Ch3 Ethnography Test Bank

Chapter 3 Test Bank

Multiple Choice

1. Cultural anthropologists do research by
   1. building trusting relationships with people over a long period of time.
   2. gathering data to produce statistical models.
   3. focusing on single dimensions of people's lives.
   4. studying economic data.
2. Which of the following is the defining methodology of the discipline of anthropology?
   1. Fieldnotes
   2. Fieldwork
   3. Observation
   4. Interviews
3. Anthropological fieldwork would not involve
   1. speaking through a state-provided interpreter.
   2. becoming involved in people's lives.
   3. excavating sites without written documents.
   4. statistical analysis of gendered distributions of labor.
4. Anthropologists deploy the method of ethnohistory to
   1. provide state officials a verifiable history of a particular community or group.
   2. use purely archival documents in their research.
   3. study cultural change in periods for which a community had no written histories.
   4. blend quantitative and qualitative data to produce a concise timeline for the development of a particular community.
5. The people anthropologists gather data from are called
   1. partners.
   2. employees.
   3. informants.
   4. subjects.
6. Which of the following terms refers to the knowledge about other people that emerges from relationships?
   1. Objective
   2. Subjective
   3. Intersubjective
   4. Ethnographic
7. An anthropologist interested in a cultural insider’s perspective on that insider’s culture is seeking
   1. an emic perspective.
   2. tunnel vision.
   3. an etic perspective.
   4. primary sources.
8. The comparative method
   1. compares cognate words in different languages.
   2. focuses on one society over a long period of time.
   3. uses data from many different societies.
   4. emphasizes statistical regressions.
9. Multisited ethnography is an example of which method?
   1. Action research
   2. Geographical method
   3. Comparative method
   4. Ethnohistory
10. Which method is an extended conversation that can shed light on how social institutions change over time?
    1. Ethnohistory
    2. Genealogy
    3. Etic interviews
    4. Life histories
11. Research committed to making social change and improving the lives of marginalized people is called
    1. rapid appraisal.
    2. development anthropology.
    3. action anthropology.
    4. participant observation.
12. An important ethical concern for anthropologists is to
    1. protect their informants.
    2. protect the ethnographic data.
    3. protect the first amendment.
    4. protect themselves.
13. Anthropology is a discipline that relies on
    1. primary materials.
    2. secondary material.
    3. both primary and secondary materials.
    4. neither primary nor secondary materials.
14. A word that best describes participant observation is
    1. easy.
    2. comfortable.
    3. unstructured.
    4. obvious.
15. Which of the following is a piece of primary materials?
    1. Archival documents
    2. Fieldnotes
    3. Newspaper articles
    4. Court transcripts
16. Anthropologists and journalists are similar in which of the following ways?
    1. Both have constitutional protections that allow them to conceal their sources.
    2. Their data come directly from daily involvement.
    3. Their first priority is to “do no harm.”
    4. Both interview people to learn what is happening in the community.
17. This type of interaction may include playing basketball, cooking, dining, or having coffee with informants.
    1. Unstructured interviewing
    2. Structured interviewing
    3. Open-ended interviewing
    4. Participant observation
18. A central technique involved in an informal, open-ended interview is to
    1. make sure you ask questions from the printed script exactly as they are written.
    2. figure out the main goal of the interview ahead of time.
    3. allow questions to emerge in the course of the interview.
    4. hang out.
19. Using life history interviews, researchers are able to
    1. detect genetic traits linked to disease.
    2. what myths society tells its members.
    3. what plants are used for.
    4. understand how a person's age affects his or her role in the community.
20. An important element required for successful “rapid appraisal” data collection is
    1. a parachute.
    2. a good translator.
    3. good general knowledge of the area/topic being studied.
    4. a comfortable armchair.
21. The purpose of field notes is to
    1. provide written records of information that an anthropologist collects.
    2. avoid collecting personal information about informants.
    3. engage in deep analysis of the data.
    4. record results from blood samples.
22. When anthropologists go into the field, they
    1. go as a completely clean slate, without reading anything about the topic beforehand.
    2. never change the focus of their question to fit what they are seeing.
    3. seek to interrupt the flow of everyday life.
    4. go with a set of questions they want to ask and have answered.
23. Action anthropology is
    1. done by development agents.
    2. avoids issues related to social justice.
    3. an approach that includes the communities it is studying to participate in the research.
    4. no longer practiced in anthropology.
24. Ethical issues facing ethnographers include all of the following except
    1. ensuring informant confidentiality.
    2. leaving the community unchanged.
    3. controlling and protecting access to fieldnotes.
    4. being open about their research.
25. An anthropologist might consider doing “anthropology at a distance” because
    1. he or she has ample research funding to go into other field sites.
    2. statistical evidence suggests that participant observation is unnecessary.
    3. there is little data about the field site produced by others.
    4. there is conflict or violence in the field site.
26. Which method is least likely to be used by a cultural anthropologist studying tuberculosis in a small community?
    1. Drawing blood from informants to analyze the exact strain of the virus
    2. Observing the intake practices at a local clinic
    3. Speaking with individuals with tuberculosis
    4. Reading local media coverage of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases
27. Which method would be best when doing a study on the genetic propensity for cancer in a given population?
    1. Ethnohistory
    2. Ethnoscience
    3. Comparative method
    4. Genealogical method
28. If you wanted to let informants discuss a topic and make connections to other issues in that process, what kind of interviews should you conduct?
    1. Open-ended interview
    2. Survey interview
    3. Casual interview
    4. Structured interview
29. Which project would be best suited to rapid appraisal?
    1. A study of landscape change
    2. A study of community response to a disaster
    3. A study of how people become religious leaders
    4. A study of marriage practices
30. If you wanted to study patterns of kin relations in a community, which method would you use?
    1. Comparative method
    2. Genealogical method
    3. Ethnohistory
    4. Action anthropology
31. If you were designing a participatory action research study on immigrant rights in your community, who should be doing the bulk of the investigation, analysis, and planning?
    1. You
    2. Immigrant rights lawyers
    3. Immigrants
    4. Social workers
32. An anthropologist who practices participatory-action research would most likely use this method in a study of
    1. top managers at General Motors.
    2. medical practitioners in a hospital.
    3. kinship relations among middle-class families in India.
    4. a low-income neighborhood where a toxic waste dump is located.
33. A(n) __________ interview is designed so that questions can emerge during the interview itself.
    1. rapid appraisal
    2. informal, open-ended
    3. participant observation
    4. guided
34. An emic perspective refers to a(n) __________ perspective.
    1. cultural outsider’s
    2. cultural insider’s
    3. expert
    4. layperson’s
35. In which project would an anthropologist be most likely to use rapid appraisal?
    1. A community response to a typhoon
    2. A shift to democracy in a small nation
    3. The building of medical infrastructure to serve people with mental health issues
    4. A language revitalization program
36. An anthropologist who is learning how to do laundry on the farm with his or her informants is doing
    1. open-ended interviews.
    2. participant observation.
    3. cultural domain analysis.
    4. quantitative data.
37. A focused research strategy aimed at obtaining research questions within a month or two is called
    1. longitudinal data.
    2. latitudinal data.
    3. rapid appraisal anthropology.
    4. action-oriented research.
38. Which of the following is an example of the comparative method?
    1. Comparing life histories from two different age groups in a given community
    2. Multisited fieldwork
    3. Using both primary and secondary material
    4. Deploying multiple theories in analyzing data and comparing the final results
39. Which kind of data would be least important to a cultural anthropologist?
    1. Genetic sequencing
    2. Archival documents
    3. Oral histories
    4. Kinship charts
40. If an anthropologist was interested in doing participatory action research, what would be a driving force in their research goals?
    1. The input of the subjects of the research project
    2. The economic impact of the project
    3. The popular appeal of the project
    4. The statistical significance of the resulting data

