Exam 1: Anthropology in a Global Age

Anthropology looks at the complete diversity of human life across space and time. This kind of study requires a(n):

Discuss the ways in which local communities react to global forces influencing and mingling with local cultures. Support your description with an example from the class.

Pablo is an anthropologist studying the Japanese tea ceremony. He considers Japanese religion and history, as well as social relations, the politics of gender, and the language used to talk about the tea ceremony. Pablo's approach to studying the Japanese tea ceremony is an example of what aspect of anthropology?

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 globalization?

What kind of researchers work to record languages that are disappearing by finding the last speakers and making recordings and dictionaries to preserve them for the future?

Climate change, including global warming, is primarily produced by what?

What do garbage dumps offer to both anthropologists and archaeologists?

Anthropologists take a comprehensive approach to understanding human beings. They accomplish this task by:

Anthropologists have increasingly used the concept of the Anthropocene to explain the relationship between human activity and changes in the environment. Define the term Anthropocene and use it to explain one phenomenon mentioned in the text.

What do we call an anthropologist working among a Native American group to map their spoken language into a written form?

What is considered the most distinctive feature of being human?

Explain why anthropologists study nonhuman primates like apes and monkeys.

Explain how anthropologists have had to adapt to the impact of global forces on the communities they study.

What type of anthropologist focuses on how humans have adapted to their environments over time?

Nepali workers building roads in India, Filipino maids in Saudi Arabia, and Turkish street repairmen in Germany are examples of which global dynamic?

The dramatic impact of globalization in the past, and even more so today, is driven by what kind of changes?

Bronislaw Malinowski spent two years doing participant observation among the people of the Trobriand Islands in the early 1900s, and there he learned about the islanders' beliefs and customs regarding trade, warfare, marriage, sex, and death. What kind of anthropologist was Malinowski? Explain how participant observation works and what kind of information it provides. Name another topic you could study this way and how you would do it.

Cultural anthropologists like to hang out with the people they are studying and ask lots of questions as the people work, celebrate, dance, or play games. What is the term used for this process?

In order to understand how any group of people lives in our global world today, what would we need to consider in addition to the customs, beliefs, and other aspects of their local culture?

The huge inflow of refugees from the wars in the Middle East to parts of Europe and Scandinavia has created a lot of social and political problems in those countries where the refugees wind up. What kind of anthropologist would offer useful input to the politicians making decisions about resettlement programs?