Contemporary Issues in Anthropology
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Course Introduction
This course explores pressing contemporary issues within the field of anthropology, examining how anthropological theories and methods illuminate current global challenges. Students engage with topics such as migration, globalization, identity, environmental change, health disparities, and the politics of culture. Through case studies, critical readings, and discussions, the course encourages students to analyze the complex interplay between cultural practices, social structures, and power dynamics in todays world, fostering an understanding of anthropologys relevance and application to contemporary societal debates.
Recommended Textbook
Cultural Anthropology A Toolkit for a Global Age 2nd Edition by Kenneth J. Guest
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17 Chapters
1134 Verified Questions
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Anthropology in a Global Age
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Sample Questions
Q1) The theory of time-space compression suggests that the way we think about time and space has been transformed. What do anthropologists think might be the underlying reason for this?
A) flexible time scales
B) rapid economic growth
C) rapid accumulation of profits
D) rapid innovation of communication and transportation
Answer: D
Q2) What does an anthropologist call the type of research that compares multiple communities in order to examine links between them?
A) cross-linked ethnology
B) multisited ethnography
C) globalized anthropology
D) bilocational fieldwork
Answer: B
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Chapter 2: Culture
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Sample Questions
Q1) Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) described hegemony as one of two primary aspects of power. Define hegemony and provide at least two concrete examples of how it serves as a form of power. What is the second aspect of power that Gramsci described and how does it differ from hegemony? Which of the two aspects of power do you believe is likely to be more effective and why?
Answer: Students should be able to clearly define hegemony and provide at least two concrete examples of shared ideas that are considered "normal" in society and thus reflect hegemony. Students must also identify material power (which includes political, economic, or military power) as the second aspect and distinguish between physical and ideological power when discussing how it differs from hegemony. They should conclude by explicitly arguing why one aspect may be more effective than the other, why both are effective, or why neither is effective, fully substantiating whatever stand they take.
Q2) What does anthropologist Eric Wolf believe to be inherent in all relationships?
A) belief system
B) power dynamics
C) stratification
D) human agency
Answer: B
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Page 4
Chapter 3: Fieldwork and Ethnography
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63 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) One way that anthropologists make an effort to protect informants' anonymity is by:
A) anonymizing names in publications, but continuing to use subjects' real names in research notes.
B) using the real names of communities, but not those of the people living there.
C) altering details when writing about sensitive topics within a community.
D) referring to individuals in both research notes and publications using secret codes.
Answer: D
Q2) Define three fieldwork strategies anthropologists use to research their ethnographies, and describe the context in which each is used.
Answer: Student responses will vary, but can include any three of the following fieldwork strategies: interview, which allows for collection of data through formal or informal measures; key informants, who serve as guides or teachers during fieldwork; life history, a biography of an individual that illuminates change over time; social network analysis, which examines relationships by exploring to whom people turn in times of need; and survey, used primarily to collect quantitative data.
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Chapter 4: Language
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Sample Questions
Q1) The term dialect is a nonstandard variation of a language that:
A) is particular to a specific region.
B) varies over time.
C) depends on context.
D) depends on the distance between places.
Q2) According to your textbook, preserving endangered languages is an important goal of linguistic anthropologists. Discuss the potentially ambiguous role that information technology and the digital divide may play in language preservation. Using examples from the text, assess the potential benefits that may accrue as members of less-prominent languages gain access to community technology and cross over the "digital divide." Consider how the tendency of prominent languages to crowd out speakers of lesser-spoken languages may be accelerated with increased cultural contact and exposure to global languages. How is the digital divide related to issues of language extinction?
Q3) According to the textbook, what is happening to human languages worldwide?
A) Outside the United States, languages are being lost.
B) Languages are being lost at the rate of three per day.
C) New languages are being created at a rate faster than they are being lost.
D) Languages are being lost at the rate of one every ten days.
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Page 6
Chapter 5: Human Origins
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Sample Questions
Q1) Describe the four types of adaptation that have contributed to human survivability.
Q2) Why did modern Homo sapiens settle in the Pacific Islands approximately 40,000 yBP?
A) There was stress on food resources in Africa.
B) A sudden increase in social organization made this possible.
C) Uncontrolled population growth in Africa put pressure on early humans.
D) The climate cooled and sea levels lowered, providing more land.
Q3) At about what date do DNA studies place the migration of humans out of Africa?
A) 780,000 yBP
B) 1.2 million yBP
C) 250,000 yBP
D) 100,000 yBP
Q4) What is one type of cultural adaptation to ultraviolet radiation?
A) vitamin D fortified milk
B) tanning
C) sweating
D) increased heart rate
Q5) Describe the relationship between solar radiation, vitamin D, and skin color as examples of adaptation and natural selection.
