Deck 4: Applying Anthropology

Question 1

As an aid to applied anthropology, anthropological theory

A) is now read widely throughout the commercial sector of Western economies.
B) is generally considered a drawback to practice, because it is mainly based on work among indigenous societies.
C) promotes a systemic perspective that aids the successful implementation of development projects.
D) is derivative and lacking in original ideas.
E) formally forbids anthropologists from doing applied work.

Answer 1

promotes a systemic perspective that aids the successful implementation of development projects.

Question 2

Which of the following is NOT a valid criticism of many economic development projects?

A) They often pay more attention to the physical features than to the social features of the project's setting.
B) Project planners have no real interest in helping communities.
C) Project personnel too rarely visit and talk with the people affected by the project.
D) The planners tend to overlook cultural diversity, especially in less developed countries.
E) People who know little about the area affected by the project often have done most or all of its planning, execution, and evaluation.

Answer 2

Project planners have no real interest in helping communities.

Question 3

In a comparative study of 68 development projects, Kottak determined that

A) overinnovation was the most productive development model.
B) culturally compatible development projects were twice as successful as incompatible ones.
C) the Soviet socialist bloc model was the most successful.
D) the capitalist bloc model was the most financially successful.
E) the underdifferentiated model led to the most equity.

Answer 3

culturally compatible development projects were twice as successful as incompatible ones.

Question 4

Which of the following is a reason that the Madagascar project to increase rice production was successful?

A) Malagasy leaders were of the peasantry and were therefore prepared to follow the descent-group ethic of pooling resources for the good of the group as a whole.
B) The elites and the lower class were of different origins and thus had no strong connections through kinship, descent, or marriage.
C) There is a clear fit between capitalist development schemes and corporate descent-group social organization.
D) The project took into account the inevitability of native forms of social organization breaking down into nuclear family organization, impersonality, and alienation.
E) The educated members of Malagasy society are those who have struggled to fend for themselves and therefore brought an innovative kind of independence to the project.

Question 5

Why is ethnography one of the most valuable and distinctive tools of the applied anthropologist?

A) It is valuable insider's data that can be routinely sold to multinational corporations and state agencies without the consent of the people studied.
B) It provides a firsthand account of the day-to-day issues and challenges that the members of a given community face, as well as a sense of how those people think about and react to these issues.
C) It produces a statistically unbiased summary of human response to set stimuli.
D) It is among the most economical and time-efficient tools that exist in the social sciences.
E) It can be produced without leaving the comfort of the anthropologist's office.

Question 6

Which of the following is a distinguishing characteristic of the work that applied anthropologists do?

A) They enter the affected communities and talk with people.
B) They gather government statistics.
C) They consult project managers.
D) They consult government officials and other experts.
E) They promote development.

Question 7

What term refers to the tendency to view less developed countries as more alike than they are?

A) cultural relativism
B) ethnobias
C) overinnovation
D) underdifferentiation
E) intervention philosophy

Question 8

This chapter's "Appreciating Anthropology" section describes how forensic anthropologists work to identify victims of violence and genocide around the world. Which of the following identifying characteristics can NOT be determined from human skeletal remains?

A) age
B) sex
C) right- or left-handedness
D) intelligence
E) dentition

Question 9

What is the postwar baby boom of the late 1940s and 1950s responsible for?

A) It fueled the general expansion of the U.S. educational system, including academic anthropology.
B) It promoted renewed interest in applied anthropology during the 1950s and 1960s.
C) It brought anthropology into most high school curricula.
D) It produced a new interest in ethnic diversity.
E) It worked to shrink the world system.

Question 10

Anthropology may aid in the progress of education by helping educators avoid all of the following EXCEPT

A) indiscriminate assignment of nonnative English speakers to the same classrooms as children with "behavior problems."
B) tolerance of ethnic diversity.
C) incorrect application of labels such as "learning impaired."
D) sociolinguistic discrimination.
E) ethnic stereotyping.

Question 11

The Malagasy development program described in this chapter illustrates the importance of

A) the local government's ability to improve the lives of its citizens, when committed to doing so.
B) replacing subsistence farming with a viable cash crop.
C) replacing outdated traditional techniques of irrigation with more modern ones.
D) breaking down corporate descent groups, which are too independent and interfere with development.
E) the top-down strategies developed by the UN.

Question 12

Robert Redfield's research recognized that a city is a social context that is very different from a tribal or peasant village. What did he study?

A) differences between more and less developed countries in their urban life
B) differences between health care systems among foragers and agriculturalists
C) differences between urban and rural communities
D) differences between the consequences of overinnovation and underdifferentiation
E) differences between illnesses and diseases

Question 13

Which of the following does NOT illustrate the kinds of work that applied anthropologists do?

A) working for or with international development agencies, such as the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development
B) helping the Environmental Protection Agency address environmental problems
C) borrowing from fields such as history and sociology to broaden the scope of theoretical anthropology
D) using the tools of medical anthropology to work as cultural interpreters in public health programs
E) applying the tools of forensic anthropology to work with police, medical examiners, the courts, and international organizations to identify victims of crimes, accidents, wars, and terrorism

Question 14

Development projects should aim to accomplish all of the following EXCEPT

A) promoting change, but not overinnovation.
B) preserving local systems while working to make them better.
C) respecting local traditions.
D) drawing models of development from indigenous practices.
E) developing strategies with little input from the local communities.

