Course Introduction
Cultural Anthropology Study Guide
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Cultural Anthropology explores the diverse ways in which people around the world live, think, and interact. This course examines the foundational concepts, methods, and theories used by anthropologists to study human cultures, including kinship, religion, language, economics, politics, and social change. Through comparative analysis and ethnographic case studies, students learn to appreciate cultural diversity, challenge ethnocentric assumptions, and gain insight into how culture shapes identity, power dynamics, and global processes in contemporary societies.
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Cultural Anthropology Appreciating Cultural Diversity 15th Edition by Conrad Kottak
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Page 2
Chapter 1: What Is Anthropology
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Q1) Anthropologists study only non-Western cultures.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) As an academic discipline, anthropology falls under both the social sciences and the humanities.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) Based on his observations that contact between neighboring tribes had existed since humanity's beginnings and covered enormous areas, Franz Boas argued
A) against treating cultures as isolated phenomena.
B) that even the earliest foragers engaged in warfare.
C) that language must have originated among the Neandertals.
D) that biology, not culture, was responsible for the vast majority of human diversity.
E) that general anthropologists were wrong to focus too much attention on biology.
Answer: A
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Chapter 2: Culture
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Q1) In many countries, use of the English language reflects a colonial history and is thus a consequence of forced diffusion.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) The human capacity for culture has an evolutionary basis that extends back at least 2.5 million years. This date corresponds to
A) the earliest production of cave art found in South Africa.
B) early toolmakers whose products survive in the archaeological record.
C) a genetic mutation that caused the increase in brain size and complexity.
D) the advent of anatomically modern primates.
E) evidence of hunting and the use of fire to cook tough meats.
Answer: B
Q3) Cultural particularities are unique to certain cultures, while cultural generalities are common to several (but not all) cultures.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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4
Chapter 3: Method and Theory in Cultural Anthropology
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Q1) Morgan and Edward Tylor, both considered among the fathers of anthropology, worked within the paradigm of unilinear evolution.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) In survey research, what is sampling?
A) the collection of a study group from a larger population
B) the interviewing of a small number of key cultural consultants
C) a form of participant observation
D) the collection of life histories of every member in a community
E) a collection reflecting the emic perspective
Answer: A
Q3) Survey research is usually conducted through intensive personal contact with the study subjects.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 5
Chapter 4: Applying Anthropology
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Q1) Non-Western medicine treats illnesses symptomatically, seeking an immediate cure.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Development projects should aim to accomplish all of the following EXCEPT
A) promoting change, but not overinnovation.
B) preserving local systems while working to make them better.
C) respecting local traditions.
D) drawing models of development from indigenous practices.
E) developing strategies with little input from the local communities.
Q3) In his comparison of rural versus urban communities, Robert Redfield found that cultural innovations spread from urban areas to rural ones.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Discuss the major advantages and disadvantages of scientific and traditional medicine, being careful to distinguish between scientific medicine and Western medicine.
Q5) Anthropology has three dimensions: academic, applied, and a mix of the two. A)True
B)False
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Chapter 5: Language and Communication
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Q1) What are phonemes?
A) the rules by which deep structure is translated into surface structure
B) regional differences in dialect
C) syntactical structures that distinguish passive constructions from active ones
D) the minimal sound contrasts that distinguish meaning in a language
E) electromagnetic signals that carry messages between speakers in a telephone conversation
Q2) A sociolinguist studies
A) the interaction of history and sociology.
B) cross-cultural comparisons of phonemic distinctions.
C) the universal grammar of language.
D) linguistic competence.
E) speech in its social context.
Q3) What is the study of the sounds used in speech?
A) phones
B) phonemes
C) phonology
D) phonetics
E) phonemics
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Page 7
Chapter 6: Ethnicity and Race
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Q1) Migration and rapid population growth are fueling multiculturalism in countries like the United States and Canada.
A)True
B)False
Q2) What is the term for the use of force by a dominant group to compel a minority to adopt the dominant culture?
A) attitudinal discrimination
B) genocide
C) forced assimilation
D) ethnocentrism
E) environmental racism
Q3) What is an "imagined community"? Social roles such as ethnicity and nationality are important to this concept-explain how.
Q4) Multiculturalism emphasizes the need for a series of cultures to abandon their old ethnic identities and join together to forge a new and unique cultural identity.
A)True
B)False
Q5) What is hypodescent? Why is it an arbitrary rule of racial classification?
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Chapter 7: Making a Living
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Q1) Agriculturalists tend to live in permanent villages that are larger and closer to other settlements than the semipermanent settlements of horticulturalists.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Is the contrast between horticulture and agriculture one of degree, or are they entirely separate practices? What is the difference between these two types of cultivation? Cite ethnographic evidence in your answer.
Q3) A horticultural system of cultivation is characterized by
A) intensive use of land and human labor.
B) the use of irrigation and terracing.
C) developing almost exclusively in arid areas.
D) lack of proper knowledge about plant domestication.
E) periodic cycles of cultivation and fallowing.
Q4) With balanced reciprocity, the giver expects something in return equal to what was given.
A)True
B)False
Q5) How is a rent fund different from a subsistence fund? Cite examples to clarify your argument.
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Chapter 8: Political Systems
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Q1) Anthropologist Susan Kent notes a tendency to stereotype foragers, to treat them all as alike. They used to be stereotyped as isolated, primitive survivors of the Stone Age.
Another, more recent, common stereotype of foragers sees them as
A) peaceful individuals in touch with their inner selves.
