Materiality Chapter 14 Test Bank Answers

Chapter 14 Test Bank

Multiple Choice

1. For anthropologists, materiality refers to
2. having the quality of being physical or material.
3. technologically simple objects.
4. only objects that are aesthetically pleasing.
5. American Indian objects.
6. For anthropologists the most important aspect of any object is
7. its aesthetic quality.
8. the value of the object at an auction.
9. how it emerges from and exists within a set of human social relationships.
10. how the use of its raw materials affects the environment
11. Which of the following groups is a prominent American Indian rights group founded in 1968?
12. NAGPRA
13. American Indian Movement
14. World Heritage movement
15. civil rights movement
16. Museums were the __________ place where anthropologists studied objects and art.
17. first
18. last
19. most important
20. least important
21. On the north coast of Papua New Guinea, a religious cult leader name Barjani was remembered through which object?
22. His shoes
23. His hat
24. His staff
25. His cloak
26. Research and planning aimed at identifying, interpreting, and protecting sites and artifacts of historic or prehistoric significant is
27. material culture.
28. repatriation.
29. cultural resource management.
30. alienation.
31. The idea that things have social lives refers to
32. a belief in animism because objects are often linked to particular spirits.
33. most objects that anthropologists study are either relics or sacred objects.
34. the fact that objects are deeply intertwined with people’s lives.
35. they are imbued with life via sacred ceremonies.
36. Which of the following is not a UNESCO World Heritage site?
37. The pyramids of Giza
38. Fez, Morocco
39. The New York Stock Exchange
40. Mesa Verde, Colorado
41. A key way that objects are used to manipulate people comes through
42. commodity fetishism.
43. advertising.
44. stealing and various kinds of fraud.
45. austerity.
46. Who is least likely to be involved in a cultural resource management project?
47. Archaeologists
48. Cultural anthropologists
49. Art museum curators
50. Historical society members
51. What is repatriation?
52. The return of human remains and artifacts to the communities of the people to whom the originally belonged.
53. The government allowance of restoration and maintenance on UNESCO World Heritage sties.
54. Specific, targeted advertising geared toward former consumers of a particular brand.
55. Indigenous people’s demonstration of patriotism evidenced through the display of their cultural artifacts.
56. Advertisers have trained American consumers to focus on the newest and most exciting products through their
57. constant innovations and improvements.
58. attempts to constantly frame their products as new and improved.
59. removal and destruction of old stock to make way for new products.
60. disparaging remarks about celebrities.
61. Cultural resource management experts would likely be in charge of preserving or protecting
62. a famous opera score.
63. an endangered plant species.
64. a recently discovered ancient temple.
65. a set of religious objects.
66. Just as people pass through a number of socially recognized phases of life, __________ have “careers” with recognizable phases, from their creation, exchange, and uses to their eventually being discarded.
67. objects
68. animals
69. carvers
70. beauty
71. What was a major problem for anthropologists when they were just studying objects in museum collections?
72. The objects may or may not have been genuine.
73. Museum visitors would often destroy key elements of collections.
74. The objects were viewed as isolated from their cultural context.
75. The collections were so large, it was impossible to sort through everything.
76. Which of the following is an ethnocentric reaction to African art?
77. The subject matter is too mystical to be exhibited publicly.
78. The craftsmanship is poor because Africans have no artistic skill.
79. The art is both beautiful and dramatic.
80. The pieces are fakes.
81. The changing meanings and significance that objects take over time is referred to as
82. the long durée of consumer goods.
83. historical materiality.
84. upcycling.
85. the social life of things.
86. Which of the following is not part of the career of a pair of shoes?
87. The marketing campaign created upon the shoes’ introduction to the market
88. An employee selling the shoes at a mall
89. A kid throwing out the shoes after they started to fall apart
90. A factory worker stitching the insole
91. What event prompted legislation known as NAPGPRA?
92. The destruction of an Indian burial site by private looters
93. The erection of a parking garage over an important archaeological site
94. A major protest at the American Museum of Natural History
95. The discovery of ancient cave dwellings near a pipeline construction project
96. The __________ is the most prominent Indian activist group, founded in 1968.
97. American Indian Movement
98. Indigenous Peoples’ Movement
99. Standing Rock resistance
100. Native American Rights group
101. __________ is not an example of material culture.