True/False

1. To study culture one must travel to distant, far-off places.
2. True
3. False
4. Cultural anthropology is one of the most quantitative of the social sciences.
   1. True
   2. False
5. Anthropologists do not consider unstructured, casual conversations to be data.
   1. True
   2. False
6. Anthropologists cannot write about areas where there is social conflict or war because they do not have access to any information.
   1. True
   2. False
7. Fieldnotes are usually written on the spot, not after the fact.
   1. True
   2. False
8. Anthropologists believe that the “native point of view” is better than their own.
   1. True
   2. False
9. Anthropologists use just three methods—interviews, field notes, and participant observation.
   1. True
   2. False
10. A critical reason for taking fieldnotes is that there may be a long lag time between fieldwork and writing and publishing about it.
    1. True
    2. False
11. Anthropology is different from journalism because journalists' data are protected by law.
    1. True
    2. False
12. Long-term immersion in a community is called ethnography.
    1. True
    2. False
13. Participant observation is a key element of anthropological fieldwork because it is a systematic research strategy of “just hanging out.”
    1. True
    2. False
14. Systematic conversations with informants to collect data are called interviews.
    1. True
    2. False
15. Open-ended questions encourage informants to talk about what they find particularly meaningful.
    1. True
    2. False
16. Bronislaw Malinowski developed the ethnohistoric method, which requires the researcher to live with people for years in order to develop the “native's point of view.”
    1. True
    2. False
17. A survey is when anthropologists enter into a community for a few weeks to collect focused data.
    1. True
    2. False