Question 15

In an example of applied anthropology's contribution to improving education, this chapter describes a study of Puerto Rican seventh graders in a Midwestern U.S. urban school (Hill-Burnett, 1978). What did anthropologists discover in this study?

A) Puerto Rican students came from a background that placed less value on education than did that of white students.
B) The parents of Puerto Rican students did not value achievement.
C) The Puerto Rican subjects benefited from the English as a foreign language program.
D) Puerto Ricans do not benefit from bilingual education.
E) The Puerto Rican students' education was being affected by their teachers' misconceptions.

Question 16

Which of the following illustrates some of the dangers of the old applied anthropology?

A) anthropologists promoting the study of their field among university undergraduates
B) anthropologists practicing participant observation and taking photographs of ritualistic behavior
C) Robert Redfield's work on the contrasts between urban and rural communities
D) anthropologists collaborating with nongovernmental organizations in the 1980s
E) anthropologists aiding colonial expansion by providing ethnographic information to colonists

Question 17

All of the following are proper roles for applied anthropologists EXCEPT

A) identifying needs for change that local people perceive.
B) working with people to design culturally appropriate and socially sensitive change.
C) placing the cultural values of the local people above everybody else's cultural values.
D) protecting local people from harmful policies and projects that might threaten them.
E) working as participant observers, taking part in the events they study in order to understand local thought and behavior.

Question 18

Applied anthropology is

A) the purely academic dimension of anthropology.
B) the term used for all anthropological research programs.
C) the use of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary problems.
D) rarely possible, as anthropological studies are not practical in the "real world."
E) is not guided by anthropological theory.

Question 19

Who was studied at a distance during the 1940s in an attempt to predict the behavior of the political enemies of the United States?

A) the Koreans and English
B) the Yanomami and Betsileo
C) the Malagasy
D) the Germans and Japanese
E) the Brazilians and Indonesians

Question 20

What is the commonly stated goal for most development projects?

A) greater socioeconomic stratification
B) ethnocide
C) cultural assimilation
D) decreased local autonomy
E) increased equity

Question 21

A commonly stated goal of recent development policy is to promote equity; that is, to reduce poverty and promote a more even distribution of wealth.

Question 22

A comparative study of 68 rural development projects from all around the world found culturally compatible economic development projects to be twice as successful financially as incompatible ones.

Question 23

Shamans and other magico-religious specialists are effective curers with regard to what kind of disease theory?

A) exotic
B) ritualistic
C) naturalistic
D) personalistic
E) scientific

Question 24

Academic and applied anthropology have a symbiotic relationship, as theory aids practice and application fuels theory.

Question 25

Which of the following is NOT a feature of urban life?

A) dispersed settlements
B) high population density
C) social heterogeneity
D) economic differentiation
E) geographic mobility

Question 26

What is an illness?

A) a nonexistent ailment (only diseases are real)
B) an artificial product of biomedicine
C) a scientifically described health threat
D) a purely linguistic problem
E) a condition of poor health perceived by an individual

Question 27

Which of the following best illustrates urban applied anthropologists' ability to help social groups deal with urban institutions?

A) "culture at a distance" studies among Japanese and Germans in an attempt to predict the behavior of the enemies of the United States
B) Kottak's comparative study of development projects from around the world
C) Vigil's study of gang violence in the context of large-scale immigrant adaptation to U.S. cities
D) anthropological analysis of the relation between Malagasy descent groups and the state
E) analysis of differences between personalistic and naturalistic disease theories among rural poor of the U.S.

Question 28

Anthropology has three dimensions: academic, applied, and a mix of the two.

Question 29

It is safe to assume that there is less cultural diversity among the poorest, less developed countries in the world.

Question 30

What is microenculturation?

A) a condition that exists in large, industrialized states, wherein most of the population has only a small amount of real culture
B) the process whereby particular roles are learned within a limited social system (for example, a business)
C) the process whereby enculturation is accomplished through advanced media technology
D) the result of the meeting between foraging and tribal communities in less developed countries
E) enculturation based on a focused interest; for example, reruns of a TV show like "Star Trek"

Question 31

Although its roots extend further back in time, the real boom for applied anthropology in the United States began in the 1970s.

Question 32

Fortunately for applied anthropologists eager to do effective international work, all governments are genuinely and realistically committed to improving the lives of their citizens.

Question 33

Developmental anthropology is the branch of applied anthropology that focuses on social issues in, and the cultural dimensions of, moral development.

Question 34

An ethnographic study of the workplace

A) provides evidence that economic factors are fundamental to understanding differential productivity.
B) is routinely performed by employees of the U.S. federal government.
C) is not very useful, because all workplaces are becoming increasingly homogeneous, compared to 20 years ago.
D) provides a close observation of workers and managers in their natural setting.
E) is required of all organizations that want to become not-for-profit, according to the American Anthropological Association.

Question 35

What did Robert Redfield argue about the relations between urban and rural communities?