102. Trash
103. Religious objects
104. Medical supplies
105. Political debate
106. US anthropology began in
107. the field
108. museums
109. armchairs
110. libraries
111. The Dawes Act
112. formalized the processes for repatriation.
113. gave sovereignty to reservations.
114. allowed for lands on reservations to be sold to non-Indian owners.
115. criminalized discrimination against indigenous people.
116. What event prompted legislation known as NAPGPRA?
117. The destruction of an Indian burial site by private looters at Slack Farm
118. The erection of a parking garage over an important archaeological site
119. A major protest at the American Museum of Natural History
120. The discovery of ancient cave dwellings near a pipeline construction project
121. UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites program
122. assists with determining ownership of material culture.
123. provides financial support to maintain sites of importance to humanity.
124. was founded in 1968 by the American Indian Movement.
125. is of little importance to anthropologists.
126. The earliest engagement anthropologists had with material culture happened
127. in the flea markets of Paris, where artists like Picasso bought African art objects that inspired many of their paintings.
128. in the great palaces of Asia in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China.
129. in the gift shops of the world’s great art museums, which sold cheap examples of primitive art.
130. in museums where objects from around the world were originally seen as evidence of how primitive or civilized different societies were.
131. What is one key difference in how tribes and federal government agencies view heritage management?
132. Tribes emphasize spiritual connections to the past while government agencies see heritage resources as tangible places and things.
133. Government agencies view heritage sites as important land for future development and tribes view them as key archaeological sites.
134. Tribes often advocate for GIS mapping and technological investigation of the sites while government agencies prefer traditional archaeological methods of exploration.
135. Government agencies would prefer to hire cultural anthropologists to manage heritage sites while tribes advocate that tribal leadership should control the sites.
136. To illustrate the dimensions that all objects possess, the textbook discusses a “shiny new bicycle.” Why is this example useful to illustrate dimensionality?
137. Bicycles have been around for a while, but they are becoming an important commodity since Americans started producing them in factories again.
138. Actually, any object would do just as well, but most Americans are familiar with bicycles.
139. The latest iPhone would have been a better choice because it would emphasize the latest technology.
140. Bicycles are typically only available to the highest social classes in any society.
141. Which of the following is not a reason George Stocking was interested in objects found in museums?
142. They could tell us about the interaction between the collectors and makers of the objects.
143. They could offer a window into local symbolic systems of meaning.
144. They reflected the Western culture of mass consumption
145. They were historical archives in and of themselves.
146. Which of the following in not true about NAGPRA?
147. It requires the repatriation of human remains and artifacts found with those remains to the families of the dead individuals.
148. It requires all museums and related institutions that hold human remains or cultural objects from any native group to inform native leaders of their holdings.
149. It only covers material from American cultural groups.
150. It is part of UNESCO’s heritage sites program.
151. Why were Tahitians most interested in acquiring Europeans’ iron stores?
152. They were attracted to iron’s aesthetic value.
153. They were attracted to the abilities of iron for cutting and chopping.
154. They wished to harness some of the Europeans’ symbolic power.
155. They wished to exchange the iron with other Polynesians.
156. Which of the following is not one of the ways that objects change over time?
157. The form, shape, color, material, and use may change from generation to generation.
158. An object changes significance and meaning as its social and physical contexts change.
159. A single object changes significance and meaning as it changes hands.
160. An object always becomes less valuable and less significant as it ages and deteriorates over long periods of time.
161. Which of the following would not be considered part of material culture?
162. Earrings
163. Trash
164. Wheat fields
165. A set of steak knives
166. What does it mean to “consume” an object?
167. To boil it with salt and pepper
168. To purchase and use it
169. To desire it after viewing an advertisement
170. To recycle it once it no longer serves its function
171. What does four hundred years of skirt length data tell us about changes in manufactured objects?
172. Skirt length has always been tied to women’s propriety
173. Skirts get shorter when cloth is more expensive
174. Some manufactured objects simply change with time
175. Only the most powerful people can really drive trends
176. Just before World War II anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and Jane Richardson published one of the earliest analyses of a modern commodity, focusing in particular on women’s skirts. If you were going to build on their study by examining basketball shorts and jerseys, which of the following would you collect data about?
