ANTHRO 3 MIDTERM STUDY GUIDE

Week 1: Introduction and Ways of Doing Anthropology

Chapter 2: Characteristics of Culture
● What is cultural adaptation?
○ cultural adaptation: a complex of ideas, activities, and technologies that enable
people to survive and even thrive in their environment
○ has enabled humans to survive and expand into a variety of environments
○ cultures have always changed over time, although rarely as rapidly or massively
as today
○ sometimes what is adaptive in one set of circumstances (or over short run) is
maladaptive over time
● What is culture, and what characteristics are common to all cultures?
○ culture: society’s shared and socially transmitted ideas, values, and perceptions
○ are used to make of experience and generate behavior
■ are reflected in that behavior
○ though every cultures involves a group’s shared values, ideas, and behavior, this
does not mean that everything within a culture is uniform
■ ex. in all cultures, people’s roles vary according to age and gender
● gender is used to refer to cultural elaborations and meanings
assigned to biological difference between sexes
■ in some societies, there are subcultural variations
○ subcultures share certain overarching assumptions of the larger culture
collectively shared by members of a complex society, while observing its own set
of distinct rules
■ ex. the Amish
● Amish put many values that North Americans often respected to
practice
○ thrift, hard work, independence, close family life
● degree of tolerance is due in part to their European origin
● are defined as part of the “white race” who comprise dominance in
mainstream society
● their subculture in North America gradually developed in response
to how members of strict Protestant sect adapted to survive within
the wider American society, while maintaining the conservative
rural way of life of their European ancestors
○ pluralistic societies are complex societies--two or more ethnic groups or
nationalities are politically organized into one territorial state, but maintain
cultural differences
○ in addition to being shared, all cultures are learned, with individual members
learning the accepted norms or social behavior through the process of
enculturation
○ every culture is based on symbols
■ transmitted through the communication of ideas, emotions, and
desires--especially language
○ culture is integrated, so that all aspects function as integrated whole (though not
without tension/friction/conflict)
○ cultures are dynamic
■ constructed to adjust to recurrent pressures, crieses, and change
○ as the barrel model pictures, all aspects of culture fal into one of three broad and
interrelated categories:
■ infrastructure
● subsistence practices or economic system
■ social structure
● rule-govered relationships between societ’s members
■ superstructure
● collectively shared ideology or worldview

○ cultural change takes places in response to events such as:

■ population growth
■ technological innovation
■ environmental crisis
 ■ intrusion of outsiders
■ modification of values and behavior within a society
○ although cultures must change to adapt to new circumstances, unforeseen
consequences of change can be disastrous
● What are the connections between individuals, their culture and their society?
○ as union of individuals, society must strike a balance between self-interest of its
members with the needs and demands of the collective well-being of the group
■ society rewards adherence to its culturally prescribed standards in the form
of social approval
○ however, individual needs can not be entirely overlooked in a society
■ doing so can foster stress and growing resentment
■ can erupt in violence and lead to cultural breakdown
● What are ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, and what is the measure of a society’s
success?
○ ethnocentrism: belief that one’s own culture is superior to others
○ to avoid making ethnocentric judgements, anthropologists adopt the approach of
cultural relativism
■ this approach requires suspending judgement long enough to understand
each culture in its own terms
○ least biased measure of culture’s success may be based on answering this
question: How well does a particular culture satisfy the physical and
psychological needs of those whose behavior it guides?
■ following indicators provide answers:
● nutritional status and general physical/mental health of population
● average life expectancy
● group’s relationship to its resource base
● prevalence of poverty
● stability and tranquility of domestic life
● incidence of violence, crime, and delinquency

