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These are the questions you wrote for the exam. Many of them are very good.
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What are the four examples of anthropology? Give one example/method for each.
What are the three goals/objectives of this course?
What does the term ‘asabiya mean?
Who came up with the terms ‘asabiya and ‘umran?
Discuss 3 of the six origins of the study of anthropology. Do some of these ideas and theories
still apply to the modern day study of anthropology? Which of the six was the most influential
in the development of the discipline?
6. What were two of E.B. Tylor’s main theories and what did they entail?
7. Where was Frank [sic] Boas from? What were two of his three main theories?
8. Discuss the similarities and differences between Tylor and Boas’ ideas.
9. What is the difference between Positivism and Intellectualism?
10. Who wrote "How 'Berber' Matters in the Middle of Nowhere"?
11. Explain Ibn Khaldun's Cyclical Theory of Society or Ibn Khaldun ad his followers were the
originators of social theory. Please explain how they pplied it to the world at their time and how
this new way of thinking differed from the group(s) before them.
12. How did Malinowski believe that anthropology should be studied? What advice did he give to
anthropologists that made him known as "the father of fieldwork"?
13. What is the concept of sui generis? Who coined this term and what does it apply to?
14. Hatch uses a science model as a metaphor for anthropology. What exactly is the metaphor and
how is that juxtaposed to the way in which anthropology is studied?
15. What movement in Europe was happening that called for the need of anthropology as a
science? Why was anthropology a necessary reaction to this movement?
16. Tylor viewed the progress of cultures to be based on reason. Explain why this concept is now a
dead perspective in anthropology.
17. Describe Tylor's two main assumptions of intellectualism and positivism.
18. How did Boas make an attempt to go against Tylor's thinking of reason.
19. Explain Boas's idea of relativism.
20. What were the main theories that Hatch considers Boas and Tylor to operate under and tell a
little about them? or Compare and Contrast Tylor and Boas?
21. From an Enlightenment era perspective, what role did rationality play in societies?
22. The argument between Enlightenment thinkers and Counter-Enlightenment thinkers lies at the
basis of anthropology. Explain both sides and why this is the case.
23. Explain the Tylorian view of "cultural evolution".
24. Please explain how Europeans misinterpreted Darwin.
25. E. B. Tylor explained culture at his time through intellectualism. However, there are no longer
any anthropologists today that support the intellectual approach. Please explain what it
intellectualism is, how Tylor applied this theory to culture, and why this theory is no longer
practiced.
26. Choose one of Leach's musical metaphors and how it describes his perspective on culture.
27. Explain how leach's theoretical approach to anthropology differs from his predecesor's [sic]
approach to anthropology.
28. Explain the importance of using ethnography as an anthropological method.
29. Highlight the main differences between Functionalism and Structural Functionalism.
30. Compare and contrast functionalism vs. structural functionalism
31. Leach says that “linguistics and social anthropology overlap”, what does he mean by this?
What other theorist does he site in this argument and what was his theory on the topic?
32. Who is Frank Boas and what is his theory? [I can’t wait to get the answer to this one.]
33. Compare Malinowski’s functionalism to Geertz’s interpretivism. What might Malinowski say
about the blinking of one’s eye Geertz calls a “wink?” Explain your answer.
34. In “Structuralism in Social Anthropology” Leach explains Levi-Strauss’ theory by comparing
culture to language. Explain this metaphor in terms of grammar, particular languages, and the
human ability to speak.
35. In the reading, “Thick Description: Toward an interpretive Theory of Culture”, Geertz uses an
analogy of a wink. What is he trying to demonstrate through this analogy and how does this
relate to what he calls, “thick description”?
36. In “Argonauts of the Western Pacific”, Malinowski writes about a type of trading system called
‘Kula’. According to Malinowski, what is the Kula system and what is its significance for
anthropology?
37. According to Malinowski, what is functionalism and what is its goal? How is this different
from Emile Durkheim’s structural functionalism?
38. Explain how the following quote represents Geertz' anthropological method of
interpretivism: "Believing with Max Weber that man is an animal suspended in webs of signific
ance he himself hasspun, I take culture to be those webs and the analysis of it therefore not to b
e an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning.
39. Explain how Geertz' method of interpretivism tends to assume that you can learn a lot about a c
ulture through the study/observation of their rituals or practices.
40. In “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture”, Geertz uses the sheep
example to describe interpretivism. Explain how the power of cultural viewpoint affects the
story’s outcome and why interpretivism is essential in the comprehension of this story
according to Geertz.
41. Explain the following quote from “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of
Culture” according to the theory of Geertz. “The question as to whether culture is patterned
conduct or a frame of mind, or even the two somehow mixed together, loses sense. The thing to
ask about a burlesqued wink or a mock sheep raid is not what their ontological status is. It is the
same as that of rocks on the one hand and dreams on the other—they are things of this world.