Short Answer

1. What are the primary benefits of using the comparative method? Give an example of a project in which you might employ it.
2. Of all the research techniques anthropologists have at their disposal, which one(s) might you use to study how politicians make decisions in Washington, DC?
3. If you wanted to conduct ethical research on a vulnerable population, such as undocumented migrant workers, what issues would you be especially concerned about?
4. Why is using different methodologies to collect different types of data important for anthropologists?
5. How do you think a researcher might combine two different ethnographic research techniques within one study?
6. Are there some projects that are better suited to ethnographic research methods than others? If so, give an example and explain why. If not, why not?
7. What are some of the dilemmas facing anthropologist of their own society, and how do they deal with those dilemmas?
8. How does fieldwork help anthropologists decipher the “informal logic of everyday life”?
9. Discuss the advantages and dilemmas of using the ethnographic method.
10. What are the ethical concerns that anthropologists have to face when doing their research?

Short Answer Key

1. What are the primary benefits of using the comparative method? Give an example of a project in which you might employ it.
   1. What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?
   2. Since the beginning of the discipline, anthropologists have used the comparative method, which involves systematic comparison of data from two or more societies (see Chapter 1). The first American anthropologist, Lewis Henry Morgan, for example, sent letters to people all over the world requesting lists of kinship terms in local languages. From these scattered reports he conducted a comparative study of kinship terminologies around the world, which he published as Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871). Early anthropologists also used comparative data to establish models of how they believed the cultures of modern Europe had evolved from so-called primitive societies.
2. Of all the research techniques anthropologists have at their disposal, which one(s) might you use to study how politicians make decisions in Washington, DC?
3. What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?
4. Although participant observation and unstructured, open-ended interviews are the core research methods for cultural anthropologists, some projects require additional strategies to understand social complexity and the native’s point of view. Some of the most important of these methods include the ones we review here: the comparative method; the genealogical method; life histories; ethnohistory; rapid appraisals; action research; anthropology at a distance; and analyzing secondary materials. While these methods were largely developed to help anthropologists gain insight into cultures very different from their own, they can also be useful to researchers studying their own societies. As we will see, however, anthropologists working in familiar settings must make an extra effort to approach those settings from a fresh perspective.
5. If you wanted to conduct ethical research on a vulnerable population, such as undocumented migrant workers, what issues would you be especially concerned about?
6. What Unique Ethical Dilemmas Do Ethnographers Face?
7. All anthropologists, nevertheless, face certain common ethical dilemmas, no matter where they conduct their research. These dilemmas often arise in relation to anthropologists’ commitment to do no harm, considerations about to whom anthropologists are responsible, and questions about and who should control anthropology’s findings. Here we explore how such issues play out in the specific context of ethnographic research.
8. Why is using different methodologies to collect different types of data important for anthropologists?
9. What Distinguishes Ethnographic Fieldwork from Other Types of Social Research?
10. Social scientists gather data or information about human beings and the social, economic, political, and psychological worlds they inhabit. Their methods are either quantitative (e.g., statistical) or qualitative (e.g., descriptive and interpretive). Although most anthropologists use at least some quantitative data, cultural anthropology is the most qualitative of the social sciences. Anthropological methods also emphasize holism, or paying systematic attention to all aspects of social life simultaneously, not simply a single dimension of people’s lives, such as economic, political, psychological, or religious dimensions. Also important are long-term immersion and participation in a community (for a year or more), as well as an open mind, which yield insights we would never achieve had we started with preconceived ideas about the relationships among social, economic, political, and religious institutions.
11. How do you think a researcher might combine two different ethnographic research techniques within one study?
12. How Do Anthropologists Actually Do Ethnographic Fieldwork?
13. In cultural anthropology, fieldwork is more than a matter of simply collecting data. It is a core practice that integrates the primary philosophical elements of the discipline—especially a commitment to holism, cultural relativism, and ethical behavior—into a single frame of inquiry. Fieldwork relies less on a set of prescribed technical procedures or formulas than it does on a range of skills and techniques an anthropologist can draw on, depending on the context. At the heart of this approach to creating data and knowledge are participant observation, interviews, and note-taking.
14. Are there some projects that are better suited to ethnographic research methods than others? If so, give an example and explain why. If not, why not?
