Question 1

The hermeneutic perspective holds that an individual's knowledge of the world is always conditioned by his or her culture, identity, and social position.

Accepted Answer

The hermeneutic perspective emphasizes the role of cultural and social factors in shaping an individual's understanding and interpretation of the world.

Question 2

Deconstruction is an interpretive approach that examines how the language, metaphor, or imagery employed in a text reveal an author's unstated assumptions or meanings.

Accepted Answer

Deconstruction is indeed an interpretive approach that explores the implicit assumptions and meanings underlying a text through its language, metaphor, and imagery.

Question 3

Michel Foucault argues that the claim to command scientific knowledge on the part of bureaucracies, the state and corporations allows them to exercise power over other groups in society.

Accepted Answer

Foucault's theory of power highlights the ways in which knowledge is used to control and regulate society, with bureaucratic institutions and corporations using their claims to scientific knowledge to assert authority over other groups. This argument is a central theme in his work on power and knowledge.

Question 4

Clifford Geertz used the approach of deconstruction to show how past anthropologists employed rhetorical devices in their writing to enhance their ethnographic authority.

Accepted Answer

Clifford Geertz used deconstruction to analyze the rhetorical strategies used by past anthropologists in their writing. He argued that these strategies served to enhance the ethnographer's authority and mask the subjectivity of their perspectives.

Question 5

Mac Marshall employed the approach of deconstruction to show how Derek Freeman's rhetorical techniques served to undermine his rival Margaret Mead's ethnographic authority on Samoa while enhancing his own.

Accepted Answer

The statement accurately reflects Mac Marshall's approach and findings regarding Derek Freeman's use of rhetoric to diminish Margaret Mead's credibility in the study of Samoa.

Question 6

Anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod rejects ethnographic generalizations because, in her view, they &#34;privilege&#34; the anthropologist's claims to knowledge over those of the people they study.

Accepted Answer

Lila Abu-Lughod does reject ethnographic generalizations because she feels they prioritize the anthropologist's claims to knowledge over those of the people being studied.

Question 7

Some postmodern anthropologists reject ethnographic research entirely in Third World settings because they believe such endeavors recreate colonial hierarchies of power and privilege.

Accepted Answer

Postmodern anthropologists argue that ethnographic research in Third World settings can reinforce power imbalances and perpetuate colonial legacies, and therefore reject it as a methodology.

Question 8

Anthropologist Roy D'Andrade is critical of those who would &#34;just tell stories&#34; in place of scientific generalization, noting that such anecdotes serve as disguised generalizations anyway.

Accepted Answer

D'Andrade argues that even personal anecdotes often contain underlying assumptions and generalizations, so it is important to analyze and test these assumptions scientifically.

Question 9

Scientific anthropologists claim that postmodern assertions about the subjectivity of all knowledge are self-refuting and therefore cannot be logically sustained.

Accepted Answer

Scientific anthropologists argue that postmodern assertions about the subjectivity of knowledge are self-refuting because the very act of making such an assertion presupposes an objective truth. If all knowledge is subjective, then the claim that all knowledge is subjective must also be subjective, which undermines its own validity. Therefore, postmodern claims about subjectivity cannot be logically sustained according to scientific anthropologists.

Question 10

Hermeneutic philosophers such as Paul De Man and Martin Heidegger are known to have had strongly pro-Nazi sympathies prior to and during World War II.

Accepted Answer

It is well-documented that both Paul De Man and Martin Heidegger were sympathetic to Nazism in the years leading up to and during World War II. However, it is important to note that both philosophers later tried to distance themselves from these views and were heavily criticized for their past affiliations with the Nazi Party.

Deck 15: The Contemporary Anthropological Moment