Ethnographic Methods
Textbook Exam Questions
Course Introduction
Ethnographic Methods is a course that introduces students to the core techniques and theoretical foundations of ethnography within the social sciences. Through readings, lectures, and practical exercises, students learn to design and conduct fieldwork using participant observation, in-depth interviews, field notes, and cultural analysis. The course explores ethical considerations, reflexivity, and the challenges of representing other peoples experiences. Emphasis is placed on the development of observational skills, critical thinking, and effective communication of qualitative research findings. Ultimately, students gain hands-on experience in collecting and interpreting ethnographic data to produce insightful, context-rich analyses of social life.
Recommended Textbook
Cultural Anthropology 11th Edition by Serena Nanda
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Chapter 1: Anthropology and Human Diversity
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Q1) How has anthropological fieldwork in non-Western areas most changed since the mid-1900s?
A)Today,anthropologists work among people who are very likely to read their works and comment on them.
B)Today,anthropologists work primarily in colonial areas,where the native population benefits from scientific study.
C)Today,anthropologists no longer seek permission to do fieldwork in isolated geographical areas.
D)Today,anthropologists serve in local governments and can return favors to populations who participate in their research.
E)Today,anthropologists no longer do long-term fieldwork as they did years ago.
Answer: A
Q2) The American Anthropological Association's current Code of Ethics has worked well in situations of violence and political danger.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Chapter 2: Doing Cultural Anthropology
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Q1) Anthropologists generally agree that they should defend Western notions of human rights.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) What is FGO,and why is it important in anthropology?
Answer: It stands for Female Genital Operation and anthropology struggles with various positions regarding this cultural practice-ranging from a cultural choice to a violation of human rights.
Q3) What is the name of the organization that maintains a statement of ethical guidelines for anthropologists?
A)Association for American Anthropologists.
B)American Anthropological Institute.
C)American Anthropological Association.
D)Anthropological Ethics Institute.
E)American Association of Anthropologists.
Answer: C
Q4) Boas' style of fieldwork was known as __________ __________.
Answer: Participant observation.
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Chapter 3: The Idea of Culture
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Q1) From the perspective of ecological functionalism,the Hindu taboo on eating beef is:
A)Irrational.
B)Symbolic of other types of relationships in society.
C)Adaptive to the long-run conditions of drought and crop shortages in India.
D)Based on a conscious understanding of ecological anthropology by Indians.
E)Maladaptive in India,considering the large numbers of people who do not have enough to eat.
Answer: C
Q2) Anthropologists who are interested in the ways in which people in different cultures classify their world often use a theory called:
A)Structuralism.
B)Interpretive anthropology.
C)Ethnoscience.
D)Functionalism.
E)Sociobiology.
Answer: C
Q3) Define what a symbol is and provide an example.
Answer: It is something that stands for something else.Language is a good example.
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Chapter 4: Communication
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Q1) What is the importance of a speech community for a human child?
Q2) Studies of the ways in which children learn language show that:
A)A language must be consciously taught;otherwise a child will not learn it.
B)Children in different societies learn to speak their native languages at different ages because some languages are harder to learn than others.
C)Formal education is required for a child to learn to speak his or her native language grammatically.
D)Human beings have an inborn predisposition for learning language and will speak grammatically even if not taught to do so.
E)Boys learn to speak much earlier than girls.
Q3) When we say that human language is "conventional," we mean that:
A)Humans are very conservative and rarely change their way of speaking.
B)The words in human languages have no inherent relationship to the things they stand for.
C)All languages follow the same grammatical rules or conventions.
D)Human language was invented at a convention.
E)All human languages have basically the same structure and differences among them are only superficial.
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Chapter 5: Making a Living
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Q1) Increasing beef consumption led to changes in the meat packaging industry.These included:
A)Increased importance of unions.
B)Increasing use of unskilled immigrant labor.
C)Rising wages for workers.
D)Increasing need for highly educated work force.
E)Movement of meat packing industry from rural to urban areas.
Q2) Rural cultivators who produce for the subsistence of their households but are also integrated into larger,more complex state societies are called:
A)Farmers.
B)Horticulturalists.
C)Agriculturalists.
D)Peasants.
E)Peons.
Q3) Is it better for us to eat local foods? Why?
Q4) One result of the increased globalization of food is:
A)The revival of the family farm.
B)Increased reliance on food that is easy to ship.
C)Increased dependence on fast food and junk food.
