The Maasai people created their own nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in an
effort to represent them at negotiations and assert their political rights to resources and
recognition with the Tanzanian government, which had largely ignored them. These are
examples of a(n):
a. local service agency.
b. international aid society.
c. indigenous charity.
d. civil society organization.
e. advocating agency.
Anthropologist Laura Bohannan discovered in her attempt to translate a classic text
from English literature that:
a. an underlying universal grammar that all humans share facilitated her work.
b. the landscape of the Nigerian village shaped the folklore of the inhabitants.
c. accurate translation of Shakespeare is best accomplished through sign language.
d. the meaning of the story became lost as the original meanings of the English words
could not be easily translated.
e. it is straightforward to translate stories across different languages.
The movement of one’s class positionwhether upward or downwardin stratified
societies is called:
a. social inertia.
b. social achievement.
c. social stagnation.
d. social independence.
e. social mobility.
Of all the systems of stratification and power in a society, which of the following is
commonly the most difficult to see clearly and to discuss openly?
a. race
b. ethnicity
c. gender
d. class
e. sexuality
Around 15,000 yBP, modern Homo sapiens had left Asia and migrated to:
a. Europe.
b. North and South America.
c. Australia.
d. Indonesia.
e. Madagascar.
The process of transhumance involves:
a. slashing and burning vegetation from land.
b. moving livestock seasonally between different environments.
c. construction of terraces and channels.
d. occupational specialization and specialists including stone cutters.
e. establishment of permanent settlements.
Anthropology developed during an intense period of globalism in which century?
a. fifteenth century
b. sixteenth century
c. seventeenth century
d. eighteenth century
e. nineteenth century
Which of the following industries is key in arousing our desires for goods and services?
a. banking
b. economics
c. advertising
d. manufacturing
e. service
Which of the following statements is true?
a. Class is rarely discussed in the United States and consequently is largely off the radar
screen regarding public discourse.
b. Class is discussed all the time in the United States and is a topic of frequent debate in
public discourse.
c. Americans are very knowledgeable about class and have very accurate ideas about
where their families fit in the U.S. class structure.
d. The Founding Fathers of the United States were among the poorest men in the
thirteen colonies, which is why they were concerned with creating a classless society.
e. Native Americans have always been among the largest landholders in the United
States, which has allowed them to pursue upward mobility throughout the country’s
history.
According to anthropologist Victor Turner, the second state of rites of passage that
involves a period of outsiderhood during which the individual is set apart from normal
society and exists on the margins of everyday life is termed:
a. liminality.
b. paucity.
c. communitas.
d. anomie.
e. hegemony.
________ is the sense of disorientation caused by the overwhelmingly new and
unfamiliar people and experiences encountered during fieldwork.
a. Ethnographic dissonance
b. Culture shock
c. Anthropological competence
d. Fieldwork block
e. Cognitive map
The modern state of Germany has existed in many forms from its inception. The
hundreds of German principalities were formerly united in 1871 into Germany until
1918. After defeat in World War I, Germany’s government was known as the Weimar
Republic until the Nazis came to power in 1933. With the defeat of Nazi Germany, the
country was divided into East and West during the cold war, and finally reunited when
the Soviet Union collapsed. This demonstrates how the state of Germany has often
been:
a. aligned.
b. constructed.
c. rebuilt.
d. maligned.
e. reimagined.
An anthropologist’s suspension of judgment while attempting to understand a group’s
beliefs and practices within their own cultural context is termed:
a. relative altruism.
b. cultural relativism.
c. relative culturalism.
d. contextual relativism.
e. altruistic culturalism.
The author states that pollution, population growth, climate change, and overfishing are
serious issues, and nature may not be able to adapt to:
a. human activity.
b. glacial activity.
c. global warming.
d. intensification.
e. offshore drilling.
