Cultural Anthropology - Exam 2

Which theorist focuses most on the concept of intersectionality?

Leith Mullings

Why is the issue of the water poisoning in Flint, Michigan, referred to as a hydro-social process?

The circulation of water intersects with human systems of power.

What did Pem Davidson Buck conclude about class in the United States, based on her research in two rural Kentucky counties?

The privileges often associated with Whiteness are limited by class.

Aside from access to financial resources, what most influences an individual’s life chances?

access to social resources such as education

What is the key policy debate regarding the roots of poverty in the United States?

Is poverty a problem of culture or of economic structures?

Carmen’s parents enroll her in Advanced Placement French, where the content of the class is more academically demanding than the general French class. The family spends summer vacation in France and the parents hire a tutor to help Carmen study for the Advanced Placement French test. Carmen receives high marks and praise from her teachers. What aspect of Pierre Bourdieu’s work is exemplified here?

cultural capital

Pierre Bourdieu investigated the relationship between class, culture, and power by studying schools in France, with the expectation of finding that social mobility was the result of meritocracy. What did he discover instead?

Social relations were reproduced across generations.

According to Karl Marx, the bourgeoisie consisted of a capitalist class of individuals who owned what part of society?

means of production

How do distributions of income and wealth reveal the way in which power is distributed in a society?

Income and wealth determine an individual’s access to resources such as health care.

After a round of golf, the wealthy housewives gossip about their absent friend’s son who had to go to his “safety school” (a state college instead of the Ivy League universities that accepted their children). According to Weber, this fact is considered scandalous because

people of the same social class share similar life chances.

The “culture of poverty” theory

blames the victims for something caused by large economic processes.

Stratification and inequality became more pronounced in industrialized capitalist societies in recent centuries, and this uneven development is accelerating under the forces of globalization. Which country has some of the highest levels of economic inequality?

the United States

Which question would Pierre Bourdieu be most likely to ask about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan?

How do habitus and cultural capital affect the social mobility of each person?

When the Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest perform a potlatch, there may be times when the excess gifts are destroyed rather than given away. What is the most likely reason for this?

It can reinforce the prestige of the chief by demonstrating his capacity.

What is the upward or downward movement of an individual’s class position in a society called?

social mobility

Max Weber argued that class stratification does not just happen. Identify the most important way that the state influences class stratification.

The state perpetuates class stratification through its exercise of power.

According to Marx, why were the proletariat unable to develop a political awareness of their class position while the bourgeoisie were able to do so?

The proletariat were continually occupied with the struggle to make ends meet, while the bourgeoisie developed ways to keep the proletariat divided.

The Ju/Hoansi, Inuit, Hadza, Amish, and Hutterites are examples of

egalitarian societies.

What common result occurs when patterns of social stratification emerge?

unequal access to resources

About what percentage of the world’s population struggle to meet basic needs?

50

Eleanor Burke Leacock suggests that changing attitudes and values

cannot cure poverty because they are characteristics of poverty itself.

How did Karl Marx explain the social and economic upheaval that resulted from the Industrial Revolution?

The conflict between the bourgeoisie who owned the means of production and the proletariat who owned only his labor.

The self-perceptions, sensibilities, and tastes developed over a lifetime that shape one’s conceptions of the world and where one fits in it is called

habitus

As India grows economically, urban areas shift from a hierarchy of caste to a hierarchy of class, reflecting how

India is changing from a society organized by a system of ascribed status to one of achieved status.

How did Pierre Bourdieu find that the idea of meritocracy, where all students should have equal opportunity to advance, was invalid in schools?

Habitus and cultural capital provided uneven access to academic success.

How do anthropologists define ethnicity?

a sense of connection to a group of people whom we believe share a common history, culture, and ancestry

Babylon, Mesopotamia, and the “cradle of civilization” are all terms of historical importance that we implicitly link to the nation of Iraq. Although this creates the sense that Iraq is an ancient nation-state, Iraq

has only existed since World War I.

Which of the following reasons can partially explain the conflict between the Rohingya and the Bamar in Myanmar?

Colonial rule strengthened ethnic identities and forced different ethnicities to form a single nation-state.

A political, military, or religious leader who promotes a worldview through the lens of ethnicity and uses war, propaganda, and state power to mobilize people against those whom the leader perceives as dangerous is referred to as a(n)

identity entrepreneur.

What does an identity entrepreneur do?

promote a worldview through the lens of identity

According to anthropologists, ethnicity is

actively created and negotiated.

When minorities abandon their separate identity and adopt the culture and norms of the dominant group, what are they practicing?

assimilation

What metaphor has been used to describe the process of immigrant assimilation into U.S. dominant culture?

melting pot

What term is used to describe a political entity located within a geographic boundary with enforced borders whose population shares a sense of culture, ancestry, and destiny?

nation-state

What is the primary difference between assimilation and multiculturalism?