177. The size of men’s basketball shoes and how these are related to the average height of American men
178. How the makers of basketball jerseys have focused on primary colors
179. The length of basketball shorts from one period to another
180. The association between jersey quality and success in shooting baskets
181. If anthropologists wanted to study the United States’ culture of mass consumption, which of the following would be least important to them?
182. An antique, homemade sweater displayed in a textiles exhibit at a museum
183. A second-hand sweater purchased at a thrift shop
184. A machine-produced sweater sold at the mall
185. A hand-knit sweater available at a local arts fair
186. In which of the following cases would you be most likely to consult an expert in cultural resource management?
187. Recataloguing a sculpture collection
188. Excavating a prehistoric site
189. Planning a historical homes tour of your town
190. Curating a photography exhibit on the making of local handicrafts
191. A century ago, studies of objects were largely studies of material culture and the technology available to people living in small-scale societies with simple technologies. The modern anthropological approach to objects has
192. caused anthropologists to accept that museum collections are accurate representatives of the technologies of the time.
193. led anthropologists to recognize that objects do not change meaning over time.
194. pushed anthropologists to take a critical approach to the motives of the collectors of these early museum collections.
195. led to the removal of all objects in museums that are associated with indigenous peoples.
196. Which of the following is not an example of people using objects to legitimate their social standing?
197. Collectors displaying well-known paintings and sculptures in their homes
198. Chiefs carrying a particular staff
199. Ministers wearing clerical (clergy) collars
200. College students wearing backpacks

True/False

1. Repatriation is the act of returning human remains or cultural artifacts to the communities of descendants of the people to whom they originally belonged.
2. True
3. False
4. Anthropologists have found that people imprint themselves and their pasts onto objects.
5. True
6. False
7. The stereotype that Tahitian women were sexually promiscuous emerged almost overnight after the arrival of Captain Samuel Wallis in 1767, when Tahitians recognized that the British had steel that the crew would exchange for sexual favors.
8. True
9. False
10. The objects in a college student’s dorm room have great personal meaning for the student but may mean something entirely different to everyone else in the dormitory.
11. True
12. False
13. For the most part, anthropologists are only interested in practical objects.
14. True
15. False
16. A pair of sneakers likely means the same thing to the person who buys them and the person that sells them.
17. True
18. False
19. Most anthropologists see the consumption of an object or commodity as an antisocial act.
20. True
21. False
22. Anthropologists care about how objects are created but not really how they are discarded.
23. True
24. False
25. Objects and visual images have many things in common because both can be used to construct meaning for people.
26. True
27. False
28. Anthropologist George W. Stocking Jr., suggested that researchers should try to look at objects in several dimensions, beyond just height, width, and depth, including time, power, wealth, and aesthetics.
    1. True
    2. False
29. The social life of things refers to the changing meanings and significance that objects take on over years, decades, and even centuries.
    1. True
    2. False
30. A culture of social production is a term that refers to the cultural perspectives and social processes that shape and are shaped by how goods and services are bought, sold, and used in contemporary capitalism.
    1. True
    2. False
31. Historic preservation includes research and planning aimed at identifying, interpreting, and protecting sites and artifacts of historic or prehistoric significance.
    1. True
    2. False
32. The Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGPR) is the 1990 law that established the ownership of human remains, grave goods, and important cultural objects as belonging to the Native Americans whose ancestors once owned them.
    1. True
    2. False
33. Possessing religious symbols is a key means through which people define and express who they are.
    1. True
    2. False

Short Answer

1. How does the example of Barjani’s bowler hat illustrate that objects have “social lives”?
2. How can a bicycle be thought of as a symbolic construction?
3. If you wanted to study the influence and power of beer commercials on college students and other younger adults, who would you interview and why would you focus on this group of people?
4. Consider any object belonging to your roommate or someone down the hall from your dorm room. Explain how this object has several dimensions and how these dimensions would help you understand your subject’s outlook, goals, aspirations, and identity in the world.