Chapter 3: Ethnographic Research--Its History, Methods, and Theories

● What was the worldwide social context in which anthropology emerged as a discipline?
○ emerged during the heyday of colonialism (1870s-1930s)
○ focused on study of traditional people in overseas colonies they controlled, while
North Americans focused on indigenous communities in their own countries
○ early anthropologists engaged in salvage ethnography (documenting endangered
cultures) expecting indigenous cultures to disappear through impositions of
colonialism
■ now known as urgent anthropology
 ○ in 1930’s, anthropologists began studying culture contact
■ how traditional cultures change when coming in contact with expanding
capitalist societies
■ became known as acculturation in the US
○ applied anthropology (using anthropological knowledge and methods to solve
practical problems in communities) came to the fore in 1930s as dominant
societies tried to understand traditional indigenous culture in order to control them
more effectively
● How have ethnographic research approaches changed and expanded since the discipline
began?
○ some anthropologists began studies of cultures at a distance, developing national
character studied through investigating film, literature, and newspapers as a result
of WWII and the Cold War era
○ anthropologists started broadening their focus--turned their attention to modern
state societies and investigating in their own countries
■ settings range from factories to farming communities to suburban
neighborhoods
● ex. Powdermaker’s research on racism in South during 1930s and
her investigation of the Hollywood film industry + Metraux’s
international team studying contemporary race relations in Brazil
characterize a new understanding of the role of anthropology
● How have anthropologists attempted to address the negative effects of massive cultural
change imposed on less powerful groups by elite cultures?
○ in the 1950’s, anthropologists began studying peasants to understand impact of
complex state societies on traditional and indigenous groups
○ recognizing that their knowledge could be used to help people in ways defined by
the people themselves, some anthropologists took up advocacy anthropology
■ advocacy anthropology: research that is community based and politically
involved
○ some anthropologists, like Laura Nader, have urged ​studying up ​to reveal how
elites function in maintaining their power
■ studying up: ethnographic research in the world’s center of political and
economic power
● How do anthropologists conduct their ethnographic research today?
○ multi-sited ethnography investigates and documents peoples and cultures
embedded in the larger structures of a globalizing world
○ ethnography--a detailed description of a particular culture--relies upon fieldwork
 ■ fieldwork: extended on-location research to gather detailed and in-depth
information on a society’s customary ideas, values, and practices through
participation in its collective social life
○ participant observation is learning about a group’s behaviors and beliefs through
social involvement and personal observation with the community, as well as
interviews and discussions with individual members of the group over an
extended stay in the community
○ key consultants (aka informants) are individuals in the society being studied who
provide information that helps researchers understand what they see
○ ethnographers gather two types of data:
■ quantitative data
● consists of population density
■ qualitative data:
● social networks of kinship relations, customary beliefs and
practices, and personal life histories
○ interviewing can be informal (unstructured, open-ended conversations in
everyday life) or formal (structured Q&A sessions)
○ ethnographic mapping goes beyond standard mapmaking to show geographic and
spatial features that are culturally significant to the people living there
■ like names and stories about the locations
○ most anthropologists use cameras as well as notepads, computers, or sound
recording devices to document observations
○ today’s anthropologists routinely carry recording equipment to the field and invite
and train local members of the community to help with recording
● What challenges do ethnographers face?
○ culture shock and not being socially accepted by the society
■ major step toward being accepted and gaining access to information is
being adopted into a network of kinship relations
○ anthropologists must avoid getting involved in political rivalries and being used
by factions within the community
○ ethnographer’s age, ideology, ethnicity, or skin color may block access to a
community’s individuals or ideas
○ ethnographers may be in physical danger through illness, accident, and occasional
hostility
○ ethnographers grapple with challenge of bias or subjectivity
■ their own and that of members of the community being challenged
○ validating ethnographic research is challenging because access to sites may be
limited or barred altogether
● What is involved in producing an ethnographic study?
 ○ traditionally, ethnographies are written narratives, illustrated with photographs
and accompanied by maps, kinship diagrams, and figures showing social and
political organizational structures, settlement layout, seasonal cycles, etc.
○ more often, ethnographic research is documented not only in writing but with
sound recordings and film
● What is involved in doing ethnology?
○ ethnography provides basic data needed for ethnology
■ branch of cultural anthropology that makes cross-cultural comparisons and
develops theories that explain certain differences or similarities occur
between groups