The thing to ask is what their import is: what it is, ridicule or challenge, irony or anger,
snobbery or pride, that in their occurrence and through their agency, is getting said?”
42. What is Geertz's method of study and to what degree does Geertz follow this theory/ method in
Balinese Cockfight?
43. Discuss Roseberry's critique of Geertz.
44. What is Roseberry's argument about culture and how does this fit or not fit with Geertz's ideas?
45. Describe the incident that allowed Geertz to be welcomed into Balinese society and why does
this incorporation/ event have significance?
46. Describe the importance of the cock and the cockfight to Balinese men in Geertz's opinion
47. What is the difference between Kinship and Descent?
48. What are the primary characteristics of Eskimo kinship?
49. What kinship type does this diagram depict? (Dr. Crawford shows diagram of Hawaiian kinship
relationships.)
50. Shade in patrilineage of at least three generations. (Dr. Crawford draws diagram.)
51. In your village, you (female) are only allowed to marry your cross cousins. Shade in the
figures of whom you are allowed to marry. (Dr. Crawford draws diagram with a circle around
the ego (female), and students must shade in cross cousins.)
52. What are the differences between Geertz’s explanation of text as a metaphor and Leech’s
explanation of grammar as a metaphor?
53. What is the difference between Functionalism and Structural Functionalism.
54. What is functionalism according to Malinowski; describe and explain his observation of the
ritual on the beach, and its meaning to the people
55. Describe the differences between matrilineal/patrilineal kinship.
56. Describe structuralism and how it is related to linguistics.
57. What are binary oppositions? Give an example.
58. What is the difference between bi-lateral and uni-lineal societies?
59. What are the three prominent forms of kinship? Describe them.
60. What is the difference between cross and parallel cousins?
61. Using the kinship chart, identify one member’s parallel cousins.
62. Using the kinship chart, trace a patrilineage.
63. Why was it important for Lee to study a culture that uses hunting and gathering?
64. How does modesty play a part in Dobe Ju/’hoansi society?
65. What are the three different kinship systems for the Dobe Ju/’hoansi? And describe them.
66. How does Chagnon’s writings portray the Yanomamo?
67. What type of a kinship system do the Yanomamo have, and how can they manipulate it?
68. Compare and contrast the Yanomamo and Dobe Ju/’hoansi societies in how they resolve
conflict.
69. Explain the meaning of, “He is a little fierce guy! So fierce that when he grows up he will
probably commit incest!” said by a Yanomamo of his first born son.
70. Why is Lee interested the in hunting and gathering aspect of the Dobe?
71. Describe the three aspects if the Dobe kinship system, and how the three interfere with one
another.
72. Give two examples of the Dobe egalitarian society.
73. Contrast the village fission of the Yanomamo with that of the Dobe.
74. Why did Chagnon’s description of the Yanomamo cause controversy and how is this against
the general understood goal of all anthropologists?
75. What are the central cultural values of the Yanomamo and the Dobe?
76. How do the Ju/’hoansi tribe maintain an egalitarian society?
77. Name some the similarities and differences between the kinship system in American society
and the kinship system in the Ju/’hoansi society?
78. Explain the principle of ‘Wi’ in the kinship of the Ju/’hoansi society.
79. How would the Ju/’hoansi and the Yanomamo deal with a fight or a conflict differently?
80. Why is Lee interesting in hunting and gathering societies?
81. Wolf claims that anthropologists focus too much on the ethnographic present. Explain what
this means.
82. According to Wolf, what is the most important factor effecting the world in every culture? and
explain how.
83. The hunting and gathering society of the Ju/’hoansi can be thought of as “the original affluent
society”. In what ways is our society less complicated than the hunting and gathering society
of the Ju/’hoansi?
84. Compare and contrast world system theory and modernization theory.
85. According to Wolf, what is the “ethnographic present”? Why is he opposed to it?
86. Wolf explains that throughout history, some anthropologists have treated cultures as “billiard
balls”. Explain what he means by this and why he disagrees with it.
87. According to Wardlow, practice theory is trying to think through the relationship between
structure and agency. Define these two terms and explain the tension between them.
88. In Wardlow’s Wayward Women, how are the passenger women exercising their agency and
negative agency?
89. In Huli culture, why must women be kept “under the legs of men”? How is this being affected
by male-out migration?
90. How has Wolf’s ideas influenced Chavez’s approach to the ethnographic study of
undocumented immigrants?
91. According to Chavez, what is the difference between migrants and settlers?
92. What are the difficulties that Chavez encountered while trying to find undocumented
immigrants to study?
93. List the three phases undocumented immigrants experience when leaving their home country
and coming to a new one, according to Chavez.
94. Draw patrilineages and matrilineages in the first chart. Find the potential cross and parallel
cousin marriages in the second chart.