D)Increased power of groups such as the Slow Foods movement.
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Chapter 6: Economics
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Q1) In Mexico,a cargo is:
A)The amount of a handicraft that can be produced in a single day.
B)The requirement that women carry water and cook food for the family.
C)The quantity of a crop that can be carried from field to village.
D)The obligation of a son-in-law to provide for his wife's parents.
E)A religious office held for a year and requiring substantial financial outlay.
Q2) As social complexity and population increase,the differences between economic systems is mostly measured as a difference in:
A)Access to productive resources.
B)Management of distribution systems.
C)Quantity of consumption of goods and services.
D)Fitness and leisure activities available to the population.
E)Political organizations.
Q3) In foraging (hunting and gathering)societies,land:
A)Is generally owned by individuals who are generous about letting others use it.
B)Is customarily used by certain groups,but others are not denied access to it.
C)Is owned by the corporate group and not the individual.
D)Is owned by chiefs or headmen,who have the right to sell it if desired.
E)Is privately and exclusively owned by men.
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Chapter 7: Kinship
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Q1) Matrilineage refers to a lineage formed by descent in the male line.
A)True
B)False
Q2) In tribal societies,kinship is the most important principle of association.Discuss some important functions of kinship in tribal societies using examples.
Q3) Which of the following is a distinction between unilineal and bilateral kinship systems?
A)Unilineal kinship systems involve tracking descent through both parents' lines.
B)In bilateral kinship systems,the kin groups do not overlap.
C)In unilineal kinship systems,the kin groups do not overlap.
D)In bilateral kinship systems,there are no cousins.
E)In unilineal kinship systems,there is no designated mother or father.
Q4) How does the individual trace descent in a system of double descent?
Q5) In India,social interaction with one's mother's parents is very different from that with one's father's parents.
A)True
B)False
Q6) How are parallel cousins different from cross cousins?
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Chapter 8: Marriage, family, and Domestic Groups
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Q1) In premodern Chinese families,as women with male children grew older:
A)They were increasingly oppressed and marginalized in their families.
B)They tended to become more powerful,often becoming the dominant person in the household.
C)They were often discarded by their husbands in favor of younger,sexier wives.
D)Relations between them and their husbands tended to grow increasingly contentious.
E)They often divorced and sought out new,more powerful husbands.
Q2) Over the last century,among the Kipsigis of East Africa,bridewealth payments have:
A)Disappeared under the pressure of colonialism and modernity.
B)Increased,to cover the rising cost of living.
C)Remained the same in spite of changed economic conditions.
D)Decreased,as other economic opportunities compete for a man's investments.
E)Been prohibited by law.
Q3) What is a "cultural defense"?
Q4) Are incest taboos universal? Explain your answer.
Q5) How is the Ju'/hoansi interaction with elders and aging different from that of an urban society?
Q6) How and why have Kipsigis bridewealth amounts changed over the years?
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Chapter 9: Gender
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Q1) One of the world's most sexually repressed societies is the:
A)Inuit.
B)Irish of Inis Beag.
C)Peasant villages of Southern Spain.
D)Arapesh of New Guinea.
E)United States of America.
Q2) What widespread characteristics might we expect to find associated with the idea of maleness cross-culturally?
Q3) Despite the many difficulties they face,dagongmai continue to work in factories because:
A)They rarely have any other choices.
B)Their parents or husbands demand that they do so.
C)The life of a dagongmai is often better than it would be if the person had remained in their village.
D)They usually have large debts that they must pay off.
E)They believe that such work is their best way of finding a mate.
Q4) Politics is a traditional role for hijras.
A)True
B)False
Q5) In what types of societies do we frequently find sex/gender alternatives?
Page 11
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Chapter 10: Political Organization
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Q1) What is meant by the term "well-founded fear"?
A)It is the name of a book about ethnic conflict cross-culturally.
B)It is a type of ethnic conflict in which genocide is conducted nation-wide.
C)It is the U.S.policy of granting political asylum to those who can prove they are threatened in their home countries.
D)It is an immigration policy in the U.S.in which refugees are placed in areas where their neighbors do not come from similar ethnic backgrounds.
E)It is a legal term that is used in U.S.courts to determine whether the plaintiff is guilty of coercion and threat based on ethnic background.
Q2) Which statement is most true of conflict in band-level societies?
A)Band-level societies never have conflict within the band.
B)Conflict is mainly between corporate kin groups fighting over land.