■ theories (coherent statements providing explanations for these
differences/similarities) are developed through ethnology
○ relies on the comparative method
■ theories in anthropology may be generated from worldwide cross-cultural
or historical comparisons, or even comparisons with other species
○ Human Relations Area Files is a vast collection of cross-indexed ethnographic,
biocultural, and archaeological data catalogued by cultural characteristics and
geographic location
● What are the key theoretical perspectives in anthropology?
○ two broadest categories of anthropological theory are mentalist and materialist
■ mentalist perspective: stresses primacy of superstructure in cultural
research and analysis
■ materialist perspective: stresses primacy of infrastructure (material
conditions) in cultural research and analysis
● What are the ethical responsibilities in anthropological research?
○ ethical code of the American Anthropological Association outlines various ethical
responsibilities and moral obligations of anthropologists
○ central principle of AAA ethics code is to ensure that anthropological research
does not negatively impact the people being studied
 Week 2: Ways of Making a Living
Chapter 7: Patterns of Subsistence
● What are the adaptation, cultural adaptation, ecosystem, and culture areas?
○ adaptation: process organisms undergo to achieve beneficial adjustment to a
particular environment
■ also occurs when humans are biologically changed by the environment
■ environment: defined space with limited resources that presents certain
possibilities and limitations
○ cultural adaptation: complex of ideas, activities, and technologies that enable
people to survive in a certain environment and in turn impacts the environment
○ ecosystem: functioning whole composed of the natural environment and all the
organisms living in it
○ culture areas: geographic regions in which a number of societies have similar
ways of life
■ such regions often correspond to ecological regions
● What are the major subsistence strategies and the characteristics of the societies that
practice them?
○ food foraging
■ oldest and most universal mode of subsistence
■ requires people to relocate according to changing food sources
■ characteristics include mobility, small group size, flexible male/female
labor division, food sharing, egalitarianism, communal property, and rarity
of warfare
● egalitarianism: the doctrine that all people are equal and deserve
equal rights and opportunities 
○ shift from food foraging to food production--AKA Neolithic revolution--began
around 10,000 years ago
■ involved domestication of plants and animals
○ horticulture
■ cultivation of crops in gardens using simple hand tools
● slash-and-burn cultivation: natural vegetation is cute, slash is
burned, and crops are planted among the ashes
○ agriculture
■ more complex, involves growing crops on farms with irrigation, fertilizers,
and animal-powered plows
■ food production led to fixed settlements, new technologies, and altered
division of labor
○ mixed farming
■ involves crop growing and animal breeding
 ■ may occur in mountainous environments where farmers practice
transhumance
● transhumance: moving livestock between high-altitude summer
pastures and lowland valleys
○ pastoralism
■ relies on breeding and managing large herds of domesticated herbivores
● cattle, sheep, goats, etc.
■ usually were nomadic, moving as needed to provide animals with pasture
and water
○ intensive agriculture led to urbanization and peasantry
○ farm settlements grew into towns and cities, and social complexity expanded to
include labor specialization, elite classes, public management, taxation, and
policing
○ industrial food production
■ features large-scale businesses involved in mass food production,
processing, marketing, and relying on labor saving machines
■ rooted in industrial revolution (began in late 1700s) with invention of
steam engine
● machines replaced human labor, animal power, hand tools
● lead to massive cultural change in many societies
○ today’s industrial food production and global marketing complex (involving
network of interlinked distribution centers) are make possible by electronic-digital
revolution that began in late 20th century
● What is cultural evolution?
○ cultural evolution: changing of cultures over time
■ should not be confused with idea of progress
■ progress: notion that humans are moving forward to better, more advanced
state in development toward perfection
○ convergent evolution: development of similar cultural adaptations to similar
environmental conditions by different peoples with different ancestral cultures
■ parallel evolution is the same phenomenon, but it emerges with peoples
whose ancestral cultures were already similar
○ human groups do not always make necessary adaptive changes, and this can
devastate populations and natural environment
■ ex. Easter Island is a catastrophic environmental destruction
● the Rapanui were immensely successful at first--had a forest
abundant with harvests, had domesticated animals, hunted birds,
fished in the ocean, gathered nuts, fruits and seeds, etc.; prospered
with surplus and grew within numbers
 ● but fragile ecosystem fell due to a combination of natural and
cultural factors
● rat population soared, eating tree seeds→ destroyed forest → rich
topsoil gone, plants now extinct → springs dried up → birds
stopped coming → water surface temperatures rose, killing fish
○ this all lead to famine and warfare between Rapanui rival
factions, making population diminish
● foreigners added to the problem when they brought diseases and
other miseries with them