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Chapter 6: Race and Racism
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Sample Questions
Q1) What do we call the British Empire's military, economic, and political control over Malaysia?
A) colonialism
B) fascism
C) imperialism
D) globalism
Q2) The Department of Justice's investigation of the Ferguson City Police Department found that:
A) Many criminals were never arrested, even though the police department had evidence.
B) African Americans comprised 93% of all arrests, but only because they made up nearly 100% of the population.
C) Whites, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians comprised an equal percentage of all arrests.
D) African Americans were 67% of the population, but comprised 93% of all arrests.
Q3) Compare and contrast how two different cultures construct race. What similarities are there, and how are they different? What does this tell us about the concept of race in general?
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8
Chapter 7: Ethnicity and Nationalism
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Sample Questions
Q1) Every year, Americans gather in summer to celebrate Independence Day-the Fourth of July. Parades, fireworks, and hot dogs are all part of this annual ritual. What particular component of ethnicity is embodied in this celebration?
A) citizenship status
B) origin myth
C) ethnic boundaries
D) negotiated identity
Q2) Since ethnicity is not biologically fixed, self-identification with a particular ethnic group can change through what process?
A) situational negotiation of identity
B) rationalization of self
C) naturalization of identity
D) ethnodetermination
Q3) In a brief essay, compare and contrast how the Bafokeng and Native American tribes have formed corporations to achieve specific goals. Use specific examples from the class to illustrate your answer.
Q4) Explain what is meant when we say that a nation is an imagined community, and give an example.
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Chapter 8: Gender
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Sample Questions
Q1) Human males may weigh only slightly more than human females, which underscores which idea about human sexual dimorphism?
A) It is a significant determinant of biological sex.
B) It is a minor determinant of biological sex.
C) It is significant in assessing differences between human males and females.
D) It is a minor consideration in assessing differences between human males and females.
Q2) Which of the following is/are considered a secondary sexual characteristic?
A) genitalia
B) testes
C) pitch of voice
D) ovaries
Q3) What do we call the process through which a sense of gender becomes normative and seems natural to us?
A) gender performance
B) gender stratification
C) cultural construction of gender
D) gender hierarchy
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Chapter 9: Sexuality
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Sample Questions
Q1) The work of early sexologists such as Kinsey tended to reinforce the idea of heterosexuality. In spite of this, what was one of the surprising results that Kinsey and his research revealed about sexual behavior in the United States?
A) Most people who were having sex used condoms.
B) Fantasies and same-sex attraction were much more common than expected.
C) Married women cheated with a higher frequency than married men.
D) Most people did not consider marriage between a man and a woman desirable.
Q2) Which term describes people whose sexual attraction to others can include both sexes?
A) bisexual
B) transgender
C) homosexual
D) Two-Spirits
Q3) Philosopher Michel Foucault describes sexuality as "an especially dense transfer point for relations of power." Discuss his claim. How does the private act of sex become a transfer point for power? What are the public channels in which we might expect to observe this process?
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Chapter 10: Kinship, Family, and Marriage
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Sample Questions
Q1) Although many are close with the families into which they are born, others are marginalized or stigmatized in ways that create deep, lasting alienation between them and their birth families. What do many people alienated from their birth families seek to create?
A) a chosen family
B) an economic support network
C) best friends
D) surrogates to replace them in their birth families
Q2) Many different kinship structures send a son away (or search outside their immediate kin groups) for a marriage partner. What rule does this reflect?
A) endogamy
B) monogamy
C) polygamy
D) exogamy
Q3) Anthropologists argue that kinship is one of several ways in which individuals form groups. Name and describe three other ways in which humans form groups. Does kinship influence how these other groups are formed? Why or why not?
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Chapter 11: Class and Inequality
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Sample Questions
Q1) How did Karl Marx refer to the group of people who lacked land and tools and sold their labor?
A) bourgeoisie
B) capitalists
C) industrialists
D) proletariat
Q2) Economists clearly reveal that both the income and wealth gaps in the United States are widening substantially. What is the difference between income and wealth? Can an individual have high income but little wealth? Which households tend to be at the bottom of the income and wealth gaps, and which households are at the top? What are some of the reasons for the income and wealth disparities that exist in the United States today? Why are the U.S. income and wealth gaps widening despite increased globalization and access to educational opportunities? How do one's income and wealth affect his or her social mobility? What other systems of social stratification affect an individual's income and wealth and in what ways? How does Pem Davidson Buck's work with poor white people in rural Kentucky reflect how income and wealth are affected by other forms of social stratification?