C)Band-level societies frequently engage in warfare.
D)Band-level societies minimize conflict between individuals but it does occur.
E)Band-level societies have died out mainly because their excessive interpersonal violence led to population decreases.
Q3) Name the three social levels of a state society.
Q4) What is the "Green Line"?
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Page 12
Chapter 11: Stratification
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Q1) What is a "voluntary minority"?
Q2) In an analysis of environmental pollution in the United States,Melissa Checker found that:
A)The most important factor was class: lower class people lived in more polluted environments.
B)The most important factor was race: middle class Hispanics and African Americans suffered more exposure to environmental pollution than lower class whites.
C)All Americans,regardless of class or race suffered about the same exposure to pollution.
D)African Americans and Hispanics were more likely to live near polluted ground but whites suffered higher levels of air pollution.
E)More federal money was spent cleaning up pollution located near African American communities than was spent cleaning up pollution located near white or Hispanic communities.
Q3) How are Burakumin racially distinguished in Japan?
Q4) Compare and contrast racial stratification in Brazil with that found in the United States.Based on their different histories,how might future changes in social stratification be experienced differently in these areas?
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Page 13
Chapter 12: Religion
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Q1) Anthropologist Sara Castle has argued that Fulani parents seem indifferent to their children because:
A)They cannot conceptualize their family size.
B)Fulani society looks down on children and sees pregnancy as embarrassing.
C)In such a patriarchal society,anything having to do with women is devalued and all children are seen as associated with women rather than men.
D)They believe that showing concern for children will attract evil sorcerers or spirits.
E)They do not believe that individuals have souls until they reach puberty.
Q2) Name three symbols significant to the Rastafarian movement.
Q3) The anthropologist Walter Cannon argued that sorcery:
A)Could kill people through an "extreme stress reaction."
B)Backed the power of the wealthy in society.
C)Was an entirely anti-social force that societies must strive to eliminate.
D)Could not be effectively differentiated from witchcraft.
E)Was present in Africa but not in Europe or Asia.
Q4) Totemism is a type of religion that is practiced by Native Americans.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 13: Creative Expression: Anthropology and the Arts
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Q1) Museum exhibits are a point of contact between the West and the art of indigenous cultures.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Calligraphy is an important art form in Islam because:
A)Muslims have exceptionally good handwriting.
B)It visually represents the Koran.
C)Letter writing was the most important traditional form of communication between individuals.
D)The Koran is a written document.
E)Art has not traditionally been important in the Arab culture.
Q3) The Inuit do not have a word for art.This reveals that:
A)The Inuit have little artistic ability.
B)In a harsh environment,the practice of art is a luxury not easily indulged in.
C)The contemporary arts of the Inuit were introduced by Canadians as a way for Inuit to earn a living.
D)The Inuit language is impoverished because it lacks a word for art.
E)Inuit art is traditionally embedded in making objects for other purposes.
Q4) Among the Toraja,what is the tongkonan?
Q5) What is the relationship between art and symbolism?
Page 15
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Chapter 14: Power, conquest, and a World System
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Q1) In the early 20th century,a key function of education in the colonies was to do all of the following except:
A)Create leadership qualities in the local population.
B)Convince local children that they were inferior to those who had colonized them.
C)Convince subject people to buy products offered by the colonizing power.
D)Show colonial subjects that they (the colonizers)were offering something of value to the country they had taken over.
E)Create independence in the colony.
Q2) The Chinese Bronze incident highlights a persistent controversy over:
A)British rights in China.
B)Racism.
C)Foreign affairs.
D)What constitutes art.
E)Ownership of historical objects.
Q3) While Europeans practiced slavery in Africa,they rarely forced other Europeans into any form of servitude.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 15: Culture, change, and the Modern World
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Q1) Although,in the 1960s,many anthropologists were employed by development organizations such as the United States Agency for International Development,by the 1980s,this number dropped precipitously.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Define neoliberalism.
Q3) In the 1980s,most Ju/'hoansi foragers ended up fighting for the freedom of Namibia with the Southwest African People's Organization (SWAPO).
A)True
B)False
Q4) What are three critical problems facing poor nations today?
Q5) Some anthropologists are critical of development because they do not believe that people should buy into the practices of governments and other agencies behind development programs.
A)True
B)False
Q6) Name three different types of development approaches that were used in the post-colonial era.
Q7) What is the World Bank?
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