Deck 24: Anthropologys Role in a Globalizing World

Question 1

Anthropology has always been concerned with how environmental forces influence humans, and how human activities affect the biosphere and the earth itself. The 1950s through the 1970s witnessed the emergence of an area of study known as cultural ecology or ecological anthropology. This field

A) focused on how cultural beliefs and practices help human populations adapt to their environment.
B) studied etic perspectives on human-environment relationships.
C) is no longer relevant, because it dealt with research models that were either regional or local, but not global enough to account for the changes caused by climate change.
D) has limited present value, because it is not scientifically rigorous enough to address environmental problems.
E) studied human-environment relations as cultural constructions and analyzed them as "texts."

Answer 1

focused on how cultural beliefs and practices help human populations adapt to their environment.

Question 2

Which is the single greatest obstacle to slowing climate change?

A) the growing population of the poorer nations in the world
B) proper climatic changes
C) having scientists decide on a definition of climate change
D) meeting energy needs, particularly in energy-hungry countries such as the United States, China, and India
E) a lack of data portraying the effects of climate change

Answer 2

meeting energy needs, particularly in energy-hungry countries such as the United States, China, and India

Question 3

To Arjun Appadurai (1990), "________" describes the linkages in the modern world that have both enlarged and erased old boundaries and distinctions.

A) postmodern
B) ethnocentric
C) translocal
D) essentialized
E) diasporic

Answer 3

translocal

Question 4

Westernization is a form of what kind of cultural change?

A) exodus
B) imperialism
C) acculturation
D) enculturation
E) migration

Question 5

Today's ecological anthropology, also known as environmental anthropology, attempts not only to understand but also to

A) find solutions to environmental problems, acknowledging that ecosystems management involves multiple levels.
B) prescribe top-down solutions to ecological problems.
C) work closely with state agencies, among whom they do most of their ethnography, to promote institutional change.
D) contribute to development projects that sometimes, out of necessity, replace indigenous institutions with culturally alien concepts.
E) promote the concepts of environmental rights, even at the expense of cultural rights.

Question 6

This chapter describes Americans' belief that U.S. television programs inevitably triumph over local products around the world as

A) ethnocentric.
B) culturally relative.
C) indigenized.
D) imagined.
E) politically correct.

Question 7

Which of the following is NOT true of postmodernism?

A) It originally described a style and movement in architecture.
B) It rejects rules, geometric order, and austerity.
C) It has a clear and functional design or structure.
D) It draws on a diversity of styles from different times and places.
E) It extends value well beyond classic, elite, Western cultural forms.

Question 8

Cases where local communities use modern technology to preserve and revise their traditions

A) are examples of hidden ethnocide.
B) are becoming more common.
C) contradict Gramsci's theory of hegemony.
D) are becoming increasingly rare, due to the cost of this technology.
E) suggest that modern technology is always an agent of cultural imperialism.

Question 9

________ refers to the changes that result when groups come into continuous firsthand contact.

A) Acculturation
B) Hegemony
C) Enculturation
D) Diffusion
E) Colonialism

Question 10

The greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon that keeps the earth's surface warm. Without greenhouse gases-water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, halocarbons, and ozone-life as we know it wouldn't exist. The current problem is that

A) there are more cooling than warming radiative forcings.
B) the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases has reached its highest level in 400,000 years, and this rise has upset the balance of radiative forcings working to warm and cool the earth.
C) scientists cannot agree on a general model of how the greenhouse effect went from being a positive to a negative and a life-threatening force.
D) global warming actually benefits 90 percent of the world population, so it is difficult to mobilize the will to address the anthropogenic causes of climate change.
E) it is difficult to distinguish between climate change and global warming.

Question 11

Because of global climate change, arctic landscapes and ecosystems are changing rapidly and perceptibly, as the residents of Newtok, Alaska, can attest. With the land upon which they have built their homes slowly melting and sinking, they have appealed to the state and federal governments for assistance in helping them cover the costs of moving their town to a different location. Ironically,

A) the land upon which the Alaskan state government buildings are located is also melting.
B) the residents of Newtok have discovered oil on their land, making their appeal for funds less convincing.
C) a senator from Alaska has a vacation home in Newtok, Alaska, and so is personally committed to the predicament of the town.
D) decades ago, the U.S. government mandated that they and other Alaskan natives abandon a nomadic life based on hunting and fishing for sedentism.
E) the economic activity of the town of Newtok is extremely polluting and thus a big contributor to the environmental changes that have turned its residents into the first climate change refugees in the United States.

Question 12

Illustrating how forces from world centers can and are creatively modified to fit the local culture, how did the Native Australians interpret the movie Rambo?