Assimilation implies a loss of ethnic identity.

Groups of people living outside their homelands but maintaining strong emotional and material ties to them are referred to as

a diaspora

Most ethnic groups establish traits that set them apart from others and identify members of their own groups. Anthropologists call these

ethnic boundary markers.

The text describes the way in which immigrants from India have established their own cultural norms within New York City. The way the Indian community has chosen to celebrate its ethnicity by holding a large India Day festival is an example of what aspect of ethnicity?

Ethnicity is constantly evolving.

A group of people who share a sense of historical, cultural, and sometimes ancestral connection and who see themselves as distinct from people in other groups is described as a(n)

ethnic group

What is the goal of those who engage in ethnic cleansing?

to remove or destroy another ethnic group

Anthropologists understand nations as imagined communities because

most of the people within them have never and will never meet yet still feel a sense of connection with one another.

Which political feature defines a nation-state, as opposed to a state?

The population shares a sense of culture, ancestry, and destiny as a people.

What do we call the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic or religious group?

genocide

The work of anthropologist Tone Bringa in Bosnia examines the underlying causes of the civil war in what was once called Yugoslavia. Similarly, scholar Mahmood Mamdami studied the Rwandan genocide. What characterized both cases?

ethnic cleansing

Nationality is

an identification with a group of people thought to share a place of origin.

Myanmar’s military seems determined to erase the Rohingya from the nation’s history and ultimately the planet. This is an example of

genocide

What does an ethnic boundary marker signify?

who is in a group and who is not

Because ethnicity is not biologically fixed, a person may shift how they self-identify depending on the context. What is this process called?

situational negotiation of identity

Chinese immigrants in the United States have a long history, but many Chinese American communities still have a distinct Chinese character in which they retain many aspects of their traditional Chinese culture. What concept does this illustrate?

multiculturalism

Which of the following actions is characteristic of multiculturalism?

New immigrants enculturate into the new society but retain their ethnic culture.

Melanie Medeiros’s research on the impact of a new tourism industry on families in Brogodo, Brazil, demonstrates which pattern?

Expanding economic opportunities for women are linked to a rapid rise in divorce.

When did anthropologist Carol Stack learn about fictive kin among impoverished African Americans in a town outside Chicago?

Fictive kin networks extend to include all those willing to participate in a system of mutual support.

What do anthropologists call descent groups based on a claim to a founding ancestor but lacking genealogical documentation?

clans

In the United States, interracial marriage is no longer illegal; however, data on marriage patterns suggests that Americans continue to practice

racial endogamy

Which of the following is the practice of formalizing and legalizing a marriage through the giving of gifts from the bride’s family to the groom’s family?

dowry

Sociologist Janet Carsten suggests that __________ draws heavily on ideas of kinship and family to create a sense of connection among very different people.

nationalism

Ambilineal descent groups such as Samoans, Maori, and Hawaiians are sometimes referred to as what kind of descent groups?

cognatic

Although some kinship relationships are established through biology or common descent, others are established through marriage. What do anthropologists call relationships established through marriage or alliance?

affinal

What is the primary connection between nationalism and kinship?

Ideas of kinship and family, like ideas of nationalism, create a sense of connection among very different people.

When Juan José speaks of his dream to get married and have children, he is talking about a(n)

family of procreation.

What distinctive kinship feature did Janet Carsten document in her ethnographic research among Malay villagers on the island of Langkawi?

Kinship is not only given at birth but also acquired throughout life.

Benedict Anderson studies how people who most likely will never meet and have little in common socially, politically, or economically

feel so connected to their country that they are even willing to die for it.

At the time of E. E. Evans-Pritchard’s study, Nuer sons

obtained brides from other patrilineal descent groups.

In the London suburb of Southall, young people of different ethnic backgrounds form communities where they call each other “cousin.” Which of the following is a reason why forming “cousin” relationships works in this community?

The term “cousin” is common in many of the languages and cultures of the community.

Which description of the anthropological concept of kinship is most precise?

who is related to whom, and the associated expectations, rights, and responsibilities.

The system of meaning and power created to determine who is related to whom and to define their mutual expectations, rights, and responsibilities is

kinship

The 1980 “one child per family” policy in China has changed how the Chinese see families. Today, with China’s population predicted to drop almost to half by 2100, the Chinese government is encouraging Chinese people to have more children. Why aren’t Chinese people complying with this encouragement?

Small families have become the norm in China.

Which pair has an affinal relationship?

A man marries a woman.

Which question is most important in Israel, with respect to nationalism and kinship?

Because Jewishness passes down matrilineally from mother to child, what are the kinship implications of assisted reproductive technologies?