Week 3: Ways of Cooperation: Marriage, Family, and Kinship

Chapter 9: Patterns of Subsistence
● How do different cultures regulate sexual relations?
○ every society has rules and customs concerning sexual relations, marriage,
household and family structures, and childrearing practices
○ these play important roles in establishing and maintaining social alliances and
continuity that help ensure a society’s overall well-being
○ most cultures are sexually permissive/semi-permissive and no not sharply regulate
personal sexual practices
○ others are restrictive, prohibiting all sexual activity out of marriage
■ of these, few punish adultery by imprisonment, social exclusion, or even
death
○ incest taboos forbid marriage and sexual relations between close relatives
■ related to the practices of endogamy (marrying within group) and
exogamy (marrying outside group)
● What is marriage?
○ marriage: a culturally sanctioned union between two or more people that
establishes certain rights and obligations between them, them & their children,
and them & their in-laws
■ falls into several broad categories:
● monogamy: having one spouse (most common)
● serial monogamy: person marries series of partners (common
among Europeans and North Americans)
● polygamy: one individual having multiple spouses
○ polygyny and polyandry (women with several husbands)
○ although few marriages may be polygynous, it’s a preferred
form of marriage in majority of the world’s cultures
○ because few communities have surplus of men, polyandry
is uncommon
 ■ group marriage: several men and several women have sexual access to one
another (also rare)
○ marriages are generally based on ideals of romantic love in Western industrial and
postindustrial countries
○ in non-Western societies, economic considerations are major concern in arranging
marriages (to bind two families as allies)
○ preferred marriage partners in many societies are particular cross cousins
(mother’s brother’s daughter if a man, father’s sister’s son if a woman)
■ less commonly, parallel cousins on paternal side (father’s brother’s
son/daughter)
■ cross-cousin marriage is a means of maintaining and reinforcing solidarity
between related groups
○ growing number of societies support same-sex marraiges
■ in some African cultures, traditional woman-woman marriages provide
socially approved way to deal with problems for which heterosexual
marriages offer no satisfactory solution
○ in many cultures, marriages are formalized by economic exchange
■ bridewealth: payment of money/valuables from groom’s to the bride’s kin
■ bride service: when groom is expected to work for period of time for
bride’s family
■ dowry: payment of woman’s inheritance at time of marriage to her or to
her husband
○ divorce is possible in all societies
■ reasons and frequency vary, but most common reasons are infidelity,
sterility, cruelty, and desertion
● How do family and household differ, and what is the relationship between them?
○ family may take many forms
■ single parent with one or more children
■ married couple or polygamous spouses with or without children
■ several generations of parents and children
○ family is distinct from household
■ household: domestic unit of one or more people living in one residence
● may include non relatives, such as servants
● most households are made of families or parts of families, but there
are many other household arrangements
■ most basic domestic unit is nuclear family
● nuclear family: group consisting of one or more parent and
dependent offspring, may include stepparent, stepsiblings, and
adopted children
 ○ was referred solely to mother, father, and child unit until
recently
● nuclear family is common in industrial and postindustrial countries
of NA and Europe and societies living in harsh environments
● well suited to mobility required in food-foraging groups and in
industrial societies where job changes are frequent
■ extended family consists of several closely related nuclear families living
and often working together in single household
● What kinds of marital residence patterns exist across cultures?
○ three common residence patterns
■ patrilocal: married couple living in locality of husband’s father’s place
■ matrilocal: living in locality of wife’s mother’s place
■ neolocal: living apart from husband or wife’s parents
○ in NA and parts of Europe, increasing numbers of people live in nonfamily
households (either alone or with non relatives)
■ includes unmarried cohabiting couples
○ many others live in nontraditional families, including single-parent households or
blended families
● How do globalization and technology impact marriage and family?
○ new reproductive technologies, surrogacy, and international adoptions are adding
additional dimensions to familial relationships
○ another phenomenon changing makeup of households and families worldwide is
ever-growing population of temporary and migrant workers