A) They saw Rambo as an imperialist agent.
B) They saw Rambo as a Communist spy.
C) They assigned Rambo to the kangaroo clan.
D) They created tribal ties and kin links between Rambo and the prisoners he was rescuing.
E) They "creatively opposed" the film as a form of resistance to the world system.

Question 13

Because our planet's climate is always changing, the key question becomes, how much of global warming is caused by human activities versus natural climate variability? On this issue, most scientists agree that the causes are mainly

A) evolutionary.
B) ecological.
C) anthropogenic.
D) moral.
E) indigenized.

Question 14

In 1989, a military government seized power in the Sudan. This resulted in which of the following?

A) The Sudan now has no more tribal religions, because everyone has converted to either Christianity or Islam.
B) The Sudan is now the largest country in Papua New Guinea.
C) The Sudanese government adopted a policy of cultural imperialism.
D) The Sudan has little ethnic or religious diversity.
E) The Sudanese government has institutionalized cargo cults.

Question 15

________ refers to the rapid spread or advance of one culture at the expense of others, or its imposition on other cultures.

A) Diasporation
B) Symbolic domination
C) Cultural imperialism
D) Conquest
E) Colonialism

Question 16

Although locals may create a new religion, on a global scale religious change is more commonly the result of

A) a local community's rejection of their traditional beliefs.
B) the increased popularity of telenovelas.
C) the diffusion of attractive intervention philosophies.
D) missionaries and proselytizers representing the major world religions.
E) multinational corporations that collaborate with local religions to establish markets.

Question 17

Which of the following is NOT one of the possible consequences experienced after the "shock phase" of an encounter between indigenous societies and more powerful outsiders?

A) increased mortality
B) a broad-spectrum revolution
C) fragmentation of kin groups
D) damaged social support systems
E) disrupted subsistence

Question 18

Cultural meaning is

A) imposed by a text.
B) locally created.
C) inherent in a text.
D) produced by a text, not from it.
E) determined only by the author.

Question 19

The Handsome Lake religion

A) led the Iroquois Indians to reject European farming techniques and therefore avoid ethnocide.
B) was compatible with the Iroquois' stress on female over male labor.
C) led the Iroquois to adopt communal longhouses.
D) was a revitalization movement that helped the Iroquois survive in a drastically modified environment.
E) involved the adoption of matrilineal descent groups that protected the Iroquois from cultural extinction.

Question 20

Deforestation is a global concern. Forest loss can lead to increased greenhouse gas production, which contributes to global warming. The destruction of tropical forests also is a major factor in the loss of global biodiversity. The global scenarios of deforestation include all of the following EXCEPT

A) demographic pressure, from births or immigration, on subsistence economies.
B) commercial logging and road building.
C) cash cropping.
D) the intensification of foraging lifestyles among communities that have retreated from the chaos of modern life.
E) fuel needs associated with urban expansion.

Question 21

Which of the following statements about the globalization of risk is correct?

A) Rebroadcasting risk in the media magnifies risk perception.
B) Concern about risk is less developed in groups that are less endangered by those risks.
C) Brazil has fewer unregulated ecological hazards than the U.S. does.
D) Across Brazil, Brazilians are universally aware of environmental risks.
E) Risks tend to be only local or regional, and not global concerns.

Question 22

One of the challenges that environmental anthropologists face is that risk perception is rarely related to actions that can reduce threat to the environment.

Question 23

Worldwide, concern about environmental and technological risks is more developed in groups that are less endangered by those risks.

Question 24

Identities are

A) fixed by both genotype and phenotype.
B) never dependent on context.
C) not fixed; they are fluid and multiple.
D) fictions.
E) creative constructs and therefore of little real consequence.

Question 25

As a vehicle of change, religious proselytizing is a culturally neutral factor.

Question 26

The last 30 years have seen a dramatic shift in the conditions of indigenous peoples in Latin America, where the drive by indigenous peoples for self-identification has emphasized all of the following EXCEPT

A) political reforms involving a restructuring of the state.
B) their cultural distinctiveness.
C) their autochthony, with an implicit call for excluding strangers from their communities.
D) territorial rights and access to natural resources, including control over economic development.
E) reforms of military and police powers over indigenous peoples.

Question 27

Ethnoecology is any society's set of environmental practices and perceptions-that is, its cultural model of the environment and its relation to people and society.

Question 28

Unlike "indigenous peoples," what term, which highlights the prominence that the exclusion of strangers has assumed in day-to-day politics worldwide, has been claimed by majority groups in Europe?

A) indigenous people
B) autochthon
C) mestizo
D) euroindio
E) freedom fighter

Question 29

In Spanish-speaking Latin America, social scientists and politicians favor which term over indio (Indian), the colonial term that the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors used to refer to the native inhabitants of the Americas?

