Questions and Answers of Biological Anthropology

How do the \(\mathrm{Na}\) of China and other cross-cultural examples raise questions about the universality of marriage?
What is an incest taboo? What are some theories of why incest taboos are universal?
What is the difference between exogamy and endogamy?
What are cross-cousin and parallel-cousin marriages and what are their effects?
What are the levirate and sororate?
What are polygyny and polyandry, and what are their principal correlates?
What are bride service, bridewealth, and dowry?
How have families been affected by war and violence?
What are the differences between nuclear, composite, and extended families?
How have families changed in the United States in the past half century?
How do patrilineal patrilocal families differ from matrilineal families?
How has globalization changed the family?
Anthropologist Philip Kilbride (1994) has suggested that polygyny would be a good marriage arrangement in the modern world, and anthropologist Yehudi Cohen (1978) has suggested that the incest taboo
To what degrees are endogamy and exogamy practiced within American society? What kinds of groups are endogamous and exogamous?
The past half century has seen dramatic changes in families in the United States. List some of the changes, tell whether you think they will continue in the future, and speculate on the cultural
Explain the ways in which relations in a polygynous family between siblings who share the same mother and father are likely to be different than relations between siblings that share the same father
Describe some of the ways that globalization has affected families and predict how families might change in the next 25 years.
Differentiate between sex, gender, and sexuality, and illustrate how gender is culturally constructed.
Analyze the role of ideology in the construction of gender, including how female sexuality is controlled and men prove themselves.
Describe variability in gender roles and sexual behavior.
Summarize different theories offered to explain the existence of gender hierarchies.
Compare and contrast the gender relations typical of foraging, horticultural, pastoral, and agricultural societies.
Assess the changes in our understanding of gender in the past decades and relate them to changes in family and economy.
Analyze the relationship between women's rights, culture, and national prosperity.
Hijras are followers of a Hindu goddess, Bahuchara Mata, and the hijra subculture is partly a religious group centered on the worship of this goddess. By dressing as women, and especially through
What are the differences between sex, sexuality, and gender?
What does it mean to say that gender is culturally constructed?
What is a gender ideology, and how is it expressed in society?
How is proving manhood related to gender ideology, and how is it expressed in society?
What role does control of female sexuality have in establishing gender hierarchies?
How does cross-cultural evidence raise questions about the division of humanity into male and female?
Give some examples of the variability of sexual behavior. What is considered proper sexual behavior varies greatly among societies.
What are some theories of gender stratification?
What is the relationship between how societies produce their livelihoods and gender stratification?
How has globalization affected gender relations?
How has high population, urbanization, mobility, and increasing dependence on manufacturing and information affected family and gender?
What is the relationship between women's rights and wealth?
Analyze how religion is related to order and meaning in life and the way it relates to social order.
Describe elements of religion, including sacred narrative, symbols and supernatural beings, states, and powers.
Distinguish religious practices, including rites of passage, rites of intensification, prayer, magic, and divination.
Distinguish different types of religious practitioners.
Evaluate the role that religion plays in social change.
Summarize the characteristics of fundamentalism and discuss its relation to social change.
Evaluate the state of religion in U.S. society.
Two other important symbols of Rastafarian culture are ganja (marijuana) and the use of a special vocabulary. The use of ganja has been common on Jamaican agricultural estates since the turn of the
The United States is one of the world's most religious, wealthy nations. When the French traveler and political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in 1831, the religiosity of Americans
What characteristics do all religions have in common?
Describe several functions of religion.
What are sacred narratives and what roles do they play in religion?
What is the importance of symbols in religion?
What roles do supernatural beings and powers play in religion?
What is a religious ritual and what is the role of liminality in ritual?
What are rites of passage and rites of intensification?
What are prayer, sacrifice, and magic?
What are shamans and where are they found?
What are priests and where are they found?
What is the difference between witchcraft and sorcery?
What are the effects of accusations of witchcraft and sorcery?