5. Choose a mundane object present in your classroom and outline its “career.”
6. What role do you think the anthropology of material objects could play in how advertisers and manufacturers design and present their products to the public?
7. In what ways are objects and images powerful in shaping the way people think about themselves and their personal identities?
8. Describe the tragedy that occurred at Slack Farm and the resulting federal legislation.
9. Define and describe cultural resource management and why this field is important for the protection of histories.
10. Describe how heritage sites are protected around the world, including the Maori Meeting House at the Field Museum of Natural History.

Short Answer Key

1. How does the example of Barjani’s bowler hat illustrate that objects have “social lives”?
   1. How Should We Look at Objects Anthropologically?
   2. What sets these objects of power apart is in part their aesthetic style that establishes the objects, and by extension their owners, as important and special. But the aesthetic settings and ways in which such objects are used and displayed can also symbolically communicate the power of their owners. An interesting illustration comes from the island of Walis along the north coast of Papua New Guinea, as witnessed by Rob Welsch, one of the authors of this textbook, in 1993. A century earlier, a religious cult leader name Barjani had foretold the coming of Europeans and was believed to be a prophet. After his death, his family’s clansmen had erected a shrine for him, where people in need of supernatural assistance could leave a small amount of money or tobacco to ensure Barjani’s assistance. When Welsch and his colleague, John Terrell, went to see the shrine, they were mostly interested in the building’s historically important architectural style.
   3. The real surprise came when they climbed the small ladder to peer into Barjani’s shrine. The interior of the small shrine held a single object in a place of honor on a simple but small platform of palm leaves: an old and well-worn bowler hat. This was Barjani’s hat, an object that possessed its power from Barjani’s having worn it, but also from being the only object in the shrine. The meaning of this hat, standing out starkly in such an unexpected place, came partly from its association with Barjani and partly from his association with the foreigners he had predicted would come. In addition, the fact that it was a foreign object that few if any other Walis Islanders could have owned must have made it both exotic and valuable as a relic of this local prophet (Figure 14.4).
   4. Although Barjani’s hat is for Walis Islanders a statement about relations between themselves and powerful outsiders, it is also a window into the historical context of both their society and the changing meaning that this bowler hat has had over its century of existence. To pursue this issue further, let us consider the next question around which this chapter is organized, which is how objects change meaning over time.
2. How can a bicycle be thought of as a symbolic construction?
   1. How Should We Look at Objects Anthropologically?
   2. Objects are defined by more than their physical traits, however. Objects also embody a temporal dimension of having a past, present, and future. The shape and form of this particular object has emerged from improvements on the functions of generations of bicycles, used by generations of cyclists as a childhood toy, as an inexpensive mode of transport, for racing, or for casual weekend riding. If we think of a bicycle in the abstract, we can choose from among all of these meanings and uses of a bicycle. The particular owner of this bicycle has certain associations that come to mind when he or she thinks of a bicycle, and these associations may be quite different from cyclists who race, from mothers who pedal around the neighborhood with their children, or from bike messengers who spend their days cycling through busy urban traffic. The owner’s view of his or her bicycle may be shaped by previous bicycles he or she has owned; it may be influenced by feelings that the owner is being ecologically “green” and choosing an environmentally friendly mode of transportation. And such images shape how the owner views himself or herself today or how he or she imagines the future (Vivanco 2013).
3. If you wanted to study the influence and power of beer commercials on college students and other younger adults, who would you interview and why would you focus on this group of people?
   1. How Do Objects Help Us Shape and Express Our Goals and Aspirations?
   2. If large corporations want to survive and expand, they have to convince consumers to buy their products and not those of one of their competitors. To convince you to buy their product, they bombard you with advertising that will encourage you to think that their product is necessary for a fulfilling life and that their brand is more likely to help you reach your goals than any other brand. Advertisers proudly announce that they are simply passing on useful information to consumers, but we know that they are really trying to convince us that we need their product. We think of this ad-making as part of the process of manipulating our world through a symbolic framing or reframing of their products.
   3. Many TV commercials speak to needs that people already have, from basics like food and clothing to less essential things such as being attractive to other people. The challenge for an advertiser is to get individuals to think that its product is the better one for them. So makers of consumer goods segment their audiences, targeting their products toward particular individuals based on audience demographics, such as gender, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, and so on.