15. What Distinguishes Ethnographic Fieldwork from Other Types of Social Research?
16. We call this long-term immersion in a community fieldwork. It is the defining methodology of the discipline. During fieldwork, anthropologists become involved in people’s daily lives, observe and ask questions about what they are doing, and record those observations. Long-term immersion is critical to the method, generating insights we would not have if we simply visited the community a few hours a day, to administer a survey or questionnaire, or to conduct a brief interview. As virtually every anthropologist will tell you, people may say one thing but then go and do something completely different. Sticking around helps us put what people say in context.
17. Fieldwork also helps us decipher the implicit assumptions people make and the tacit rules they live by, which Clifford Geertz (1973) once described as “the informal logic of everyday life.” Most law-abiding Americans, for example, might assume that internet hacktivists are criminals with a set of values that differs from their own, but Coleman’s long-term involvement with them suggests a more complicated picture, such as a willingness to stand up for the weak by challenging unjust laws and institutions. By participating directly in community activities, we can observe what is important to the community, what community members discuss among themselves, and how these matters intertwine with social institutions. This approach yields insights about people’s behaviors, actions, and ideas that they themselves might not notice or understand.
18. What are some of the dilemmas facing anthropologist of their own society, and how do they deal with those dilemmas?
19. What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?
20. An important reason anthropologists can understand other cultures is that when we go overseas or work with a community different from our own, the differences between our culture and theirs are immediately obvious. The effect of being a proverbial “fish out of water,” struggling to make sense of seemingly senseless actions, heightens our sensitivities to the other society’s culture. These sensitivities allow us to ask questions and eventually understand what seems obvious to members of the other community. What happens if we try to do this work within our own society?
21. How does fieldwork help anthropologists decipher the “informal logic of everyday life”?
22. What Distinguishes Ethnographic Fieldwork from Other Types of Social Research?
23. We call this long-term immersion in a community fieldwork. It is the defining methodology of the discipline. During fieldwork, anthropologists become involved in people’s daily lives, observe and ask questions about what they are doing, and record those observations. Long-term immersion is critical to the method, generating insights we would not have if we simply visited the community a few hours a day, to administer a survey or questionnaire, or to conduct a brief interview. As virtually every anthropologist will tell you, people may say one thing but then go and do something completely different. Sticking around helps us put what people say in context.
24. Fieldwork also helps us decipher the implicit assumptions people make and the tacit rules they live by, which Clifford Geertz (1973) once described as “the informal logic of everyday life.” Most law-abiding Americans, for example, might assume that internet hacktivists are criminals with a set of values that differs from their own, but Coleman’s long-term involvement with them suggests a more complicated picture, such as a willingness to stand up for the weak by challenging unjust laws and institutions. By participating directly in community activities, we can observe what is important to the community, what community members discuss among themselves, and how these matters intertwine with social institutions. This approach yields insights about people’s behaviors, actions, and ideas that they themselves might not notice or understand.
25. Discuss the advantages and dilemmas of using the ethnographic method.
26. What Distinguishes Ethnographic Fieldwork from Other Types of Social Research?
27. Social scientists gather data or information about human beings and the social, economic, political, and psychological worlds they inhabit. Their methods are either quantitative (e.g., statistical) or qualitative (e.g., descriptive and interpretive). Although most anthropologists use at least some quantitative data, cultural anthropology is the most qualitative of the social sciences. Anthropological methods also emphasize holism, or paying systematic attention to all aspects of social life simultaneously, not simply a single dimension of people’s lives, such as economic, political, psychological, or religious dimensions. Also important are long-term immersion and participation in a community (for a year or more), as well as an open mind, which yield insights we would never achieve had we started with preconceived ideas about the relationships among social, economic, political, and religious institutions.
28. What are the ethical concerns that anthropologists have to face when doing their research?
29. What Unique Ethical Dilemmas Do Ethnographers Face?
30. All anthropologists, nevertheless, face certain common ethical dilemmas, no matter where they conduct their research. These dilemmas often arise in relation to anthropologists’ commitment to do no harm, considerations about to whom anthropologists are responsible, and questions about and who should control anthropology’s findings. Here we explore how such issues play out in the specific context of ethnographic research.