Exam 3: Method and Theory in Cultural Anthropology

The overall trend in anthropological theory has been from theories that put human agency at the center of cultural dynamics to paradigms that see evolution as the main force behind cultural change.

Émile Durkheim's focus on social facts illustrates what assumption shared by many anthropologists?

Which of the following research methods is a distinctive strategy within anthropology?

Beyond Morgan's and Tylor's early anthropological work, no major theoretical paradigm in anthropology has embraced the role of evolution in cultural change.

Since there are so many anthropologists in the United States, the distinction between emic and etic does not apply to American culture.

In survey research, what term is used to refer to the attributes that vary among the members of a population?

Traditional ethnographic research focused on the single community or culture, which was treated as more or less isolated and unique in time and space. However,

This chapter's survey of the major theoretical perspectives that have characterized anthropology highlights all of the following EXCEPT

Lewis Henry Morgan is well known for his work The League of the Iroquois, considered anthropology's earliest ethnography. This and other of his works illustrate his view of unilinear evolutionism, which is that

Briefly describe the nine characteristic field techniques of the ethnographer. How do they compare with the research techniques you have learned about in courses or readings in other academic disciplines?

Provide a brief account of the history of theory in the discipline. Does this account support the view that much of the history of anthropology has been about the roles and relative prominence of culture?

The work of which of the following anthropologists illustrated a renewed interest in cultural change and even evolution (although of a very different sort than Tylor and Morgan had in mind)?

Ethnographers typically combine emic and etic research strategies in their fieldwork. This means they are interested in applying both

Morgan and Edward Tylor, both considered among the fathers of anthropology, worked within the paradigm of unilinear evolution.

Franz Boas is the undisputed father of four-field U.S. anthropology. One of his most important and enduring contributions to anthropology was

This chapter's overview of the history of anthropological theory suggests that the discipline has made no important contributions to social theory in general.

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic field technique of the ethnographer?

Despite the differences among theoretical paradigms of practitioners as varied as Harris (cultural materialism), White (neoevolutionism), Julian Steward (cultural ecology), and Margaret Mead (configurationalism), all of them have what in common?

Manchester anthropologists Max Gluckman and Victor Turner made conflict an important part of their analysis, distancing themselves somewhat from Panglossian functionalism, the tendency to see things as functioning not just to maintain the system but to do so in the most optimal way possible.

Interpretive anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz approach the study of culture as