Chapter 10: Kinship and Descent

● What is kinship, and what role does it play in social organization?
○ kinship: network of relatives into which individuals are born and married, and
with whom they cooperate based on customarily prescribed rights and obligations
○ in nonindustrial societies, kin-groups commonly deal with challenges that families
and households cannot handle alone
■ defense, resource allocation, cooperative labor
○ in larger and more complex societies, formal political systems take over these
matters
● What is a descent group, and what are its various forms?
○ descent group: any kin-group whose members share a direct line of descent from
a real (historical) or fictional common ancestor
○ unilineal descent establishes kin-group membership exclusively through male line
(patrilineal) or female line (matrilineal)
 ■ however, unlike patrilineal pattern, matrilineal descent does not
automatically confer gender authority
○ in all societies, kin of both mother and father are important elements in social
structure, regardless how descent group membership is defined
○ there’s a close relationship between a culture’s infrastructure and descent system
■ patrilineal descent predominates when male labor is considered of prime
importance, as it is among pastoralists and agriculturalists
■ matrilineal descent predominates mainly among horticulturalists where
female subsistence work is vital
○ the two major forms of a unilineal descent group are the lineage (kin group
descended from common ancestor whose r/s to members can be exactly stated in
genealogical terms) and the clan (extended kin group, often consisting of several
lineages, whose members claim common descent from remove ancestor, usually
lengendary or mythological)
○ double descent is rare
■ ambilineal descent provides measure of flexibility in that an individual has
option of affiliating with either mother or father’s descent group
■ bilateral descent derives from both mother and father’s families equally
● What role does descent play within the larger cultural system?
○ because lineages are commonly exogamous, sexual competition within group is
largely avoided and marriage reinforces alliances between lineages
○ lineage exogamy also serves to maintain open communication within society and
fosters exchange of info between lineages
○ clan residence is usually dispersed
■ absence of residential unity, totems (symbols from nature that remind
members of common ancestry) often reinforce clan identification
○ phratry is a unilineal descent group of two or more clans that supposedly share a
common ancestry
■ when society is divided into two halves, each half consisting of one or
more clans, these two major descent groups are called moieties
○ in bilateral descent system, individuals are affiliated equally with mother and
father’s families
■ large group is socially impractical, and is usually reduced to small circle
of paternal and maternal relatives called the kindred
● kindred is never same for any two people except siblings
● bilateral kinship and kindred organization predominate in societies
where nuclear families are common
● What does kinship terminology reveal about human relations?
 ○ varies across cultures and reveals organizational structure of kinship groups, the
importance of certain relationships, and prevailing attitudes about specific kin
■ some languages use same term to identify brother and cousin, suggesting
these kin are of equal importance
■ kin emerged under same term have same basic rights and obligations with
respect to the person referring to them as such
○ Eskimo system emphasizes nuclear family and merges all other relatives in given
generation into few, large, generally undifferentiated categories
○ Hawaiian system is simplest system of kinship terminology, with all relatives of
same generation and gender referred to by same term
○ Iroquois system uses single term for father and his brother, and another for mother
and her sister
■ parallel cousins are equated with brothers and sisters, but distinguished
from cross cousins
○ adoption and practice of godparenting establish additional kin categories
○ new reproductive technologies separating conception from sexual intercourse and
eggs from wombs challenge traditional notions of kinship and gender and create
new social categories

