Deck 3: Researching Culture

Question 1

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 expected him to bring his family with him and found it difficult to accept him as a lone male
D)people assigned him to a high status
E)none of the above: Whitehead's fieldwork proceeded with no surprises since he was of the same "race" as the people he was studying

Answer 1

people assigned him to a high status

Question 2

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
E)the interview method

Answer 2

participant observation

Question 3

The life history approach __________.

A)is more successful for women respondents than men since women have more time
B)has been rejected in cultural anthropology as too unreliable
C)was popular in the nineteenth century but has been abandoned as too time-consuming
D)is favored by anthropologists who seek quantitative data for large populations
E)none of the above

Answer 3

none of the above

Question 4

Inuit place naming is an example of __________.

A)indigenous knowledge
B)cultural relativism
C)globalization
D)clash of civilizations
E)leveling mechanism

Question 5

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"
E)learning proper rules of greeting

Question 6

In the Trobriand Islands, the British colonialists substituted which activity for local warfare?

A)Christianity
B)the kula
C)village dances
D)boat racing
E)cricket

Question 7

The Hawthorne effect refers to__________.

A)the tendency for men to answer questions on behalf of women
B)the stage that comes in fieldwork after culture shock when the researcher begins to feel comfortable
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
E)the tendency for respondents to change their behavior to correspond with the researcher's interests

Question 8

When doing fieldwork, establishing rapport __________.

A)is easier for male than female anthropologists
B)is a waste of time when you could be conducting a survey instead
C)usually happens during the first week
D)makes life easier but doesn't improve the quality of the information gathered
E)can involve exchanging gifts with the local people

Question 9

Research that is guided by a hypothesis is __________.

A)emic
B)deductive
C)holistic
D)inductive
E)prescriptive

Question 10

__________ is a cluster name for many indigenous peoples who live in the eastern Canadian Arctic.

A)Eskimo
B)Neanderthal
C)Sri Lankan
D)Inuit
E)Trobriand

Question 11

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
E)all of the above

Question 12

Trobriand women's most prized material items are __________.

A)skirts
B)pigs
C)shell necklaces
D)grass mats
E)none of the above: only Trobriand men have material goods of value

Question 13

Given current globalization and the rarity of small, isolated cultures, many contemporary cultural anthropologists have abandoned __________.

A)fieldwork
B)learning a non-Western language
C)the concept of holism
D)the concept of cultural relativism
E)participant observation

Question 14

People's naming of places is called __________.

A)rapport
B)toponymy
C)numerology
D)topography
E)ethnocentrism

Question 15

One thing about which most cultural anthropologists agree is __________.

A)that anthropologists should study primarily people's thoughts and ideas
B)that culture is genetically determined
C)the definition of culture
D)the importance of doing fieldwork
E)whether anthropological fieldwork should proceed inductively or deductively

Question 16

Compared to Malinowski's research in the Trobriands, Weiner's restudy addressed __________.

A)women's lives
B)changing leadership patterns
C)the rise of HIV/AIDS
D)the decline of the kula trade
E)the high rate of suicide

Question 17

An emic approach focuses on __________.

A)what people in the study area say about their own culture
B)gathering data on culturally shared rules for behavior
C)explanations for culture offered by members of that culture
D)events that have meaning for members of a particular culture
E)all of the above

Question 18

During his fieldwork in Japan, Matthews Hamabata had a problem in terms of __________.

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
E)how to get people to tell him the truth

Question 19

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 define the concept of culture
E)the first person to do fieldwork in his own culture

Question 20

Interpretivist anthropologists tend to favor which kind of research approach?

A)inductive
B)deductive
C)etic
D)applied
E)predictive

Question 21

During Christa Salamandra's research in Damascus, Syria, some people suspected that she was a tax collector.

Question 22

Mary Anglin was suspected as an industrial spy in rural western North Carolina because she knew nothing about growing crops in the region.

Question 23

Many Institutional Review Boards now accept the possibility of informed oral consent in some research situations.

Question 24

Annette Weiner's fieldwork on women's trading networks in the Trobriand Islands is an example of a restudy.

Question 25

In the Trobriand Islands, kinship follows the female line.

Question 26

A key factor that helps in selecting a research project is __________.

A)finding a topic that has been neglected by previous researchers
B)a certain degree of intuition and luck
C)relating to a current issue of importance such as refugee movements
D)finding a place that was studied long ago and merits restudy
E)all of the above

Question 27

Interpretivist anthropologists tend to collect etic data.

Question 28

The rationale for developing the food product Go-Gurt was based on study of California people's busy lifestyles.

Question 29

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
E)the United Nations

Question 30

Deductive methods of research are more likely to collect quantitative data while the inductive approach tends to emphasize qualitative data.

