The process that promotes economic, political, and other cultural connections among
people living all over the world is called
a. cultural diffusion.
b. world systemization.
c. globalization.
d. cultural hybridization.
Advice for Developers: Peace Corps Problems in Botswana
HOYT S. ALVERSON
Summary This classic article by Hoyt Alverson provides an excellent example of how
anthropology can be applied to the solution of practical problems. Although written
years ago, its message is equally relevant today as Peace Corps volunteers, USAID
workers, military personnel, and NGO (non-governmental organization) employees
engage in nation building around the world. Alverson’s conclusion is clear:
development work in foreign (and even in some domestic) settings requires
cross-cultural understanding.
Alverson was asked by a program director to investigate problems with the Peace
Corps’ development efforts in Botswana. Volunteers, he was told, were to introduce
development projects to Tswana farmers but found it difficult to so. The Tswana often
resisted the volunteers’ efforts. They would seem to cooperate but eventually nothing
happened. Frustrated, volunteers tended to isolate themselves, failed to learn the local
language, and hung out with other Americans or Europeans. Some gave up. Others
failed to complete their two-year contracts. Many felt spiteful toward the Tswana and
some even experienced nervous breakdowns.
Alverson approached his task by looking at both the culture and perspective of the
Peace Corps volunteers, and the culture and responses of the Tswana. (Alverson had
already spent 15 months doing ethnographic research in a Tswana community.) He
discovered that volunteers had many unstated assumptions, based on culture. Often, for
example, volunteers wished to be respected for their superior knowledge and their ways
of doing things, which they believed were better. Volunteers also believed that the
Tswana had asked them to help impart their Western cultural knowledge and that they,
the volunteers, were different from colonial authorities because they did not force
people to change. The conclusion to draw from this information is simple: the
volunteers’ self-perception made it harder for them to learn about the people they were
there to engage.
The remainder of Alverson’s paper deals with areas of cross-cultural misunderstandings
between volunteers and the Tswana. One example is the concept of time. The American
volunteer’s concept of time is lineal: the Tswana concept sees time as bounded by
events. Volunteers became frustrated when the Tswana did not show up on time.
Another example is that volunteers appreciate candor as they talk. The Tswana like
smooth, non-confrontational discourse. As a result, a Tswana may lie about something
to avoid conflict.
In sum, Alverson sees the discomfort displayed by American Peace Corps volunteers in
Botswana as a consequence of life in a very different, culturally defined Tswana world.
The implied solution is to inform volunteers about their own cultural and
self-perceptions, and teach volunteers as much as possible about the culture of those
with whom they intend to work.
In Alverson’s estimation, Peace Corps volunteers feel they are making a sacrifice to
serve other, less fortunate people, and that they are the experts in relations with local
people.
Medical Anthropology: Improving Nutrition in Malawi
SONIA PATTEN
Summary In this article, anthropologist Sonia Patten describes her experience as an
anthropologist on a team of researchers working to improve infant and child nutrition in
rural Malawi, a small nation in Africa. She and colleagues from two American
universities, under the auspices of the University Development Linkages Program,
worked with faculty from a college in the University of Malawi system to develop and
implement a program addressing the mortality rate for children, a rate that at the time
was very nearly one in four.
Patten and her team members developed a plan to provide milk-producing goats to the
women of the villages, teach them how to care for and raise the animals, and show them
how to incorporate the protein- and calorie-rich milk into recipes that they could feed
their malnourished children. The team met with village leaders and elders to convince
them to allow women to own the goats, explain how the plan would work, and ensure
them that this was a worthwhile effort to help combat the malnutrition their children
faced. Once convinced, researchers identified villages that would be the best candidates
for this social researchthose with an animal-theft problem were considered too
problematic to include in the project.
A baseline survey of households that included children under five was conducted, while
scientists from the research team crossbred goats with the necessary characteristics on a
local Malawi farm. Eventually women were provided with a goat and the basic toolsa
bucket, a measuring cup, and a panto get started. Local members of the research team
taught the women how to incorporate the goat’s milk into their children’s food and made
weekly visits to villages to weigh and measure the children. The children, even those
who were receiving even small amounts of goat’s milk, all showed steady height and
weight gains, at least for a time.