Week 4: Ways of Becoming and Being a Person

Chapter 6: Social Identity, Personality, and Gender
● What is enculturation, and how does it shape a person’s personality and identity/
○ enculturation: process by which individuals become members of their society,
begins soon after birth
■ first agents are members of an individual’s household, then involves other
members of society
■ individual must have self-awareness before enculturation can proceed
○ a child’s birthright and social identity are established through personal naming, a
universal practice with numerous cross-cultural variations
■ without one, an individual has no identity/self
■ many cultures mark the naming of a child with a special ceremony
○ for self-awareness to emerge and function, four basic orientations are needed to
structure behavioral environment in which the self acts:
■ object orientation: learning about a world of objects other than self
■ spatial orientation
■ temporal orientation
■ normative orientation: understanding of values, ideals, and standards that
constitute the behavioral environment
● How to childrearing practices and concepts of sex and gender influence a person’s
behavior, personality, and identity?
○ each culture presents different opportunities and expectations concerning gender
and ideal or acceptable male-female behavior
■ in some cultures, male-female relations are based on equal status, with
both genders expected to behave similarly
■ in others, male-female relations are based on inequality and are marked by
different standards of expected behavior
○ through cross-cultural studies psychological anthropologists have established the
interrelation of personality, child rearing practices, and other aspects of culture
■ dependence training: usually associated with traditional farming societies,
stresses compliance in performance of assigned tasks and dependence on
domestic group, rather than reliance on oneself
■ independence training: typical of societies characterized by small,
independent families; prizes self-reliance, independent behavior, and
personal achievement
■ interdependence training: practiced among Beng of West Africa, teaches
children that individual security comes through intertwining of lives
○ some anthropologists contend that child rearing practices derive from society’s
need to produce particular kinds of adult personalities
● What are the alternative gender models, and how are they viewed cross-culturally/
○ intersexuals: individuals born with reproductive organs/genitalia/sex
chromosomes that are not exclusively male or female
■ do not fit neatly into male or female biological standard or into binary
gender standard
○ many cultures have created social space for intersexual + transgender individuals
● What determines cultural norms, and is there such a thing as group personality or national
character?
○ early on, anthropologists tried to determine whether it was possible to delineate a
group personality without stereotyping
■ each culture chooses, from the vast possibilities, the traits that it sees as
normative or ideal
■ individuals who conform to these traits are rewarded, rest are not
○ national character studies looked for basic personality traits shared by majority of
people of modern countries
○ researchers have attempted to determine the child rearing practices and education
that shape such group personality
■ however, many anthropologists believe national character theories are
based on unscientific and overly generalized data
 ■ others focus on core values promoted in particular societies
○ what is defined as normal behavior in any culture is determined by the culture
itself
■ what may be acceptable or admirable in one culture may not be so
regarded in another culture
■ abnormality involves developing personality traits not accepted by a
culture
● Does culture play a role in a person’s mental health?
○ culturally induced conflicts can produce psychological disturbance and can
determine in the form of the disturbance
■ mental disorders that have a biological cause, like schizophrenia, will be
expressed by symptoms specific to the culture of the afflicted individual
■ culture-bound syndromes (or ethnic psychoses) are mental disorders
specific to a particular ethnic group
○ multi-ethnic convergence, intensified by globalization, drives home the need for
medical pluralism providing multiple healing modalities suited for cultural
dynamics of the 21st century