According to Kath Weston’s ethnographic study of gay and lesbian families in San Francisco, what is the bond that holds a “chosen family” together?

love, compassion, and caring for one another over time.

Which dynamic of caregiving is the focus of anthropologist Cati Coe’s research in Ghana, West Africa?

caregiving for elders disrupted by transnational migration.

The parents of an upper-class family in the United States send their two children to a private boarding school and then to an elite college. Both children marry other members of the upper class, whom they met at school. Their parents encouraged what kind of an arranged marriage?

class endogamy

In the United States descent groups like the Rockefellers or the Kennedys are extremely rare. Yet for the Nuer of southern Sudan, the descent group defined their kinship relationships. Since both boys and girls were born into the group, membership was determined through the sons. Evans-Pritchard described that relationship as a(n)

patrilineal descent group

What model of kinship does the idea that a family consists of a mother, a father, and their children reflect?

a Euro-American ideal

Inuit, Hawaiian, Sudanese, Omaha, Crow, and Iroquois are

groups who organize relatives based on siblings and cousins.

In Karen Brodkin’s study of the racial categorization of Jewish Americans in the twentieth century, she argues that while Jews started the century as nonwhite, they ended the century as white within American society. This demonstrates what idea that anthropologists have about race?

Race is culturally constructed.

A set of ideas about a group of people, such as “All Irishmen are drunks who beat their wives” or “All Arabs are terrorists,” can make it seem natural and normal to discriminate against these groups. What is the term for sets of ideas like these?

racist ideology

When did the cultural practice of the “one drop of blood” rule end in the United States?

It has not ended in practice.

Contemporary worldwide racism and the notion of race itself are historically rooted in which practice?

colonialism

Patterns by which racial inequality is structured through key cultural institutions, policies, and systems are referred to as

institutional racism.

All human beings of every race share __________ percent of their DNA.

99.9

What is one reason Americans have difficulty acknowledging the continuing existence of racism in the United States?

People believe that mainstream U.S. society is a meritocracy.

We can understand the observable differences in body ratios, height versus width, that anthropologists have documented as a matter of __________, or the way genes are expressed in an organism’s physical form.

phenotype

In Brazil, race is not merely a matter of skin color. It also includes a consideration of

wealth and education.

Which of the following is a demeaning historical term for interracial marriage?

miscegenation

Which term describes laws in the United States that allowed such things as “white-only” swimming pools, restaurants, schools, beaches, and the like, similar to apartheid in South Africa?

Jim Crow

Which term describes all the inherited genetic factors that provide the framework for an organism’s physical form?

genotype

What is the name for the system of classification, with no biological basis, that uses certain physical characteristics to divide the human population into supposedly discrete groups?

race

A person who believes that Italians are somehow inferior and therefore refuses to give an Italian person a job is demonstrating what kind of racist behavior?

individual racism

The failure of the New York State school system to create an annual school budget that ensures all students receive the same level of funding reflects what aspect of racism?

institutional racism

Anthropologists often use the term racisms in plural. This term refers to the variety of

ways race has been constructed among people of different places.

What rule assigns the children of racially mixed unions to the subordinate group?

hypodescent

Chinese immigrants first arrived in the United States in large numbers during the 1850s. What was one form of prejudice experienced by those in the initial wave of Chinese immigrants?

They had no legal standing in court.

Which term describes the idea that government policies should favor people born in the United States over immigrants such as Mexicans or Canadians (legal or otherwise)?

nativism

Maria Kromidas’s work in New York City schools reveals that children are creating a “new” pattern of racial exclusion based on the post–September 11 media stories to which they are exposed. In this pattern, which factors are people categorized by?

foreign, strange, and Muslim

President Barack Obama’s mother was a white woman from Kansas and his father was a Black man from Kenya. Which deeply embedded concept of racial division is revealed by the way people regard his race and even debate his birthplace?

hypodescent

Between 1933 and 1936, the Nazi regime implemented laws that defined who was and was not Jewish according to ancestry. Any person with three or four Jewish grandparents was considered a “full-blooded” Jew. This approach to dividing and categorizing people relies on the assumption that

race is a biological reality.

Despite the initial racist attitudes directed toward Irish, Jewish, and Italian immigrants, these groups eventually “became white” through

intermarriage and upward mobility.

Chinese immigrants to the United States were quickly separated according to an arbitrary set of characteristics, including slight differences in skin color. Irish immigrants were similarly segregated, despite having white skin. What was one of the bases on which the Irish were segregated and racialized?

religion

Racialization is the process of categorizing and attributing supposedly racial qualities to people based on perceived characteristics. Which of the following is an example of racialization?

the creation of the category “Middle Eastern” as a race in the United States