Question 1

How have anthropologists tried to bring evolution into the study of human culture? Have these approaches succeeded, or failed? Why? Do you see any way in which evolution and culture could be united into a broad and effective explanatory paradigm?

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Question 2

Provide a brief account of the history of theory in the discipline. Does this account support the view that much of the history of anthropology has been about the roles and relative prominence of culture?

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Question 3

Recalling Chapter 2, on culture, and after reading this brief historical account of anthropological theory, what do you think is the relationship between individuals and culture?

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Question 4

What advantages might a project that combines both quantitative and qualitative techniques have over one that utilizes only one or the other? What research situation might be best suited to such a combined strategy?

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Question 5

What do you think is the relation between theory and methods in anthropology, if they relate at all?

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Question 6

Anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn (1944) saw a key public service role for anthropology. In his words, it could provide a "scientific basis for dealing with the crucial dilemma of the world today: how can peoples of different appearance, mutually unintelligible languages, and dissimilar ways of life get along peaceably together." Anthropologists also have made and continue to make a dramatic impact on people's welfare as they cope with crises such as the January 2010 Haiti earthquake. What are some examples of this?

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Question 7

What advantages do you see in ethnographic research techniques? What are the advantages for survey techniques? Which one would you choose, and what would that choice depend on?

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Question 8

What is the genealogical method, and why did it develop in anthropology?

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Question 9

In today's world in which people, images, and information move as never before, people simultaneously experience the local and the global. Explain what this means and consider its implications for methods in cultural anthropology.

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Question 10

What is Project Minerva? What about the Human Terrain System? What concerns have these Pentagon programs raised among anthropologists? In your view, what role (if any) should academics play in national security?

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Quiz 13: Method and Theory in Cultural Anthropology