The project continued to address food insecurity problems and issues that arose from
the goat-raising efforts. The researchers taught the women how to plant, grow, and
process soybeans into flour that they could use when no goat’s milk was available. All
of their efforts were sustainablewomen were asked to return their first baby goat to the
researchers and 5 kg of seed after the first harvest. The research team’s efforts worked
within the culture of the Malawi, incorporated indigenous resources, and were
conducted in the native language of the villagers.
The author concludes that the project was highly valued by rural women, as evidenced
by the number who wanted to participate. It proved that the addition of goat’s milk to a
child’s diet was valuable, and the success of the project is noted by similar projects that
were introduced by Malawi nongovernmental organizations. Additionally, Patten
elaborates on the importance of having an anthropologist on a research team, and
identifies her role and responsibilities. Her expertise proved valuable to the acceptance
of the project and the high level of participation by the Malawian villagers.
Applied medical anthropology focuses on the biomedical studies of human adaptations
to disease.
According to Bestor in “How Sushi Went Global,”
a. globalization has meant homogenization. Sushi is no longer viewed as a Japanese
entity worldwide.
b. in waters off of Seabrook, New Hampshire, bluefin tuna are trapped, fed by hand,
then processed to meet the demand for sushi in Japan and around the world.
c. tuna’s popularity in Japan has declined significantly in the past two decades.
d. the first appearance of tuna in Japanese literature was in the eighth-century collection
of imperial court poetry called Man”yoshu.
In “Body Ritual among the Nacirema,” Miner notes that the opulence of a Nacireman
home is determined by
a. whether the home’s shrine is equipped with a font.
b. what the home is constructed from.
c. how large the home is.
d. how many shrines the house contains.
The meeting of two culturally distinct groups is called
a. diffusion.
b. acculturation.
c. social contact.
d. cultural contact.
According to Scheper-Hughes in “Mother’s Love: Death Without Weeping,” poor
Brazilian mothers living in a shantytown near the town of Bom Jesus de Mata
a. would do almost anything to earn money in order to pay for the treatment of their
sick babies.
b. stayed emotionally detached from their babies, particularly those they felt were likely
to die.
c. depended for child support on the local churches and civil authorities.
d. observed nearly a year of formal mourning when a child died, during which time they
were not allowed to dance or laugh in public.
According to Patten in “Malawi Versus the World Bank,” the “Washington Consensus”
required countries that borrowed money from the World Bank and IMF to
a. privatize state-owned enterprises.
b. increase spending on health and education.
c. limit their trade with foreign markets.
d. use public monies to subsidize commodities.
In some societies, people believe that some individuals are born with supernatural force
that they consciously or unconsciously use to cause harm. Anthropologists classify
these supposed activities as
a. magic.
b. sorcery.
c. witchcraft.
d. alchemy.
According to Gmelch in “Nice Girls Don”t Talk to Rastas,” Barbadian villagers
shunned his U.S. study abroad student because she
a. had sexual relations with a Rastafarian named Joseph.
b. gave Joseph some of the fruit growing on her homestay mother’s tree.
c. lived for a time with Joseph in his hillside cave.
d. was seen talking to and leaving the village with Joseph.
The Catholic Church’s theology of liberation changed the way the Church handled
infant deaths. Under this theology,
a. a priest accompanied each funeral procession to the cemetery.
b. mothers were encouraged to believe that a saint had claimed the child.
c. a municipal gravedigger oversaw the burial without offering any prayers or sign of
the cross.
d. the bells of the parish church rang at each infant’s funeral.
The purpose of public interest ethnography, in Stryker’s analysis in “Ethnography in the
Public Interest,” is to
a. study the motivations of policy makers.
b. assess the costs associated with a policy.
c. assess a policy from the perspective of those affected by it.
d. discover inconsistencies in a policy.
