Deck 5: Making a Living

Question 1

Which of the following is a characteristic shared by most present-day foragers?

A)They primarily fish for subsistence.
B)They are wholly dependent on welfare supplied by state-level societies.
C)They live largely in isolation from food-producing neighbors and the influence of the state.
D)They live in marginal environments.
E)They adopted foraging after abandoning more advanced subsistence strategies.

Answer 1

They live in marginal environments.

Question 2

Which of the following groups are not foragers?

A)Basseri (Iran)
B)Australian aborigines
C)Mbuti (Congo)
D)Eskimos (Alaska and Canada)
E)San (Kalahari Desert)

Answer 2

Basseri (Iran)

Question 3

Which of the following statements about shifting cultivation is true?

A)It typically involves the use of draft animals.
B)It cannot support permanent villages.
C)It requires irrigation.
D)It requires cultivators to let exhausted plots of land lie fallow for several years.
E)It relies extensively on chemical fertilizers.

Answer 3

It requires cultivators to let exhausted plots of land lie fallow for several years.

Question 4

Means of production include

A)foraging, horticulture, agriculture, and pastoralism.
B)the market principle, redistribution, and reciprocity.
C)generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity.
D)kinship, descent, and marriage.
E)land, labor, and technology.

Question 5

Which of the following is found in all human societies?

A)Gender-based division of labor
B)Transhumance
C)Highly specialized technology
D)Domestication of animals for food
E)Terracing

Question 6

What kind of social unit is common among foragers?

A)Tribe
B)Chiefdom
C)Segmentary lineage
D)State
E)Band

Question 7

Which of the following is associated with horticultural systems of cultivation?

A)Intensive use of land and human labor
B)Irrigation and terracing
C)Use of draft animals
D)Location in arid areas
E)Slash-and-burn techniques

Question 8

Agricultural intensification is not associated with

A)greater ecological diversity.
B)deforestation.
C)increased regulation of interpersonal relations.
D)increased potential for conflict.
E)population growth.

Question 9

In what sense are nonindustrial economies embedded in society?

A)Nonindustrial producers do not partake in the results of their labor.
B)Nonindustrial economies have little to do with the everyday lives of people.
C)Relations of production, distribution, and consumption are social relations with economic aspects.
D)Most nonindustrial economies are strictly regulated by a government.
E)Most economic activity takes place far from home.

Question 10

Which of the following statements about agriculturalists is true?

A)They clear tracts of land they wish to use by cutting down trees and setting fire to the grass.
B)They generally work less than horticulturalists.
C)They must be nomadic to take full advantage of their land.
D)They use their land intensively and continuously.
E)Their diet is more varied than that of horticulturalists.

Question 11

What is a mode of production?

A)A postindustrial adaptive strategy, such as commercial agriculture and international mercantilism
B)The land, labor, and technology used in production
C)The way production is organized in a society
D)Technology used to produce consumer goods
E)The cultural aspects of an economy, such as changing fashions in the textile and clothing industry

Question 12

An obligatory interaction between groups or organisms that is beneficial to each is known as

A)cultivation.
B)swiddening.
C)fallowing.
D)symbiosis.
E)transhumance.

Question 13

Horticulture makes intensive use of

A)labor.
B)land.
C)machinery.
D)capital.
E)none of the factors of production.

Question 14

How does horticulture differ from agriculture?

A)The former involves the use of domesticated animals, while the latter does not.
B)Because they do not irrigate their fields, agriculturalists are more dependent on seasonal rains.
C)Agriculture frequently involves the use of terraces, while horticulture does not.
D)The former is labor intensive, while the latter is land intensive.
E)Horticulture's long-term yield is far greater and more dependable than that of agriculture.

Question 15

Which of the following is not one of the adaptive strategies included in Cohen's typology?

A)Pastoralism
B)Redistribution
C)Agriculture
D)Industrialism
E)Foraging

Question 16

Transhumance is a form of

A)horticulture.
B)pastoralism.
C)foraging.
D)agriculture.
E)reciprocity.

Question 17

When a tenant farmer gives 20 percent of his crop to his landlord, he is allocating resources to a

A)social fund.
B)subsistence fund.
C)ceremonial fund.
D)replacement fund.
E)rent fund.

Question 18

What term refers to the type of pastoral economy in which the entire group moves with the animals throughout the year?

A)Nomadism
B)Migration
C)Transhumance
D)Potlatching
E)Redistribution

Question 19

All humans were foragers until approximately

A)10 million years ago.
B)1 million years ago.
C)100,000 years ago.
D)10,000 years ago.
E)1,000 years ago.

Question 20

Which of the following is a characteristic of most foraging societies?

A)Social stratification
B)Sedentism
C)Egalitarianism
D)Irrigation
E)Large populations

Question 21

The term alienation is used to describe what phenomenon in industrial economies?

A)Peasants' loss of land
B)An increasing subculture of poverty
C)Negative reciprocity
D)The separation of workers from the things they produce
E)The great distances that separate the homes and workplaces of most people

Question 22

How does economic specialization in industrial nations differ from specialization in nonindustrial societies?

Question 23

Discuss the major differences between industrial and nonindustrial modes of production.