4. Consider any object belonging to your roommate or someone down the hall from your dorm room. Explain how this object has several dimensions and how these dimensions would help you understand your subject’s outlook, goals, aspirations, and identity in the world.
   1. How Should We Look at Objects Anthropologically?
   2. The dimension of time or history refers to the fact that objects in museums came from somewhere and each had an individual history. In part this asks the following: When, by whom, and how were they produced? How did they get to the museum or their current location? How have interpretations of them changed over time? The dimension of power reveals the relations of inequality reflected in objects, especially why the objects of non-Western people sit in ethnographic museums, while very few non-Western peoples have museums or repositories where local people can view Western objects. During the heyday of colonialism, European and American anthropologists collected thousands of objects from the peoples they studied. Rarely could a community know enough about how these objects might be displayed or studied to be able to give informed consent. Wealth reflects the fact that people use objects to establish and demonstrate who has wealth and social status. We have seen how American museum directors saw showy and impressive objects as being quite valuable for their museums and their museums’ reputations. Similarly, only the wealthy can typically own original examples of important early artworks. The dimension of aesthetics is reflected in the fact that each culture brings with it its own system or patterns of recognizing what is pleasing or attractive, which configurations of colors and textures are appealing, and which are not. All of these patterns, of course, change over time in the style of artworks, but also in the designs of commonplace objects like pottery (Kubler 1962).
5. Choose a mundane object present in your classroom and outline its “career.”
   1. How and Why Do the Meanings of Things Change Over Time?
   2. The idea that inanimate things have social lives is based on the assumption that things have forms, uses, and trajectories that are intertwined in complex ways with people’s lives. Just as people pass through different socially recognized phases of life, objects have “careers” (in the sense of having a course or progression) with recognizable phases, from their creation, exchange, and uses, to their eventual discard. Along the way, it is possible to identify social relationships and cultural ideologies that influence each period in this career. Across cultures, these relationships and ideologies can vary drastically.
   3. Consider a pair of running sneakers sold at a mall. This pair of sneakers may start as cotton fabric and rubber in a Chinese factory. But the shoes mean something quite different there from what they will mean to the mall salesperson, who rings up your purchase, or from what they will mean to you when you first wear them to some social event. The shoes may have aged only a few weeks from the time they were made until you wear them; the change in significance comes not from aging, but from moving from one person to another, some of whom see them as a way to make a living, while others see them as a way to look cool at a party. That pair of shoes has a complicated life, taking on meanings from the contexts it passes through and, to the sensitive observer, revealing a whole range of complex social relations in the process. And throughout it all, the same pair of shoes has changed.
6. What role do you think the anthropology of material objects could play in how advertisers and manufacturers design and present their products to the public?
   1. How Do Objects Help Us Shape and Express Our Goals and Aspirations?
   2. If large corporations want to survive and expand, they have to convince consumers to buy their products and not those of one of their competitors. To convince you to buy their product, they bombard you with advertising that will encourage you to think that their product is necessary for a fulfilling life and that their brand is more likely to help you reach your goals than any other brand. Advertisers proudly announce that they are simply passing on useful information to consumers, but we know that they are really trying to convince us that we need their product. We think of this ad-making as part of the process of manipulating our world through a symbolic framing or reframing of their products.
   3. Many TV commercials speak to needs that people already have, from basics like food and clothing to less essential things such as being attractive to other people. The challenge for an advertiser is to get individuals to think that its product is the better one for them. So makers of consumer goods segment their audiences, targeting their products toward particular individuals based on audience demographics, such as gender, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, and so on.
7. In what ways are objects and images powerful in shaping the way people think about themselves and their personal identities?
   1. How and Why Do the Meanings of Things Change Over Time?
   2. The idea that inanimate things have social lives is based on the assumption that things have forms, uses, and trajectories that are intertwined in complex ways with people’s lives. Just as people pass through different socially recognized phases of life, objects have “careers” (in the sense of having a course or progression) with recognizable phases, from their creation, exchange, and uses, to their eventual discard. Along the way, it is possible to identify social relationships and cultural ideologies that influence each period in this career. Across cultures, these relationships and ideologies can vary drastically.
