Deck 3: Doing Anthropology

Question 1

When studying a culture today, anthropologists

A)must focus on one site at one point in time.
B)will not take photos of their informants due to privacy laws.
C)try to find cultures that have never been contacted by another culture.
D)must consider culture contact, external organizations, and power differentials and how they affect cultures.
E)only study cultures with no access to television.

Answer 1

must consider culture contact, external organizations, and power differentials and how they affect cultures.

Question 2

In survey research, what is sampling?

A)The collection of a representative sample of a larger population
B)The interviewing of a small number of key cultural consultants
C)Participant observation
D)The collection of life histories of every member in a community
E)The recording of the emic perspective

Answer 2

The collection of a representative sample of a larger population

Question 3

Which of the following techniques was developed specifically because kinship and marriage relationships are so important in nonindustrial societies?

A)The life history
B)Participant observation
C)The genealogical method
D)The interview schedule
E)Network analysis

Answer 3

The genealogical method

Question 4

The view that American Thanksgiving Day represents a postharvest festival like many other societies hold is

A)the etic view.
B)the consultant view.
C)the emic view.
D)the sociologist's view.
E)the participant observation view.

Question 5

What phenomenon does Kottak describe about his arrival in Arembepe, Brazil?

A)Culture shock
B)The ethnographic present
C)Survey techniques
D)Interview schedules
E)Bifocality of the local and the outside world

Question 6

The American Anthropological Association's Code of Ethics is

A)designed to ensure that all anthropologists are aware of their obligations to the field of anthropology, the host communities that allow them to conduct their research, and to society in general.
B)designed to protect anthropologists who conduct fieldwork in remote places and are subject to potentially hazardous working conditions.
C)applicable only to research being conducted in the United States.
D)simply disregarded by most researchers.
E)overly general and thus of little use to most anthropologists.

Question 7

An anthropologist should remain with the group they are studying for

A)less than one month, in order to not overstay their welcome.
B)at least one year, in order to witness all seasons of activities.
C)at least five years, in order to see how culture changes over time.
D)six months, in order to interview all members of the culture once.
E)three months, in order to see a full harvest cycle.

Question 8

Which of the following strategies is unique to anthropology?

A)Comparison
B)A biological perspective
C)Ethnography
D)An evolutionary perspective
E)Working with skilled respondents

Question 9

Which of the following is not a characteristic field technique used by ethnographers?

A)The genealogical method
B)Participant observation
C)Conversation
D)Telephone questionnaires
E)Interview schedules

Question 10

The style of ethnography in which the anthropologist puts his or her personal feelings and reactions to the field situation into the text is called

A)ethnographic present
B)interpretive ethnography
C)reflexive ethnography
D)classic ethnography
E)holistic anthropology

Question 11

What is the ethnographic present?

A)The dates that the anthropologist was living in the culture
B)The period before Westernization
C)The period that documents culture change
D)The dates that include culture contact
E)The date the ethnography was published

Question 12

In order to conduct research among a group of people, the anthropologist must

A)get permission from the American Anthropological Association.
B)pay a fee to the individuals who will be interviewed.
C)inform the people about the purpose, nature, and procedures of the research and its potential costs and benefits to them.
D)get permission from the United States State Department.
E)hold a PhD in anthropology.

Question 13

What kind of researcher has traditionally studied small, non-Western populations?

A)Ethnographer
B)Sociologist
C)Economist
D)Palynologist
E)Limnologist

Question 14

What is the term for an expert on a particular aspect of local life?

A)Representative sample
B)Etic informant
C)Key cultural consultant
D)Biased informant
E)Life historian

Question 15

Classic ethnographies, like those of Malinowski, tend to focus on

A)the interpretations of those things that are important to the natives.
B)a particular aspect of culture, such as kinship or religion.
C)the anthropologist's interactions in the culture.
D)the feminist view of culture.
E)a holistic view of all aspects of a culture.

Question 16

What term refers to the study of a community, region, society, or culture over time?

A)Team research
B)Etic research
C)Longitudinal research
D)Survey research
E)Genealogical method

Question 17

How does survey research differ from ethnography?

A)Survey research studies whole functioning communities.
B)Survey research is based on firsthand fieldwork.
C)Survey research is more personal.
D)Survey research generally focuses on a subset of a larger population.
E)Survey research has traditionally been used to study small-scale, nonindustrial societies.

