Question 1

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

Accepted Answer

A)  its practice of cross-cultural comparison 
B)  the biological perspective 
C)  ethnography 
D)  the evolutionary perspective 
E)  working with skilled respondents

Question 2

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

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 3

"What right do ethnographers have to represent a people or culture to which they don't belong?" This question illustrates

Accepted Answer

A)  anthropology's crisis in representation-questions about the role of the ethnographer and the nature of ethnographic authority. 
B)  the threat that the World Wide Web poses to anthropologists who are less and less needed to write about and publish accounts of cultural diversity. 
C)  the fact that anthropologists are, after all, colonial agents of the industrialized West. 
D)  a lack of leadership in the American Anthropological Association. 
E)  the problem inherent in anthropology's overspecialization.

Question 4

Longitudinal research is the long-term study of a community,region,society,culture,or other unit,usually based on repeated visits.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 5

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

Accepted Answer

A)  a continuous concern with how to define and study culture. 
B)  the theoretical and methodological shift from complexity to models that simplify human diversity. 
C)  a continuous concern with scientific fundamentals and whether or not anthropology's research subject is best studied scientifically. 
D)  attention to whether or not anthropological data ought to be comparative across time and space. 
E)  the discipline's profound commitment to understanding human diversity.

Question 6

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

Accepted Answer

A)  local- and scientist-oriented research approaches. 
B)  local and bifocal research approaches. 
C)  reflexive and salvage approaches. 
D)  personal and impersonal research approaches. 
E)  the genealogical and survey methods.

Question 7

Which of the following terms refers to the theoretical paradigm that holds that customs (social practices)function to preserve the social structure?

Accepted Answer

A)  the Manchester school 
B)  synchronic functionalism 
C)  configurationalism, as illustrated in the works of Benedict and Mead 
D)  Panglossian structuralism 
E)  structural functionalism, as illustrated in the work of Radcliffe-Brown and Evans-Pritchard

Question 8

Ethnography is increasingly multitimed and multisited,the result of a shift toward a recognition of the ongoing and inescapable flows of people,technology,images,and information that characterizes much of the world today.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 9

All of the following are characteristic field techniques of the ethnographer EXCEPT

Accepted Answer

A)  detailed work with key consultants. 
B)  direct, firsthand observation of behavior, including participant observation. 
C)  in-depth interviewing, often leading to the collection of life histories. 
D)  problem-oriented research. 
E)  longitudinal analysis of data sets gathered from state-sponsored statistical agencies.

Question 10

Really good key cultural consultants will actually end up recording most of the data needed to write an ethnography.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 11

When an ethnographer uses an interview schedule to gather information from the field,the researcher's capacity to ask and answer truly relevant questions is inevitably limited.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 12

Reflecting today's world in which people,images,and information move about as never before,fieldwork must be more flexible and done on a larger scale.The result of such fieldwork is often an ethnography that

Accepted Answer

A)  challenges anthropologists concerned with salvaging isolated and untouched cultures around the world. 
B)  becomes less useful and valuable to understanding culture. 
C)  is increasingly multisited and multitimed, integrating analyses of external organizations and forces to understand local phenomena. 
D)  is more traditional, negating anthropologists' concerns about defending their field's roots. 
E)  requires researchers to stay at the same site for more than three years.

Question 13

Boas and his students were strong proponents of cross-cultural comparisons,without which they could not validate their findings.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 14

Despite the increasing popularity of team research among anthropologists,the best ethnographies are always the product of individual work.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 15

Survey research is usually conducted through intensive personal contact with the study subjects.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 16

Radcliffe-Brown advocated social anthropology as a synchronic rather than a diachronic science-that is,a study

Accepted Answer

A)  of culture in motion (synchronic) rather than as a static entity (diachronic). 
B)  that compares cultural traits within the same society and not across societies. 
C)  of societies across time (synchronic) rather than across space (diachronic). 
D)  of societies as they exist today (synchronic, one at a time) rather than across time (diachronic). 
E)  of societies as made up of individuals, not as a sum greater than its parts.

Question 17

Much of the history of anthropology has been about the roles and relative prominence of culture and the individual.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 18

Among the classic works of processual approaches to culture is Edmund Leach's Political Systems of Highland Burma.This study made a tremendously important point by taking a regional rather than a local perspective.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 19

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

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 20

What is the genealogical method,and why did it develop in anthropology?

Accepted Answer

The answer of What is the genealogical method,and why did...

Exam 13: Method and Theory in Cultural Anthropology

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

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

"What right do ethnographers have to represent a people or culture to which they don't belong?" This question illustrates

Longitudinal research is the long-term study of a community,region,society,culture,or other unit,usually based on repeated visits.

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

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

Which of the following terms refers to the theoretical paradigm that holds that customs (social practices) function to preserve the social structure?

Ethnography is increasingly multitimed and multisited,the result of a shift toward a recognition of the ongoing and inescapable flows of people,technology,images,and information that characterizes much of the world today.

All of the following are characteristic field techniques of the ethnographer EXCEPT

Really good key cultural consultants will actually end up recording most of the data needed to write an ethnography.

When an ethnographer uses an interview schedule to gather information from the field,the researcher's capacity to ask and answer truly relevant questions is inevitably limited.

Reflecting today's world in which people,images,and information move about as never before,fieldwork must be more flexible and done on a larger scale.The result of such fieldwork is often an ethnography that

Boas and his students were strong proponents of cross-cultural comparisons,without which they could not validate their findings.

Despite the increasing popularity of team research among anthropologists,the best ethnographies are always the product of individual work.

Survey research is usually conducted through intensive personal contact with the study subjects.

Radcliffe-Brown advocated social anthropology as a synchronic rather than a diachronic science-that is,a study

Much of the history of anthropology has been about the roles and relative prominence of culture and the individual.

Among the classic works of processual approaches to culture is Edmund Leach's Political Systems of Highland Burma.This study made a tremendously important point by taking a regional rather than a local perspective.

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

What is the genealogical method,and why did it develop in anthropology?