Nigerians do not regard homosexuality as:
a. an authentically African lifestyle.
b. part of the Western influences that have been flooding into Africa for years.
c. a new front of Western imperial domination.
d. forbidden by Muslim sharia law.
e. a marginalized status.
Violence perpetuated through sexually related physical assaults such as rape is called:
a. sadomasochism.
b. partner violence.
c. sexual violence.
d. abusive violence.
e. partner abuse.
The way people actually look is the result of their genetic traits and the environment
they live in. This is known as their:
a. DNA.
b. inheritance.
c. ethnicity.
d. phenotype.
e. race.
Practices like segregation that separate groups of people and relegate one group to
inferior conditions like run-down schools while the other group gets top-of-the-line
schools with the latest equipment is an example of:
a. institutional racism.
b. eugenics.
c. group racism.
d. drop down.
e. fascism.
Physical anthropologist Helen Fisher suggests that neurochemicals guide humans
through which of the following experiences?
a. forming community networks
b. collecting and preparing food
c. creating household alliances
d. falling in love
e. early childhood development
Negative reciprocity can be described as:
a. aims to build social relationships, with an obligation that the object returned will be
of proportional value.
b. a form of exchange in which goods are collected from the members of the group and
reallocated in a different pattern.
c. practices that reallocate resources among a group to maximize collective good.
d. exchanges that are made through bonds of affection, including among kin, without
the expectation that they will be repaid in kind.
e. a pattern of exchange in which the parties seek to receive more than they give.
The core foci of critical medical anthropology do not include:
a. identifying how economic and political systems perpetuate unequal access to health
care.
b. understanding ways that systems of power generate disparities in health care.
c. exploring how race, class, and gender affect access to and provision of health care.
d. focusing on treating individual patients rather than identifying needs of entire groups.
e. developing strategies to overcome mechanisms that maintain health inequities.
German political philosopher Karl Marx called which of the following “the opiate of the
masses”?
a. rituals
b. pilgrimage
c. religion
d. rites
e. communitas
Anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer’s first step in improving health conditions in
the rural community of Cange involved:
a. assessing health-care needs by x-raying and collecting blood samples from residents.
b. having the government provide physicians and nurses to help him conduct a health
survey.
c. providing clean drinking water to the community.
d. asking the Catholic Church to send missionaries so that locals would give up beliefs
in voodoo.
e. burning the village to kill all bacteria, and relocating residents to a hilltop.
The number of people who can be supported by the resources of the surrounding region
is called:
a. carrying capacity.
b. demographics.
c. bartering.
d. subsistence strategy.
e. overpopulation.
The author suggests that anthropology is unique among other disciplines such as
economics or history because our perspective begins with:
a. statistics.
b. space.
c. people.
d. records.
e. trends.
The potential power of the individual to challenge structures of power is referred to as:
a. agency.
b. authority.
c. clout.
d. influence.
e. leverage.
A global outlook that is emerging in response to increasing globalization and that
involves linking cultural practices, norms, and values across great distances to even the
most remote areas of the world is termed:
a. capitalism.
b. cosmopolitanism.
c. relativism.
d. structuralism.
e. functionalism.
Wealth is a factor in determining race in what two countries?
a. Brazil and Malaysia
b. the Dominican Republic and Malaysia
c. Brazil and the United States
d. Brazil and the Dominican Republic
e. Malaysia and United States
The uneven distribution of resources and privileges, often along lines of gender, racial
or ethnic group, class, age, family, religion, sexuality, or legal status, is termed:
a. racism.
b. stratification.
c. coercion.
d. hegemony.
e. cosmopolitanism.
The pattern of behavior including gambling, drinking, infidelity, and drug use that
Matthew Gutmann studied in Mexico is associated with:
a. intersexuals.
b. transgenders.
c. machismo.
d. fatherhood.
e. lesbians.
By collecting kinship data from cultures worldwide, early anthropologists found that:
a. there were more than seventeen different ways of organizing relatives.
b. there were only six different ways of organizing relatives.
c. there is only one way of organizing relatives.
d. there is no consistent way of organizing relatives.
e. there are as many different ways of organizing relatives as there are families.
Which of the following is a unique form of religious ritual in which adherents travel to
sacred places as a sign of devotion and in search of transformation and enlightenment?
a. sainthood
b. pilgrimage
c. communitas
d. ritual
e. conversion
The increasing role of culture, complex social structures, increased brain size, and
complex mental activities most likely occurred in:
a. Australopithecus.
b. Homo hablis.
c. Homo erectus.
d. Homo sapiens.
e. Ardipithecus.