Question 31

Damascus is one of the world's oldest continually occupied cities.

Question 32

Multisited research conducts fieldwork on a topic in more than one location.

Question 33

An ethnography is __________.

A)the main way cultural anthropologists present their findings about culture
B)a descriptive writing about a culture
C)an important aspect of anthropological research
D)all of the above
E)none of the above

Question 34

The armchair approach in cultural anthropology came before the verandah approach.

Question 35

According to the ethical guidelines of the American Anthropological Association, undergraduate students are not allowed to do anthropological fieldwork.

Question 36

Data that are numerical and are presented in charts and tables are called quantitative.

Question 37

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
E)the realization that "native" peoples were learning to read and would be able to comment on anthropological writings

Question 38

Gender is a less important microcultural factor in anthropological fieldwork than "race" or ethnicity.

Question 39

Culture shock can occur when an anthropologist returns home as well as when he/she enters the field.

Question 40

A major challenge facing the Trobriand Islanders today is the large number of western tourists.

Question 41

Dangers from the physical environment, social violence and war can affect fieldwork.

Question 42

Lanita Jacobs-Huey's study of African-American women's hair culture is an example of __________ research.

Question 43

One method of gathering data on people's time allocation patterns is asking people to keep daily logs or diaries.

Question 44

The goal of the South Baffin Island __________ is to document climatically important information, indigenous knowledge, and climate change.

Question 45

When an anthropologist has difficulty adjusting to a new culture and feels uneasy, unhappy and wishes to go home, this condition is referred to as __________.

Question 46

The approach in cultural anthropology that focuses on what local people think or say is called __________, while the outsider's analysis is referred to as __________.

Question 47

In the AAA Code of Ethics, the Association makes it clear that anthropologists' ethical obligations to people, species, and material are more important than the goal of seeking __________.

Question 48

One recommendation for improving fieldwork safety is that fieldworkers should obtain appropriate medical training.

Question 49

Doing research among powerful people is called __________.

Question 50

Examples of steps in __________ that come before going to the field is project selection, funding the project, language learning, buying equipment, and gaining permission from officials.

Question 51

Cultural anthropologists who use the interview method feel that only the open-ended interview provides reliable data.

Question 52

Kirsten Hastrup was disappointed about how little her photographs failed to capture and convey of the richness, such as light, sounds, jokes and laughter of the __________ event.

Question 53

__________ data are mainly words and description while __________ data are mainly numeric.

Question 54

When an anthropologist uses both qualitative and quantitative data, the approach is called __________.

Question 55

Liza Dalby's research among the geisha of Japan involved the study of a microculture based on which factor?

Question 56

Some cultural anthropologists seek to reveal how a culture works by looking closely at one person's life.

Question 57

Men's trading networks in the __________ are called kula and they involve exchanging valued armbands and necklaces or everyday goods.

Question 58

The Vietnam-American War prompted anthropologists to give serious attention to the issue of __________.

Question 59

Maria Catédra's use of tape recording during her research in Spain revealed the importance of maintaining people's trust.

Question 60

Field notes, tape recordings, photographs, and videos are examples of ways that __________ record their findings while in the field.

Question 61

What are some of the key ethical issues in cultural anthropology and how do they make cultural anthropology different from another discipline that you have studied

Question 62

Define rapport and discuss an example of an anthropologist having difficulty establishing it.

Question 63

What are two special methods used by cultural anthropologists in addition to participant observation?

Question 64

What is participant observation, when was it "discovered" as a method, and what positive benefits does it have in terms of data quality?

Question 65

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?

Question 66

__________ is research that puts the anthropologist in danger because it is carried out in war zones and areas of conflict.

Question 67

Describe the research phases in The South Baffin Island Place Name Project and the kind of information each phase produced.

Question 68

Name three microcultures that the textbook mentions as affecting fieldwork and describe the effects of one of them on an anthropologist's experience.

Question 69

Discuss two ways that cultural anthropologists record data while in the field.

Question 70

Discuss the findings of Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands and then the findings of Weiner. Do the differences suggest that anthropologists should always work in teams comprising more than one gender?

Question 71

Collaborative research involves anthropologists working with members of the study populations as __________.

Question 72

What are two common problems in anthropological fieldwork?

Question 73

Describe the difference between deductive and inductive research and how this difference relates to fieldwork methods. Discuss the kinds of ethnographies that cultural materialists and interpretivists tend to write.

Question 74

How has research in anthropology changed since the nineteenth century? Mention specific figures in the development of research methods.

Question 75

What is a life history and why is this method controversial?

Question 76

What is the background and context of Trobriand Island culture and what are some of the major issues facing the Trobriand Islanders today?

Question 77

Discuss one example of danger in doing fieldwork and describe a way of reducing that danger.