A) indígena (indigenous person)
B) civilian
C) citizen
D) cultural patrimony
E) autochthon

Question 30

Although acculturation can be applied to any case of cultural contact and change, the term most often has described Westernization, the positive influence of Western expansion that has spread democratic and capitalistic values to those less fortunate.

Question 31

________ describes the process of viewing an identity as established, real, and frozen, so as to hide the historical processes and politics within which that identity developed.

A) Essentialism
B) Marketing
C) Autochthony
D) Patrimony
E) Fluidity

Question 32

Radiative forcings work to warm and cool the earth. If these didn't exist, there would be no global warming.

Question 33

The spread of environmentalism may expose radically different notions about the rights and values of plants and animals versus humans. Fortunately, it is clear to everyone that certain animal rights trump other rights.

Question 34

Although anthropologists may be interested in contemporary global issues such as climate change, their perspective is necessarily limited to the local scale of their fieldwork.

Question 35

Contemporary, applied ecological anthropologists work to plan and implement policies aimed at environmental preservation. They also advocate for people who are at risk, actually or potentially. One of the roles for today's environmental anthropologist is to assess the extent and nature of risk perception and to harness that awareness to combat environmental degradation.

Question 36

When people are asked to give up the basis of their livelihood, they usually comply, especially if they are paid money.

Question 37

Scientists prefer the term climate change to global warming. The former term points out that, beyond rising temperatures, there have been changes in sea levels, precipitation, storms, and ecosystem effects.

Question 38

Social movements worldwide have adopted which term as a self-identifying and political label based on past oppression but now legitimizing a search for social, cultural, and political rights?

A) indio
B) indigenous people
C) mestizo
D) autochthon
E) freedom fighter

Question 39

________ refers to the blurring and breakdown of established canons-rules, standards, categories, distinctions, and boundaries.

A) Chaos
B) Entropy
C) Postmodern
D) Agoraphobia
E) Diaspora

Question 40

Development projects usually fail when they try to replace indigenous institutions with culturally alien concepts.

Question 41

Mass media can play an important role is constructing and maintaining national and ethnic identities.

Question 42

Cultural forces are indigenized when native traditions are presented to and appreciated by the former colonialists, who acknowledge these forces as indigenous or native.

Question 43

Identities are not fixed; they are fluid and multiple. People seize on particular, sometimes competing, self-labels and identities, depending on context.

Question 44

Globalization promotes intercultural communication, migration, and commerce, thereby increasing the opportunities for what the text describes as postmodern moments.

Question 45

The term indigenous people gained legitimacy within international law with the creation in 1982 of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations.

Question 46

Social movements worldwide have adopted the term indigenous people as a self-identifying and political label based on past oppression but are now legitimizing it in the search for social, cultural, and political rights.

Question 47

In Latin America, the drive by indigenous peoples for self-identification has emphasized their autochthony, with an implicit call for excluding strangers from their communities.

Question 48

Modern technology plays an important role in both facilitating cultural imperialism and resisting it.

Question 49

Postmodernism refers to the breakdown of traditional categories, standards, and boundaries in favor of a more fluid, context-dependent set of identities.

Question 50

Diaspora refers to the hegemonic policy of dominators to isolate individuals who publicly resist from the rest of the population.

Question 51

What is a text, and how does its reading relate to the role of the individual in popular culture?

Question 52

How can the perspective of an ethnographer, who carries out research at the local level of communities, contribute to large-scale environmental concerns such as climate change and deforestation?

Question 53

What are some of the arguments for and against the interpretation of the mass media as forms of cultural imperialism?

Question 54

Essentialism describes the process of viewing an identity as established, real, and frozen, so as to hide the historical processes and politics within which that identity developed.

Question 55

TV programming that is culturally alien tends to outperform native programming when the alien programming comes from the United States, Great Britain, and France.

Question 56

Forces influencing production and consumption are no longer restricted by national boundaries.

Question 57

How have recent movements regarding the politics of identity with regard to indigenous peoples varied around the world?

Question 58

What is the difference between postmodernity and postmodernism? How has postmodernity affected the units of anthropological study?

Question 59

The 2008 global economic crisis emphasized the interconnected nature of people's livelihoods all over the world. This chapter featured the predicament of Brazilian immigrants in the United States. How did the economic downturn, among other factors, affect their decision to return to Brazil? How has it affected you, your family, and your community?

Question 60

What is environmental anthropology? What can be its contribution to addressing environmental threats around the world?

Question 61

How have indigenous movements, political mobilization, and identity politics affected ethnography?