Epidemiology is defined as:
a. the intersection of multiple cultural approaches to healing.
b. a practice that seeks to apply the principles of the natural sciences.
c. the documentation and description of the local use of natural substances in healing
remedies and practices.
d. the comparative study of local systems of health and healing.
e. the study of the spread of disease and pathogens through the human population.
Although DNA prescribes genetic possibility, other environmental factors such as
nutrition and disease can impact the human life cycle. This is called:
a. genetic adaptations.
b. developmental adaptations.
c. acclimatization.
d. cultural adaptations.
e. mutagens.
In the modern world system, peripheral nations:
a. are industrialized former colonial powers.
b. tend to draw resources from less developed regions and convert them into
manufactured goods.
c. serve primarily as sources of raw materials, agricultural products, and cheap labor.
d. typically control the most lucrative economic processes.
e. are characterized by having a high standard of living.
Which of the following is NOT a physiological adaptation?
a. tanning
b. sunscreen
c. reduction in jaw size
d. sweating
e. increased heart rate
Both matrilineal and patrilineal patterns of descent build kinship groups through either
one genealogical line (the mother’s side) or the other (the father’s side), which reflects
which type of descent?
a. ambilineal
b. cognatic
c. bilateral
d. patrilineal
e. unilineal
Which of the following consists of wages earned from work, plus dividends and interest
on investments along with rents and royalties?
a. investments
b. wealth
c. income
d. profits
e. wages
Changes in communication technology that have allowed military spouses to switch
from mailing letters to their partners in Afghanistan to chatting with them on Skype are
an example of what dynamic of globalism?
a. Internet communication
b. rapid change
c. flexible adaption
d. technological accumulation
e. time-space compression
According to the text, Texascolonias are of interest to medical anthropologists because:
a. the majority of the residents return to their native Mexico for medical treatment.
b. their rates for many diseases are considerably above state and national averages.
c. the majority of the residents came to the United States in the 1950s and are now in
dire need of medical specialists in gerontology.
d. they are investigating if there is a genetic reason why cancer rates are low.
e. most expectant mothers have midwives attend them rather than going to hospitals.
Which of the following statements is true?
a. Cultures have always been influenced by the flow of people, ideas, and goods,
whether through migration, trade, or invasion.
b. The flow of people, ideas, and goods through migration, trade, or invasion is a
relatively new cultural phenomenon.
c. Cultures are only influenced by the flow of people through invasion.
d. The flow of people, ideas, and goods by any means is not known to influence culture.
e. Cultures are only influenced by the flow of goods through trade.
Gender violence is widely expressed in all of the following ways, EXCEPT:
a. stalking.
b. verbal abuse.
c. rape.
d. male infanticide.
e. dowry death.
Who studies how language changes over time?
a. historic linguists
b. sociolinguists
c. paleoanthropologists
d. ethnologists
e. linguistic archaeologists
The discussion in the text of Margery Wolf’s publication “A Thrice Told Tale” states that
this innovative ethnographic approach includes a fictionalized account, a published
article, and:
a. census data.
b. maps.
c. field notes.
d. photographs.
e. plans.
Although globalization has produced increased flows of money, information, and
goods:
a. governments regulate borders with passports and immigration inspectors.
b. the free movement of people is encouraged by border patrol agencies.
c. hometown associations attempt to block migrants from relocating to their
communities.
d. governments place high excise taxes on migrants over the age of fifty-five.
e. international migration costs much less than ever before.
Early anthropologists played an important role in the acquisition of so-called ________
art that came from Oceania, Africa, and Latin America.
a. high
b. Western
c. primitive
d. ethnographic
e. aesthetic
Compare and contrast the perspective on human sexuality offered by evolutionary
biologists and cultural constructionists. What factors do evolutionary biologists study to
learn more about human sexuality? How does this compare to the factors an
anthropologist with a cultural constructionist perspective might investigate? Which
approach do you find most valuable?
Compare and contrast the concepts of individual racism with institutional racism.
Provide examples from the class to support your points.
Drawing on Bruce Whitehouse’s ethnography of Malian migrants, explain why the
textbook describes the experience of people from Togotala as one of “reshaping
globalization from the ground up.” How have remittances sent back to Togotala by
migrants helped local residents? Discuss how the mostly Muslim migrants to the city of
Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo have been able to establish themselves as
merchants. How have these Malian migrants been treated in Brazzaville?