Question 24

When an individual gives something to someone else but expects nothing in return, this is an example of

A)balanced reciprocity.
B)positive reciprocity.
C)negative reciprocity.
D)specialized reciprocity.
E)generalized reciprocity.

Question 25

If rights to land are passed on through descent groups, what type of adaptive strategy is most likely?

A)Large-game hunting
B)Nonindustrial food producing
C)Reciprocal
D)Foraging
E)Redistribution

Question 26

When the author began researching among the Betsileo in Madagascar, why did the villagers run away from him?

A)He was associated with the schoolteachers, whom no one trusted.
B)He was traveling with his wife, and no one would talk to a woman.
C)They were afraid that he was working for the national government to take away their land.
D)They were afraid that if he took pictures of them, it would capture their souls.
E)They thought he was a vampire.

Question 27

Do people in all societies maximize? What do they maximize? Do anthropologists believe that maximization is a cultural universal? What do you think? Explain your answer.

Question 28

What is a potlatch?

A)A festive event where the sponsors give away gifts and gain prestige in return
B)A fastening device for the first pottery to keep animals out of the food
C)A harvest festival in agricultural cultures
D)A lock for the outhouse that is shaped like a pot
E)A rite of intensification to solidify group bonds

Question 29

According to Aihwa Ong, spirit possession of female factory workers in Malaysia is

A)an example of the interrelatedness of religion and economy.
B)an unconscious protest against stressful and exploitive working conditions.
C)the result of a gender-based division of labor, which is unique to Malaysian society.
D)a reflection of the workers' gratitude for having been hired.
E)an example of negative reciprocity.

Question 30

What are some of the primary differences and similarities between horticultural and foraging groups?

Question 31

What is alienation? Under what conditions is alienation more likely to occur? Less likely to occur? Why?

Question 32

Are reciprocity, redistribution, and the market principle mutually exclusive in any given society? Give examples, including contemporary North America in your answer.

Question 33

How has the Betsileo of Madagascar view of money changed since Kottak first visited them?

A)They formerly used shells for money but now use coins.
B)They did not formerly have a concept of money, but now they have a full economic system.
C)They formerly felt they had everything they needed, but now many people desire cash.
D)They formerly relied on the national government for cash payouts but are now self-sufficient.
E)They formerly wanted money for luxuries but now also need money for food.

Question 34

Anthropologists often say that nonindustrial economies are embedded in society.What is meant by this?

Question 35

Paying taxes is an example of

A)generalized reciprocity.
B)balanced reciprocity.
C)the market principle.
D)redistribution.
E)negative reciprocity.

Question 36

How is a rent fund different from a subsistence fund? Cite examples to illustrate your argument.

Question 37

Is the contrast between horticulture and agriculture one of degree or of kind? Cite ethnographic evidence to support your answer.

Question 38

Contrast generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity.How does negative reciprocity differ from the market principle?

Question 39

Which of the following is not associated with the market principle?

A)Profit motive
B)The law of supply and demand
C)Fixed values for products
D)Bargaining
E)Industrialism

Question 40

All peasants

A)produce food without elaborate technology.
B)live in industrial states.
C)are foragers.
D)sell all of the food they produce.
E)own the land that they cultivate.

Question 41

With generalized reciprocity, the individuals participating in an exchange usually do not know each other.

Question 42

Societies with the same adaptive strategy also tend to have comparable modes of production.

Question 43

The market principle, redistribution, and reciprocity are examples of adaptive strategies.

Question 44

A mode of production is a way of organizing production, whereas the means of production include land, labor, and technology.

Question 45

Although the productivity per area of agriculture is much greater, horticultural yields are more dependable in the long run.

Question 46

What is an adaptive strategy? Identify the five adaptive strategies in Cohen's typology of societies.Discuss how Cohen links economy and social features.

Question 47

Horticulture refers to low-intensity farming, including the use of slash-and-burn techniques.

Question 48

Through potlatching, food and wealth were transferred from wealthy to needy communities, while potlatch sponsors and their villages were rewarded with prestige.

Question 49

According to Kottak, people in the Betsileo village of Ivato (Madagascar) felt that they already had all they needed because they produced, rather than bought, almost everything they used.

Question 50

In nonindustrial societies, economic activities and relationships are embedded in society.

Question 51

Unlike foraging and cultivation, which existed throughout the world before the Industrial Revolution, pastoralism was confined to North America.

Question 52

Many foragers live in mobile bands that may split up during part of the year.

Question 53

In order to intensify production, agriculturalists frequently build irrigation canals and terraces.

Question 54

The market principle dominates in the economies of foraging societies.

Question 55

Agriculturalists often make use of the labor and manure of domesticated animals.

Question 56

Most modern foragers live in remote areas, completely cut off from other modern, agricultural, and industrial societies.

Question 57

Pastoralists are specialized herders whose subsistence strategies are focused on domesticated animals.

Question 58

Noam Chomsky used the term adaptive strategy to describe a society's system of economic production.

Question 59

With transhumance, the entire group moves with the animals throughout the year.

Question 60

Intensive agriculture has the benefit of increasing ecological diversity.

Question 61

Unlike industrial workers in most developing countries, female factory employees in Malaysia enjoy very good working conditions (e.g., high wages, job security, unionization).