   3. Consider a pair of running sneakers sold at a mall. This pair of sneakers may start as cotton fabric and rubber in a Chinese factory. But the shoes mean something quite different there from what they will mean to the mall salesperson, who rings up your purchase, or from what they will mean to you when you first wear them to some social event. The shoes may have aged only a few weeks from the time they were made until you wear them; the change in significance comes not from aging, but from moving from one person to another, some of whom see them as a way to make a living, while others see them as a way to look cool at a party. That pair of shoes has a complicated life, taking on meanings from the contexts it passes through and, to the sensitive observer, revealing a whole range of complex social relations in the process. And throughout it all, the same pair of shoes has changed.
8. Describe the tragedy that occurred at Slack Farm and the resulting federal legislation.
   1. Why Is the Ownership of Artifacts From Other Cultures a Contentious Issue?
   2. An incident in Kentucky in 1987 led to new state and federal laws that make it a felony to disturb archaeological sites on both government-owned and private lands everywhere. Anthropologists and archaeologists had been aware of an important late prehistoric site on the property known as Slack Farm near Uniontown, Kentucky, that included an intact cemetery containing more than 1,000 Indian graves, plus grave goods (pots, beads, pipes, arrowheads, and ritual artifacts). The owners of the land sold rights to dig on this site for $10,000 to a group of pot hunters, who dug up the site with abandon, leaving skeletal material and broken pots all over. The state police arrested and fined the looters on the misdemeanor charge of desecrating a venerated object (Fagan 1988; Arden 1989). This incident was so offensive to American Indian groups, anthropologists, and archaeologists that it led the Congress to pass the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA).
9. Define and describe cultural resource management and why this field is important for the protection of histories.
   1. Why Is the Ownership of Artifacts From Other Cultures a Contentious Issue?
   2. In response to the legislation introduced in the past few decades, the need for specialists who can study the architecture and cultural significance of historic sites has grown. All of these efforts are often referred to as cultural resource management (CRM), which is a form of applied anthropology. CRM’s goal is to protect and manage the cultural resources of every community, especially important historic and prehistoric sites and structures. Much of what CRM does is document and interpret historic and prehistoric sites and structures for living communities. The vast majority of archaeological work in the Americas and around the world is done by contract archaeologists, and CRM has become a major focus for those seeking careers in archaeology. But a growing number of applied cultural anthropologists are working in the CRM field with historic and cultural sites and materials. And most communities have an historical society, historic district, or heritage commission that regularly hires consultants to interpret historical and cultural resources in their towns and cities.
10. Describe how heritage sites are protected around the world, including the Maori Meeting House at the Field Museum of Natural History.
    1. Why Is the Ownership of Artifacts From Other Cultures a Contentious Issue?
    2. Many countries have implemented legislation and programs of their own to recognize and protect historic sites, and most governments support UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites ­program, which provides financial support to maintain sites of importance to humanity. The majority of the 814 cultural heritage sites currently recognized by UNESCO’s program have played a key role in human history. Five of them are sites where early fossil hominids have been found in Africa, China, and Australia. Others are key archaeological sites such as the pyramids of Giza and the temples and palaces of Ancient Thebes in Egypt, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Chichén Itzá in Mexico, Mesa Verde in Colorado, and the moai statues on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), all of which are typical of what we often think of as ancient historic and prehistoric sites. Many others are historic cities like Fez in Morocco.
    3. At the heart of any Maori community in New Zealand is a meeting house where rituals, business, and other important community processes take place. Meeting houses have elaborately carved images in their posts and ridge poles, which not only symbolize a Maori family’s ancestry, but embody the spirits of these ancestors as well.
    4. In 1905, The Field Museum in Chicago purchased a nearly complete meeting house named Ruatepupuke [roo-ah-tay-pah-poo-kay] that originally came from Tokomaru Bay, New Zealand. The museum bought it from a European curio dealer who had convinced one member of the family to sell this house. The structure had been quietly and quickly dismantled and shipped overseas. For the Maori family, this was a shameful act that amounted to selling off their ancestors.