In “How Sushi Went Global,” why does Bestor refer to bluefin tuna as “stateless fish?”
a. Bluefin tuna swim so fast and migrate so far, they may not remain in any nation’s
waters for long.
b. ICCAT (the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas), made
up of 28 countries, has declared that the fish should receive “stateless” legal status.
c. No one country has been willing to take responsibility for conserving bluefin tuna.
d. Bluefin tuna form part of sushi in every country of the world.
Which one of the following is a conclusion that Sterk reached in “Fieldwork on
Prostitution in the Era of AIDS” about prostitutes and
prostitution based on her field study?
a. Although the media portrays men as violent toward prostitutes, most are not.
b. Many women are able to leave their life of prostitution behind without any
consequences.
c. Although police and health professionals insist that prostitutes are drug addicts, most
are not.
d. First experiences as prostitutes often involve alienation from people outside the life.
Anthropologists and sociologists argue that American racial groups are equivalent
to Indian__________ because racial identity is permanent and affects chances for
acquisition of prestige and economic success, and there are noticeable cultural
differences among black
and white people in the United States.
a. classes
b. castes
c. kinship groups
d social groups
Shakespeare in the Bush
LAURA BOHANNAN
Summary This article illustrates the concept of naive realism, the idea that members of
one group believe that everyone else sees the world they way they do, and shows how
this belief leads to cross-cultural misunderstanding. Convinced that people everywhere
can understand the basic theme of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Bohannan tries to tell the
story to Tiv elders during fieldwork in West Africa. From the beginning, she finds that
the Tiv translate the story into their own cultural categories. Because the Tiv have no
category for spirits of the dead who can talk, they believe Hamlet’s father’s ghost must
really be an omen sent by a witch, or a zombie. And for the Tiv, instead of committing
an impropriety, Hamlet’s mother did well to marry her dead husband’s brother within a
month of her spouse’s death. The Tiv employ the custom of levirate on such occasions,
so it is expected for a woman to marry her dead husband’s brother. The Tiv think
Polonius should be pleased that Hamlet is attracted to his daughter Ophelia. If they
cannot marry, she can at least become his mistress, and sons of chiefs give large gifts to
the fathers of their mistresses among the Tiv. At each turn in the story, the Tiv view
events as they would in their own society, identifying facts according to their own
cultural map and reinterpreting motives. The result is a very different Hamlet than
Shakespeare wrote, and an excellent example of how culture defines a people’s social
world.
The Tiv felt it was a good omen for Hamlet’s father’s ghost to return and talk with
Hamlet.
According to McCurdy in “Motorcycles, Membership, and Belonging,” the GWRRA
offers the same opportunities for __________ that can still be found in rural Indian
extended families and close-knit communities today.
a. belonging and loyalty
b. individualism
c. competition
d. privacy and independence
People who flee their country of origin because they share a well-founded fear of
persecution are called
a. tourists.
b. immigrants.
c. stateless persons.
d. refugees.
According to Shandy in “Nuer Refugees in America,” the Nuer of South Sudan were
first studied by
a. Sir E. E. Evans-Pritchard.
b. Sir Thok Ding.
c. Robert Gardner.
d. Sharon Hutchinson.
When the author first met Mara Martnez in 2006, she had married a Jordanian man and
a. planned to convert to Islam.
b. had given up wine, pork, and beer in preparation of converting to Islam.
c. had converted to Islam prior to marriage.
d. could not imagine a Spanish woman converting to Islam.
According to Lee and Biesele, by 1994 Ju/”Hoansi !Kung were
a. living in mud-walled houses behind makeshift stockades.
b. living in circular, tight-knit villages.
c. obtaining about 70 percent of their food through hunting and gathering.
d. living in temporary, ever shifting camps.
According to Spradley and McCurdy in “Law and Order,” the agreed upon way to settle
disputes is called
a. courts.
b. legal principles.
c. procedural law.
d. substantive law.
