
111 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which statement best describes the defining characteristic of the North American family?
A) No other family structure is valued more than the nuclear family.
B) New forms of family structures have supplanted the nuclear family.
C) No particular family structure is preferred.
D) The patriarchal family remains dominant.
Q2) Identify and discuss the problems inherent in the "traditional" nuclear family.
Q3) 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
Q4) The isolation of nuclear families in the West is linked to the requirements of industrial capitalism.
A)True
B)False
Q5) With reference to developing countries,discuss the impact of International Monetary Fund "reforms" on family life in general and on women and children in particular.
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Chapter 9: Kinship and Descent
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112 Verified Questions
112 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The modified extended family in Canada cannot exist without residential proximity and rigidly defined obligations.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The Iroquois were a society characterized by gender egalitarianism.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Which statement about the descriptive,or Sudanese,system of kinship terminology is true?
A) It is more specific and precise than any other kinship system,including Anglo-Canadian.
B) It is the most common form of kinship terminology.
C) It has no terms for affinal relatives.
D) It indicates that all of ego's siblings have the same social status.
Q4) Suppose that two people are given the same kinship term,(e.g. ,cousin).What does this mean?
A) They are genetically related.
B) They have the same gender.
C) They call each other by the same kinship term.
D) They occupy and share a similar status.
11
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Chapter 10: Social Stratification and Groupings
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102 Verified Questions
102 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Suppose that you are a member of a Ju/'hoansi foraging band and have little skill as a hunter.Which of the following characteristics indicates that you belong to an egalitarian society?
A) Success at hunting is highly valued by the Ju/'hoansi,so your lack of skill will determine your low social status.
B) Your lack of skill would mean that you must not join the hunters,but must gather roots and berries with the women.
C) Even though you are a poor hunter,you still have as much right to a group's resources as any other member.
D) Because your father was also a poor hunter,you will be seen as a bad luck omen and be excluded from the hunt.
Q2) Which term does Denise Allen use to refer to Canada's treatment of the people who lived in Africville up to 1964?
A) economic discrimination
B) fear mongering
C) environmental racism
D) justified relocation
Q3) Describe the motive,means,and opportunity for the destruction of Africville.
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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) Which of the following terms is defined as a form of East African political organization in which a very large group is broken up into clans,which in turn are divided into maximal,major,minor,and minimal lineages?
A) band
B) kindred
C) tribal council
D) segmentary lineage
Q3) How can we define "law" cross-culturally,without ethnocentrism?
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Chapter 12: Religion and the Supernatural
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117 Verified Questions
117 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Islamic concept of "the big jihad" is the struggle against evil within oneself.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The Iroquois origin myth and other aspects of Iroquois religion provide an accurate model of Iroquois community.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Which of the following best describes the Quran?
A) a guide to other sources of Islamic literature
B) the sacred book exclusive to Sunni Moslems
C) a book of poetry and songs related to Islam
D) a compilation of Mohammed's revelations
Q4) Trauma seems to be part of the learning experience in Australian aboriginal initiation rites.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Socially restricted behaviours are called taboos.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 13: The Arts
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95 Verified Questions
95 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which term best applies to African music with multiple rhythmic patterns played simultaneously?
A) pentatonic
B) irregular
C) repetitious
D) polyrhythmic
Q2) In the world of art collection,"primitive" objects,such as masks,can command extravagant prices.As an anthropologist,how would you feel about the classification of such things as "art" to be collected,exhibited in museums,auctioned off at Sotheby's,and so on? What impact might the designation of cultural objects as "art" have on the people who make them?
Q3) Foragers such as the Kalahari Ju/'hoansi do not have instruments on which to play music.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Anthropologists have never found a society in which women dominate men.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Discuss the issues surrounding funding for and censorship of the arts in Canada.
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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) What two areas became popular in Canadian applied anthropology in the 1970s?
A) medical anthropology and psychological anthropology
B) Aboriginal research and immigration studies
C) studies of the mining and energy sectors
D) studies of North American free trade and globalization
Q2) After the fight for justice for residents of the Love Canal,the story became a prototype for other communities.How did this affect applied anthropologists in Canada?
A) They published,debated,and studied environmental health issues more rigorously.
B) They passed a resolution to not become involved with corporate issues because of legal difficulties.
C) They worked with industry to devise new cleanup methods.
D) They were prevented from publishing covertly gathered information on environmental damage.
Q3) Forensic anthropologists often work on historic human remains found in an archaeological context as well as more recent crime scenes.
A)True
B)False
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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) In northern Brazil,at least 1,500 Yanomami Indians died premature deaths in the 1980s.What was the cause of their deaths?
A) a smallpox outbreak
B) a catastrophic earthquake
C) deliberate massacres to clear the way for ranchers and miners
D) their conscription as fighters for the war between Venezuela and Brazil
Q2) Innovation is defined as massive change that comes about with intensive firsthand contact.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The change from subsistence farming to cash crops leads to economic improvement in the countries that make this change.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Which category of women do multinational corporations especially prefer to hire?
A) married women
B) unmarried women
C) older women
D) highly skilled women
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