B) culturally deprived people forced by states, colonialism, or world events into marginalized environments.
C) ideal humans with the perfect diet and rhythm of life.
D) not isolated at all but living in nation-states and an interlinked world.
E) primitive survivors not of the Stone Age but the Bronze Age.
Q2) With the rise of states, kinship's role in society continued to grow and dominate daily activities.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Contrast the Inuit and Yanomami with respect to their reasons for disputes, the effectiveness of their means of resolving disputes, and how they enforce decisions about resolving disputes.
Q4) The elites of archaic states restricted access to sumptuary goods.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 9: Gender
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Q1) Gender stratification tends to be extremely pronounced in patrilineal-patrilocal societies.
A)True
B)False
Q2) In agricultural societies, women generally dominate the practice of subsistence labor.
A)True
B)False
Q3) In which type of society would you expect women's status to be highest?
A) pastoralists
B) agriculturalists
C) societies where there is much population pressure
D) hunters and gatherers
E) industrial states with high unemployment
Q4) Women in matrilineal societies tend to occupy elevated status positions.
A)True
B)False
Q5) The specific roles assigned to each gender vary from culture to culture.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 10: Families, Kinship, and Descent
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Q1) Anthropologists are interested in kinship calculation, which is
A) the position from which one views an egocentric genealogy.
B) the rules people use to determine their ethnic affiliation to a group.
C) the process by which people choose their postmarital residence.
D) the system by which people in a society reckon their kin relationships.
E) people's emic perspective on family values.
Q2) What does ego stand for in a depiction of a kinship system?
A) the sense of distinct individuality that is present in any society
B) the emotional attachment felt by the people who use the system
C) the point of reference used to determine which kin terms go where
D) the boundary between one's kin group and outsiders
E) a gender-free way of reckoning kinship
Q3) Although nuclear families are found in many societies around the world, this phenomenon is not a cultural universal.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The higher proportion of expanded family households among poorer Americans has been explained as an adaptation to poverty.
A)True
B)False
Page 12
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Chapter 11: Marriage
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Q1) What is the term for the marital exchange in which the bride's family or kin group provides substantial gifts when their daughter marries?
A) polygamy
B) bridewealth
C) dowry
D) progeny price
E) brideservice
Q2) Dowries are most common in societies in which women occupy an elevated status position.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The children of your father's sister are called your cross-cousins.
A)True
B)False
Q4) In the caste system of India, failure to adhere to class endogamy rules traditionally resulted in a ritually impure marriage.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Does the practice of paying a dowry necessarily imply gender inequality?
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Chapter 12: Religion
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Q1) Besides animism-and sometimes coexisting with it in the same society-there is a view of the supernatural as a domain of raw impersonal power, or force, that people can control under certain conditions. This conception of the supernatural is particularly prominent in Melanesia. Melanesians refer to this force as
A) taboo.
B) magic.
C) good (or bad) luck.
D) The Force.
E) mana.
Q2) According to this chapter's "Focus on Globalization" section, Evangelical Protestantism is most explosive in "Global South" countries. Which of the following regions is NOT part of the Global South?
A) Middle East and North Africa
B) sub-Saharan Africa
C) Japan
D) Latin America
E) Brazil
Q3) Discuss two cases of religion's role in social change.
Q4) How do you explain the universality of religion?
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Chapter 13: Arts, Media, and Sports
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Q1) Appreciation for the arts must be learned, it being part of the process of A) aesthetic tuning.
B) biological adaptation.
C) imitation.
D) cultural evolution.
E) enculturation.
Q2) Readers of a text make their own interpretations and derive their own feelings from it. "Readers" of media messages constantly produce their own meanings.
A)True
B)False
Q3) For the women of Planinica, a Muslim village in prewar Bosnia, singing signaled A) a series of transitions between life stages.
B) the arrival of spring.
C) that the artisans of the neighboring village were in town to sell their goods.
D) different things to different women.
E) the arrival of soldiers who had finished their military service.
Q4) All art is objectively beautiful.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 14: The World System and Colonialism
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Q1) Sugar and cotton helped fuel the development of a capitalist world economy.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The current world stratification system features a substantial contrast between capitalists and workers in the core nations, and workers on the periphery.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Which of the following did NOT result from Christopher Columbus's voyages?
A) The rate of violence among Native Americans markedly increased.
B) Europeans extracted silver and gold from the land.
C) Europeans enslaved Native Americans.
D) Europeans offered statehood to Peru, Mexico, and Cuba.
E) Europeans colonized New World lands.
Q4) Ethnographic research in postsocialist societies is thriving. What are some of the common problems typical of these societies? Why would an ethnographic approach be advantageous to addressing these problems?
Q5) How is the world stratification system related to the structural positions within the world capitalist economy? What about the modern stratification system within the United States?
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Chapter 15: Anthropologys Role in a Globalizing World
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Q1) TV programming that is culturally alien tends to outperform native programming when the alien programming comes from the United States, Great Britain, and France.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The Handsome Lake religion
A) led the Iroquois Indians to reject European farming techniques and therefore avoid ethnocide.
B) was compatible with the Iroquois' stress on female over male labor.
C) led the Iroquois to adopt communal longhouses.
D) was a revitalization movement that helped the Iroquois survive in a drastically modified environment.
E) involved the adoption of matrilineal descent groups that protected the Iroquois from cultural extinction.
Q3) Although anthropologists may be interested in contemporary global issues such as climate change, their perspective is necessarily limited to the local scale of their fieldwork.
A)True
B)False
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