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Anthropology 1100 – Final Exam Study Guide – Thursday, December 9 at 12:00 pm
Your final exam will be 100 questions. These questions will be multiple choice and true/false. You
will have 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete the exam. Please remember to bring a number 2 pencil
with you to class. To help you study for the exam, it would be most helpful for you to primarily focus
on the long version of the PowerPoint lectures and/or my Word lecture notes that I have posted online
at http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/kostuj/a1100pres.htm. Many students also find that creating
flashcards with terms on one side and definitions on the other helps them memorize the material for the
exam. Please let me know if you have any questions!
Miller - Chapter 6 (Kinship and Domestic Life)
 What is kinship? What are some of kinship’s functions?
 What is family?
 What is a kinship system?
 What is the difference between a family and a household?
 What is bilateral descent?
 In what types of societies is bilateral descent most common?
 What is unilineal descent?
 What is patrilineal descent?
 What is matrilineal descent?
 The Minankabau have what type of descent system?
 What is patrilocal, matrilocal, and neolocal? What types of descent are each usually associated
with?
 What is marriage? What are some of marriage’s functions?
 What is an incest taboo?
 What is the difference between endogamy and exogamy?
 What is the difference between dowry and brideprice/bridewealth?
 What is the difference between monogamy and polygamy? Which is the most common form of
marriage cross-culturally?
 Is polygamy/polygyny advantageous only for men?
 What is a household? What is the difference between a household and a family?
 What is the difference between a nuclear family and an extended family?
 What type of descent is declining due to colonialism and globalization?
 What are some contemporary changes in marriages and households?
Miller – Chapter 7 (Social Groups and Social Stratification)
 What is a social group?
 What are some functions of social groups?
 What is the difference between a primary social group and a secondary social group? What are
some examples of each?
 What is a friendship?
 What are clubs and fraternities?
What are countercultural groups?
 What is a youth gang?
 What is a street gang?
 What are some theories as to why individuals form street gangs?
 What is a body modification group?
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What is a work group?
What is a cooperative?
What is a self-help group?
What is social stratification?
What is status?
What are some measures by which stratified social groups may be unequal?
With what is the emergence of social stratification associated with?
What are the commonalities of social stratification systems?
What is the difference between achieved and ascribed status? What are some examples of each?
What is a social class?
What is meritocratic individualism?
What is the problem with the traditional concept of “race”?
What is racism? Is racism a cultural or biological phenomenon? Is racism found only among
several cultures, or is it found worldwide? Does having laws against racism ensure that racism in a
society is eliminated? Does racism only exist between different “races”?
What is ethnicity?
What is patriarchy?
What is matriarchy?
What is the caste system? In which country is the caste system most prevalent? Is caste an
achieved or ascribed status? Who are the untouchables/dalits?
What is civil society? Does civil society work against the state, for the state, or both?
What is an activist group? Who usually forms activist groups?
What is a new social movement? What key strategy do new social movements use to widen their
networks?
Miller – Chapter 8 (Political and Legal Systems)
 What is the type of anthropology that addresses the area of human behavior and thought related to
power?
 What is the type of anthropology that addresses issues of social order and conflict resolution crossculturally?
 What is politics?
 What is political organization?
 What features do political organizations and social groups share?
 What are the four major types of political organizations? What are the differences between them
and the characteristics of each?
 What is the difference between power, authority, and influence?
 What is the most long-standing form of political organization?
 In which type of political organization is external conflict between groups rare?
 In which types of political organization do individuals have power over others? In which type of
political system do political leaders have the most power? In which type of political system are
there a variety of full-time professionals devoted to maintaining law and order?
 In which types of political organization are there full-time political leaders?
 What are some characteristics of a successful headman/headwoman of a tribe?
 What are some characteristics of a successful chief?
 What is the form of political organization in which all people live today?
 What is the process by which people maintain orderly life in groups?
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What is the difference between norms and laws? In what type of society are norms most
prevalent? In what type of society are laws most prevalent? How does social control in smallscale societies (bands) and large-scale societies (states) differ?
What is a form of social control that includes processes of surveillance and the threat of
punishment related to maintaining social order?
With what form of political organization did prisons and the death penalty emerge?
Is the court system always successful in ensuring justice and fairness? What are the characteristics
of most people who receive the death penalty? What types of anthropologists examine the role of
law in maintaining power relationships through discrimination against such social categories as
indigenous people, women, and minorities?
In the past few decades, has political violence increasingly been enacted within states or between
states?
What is organized conflict involving group action directed against another group and involving
lethal force called?
Why has intergroup conflict not been observed among foragers?
When did warfare originate?
What are some causes of war?
In addition to physical domination, what else needs to occur for effective warfare?
What is a nation, and how does a nation differ from a state?
What is democratization? When is democratization most difficult?
Miller – Chapter 9 (Communication)
 What is communication?
 What is language?
 What is productivity?
 What is displacement?
 What are the three properties of human verbal language?
 What are focal vocabularies?
 What are gestures? Are most gestures universal or culturally specific?
 What are some types of nonverbal and embodied communication?
 What is media anthropology?
 What is critical media anthropology?
 What is the digital divide?
 What is the observer’s paradox?
 Which theory argues that language shapes culture and thought? Which theory argues that culture
shapes language?
 What is critical discourse analysis?
 What are the differences between male and female Euro-America speech?
 What is historical linguistics?
 What are language families?
 What is a logograph?
 How is writing related to the rise of the state?