Body Ritual among the Nacirema
HORACE MINER
Summary Miner’s classic, satirical article describes the body ritual of a North
American people called the Nacirema. Driven by a cultural value of the fragility and
importance of their bodies, they engage in a series of daily rituals designed to make
their bodies more presentable and long lasting. Underlying body ritual is a cultural
perception that the human body is ugly with a tendency toward debility and disease.
The Nacirema engage in complex rituals to cover up bodily imperfections and slow the
body’s deterioration. They have a household shrine with a chest full of magical charms,
and a holy font located below the charm box. Charms come in many forms and are used
for many specific purposes.
There are medicine men to guide the Nacirema in the use of charms, and
“holy-mouth-men” that use various tools to purify and maintain the mouth; this in
addition to the twice-daily mouth rite done at home that involves the use of a special
brush..
More elaborate ceremonies are performed in a local temple, the latipsoalthough that is
often viewed as a place to die. Those entering the latipso are often stripped of their
clothing, handled by vestal virgins, and made to do their bodily functions in a sacred
vessel and in public. Normally, however, excretory functions are ritualized and
relegated to secrecy, as are natural reproductive functions.
There is also another practitioner, called a “listener,” who has the power to exorcise the
devils that lodge in the heads of people who have been bewitched. Parents, especially
mothers, are often suspected of putting a curse on their children. For a large gift, a
witch doctor will conduct exorcism sessions, when he or she listens to the other’s
troubles and fears from childhood.
Miner concludes that from the evidence above, the Nacirema are a magic-ridden
people.
In “Body Ritual among the Nacirema,” Miner observes that the Nacirema enjoy eating a
variety of foods that have been purified by dipping them in a ritual vessel filled with
boiling oil.
In order to be considered eligible for marriage, a Fouta Djallon girl must have
a. had a naming ceremony one week after her birth.
b. had an animal sacrificed in her honor shortly after her birth.
c. had an imam or elder bestow a special benediction on her.
d. received the rite of excision.
According to Lee, in 1963 the !Kung had a caloric intake of about __________ per
person per day.
a. 3,030
b. 2,410
c. 2,140
d. 1,890
According to Bourgois in “Poverty at Work: Office Work and the Crack Alternative,”
his informant, Primo,
a. never held a job in New York’s office environment.
b. left a job in a service company office primarily because of the low pay it offered.
c. had to quit his job because of repetitive stress syndrome.
d. failed at his office job because he could not alter his street identity and mimic
professional office culture.
Navigating Nigerian Bureaucracies
ELIZABETH A. EAMES
Summary In this article, Elizabeth A. Eames describes her experiences in Nigeria both
from the perspective of an anthropologist and as an individual raised in the U.S.
bureaucratic system. She shares the lessons she learned as she tried to decipher the rules
of proper behavior, and concludes with a discussion of Max Weber’s concept of
patrimonial authority.
Eames’ experiences and frustrations with the Nigerian social system stemmed in part
from her “American-ness,” her belief in equal and efficient treatment for all. Much to
her surprise, the social system in Nigeria operated on different principles: in Nigeria,
rights are negotiable, bribery is a legitimate way of doing business, and power comes
from being in a position to grant favors to others.
The author’s introduction to the intricacies of Nigerian society and how much it depends
on interpersonal relations began before she ever set foot on Nigerian soil: a personal
connection rescued her visa from the maze of paperwork at the New York consulate. At
the time she had no idea how important the currency of favors and gratitude was to the
social system, but quickly came to understand that these, along with hospitality and
strong greeting skills, were the only way to accomplish anything in the patrimonial
bureaucracy that operates in Nigeria today. Seemingly simple undertakings, such as
getting immigration forms signed, registering as a graduate student, and extending her
visatasks that were typically routine, impersonal, and efficient in a legally dominated
bureaucracy such as in the United Stateswere time-consuming, confusing, and nowhere
near routine. For some of these tasks, the simple act of describing the problem led from
one contact to another, and eventually a resolution presented itself. As her network of
contacts grew, so did her ability to get things done. Eames also learned the hard way
that not allowing acquaintances to assist her had significant consequences; it was seen
as a betrayal or a denial of a relationship. Everything in Nigeria, the author came to
understand, was personal.