The debate continues over whether human beings are naturally peaceful or violent.
Discuss the possible foundations of human violence and the evidence presented, and
evaluate the author’s conclusion.
Explain how patterns of migration in recent decades differ from those of past periods.
Discuss two examples of immigrant populations, such as people from Spanish-speaking
countries or the Middle East. Compare and contrast their motivations for relocating,
their strategies for adapting, how they have been received, and the geographic locations
to which they have been attracted.
Using three specific examples from the text, identify and analyze ways that women
resist patriarchy or gender stratification in their societies. Specifically, how do women
use spirit possession, trancing, or organizing for political action to express their
displeasure with the systems under which they live? Provide the context for their
actions in three different settings. Ultimately, does women’s resistance to these
structures result in change?
Define sex work and describe its role in Denise Brennan’s research in the Dominican
Republic and in Patty Kelly’s research in Mexico. What are some similarities and
differences between these two cases? Do the sex workers in one case appear to be more
or less secure than sex workers in the other? Why or why not? What is the impact of
globalization in each case?
The concepts of “ethnicity,” “nation-state,” “nationality,” and “nationalism” are closely
related and have serious impacts on countries in the world today. In a brief essay,
discuss the situation in Iraq with regard to nation, nation-state, ethnicity, and nationality,
and provide examples to support your points.
How have the processes of globalization and Westernization affected health care in the
Ladakh region of the Himalayas? Specifically, describe the care provided by Tibetan
Buddhist healers, and provide three specific examples of how this system has changed
during the past thirty years in terms of how these healers are compensated, the
introduction of Western medical approaches, and the global interest in this type of
health care.
Discuss what you deem to be the most important contemporary issues with regard to
inclusion and social integration of immigrants in the United States. How much
multiculturalism is appropriate? Construct an argument that explains what the balance
should be between how much immigrants adapt to the dominant culture and how much
American communities accommodate newcomers. Illustrate your argument by
discussing particular immigrants groups and recent immigration controversies.
Explain how the principle of natural selection has been a contributor to evolutionary
theory. Discuss examples where this has occurred in a population.
Through kinship studies across cultures, anthropologists have determined that the ways
in which genealogies are constructed can be messy and far from exact. Gaps,
interruptions, disruptions, uncertainties, and assumed connections are all found among
genealogies. This fact is further underscored by Kathleen Gough’s reexamination of
anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard’s kinship work with Nuer people in Sudan.
Describe one example of a genealogical disruption that Gough found among Nuer
kinship data collected in the 1930s, and discuss why the disruption likely occurred.
What sorts of gaps and disruptions are present in your own genealogy and why do you
think they have occurred? Do you think that genealogies will undergo even greater gaps
and disruptions in the future? Why or why not?
Identify where Neandertals are located in the human evolutionary chain and how they
are similar physically to other modern Homo sapiens.
The potlatch is a redistribution ceremony practiced among Native American groups
such as the Kwakiutl people of the Pacific Northwest. The potlatch serves both a
practical and ceremonial function in that it helps redistribute resources for the benefit of
the group and it establishes social status and prestige via one’s capacity for generosity.
As a gift-giving practice, the potlatch is an important ceremony for some ranked
societies. Do similar types of gift-giving practices occur in your own society? What are
two examples of ceremonies in your own society in which gift giving takes place? What
is the function of gift giving in these two examples and how does the act of gift giving
benefit the giver, the receiver, and the social group more generally? What happens if an
individual does not give a gift in the two examples you highlight? What influences from
within and outside of your society may be changing the way in which gift-giving
practices are occurring in the ceremonies you mention? Do you think gift giving will
remain a practice within these types of ceremonies in the future?
Explain how the peppered moth is a powerful example of natural selection in evolution.
Theorist Karl Marx argued that societies in the emerging capitalist economy of
nineteenth-century Europe consisted of two distinct classes of people: those who own
the means of production and those who must sell their labor in return for wages. What
were these two distinct classes called? What other resources or factors distinguished
these two classes, according to Marx? Does the two-class system espoused by Marx
still hold relevancy in examining class systems in societies across the world today?
Why or why not? Are there other classes that have developed since the time period
during which Marx wrote? What is one example of a way in which Marx’s theory could
be applied to understanding societies living in a global economy today? Do you find
Marx’s theory helpful in understanding class and social inequality today? Why or why
not?