Chapter 3 Researching Culture
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. One thing about which most cultural anthropologists agree is __________.
A) that anthropologists should study primarily people’s thoughts and ideas
B) the definition of culture
C) the importance of doing fieldwork
D) whether anthropological fieldwork should proceed inductively or deductively
2. On the basis of his experience in the Trobriand Islands during World War I, Bronislaw Malinowski is generally
considered to be __________.
A) the “father” of participant observation
B) the founder of the etic approach
C) the first person to realize that no culture is more or less “civilized” than another
D) the first person to do fieldwork in his own culture
3. Given current globalization and the rarity of small, isolated cultures, many contemporary cultural anthropologists
have abandoned __________.
A) learning a non-Western language
B) the concept of holism
C) the concept of cultural relativism
D) participant observation
4. The research method in cultural anthropology that involves living in a culture for an extended period while
gathering data is __________.
A) the inductive method
B) archival research
C) participant observation
D) life history
5. In the Trobriand Islands, the British colonialists substituted which activity for local warfare?
A) Christianity
B) the kula
C) boat racing
D) cricket
6. Trobriand women’s most prized material items are __________.
A) skirts
B) pigs
C) shell necklaces
D) grass mats
7. Compared to Malinowski’s research in the Trobriands, Weiner’s restudy addressed __________.
A) women’s lives
B) changing leadership patterns
C) the decline of the kula trade
D) the high rate of suicide
8. During his fieldwork in Pakistan, a major challenge for Richard Kurin was __________.
A) learning proper rules of gift exchange
B) false role assignments
C) learning the language
D) not having a wife or children, which would have made him an “adult”
9. When doing fieldwork, establishing rapport __________.
A) is easier for male than female anthropologists
B) usually happens during the first week
C) makes life easier but doesn’t improve the quality of the information gathered
D) can involve exchanging gifts with the local people
10. During his fieldwork in Japan, Matthews Hamabata had a problem with __________.
A) learning to appreciate the food
B) learning when to smile and when not to smile
C) having to sit for long periods of time with his legs folded underneath him
D) how to understand the meaning of a gift given to him and the appropriate response
11. Liza Dalby’s research among the geisha of Japan involved the study of a microculture based on which factor?
A) class
B) “race”/ethnicity
C) gender
D) religion
12. When Tony Whitehead, an African American anthropologist, did fieldwork in Jamaica, he was surprised that
__________.
A) he was unable to speak easily with the people because of his American English
B) people thought he was much older than he was
C) people assigned him to a high status
D) people expected him to bring his family with him and found it difficult to accept him as a lone male
13. Culture shock occurs when __________.
A) an anthropologist finds that he/she learns the local language more easily than expected
B) you discover, to your surprise, that you really like living in another culture
C) a person has shifted from one culture to another
D) two different cultural groups compete with each other
14. Research that is guided by a hypothesis is __________.
A) emic
B) deductive
C) holistic
D) inductive
15. The Hawthorne effect refers to __________.
A) the tendency for men to answer questions on behalf of women
B) the tendency for respondents to change their behavior to correspond with the researcher’s interests
C) biases in the data when the researcher doesn’t know the language well
D) the tendency for respondents to avoid telling the truth about private matters
16. Interpretivist anthropologists tend to favor which kind of research approach?
A) inductive
B) deductive
C) etic
D) applied
17. A typical emic approach might involve the study of __________.
A) census data
B) time allocation questionnaires
C) material conditions and available resources
D) events that have meaning for members of a particular culture
18. The study of a location-based social network in China is an example of __________.
A) qualitative data
B) emic analysis
C) computational anthropology
D) mixed methods
19. __________ is a cluster name for many indigenous peoples who live in the eastern Canadian Arctic.
A) Eskimo
B) Trobriand
C) Sri Lankan
D) Inuit
20. People’s naming of places is called __________.
A) rapport
B) toponymy
C) numerology
D) topography
21. Inuit place naming is an example of __________.
A) indigenous knowledge
B) cultural relativism
C) globalization
D) leveling mechanism
22. An ethnography is __________.
A) an account of an individual’s life, in his or her own words
B) an account of an individual’s life based on a questionnaire
C) a descriptive writing about a culture
D) a culture’s narrative about its origins
23. According to the code of ethics of the American Anthropological Association, the anthropologist’s first
responsibility is to __________.
A) protect the people studied from harm related to the research
B) the agency that funded the study since they are the ones who paid for it
C) the home country of the anthropologist
D) the host government in the country where the research is conducted
24. A major catalyst to the adoption of a code of ethics by the American Anthropological Association was
__________.
A) the decline of small, isolated populations and increase in research in “modern” cultures
B) the increasing proportion of anthropologists from non-Western cultures who supported a code of ethics
C) World War II
D) the Vietnam-American War
25. Collaborative research refers to the people being studied as __________.
A) human subjects
B) informants
C) partners
D) representatives
TRUE/FALSE
26. The armchair approach in cultural anthropology came before the verandah approach.
27. In the Trobriand Islands, kinship follows the male line.
28. Annette Weiner’s fieldwork on women’s trading networks in the Trobriand Islands is an example of a restudy.
29. According to the ethical guidelines of the American Anthropological Association, undergraduate students are not
allowed to do anthropological fieldwork.
30. Many Institutional Review Boards now accept the possibility of informed oral consent in some research
situations.
31. Deductive methods of research are more likely to collect quantitative data while the inductive approach tends to
emphasize qualitative data.
32. Interpretivist anthropologists tend to collect etic data.
33. Data that is numerical and presented in charts and tables is called quantitative.
32
34. Cultural anthropologists who use the interview method feel that only the open-ended interview provides reliable
data.
35. María Cátedra’s use of audio recording during her research in Spain revealed the importance of maintaining
people’s trust.
ESSAY
36. How has research in anthropology changed since the nineteenth century? Mention specific figures in the
development of research methods.
37. What is participant observation, when was it “discovered” as a method, and what positive benefits does it have
in terms of data quality?
33
38. What is the background and context of Trobriand Island culture and what are some of the major issues facing the
Trobriand Islanders today?
39. Discuss the findings of Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands and then the findings of Weiner.
40. Name three microcultures that the textbook mentions as affecting fieldwork and describe the effects of one of
them on an anthropologist’s experience.
34
41. What is a life history and why is this method controversial?
42. Describe the research phases in the South Baffin Island Place Name Project and the kind of information each
phase produced.
43. Discuss two ways that cultural anthropologists record data while in the field.
35
44. Describe the difference between deductive and inductive research and how this difference relates to fieldwork
methods.
45. What is the background of the American Anthropological Association’s Code of Ethics and how is this
background related to two of its key principles?