What are the varieties of religious prophecy and under what conditions are they most likely to occur?
What was the Ghost Dance and what is the Native American Church?
Under what conditions does fundamentalism occur and what are its characteristics?
How has religious practice changed in the United States?
Popular books such as The God Delusion (Dawkins, 2008) and God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Hitchens, 2007) make a strong case against religion. But religion plays an important role
Rites of passage, rites of intensification, prayer, and magic are important in most people's lives. How have you experienced any of these in your own life?
In cases where shamans and priests exist in the same society, shamans are unlikely to dispute the power of priests, but priests may deeply oppose shamans. Why should this be the case?
The term witch hunt is often applied to political and social events like the communist scares of the Cold War. Analyze these events using an anthropological understanding of witchcraft accusations.
Anthropologists see a strong correlation between social and religious change. Given the rapid globalization of the international economy, do you believe that religious violence is likely to increase
Describe the differences between power and authority and the roles that ideology, gender, and the punishment of social violations play in societies.
Analyze the distribution of power in band societies and explain how conflict is resolved in them.
Assess the distribution of power in tribal societies and evaluate the role of violence and warfare in them.
Explain the ways that chiefdoms are different from bands and tribes and describe the distribution of power in them.
Compare and contrast different theories of state formation and summarize the role that social stratification plays in states.
Tell how a nation-state is different from a state and describe the roles of education and ideology in nation states.
Identify several reasons why statelessness is an important problem.
The highly productive Asante economy was the basis of a complex social hierarchy ruled by the Asantehene, or king. The urban elite was mainly involved in transacting government business, performing
Should anthropologists work for governments, corporations, and the military? If you believe that anthropologists should be willing to work for these entities, are there limits on the kinds of
If one compares foragers, pastoralists, horticulturalists, and agriculturalists, is there a pattern of change in the allocation and control of resources?
Give some examples of the role reciprocity plays in currentday life in the United States. Do you believe there is any such thing as truly generalized reciprocity in U.S. society? If not, do you
What kinds of leveling mechanisms are present in currentday capitalist society? Are they effective in reducing economic inequality?
All market-based societies place limits on what can be bought and sold. What determines when it is appropriate to restrict the market? For example, should people be able to sell one of their kidneys?
Briefly explain the connections between values such as effort optimism, utilitarian individualism, and the American economic system.Throughout this chapter, we have identified culture as something
Do you speak a language other than English as a first language? If so, do you want your children and grandchildren to speak that language?In the United States, the tools of government and education
If English is your first language, did your parents or grandparents speak a different first language? How do you feel about your ability (or lack of ability) in that language?In the United States,
Bilingualism broadens our connections with the world and has many other benefits, including improved brain functioning and heightened sensitivity to the environment (Bhattacharjee, 2012). Should
Do you believe that humankind is getting more or less violent and cruel? What evidence can you bring to support your position?
What is the definition of anthropology?
Anthropology includes archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, and linguistics. What are the similarities and differences among these approaches, and in what ways do they share
The Robarcheks' analysis of the Semai shows that their peaceful lifestyle is a product of both the way their society is structured and the worldviews they hold. What kind of social structures and
In what ways is anthropology holistic?
The book notes that in some ways, doing anthropology is like teaching fish the meaning of water. Explain what this expression means.
Do you believe in the possibility of a society and a world without violence? What do you think is the relationship between physical violence and less obvious forms of violence such as discrimination,
What are the five subdisciplines, or specializations, of anthropology?
Why is ethnocentrism so common in the world, and why is cultural relativism often extremely difficult?
What is the focus of study of biological anthropology?
Describe some of the ways in which the experiences of anthropologists working today are different from those of anthropologists working 50 or more years ago.
What is the focus of study of linguistic anthropology? .
What is the focus of study of archaeology?
What is the focus of study of cultural anthropology?
What do applied anthropologists do?
For medical anthropologists, how do disease and illness differ and what is a syndemic?

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