A) Peasants are culturally isolated from cities.
B) Cities are centers from which cultural innovations are spread to rural and tribal areas.
C) Innovation tends to move from rural to urban areas.
D) There are so many connections between rural and urban areas that it is not useful to distinguish between the two within one cultural context.
E) Urban centers have more in common with each other, even across national boundaries, than they do with rural areas in the same country.

Question 36

What is a disease?

A) a health problem as it is experienced by the one affected
B) an artificial product of biomedicine
C) a consequence of a foraging lifestyle
D) an unnatural state of health
E) a scientifically identified health threat

Question 37

Ethnography is one of applied anthropology's most valuable research tools, because it provides a firsthand account of the lives of ordinary people.

Question 38

During World War II, the U.S. government recruited anthropologists to study Japanese and German cultures. This chapter uses this example to illustrate the dangers of the old anthropology.

Question 39

This chapter's "Appreciating Diversity" account describes how McDonalds was able to succeed in the Brazilian market once it adapted to preexisting Brazilian cultural patterns. This example illustrates

A) how the axiom of applied anthropology that innovation succeeds best when it is culturally appropriate applies only in Western cultures.
B) applied anthropology's danger of turning itself into a tool of capitalist interest, which always disregard the culture and well-being of the consumer.
C) how the axiom of applied anthropology that innovation succeeds best when it is culturally appropriate applies not just to development projects but also businesses, such as fast food.
D) applied anthropology's capacity to help foreign markets adapt to a marketing strategy that must, above all costs, maintain the integrity of its brand.
E) Brazilians' intolerance of foreign goods, because they disregard their tastes.

Question 40

Which of the following is true about medical anthropology?

A) It is the field that has proved that people from rural areas suffer only from illnesses and not diseases.
B) It applies non-Western health knowledge to a troubled industrialized medical system.
C) Typically in cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, this field does market research on the use of health products around the world.
D) This field applies Western medicine to solve health problems around the world.
E) This growing field considers the biocultural context and implications of disease and illness.

Question 41

There is considerable debate today over whether or not governments should require schools to provide bilingual education for students, and if so, to what extent this should be carried out. Pretend that you are an anthropologist who has been asked to provide guidance on this issue to a school board in a bilingual community. What can you suggest about the nature of ethnicity, language, and enculturation that will help educators address their challenges?

Question 42

When nations become more tied to the world economy, indigenous forms of social organization inevitably break down into nuclear family organization, impersonality, and alienation.

Question 43

Sociolinguists and cultural anthropologists studying Puerto Rican communities in the Midwestern United States found that Puerto Rican parents valued education more than non-Hispanics.

Question 44

A bachelor's degree in anthropology is of little value in the corporate world.

Question 45

What is the relationship between theory and practice in anthropology? Do you agree that applied anthropology should be recognized as a separate subsection of anthropology?

Question 46

Strictly speaking, medical anthropology is an applied field within anthropology.

Question 47

In his comparison of rural versus urban communities, Robert Redfield found that cultural innovations spread from urban areas to rural ones.

Question 48

The Samoan community living in Los Angeles has successfully used the matai system to deal with modern urban problems.

Question 49

How might a premedical student apply some of the knowledge learned through anthropology as a physician? What is the value of studying the curing and belief systems of patients' ethnic groups?

Question 50

Identify government, international, and private organizations that concern themselves with socioeconomic change abroad and hire anthropologists to help meet their goals. Review their mission statements. Do they make reference to the dangers of underdifferentiation or overinnovation?

Question 51

Discuss the relevance of the ethnographic method for modern society, contemporary problems, and applied anthropology.

Question 52

Discuss the major advantages and disadvantages of scientific and traditional medicine, being careful to distinguish between scientific medicine and Western medicine.

Question 53

Scientific medicine is not the same thing as Western medicine. Despite advances in technology, genomics, molecular biology, pathology, surgery, diagnostics, and applications, many Western medical procedures have little justification in logic or fact.

Question 54

What, if anything, is the difference between an anthropologist currently consulting on a development project in Indonesia and another one conducting research in support of the British colonial government's efforts to subdue African natives in the 1930s?

Question 55

Define applied anthropology. What distinguishes the old from the new applied anthropology? Can you think of any examples in current events that question whether or not new applied anthropology has completely moved on from the dangers of the old?

Question 56

Biomedicine, which aims to link an illness to scientifically-demonstrated agents that bear no personal malice toward their victims, is an example of naturalistic medicine.

Question 57

An illness is a scientifically identified health threat caused by a bacterium, virus, fungus, parasite, or other pathogen.

Question 58

Non-Western medicine treats illnesses symptomatically, seeking an immediate cure.

Question 59

Health care systems refers to the nationalized health care services that exist only in core industrial nations.

Question 60

Non-Western medicine does not maintain a sharp distinction between biological and psychological illnesses.

Question 61

HIV/AIDS is a global pandemic. How does culture play a role in HIV transmission? How might applied anthropology help in finding a solution to this problem?

Question 62

Discuss ethical dilemmas and possible solutions with respect to the kinds of applied anthropology discussed in this chapter.