The author describes Max Weber’s ideals of legal and patrimonial domination, and
articulates the six principles of patrimonial administration that Weber believed would
eventually be replaced by bureaucracy. Eames disputes this claim. Because an
individual’s understanding of hierarchy is based on the relationship of infant and
caretaker, Eames believes this creates a psychological need for personalized treatment
when interacting with authority figures. This tendency causes individualseven in legal
bureaucraciesto hope for personal treatment and resent impersonal, cold interactions.
In slash-and-burn agriculture, small pieces of land are cultivated for a few years
until the soil is no longer fertile; then the piece of land is abandoned.
The Worst Lover: Boyfriend Spirits in Senegal
RACHEL MUELLER
Summary This article by Rachel Mueller details the unique coexistence and
cooperation in modern Senegal of the Sufi sect of Islam, and Lbou, a religious cult that
attributes inexplicable behavior, health issues, and adversity to troublesome spirits (rab)
who intentionally interact and sometimes possess girls and women.
According to Mueller, Senegal is a growing, cosmopolitan country filled with history
and a tradition of great hospitality, or terenga. By all appearancesprayer mats in office
buildings, posters and photos of Islamic holy men in the cities’ taxis, and people in
prayer five times a daySenegal, and in particular, Dakar, is filled with people who
practice Islam. Sprinkled among the followers of Muhammad are individuals who
adhere to a religious tradition that involves invisible spirits roaming the earth and
interacting with humans, sometimes in an unpleasant and troublesome manner.
Mueller details the reasons these spirits are unhappy, and relates tales of their efforts to
possess young women who are beautiful and well dressed. Women and girls are
encouraged to cover their knees in public (these are a particular weakness of the faru
rab, the “boyfriend spirits” who possess and preoccupy girls and women) and dress
conservatively, even while sleeping. Islam and Lbou intersect at times, namely when
Islamic holy men are called upon to communicate with the spirits who bother women.
Significantly, however, female healers and priestesses (called an ndeppkat) also play an
important role in liaising with the spirit world. Both the Islamic holy men and the
ndeppkat, Mueller explains, learn about the rab and determine what can be done to
discourage or drive him away. The remedies may include bathing in holy water, making
animal sacrifices, and dressing in a color unpleasant to the rab. Unfortunately, these
efforts do not always work, and an elaborate ritual called an ndepp may be necessary to
exorcise the rab entirely.
Mueller elaborates on the intersection of Islam and Lbou, as well as the effect that
modernization, globalization, and the Internet might have on the future of the Lbou
beliefs and traditions. Although Senegalese with financial means now turn to Western
doctors for solutions to what they believe is rab spirit control, and some of the effects
are cured, many continue to turn to healers because the rab spirit world is so strongly
engrained in the Lbou culture.
According to Mueller in “The Worst Lover: Boyfriend Spirits in Senegal,” although
there are many different types of rab, Madge-juenne, is known to be the most vicious
and should be avoided at all costs.
Slash-and-burn agriculture would best be classified as which kind of the following
adaptive strategies?
a. horticulture
b. agriculture
c. pastoralism
d. industrialism
According to Stryker in “Ethnography in the Public Interest,” the state asked the
ethnographic project she directed to assess
a. how women access health care in prison.
b. the effects of overcrowding.
c. whether the position of MTA should be abolished.
d. how much female inmates should be paid for their work.
Religious specialists who control supernatural power are called
a. priests.
b. diviners.
c. shamans.
d. witch doctors.
When they do ethnographic fieldwork, anthropologists interview
a. objects.
b. subjects.
c. informants.
d. participants.
In Alverson’s estimation, which statement best describes the Tswana?
a. The Tswana do not value friendships based on trust and honesty.
b. The Tswana believe that privacy is important part of daily life.
c. The Tswana value truth and honesty above all.
d. The Tswana feel that work comes before hospitality and socializing.