Question 18

During the first few weeks in the field, the anthropologist will

A)be completely useless, as he or she is in culture shock.
B)spend time recovering from jet lag.
C)only hand out gifts to the children of the culture.
D)notice some of the most basic aspects of cultural diversity that eventually fade from consciousness.
E)read background history on the culture.

Question 19

Taking part in the events one is witnessing and describing is known as

A)longitudinal research.
B)emic research.
C)etic research.
D)informed consent.
E)participant observation.

Question 20

In survey research, a sample should

A)include the entire population in question.
B)include anyone who will agree to talk with the researcher.
C)not be randomly selected.
D)be constituted so that valid inferences about the larger population can be made.
E)be invariant.

Question 21

An anthropologist should only have one key cultural consultant for the culture he or she is studying.

Question 22

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

A)Unknowns
B)Questionnaires
C)Interviews
D)Variables
E)Random samples

Question 23

Describe the different styles of ethnography that have occurred through time.

Question 24

What are the differences between questionnaires and interview schedules? What advantage might an ethnographer gain by using an interview schedule instead of a questionnaire?

Question 25

The key cultural consultant provides the etic view of a culture.

Question 26

Life history accounts can illustrate individual diversity and how different people deal with the same problems.

Question 27

What did the village children do for the first few days that Kottak was in Arembepe the first time?

A)They hid in their houses.
B)They followed Kottak everywhere.
C)They played pranks on Kottak.
D)They went to school.
E)They went to work with their parents.

Question 28

What are the ethical obligations of anthropologists working in foreign countries?

Question 29

Which of the following is one of the advantages an interview schedule has over a questionnaire-based survey?

A)Interview schedules allow informants to talk about whatever they feel is important.
B)Interview schedules rely on very short responses, and therefore are more useful when there is less time to conduct research.
C)Questionnaires are completely unstructured, so informants might deviate from the subject of interest.
D)Interview schedules are better suited to complex, urban societies.
E)Questionnaires are emic, while interview schedules are etic.

Question 30

Interviews can help establish rapport with community members.

Question 31

What is the difference between emic and etic perspectives? Why might an anthropologist want to use both strategies when conducting ethnographic fieldwork?

Question 32

Because they generally study small populations, anthropologists must employ sampling and statistical techniques to analyze their data.

Question 33

Which of the following statements is true of Arembepe, Brazil?

A)Kottak is the only anthropologist to have studied it.
B)Over time, it has become more and more isolated from the rest of the world.
C)It is an area of multiple research projects conducted by many anthropologists from different countries.
D)Only Americans are interested in studying Arembepe.
E)The villagers were mobile foragers when Kottak first visited.

Question 34

Anthropologists have obligations to their scholarly field, to the wider society and culture, and to the human species, other species, and the environment.

Question 35

Interpretive anthropology presents ethnography as a dialogue between the anthropologist and one or more native informants.

Question 36

Discuss how the mass media and globalization affect anthropological research.

Question 37

What is salvage ethnography?

A)Recording cultural diversity that is threatened by Westernization
B)Recovering an archaeological site that is about to be destroyed by a public building or road
C)Rewriting an ethnography that was written in the ethnographic present
D)Recording linguistic diversity that is about to become extinct.
E)Making sure that ethnography remains an important part of anthropology.

Question 38

What is the genealogical method? Why is it important for anthropologists to gather genealogical data?

Question 39

Rapport is important to establish quickly to be an effective participant observer.

Question 40

Explain participant observation, and contrast it with other research techniques.

Question 41

Traditionally, sociologists worked in large, industrial Western nations, while anthropologists focused on smaller, nonindustrial societies.

Question 42

The emic perspective focuses on how local people think.

Question 43

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

Question 44

The mass media can cause people to use outside information in interpreting local conditions.

Question 45

Anthropologists today realize that no culture is isolated and that the ethnographic present is an unrealistic concept.

Question 46

Longitudinal ethnographic research is the long-term study of a particular culture or society, frequently based on repeated visits.

Question 47

Good key cultural consultants generally end up recording most of the data needed to write an ethnography.

Question 48

Ethnology is the holistic study of a single community.

Question 49

Anthropologists need to get permission from the community they are studying only when they intend to take photographs or make recordings.

Question 50

Compared to questionnaires, interview schedules tend to be more indirect and impersonal.