 What is khipu?
 How does colonialism and nationalism influence language change?
 What is bilingualism?
 What is a pidgin?
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What is a creole?
What is the most globalized language in history?
What are the pros and cons of global languages?
What are language decay, language endangerment, and language extinction?
Approximately what percent of languages in the world today are endangered?
Why should we try to maintain or revitalize linguistic diversity?
What are some challenges facing efforts to revive or maintain local languages?
Miller – Chapter 10 (Religion)
 What is religion?
 What is a worldview?
 What is magic? What is the difference between magic and religion?
 What are animism, polytheism, and monotheism?
 Why do anthropologists no longer believe in evolutionary models of religion?
 What are some contemporary examples of magic in modern day society?
 What are some theoretical perspectives on religion? (you do not have to memorize the theorists
associated with each!)
 What is the difference between myths and doctrine?
 What is animatism?
 What is the difference between zoomorphic and anthropomorphic supernaturals?
 What is a pantheon?
 What is a ritual? What is a secular ritual?
 What is the difference between a periodic ritual and a nonperiodic ritual?
 What is a life-cycle ritual?
 What is a pilgrimage?
 What is communitas?
 What is a ritual of inversion?
 What is a sacrifice?
 Why did the Aztecs sacrifice humans?
 What are some examples of religious specialists? (shaman, priest, diviner, prophet, witch) What
are the differences between each of them?
 What is a world religion?
 What is religious syncretism? What is religious pluralism? What are the differences between
them?
 Does any world religion exist as a single, homogenous entity?
 Which two world religions believe in reincarnation and karma?
 Which two world religions believe in actively converting new members?
 Religious conflict is often focused around what?
 According the United Nations, is freedom from religious persecution a universal human right?
Miller – Chapter 11 (Expressive Culture)
 What is expressive culture?
 What is art? What types of substances and activities can be considered art?
 What is ethno-esthetics?
 What are anthropologists who study art interested in?
 What are some purposes of making art?
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What is the difference between artistic activity in foraging and state-level societies?
What are some examples of performance arts?
What is ethnomusicology?
What is theater?
How is theater and performance arts related to religion and myth?
What is the difference between architecture in foraging and state-level societies?
Decorative gardens are the products of what type of societies?
What do play and leisure have in common? And how are play and leisure different?
What do anthropologists think about in relation to play, leisure, and culture?
What does it mean to say that games and sports can be cultural microcosms? How are baseball and
football cultural microcosms?
What is one of the world’s largest leisure industries? What people do the consuming in this
industry?
What are some of tourism’s positive and negative effects on indigenous people?
What is material cultural heritage? What is intangible cultural heritage? Is the preservation of one
or both of these considered by the United Nations to be a human right?
What is people-first cultural heritage preservation?
What effects does globalization have on expressive culture? Does globalization’s influence on
expressive culture occur in only one direction?
Miller – Chapter 12 (People on the Move)
 What is migration?
 Why is migration of interest to anthropologists?
 What do anthropologists who are interested in migration study?
 What is multisited research?
 What are categories of migration based on spatial boundaries? What are categories of migration
based on reasons for moving?
 What are the differences between internal migration, international migration, and transnational
migration?
 What are the differences between labor migration, displacement, and institutional migration?
 What is the dominant form of internal migration throughout the world?
 What is the push-pull theory of labor migration?
 What are remittances?
 What is circular migration?
 What are displaced persons (involuntary migrants)? What are the major causes of population
displacement?
 What are refugees? Who make up the bulk of refugees? What special challenges do refugees face?
 What is an internally displaced person (IDP)?
 What is the fastest growing category of displaced people? What special challenges do IDPs face?
 What is development induced displacement (DID)? What special challenges do DIDs face?
 The Three Gorges Dam project is an example of which type of displacement?
 What are institutional migrants? What are some examples of institutional migrants? What special
challenges do institutional migrants face?
 What are some health risks that migrants might face?
 What is a new immigrant? What are some trends among new immigrants?
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Why did a new wave of immigration beginning in the U.S. in the 1960s?
Which country is by far the major source of foreign-born immigrants to the United States?
What is chain migration?
What characteristics do immigrants who tend to do economically well after migration typically
have?
Is it easy to generalize about an immigrant group’s experience based just on their ethnicity or
country of origin? Why or why not?
Which U.S. immigrant group is considered an immigrant success story? Why?
What are some features and challenges among Russian Jews who migrated to the U.S.?
What factors do countries consider when setting quotas for immigrants?
What is the life-boat mentality? When might working-class racism emerge?
What is the right of return? What is the difference between the theory and reality of the right of
return?
Miller – Chapter 13 (People Defining Development)
 What is development?
 What is development anthropology?
 What are the two basic processes that underlie cultural change?
 What is diffusion?
 What is acculturation? What is assimilation?
 What is a social impact assessment?
 What are the various strategies/models of development?
 What is modernization?
 What is growth-oriented development?
 What is distributional development?
 What is human development?
 What is sustainable development?
 What is the World Bank? What is its mission and methods?
 What is a grassroots approach to development?
 What is social capital?
 What is a development project?
 What is a project cycle?
 What are some common reasons for failures of development projects?
 What is sociocultural fit?
 What is the difference between traditional development anthropology and critical development
anthropology?
 What are some negative effects that development has had on indigenous people and women? In
what ways have they reacted to these challenges?
 What is the male bias in development?
 In what ways is development similar to colonialism?
 What is development aggression?
 What is a life project?