The ________ generation of young Dominicans studied by Ana Aparicio in New York
have been able to negotiate their identity situationally, often shifting between categories
of black, Latino, Dominican, and people of color.
a. second
b. first
c. 1.5
d. “lost”
e. third
Which of the following anthropologists argued that the use of magic among Azande
peoples was not an irrational expression but rather a component of a highly organized,
rational, and logical system of thought?
a. Marvin Harris
b. Victor Turner
c. Emile Durkheim
d. E. E. Evans-Pritchard
e. Franz Boas
The Victorian ideal of sexuality was heavily influenced by which of the following:
a. the government
b. Christian teachings
c. science
d. media
e. globalization
Laws in the United States that allowed such things as “white only” swimming pools,
restaurants, schools, beaches, and the like, similar to apartheid in South Africa, were
known as:
a. antimiscegenation.
b. Jim Crow.
c. white supremacy.
d. eugenics.
e. segregation.
The Indian American community has broken down many old barriers once held in
India, but has chosen to deny efforts by the members of the South Asian Lesbian and
Gay Alliance (SALGA) to participate in the India Day Parade. This illustrates the
concept of:
a. control of identity.
b. ethnic boundary markers.
c. ethnic making.
d. ethnogenesis.
e. rationalization of self.
Which of the following is defined by Victor Turner as a sense of camaraderie that
shares a common vision of what constitutes a good life and a commitment to work
toward that aim?
a. paucity
b. liminality
c. hegemony
d. anomie
e. communitas
Which of the following statements about marriage is true?
a. Marriage occurs in every culture and is found in identical form wherever and
whenever it exists.
b. Marriage occurs in every culture in some form, but its exact characteristics vary
widely.
c. Marriage occurs in only a few cultures, but is found in identical form wherever and
whenever it exists.
d. Marriage occurs in only a few cultures, but takes a unique form wherever and when
ever it exists.
e. Marriage occurs in every culture in some form, and that form does not change over
time.
Which of the following is NOT a type of representation that visual anthropologists
study?
a. theatrical performances
b. museum displays
c. mass media
d. television
e. rock music
In the late twentieth century, ________ emerged as a dominant form of global
communication.
a. telephones
b. the Internet
c. books
d. letters
e. newspapers
The idea that life is too complex to be random and proposes an evidence-based rather
than religious-based argument is called:
a. natural selection.
b. founder effect.
c. intelligent design.
d. religious interpretations.
e. the “blueprint of life.”
Studies of physical differences indicate that:
a. chromosomes are the primary determinants of human behavior.
b. all individuals fall into the two assumed categories of male and female.
c. women’s bodies are not strong enough for heavy labor.
d. biology drives the division of labor.
e. human male and female bodies are more similar than different.
Groups of indigenous people like the Maasai, who live outside the direct control of the
government of Tanzania and have had to form their own nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) and other political organizations to fight against the state’s efforts
to act as though they did not exist, are today known as:
a. tribes.
b. states.
c. groups.
d. chiefdoms.
e. bands.
Anthropologists typically examine which of the following in order to understand
religion’s meaning and significance in the life of a community of people?
a. theology
b. language origins
c. political practices
d. economic systems
e. eating habits
Which of the following statements is true?
a. Religion has been a central interest of anthropologists only recently in the history of
the discipline.
b. Religion has been a central interest of anthropologists since the beginning of the
history of the discipline.
c. Anthropologists reject the ideas of other disciplines regarding religion.
d. Religion is interesting to anthropologists because it is so rare in human culture.
e. Anthropologists are not interested in religion at all.
Mutations are:
a. always harmful.
b. always more beneficial than previous forms of the standard DNA code.
c. a source of new genetic variation.
d. produced only when there is an environmental toxin.
e. the mechanism of intelligent design.
Gender is defined as:
a. culturally based preconceived notions about the attributes of differences between, and
proper roles for, men and women.
b. the way gender identity is expressed through action.
c. the ways humans learn to behave and recognize behaviors as masculine or feminine
within cultural context.
d. the expectation of thought and behavior that each culture assigns to people of
different sexes.
e. a set of cultural ideas about the essential character of different genders that functions
to promote and justify gender stratification.
Some ethnic groups in the United States have adopted certain parts of American culture
but still maintain some parts of their distinct ethnic culture. This is referred to as:
a. biculturalism.
b. multiculturalism.
c. segregation.
d. separation.
e. variation.