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Page 13
Chapter 12: The Global Economy
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Sample Questions
Q1) Bangladesh's costal floodplain has been repeatedly inundated with monsoons, flooding, and devastating erosion. How does the nation of Bangladesh illustrate the problems of development and how it relates to environmental challenges?
A) Governments alone cannot change the pattern of environmental destruction.
B) Past programs designed to help poor nations have been failures.
C) Poorer nations suffer the consequences of climate change in ways that developed nations do not.
D) Poor nations are not well equipped to manage economic growth.
Q2) Explain where and when the so-called Triangle Trade occurred, identifying the three primary commodities the text discusses in this exchange network. Contrast the production and exchanges that occurred in the Caribbean plantation economy with the exchanges occurring between European trappers and Native American populations in North America.
Q3) How does tracing the links in the commodity chain originating in Côte d'Ivoire inform us of the complex dynamics in the global economy? After defining the term commodity chain and identifying the commodities produced and exported from this nation, discuss how the recent history of this former colony illustrates three important dimensions of the global economy.
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Page 14
Chapter 13: Migration
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Sample Questions
Q1) According to the author, new immigrants in greater Los Angeles are primarily employed as factory workers and as ________.
A) nannies and housekeepers
B) farmhands on industrial farms
C) workers in California's technology industries
D) managerial assistants in urban areas
Q2) Drawing on the discussion in the text about Neha Vora's work among Indian immigrants in Dubai, discuss the ways and extent to which this group of immigrants are treated in their new home. Discuss how these merchants are an example of transnational entrepreneurial migrants. How do these migrants succeed or fail to establish their own culture in Dubai, and what are the results? What is the importance of social networks in their experience?
Q3) The generation of migrants who left their home countries as adults are known among scholars as which generation?
A) first
B) second
C) "lost"
D) "1.5"
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15
Chapter 14: Politics and Power
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Sample Questions
Q1) To resist the power of state institutions, some societies make use of different systems to settle issues that might normally go to the state court system. What are these systems known as?
A) alternative legal structures
B) independent courts systems
C) common law structures
D) customary laws
Q2) What is considered a transitional form between the simpler political structures of tribes and the more complex political structures of states?
A) band
B) chiefdom
C) tribe
D) ethnic group
Q3) Discuss the framing process and how it works. Provide an example to support your explanation.
Q4) Describe the concept of hegemony, what it does, and how it works. Provide an example.
Q5) In a brief essay, compare and contrast the concept of power, in general, with state power, and give an example of each.
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Chapter 15: Religion
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Sample Questions
Q1) Anthropologist Victor Turner (1920-1983) considered religious pilgrimage to be a unique form of religious ritual. What is a religious pilgrimage? What are three specific examples of religious pilgrimage and what do they entail? What stages of process do the pilgrimage examples you provided entail? What purposes does religious pilgrimage serve for the individual and his or her community?
Q2) What do anthropologists call a part-time religious practitioner with special abilities to connect individuals with supernatural powers or beings?
A) medicine man
B) priest
C) magician
D) shaman
Q3) In order to examine the role of religion in community life in Niger, West Africa, anthropologist Paul Stoller apprenticed with which of the following religious specialists? A) a priest
B) a witch doctor
C) a sorcerer
D) a witch
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Page 17
Chapter 16: Health, Illness, and the Body
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Sample Questions
Q1) 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
Q2) Discuss how "traditional" Chinese medicine (TCM) has "gone global." What are two underlying beliefs that shape this approach to health care despite the range of areas where TCM is practiced? What is qi, and what does this type of treatment attempt to achieve? How and when did Chinese medical practices become more widespread in North America and Europe, and which are most common in California?
Q3) Overall human life expectancy increased from 31 years in 1900 to what in 2015?
A) 67.2 years
B) 70.5 years
C) 78.9 years
D) 83.6 years
Q4) Anthropologists have recognized that Western biomedicine draws heavily on:
A) universally held values.
B) the experience of the doctor in a foreign country.
C) enlightenment values.
D) the willingness of the doctor to practice alternative medicine.
Page 18
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Chapter 17: Art and Media
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the predominant export destination of West African art?
A) art museums
B) a French art gallery
C) a New York warehouse
D) the Internet
Q2) As discussed in this text, globalization has meant greater economic overlap and communications between different nations. Anthropological studies of art traced the production and sale of art created in once-remote locations to galleries and shops on the other side of the world. When did so-called ethnic art become more popular? Using two specific examples discussed for Africa, explain how art produced in one part of the world is distributed and consumed in the United States or Europe. Identify the two primary types of buyers and discuss three categories of individuals most directly involved in selling the works of art abroad.
Q3) What is reflected in decisions about what is displayed as fine art?
A) wealth and power stratification
B) egalitarianism
C) artistic skill and prowess
D) gender equality
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