Sustainability Verified Test Bank Chapter 6

Chapter 6 Test Bank

Multiple Choice

1. Anthropologists study the diversity of diets, the complex interactions between nutrition and the environment, cultural beliefs surrounding food, and political and economic processes, meaning that they study food
   1. ethnocentrically.
   2. structurally.
   3. indifferently.
   4. holistically.
2. People who study the effects of global economic changes on human–nature relationships and the impact of sustainable development initiatives on certain groups are __________ anthropologists.
   1. Medical
   2. Environmental
   3. Naturalist
   4. Environmental
3. According to Itzaj beliefs,
   1. humans and nature exist in the same realm.
   2. humans and nature exist in separate realms.
   3. water is the elixir of life.
   4. cutting down trees brings good luck.
4. What relationship between nature and human does Western thought emphasize?
   1. Complementary
   2. Oppositional
   3. Close
   4. Respectful
5. Mary Douglas compared food’s structure in society with _______________ and a formal dinner with a _______________.
   1. theater; play
   2. music; opera
   3. language; sentence
   4. sports; game
6. Eating practices are
   1. unique to each culture, and rarely show similarities across cultures.
   2. disconnected from political and economic processes in a society.
   3. influenced only by elders in a society.
   4. marked by identities such as gender, age, and ethnic group.
7. Obesity and overweight are effects of
8. the Green Revolution.
9. biotechnology.
10. nutrition transition.
11. intensive agriculture.
12. Foodways are subject to large-scale industrial processes, trade relationships, and trends, suggesting that they are
    1. stable.
    2. irrational.
    3. isolated.
    4. dynamic.
13. Which mode of subsistence includes the search for edible things?
    1. Foraging
    2. Horticulture
    3. Pastoralism
    4. Intensive agriculture
14. Food security refers to
    1. protecting food from contamination.
    2. access to sufficient nutritious food to be healthy and active.
    3. government subsidies to agriculture to ensure a steady food supply.
    4. providing food to all people equally.
15. Traditional ecological knowledge is
    1. rarely shared in local languages.
    2. not useful in the contemporary world.
    3. extremely valued by Westerners.
    4. not well known in the West because some species and ecological interactions exist in only one place.
16. A process that increases yields and includes prepping soil, technology, a large labor force, water management, and plant and soil modification is
    1. transhumance.
    2. industrialization.
    3. intensification.
    4. localization.
17. What is “fortress conservation”?
    1. The protection of old walled cities, castles, and forts
    2. an approach to conservation that assumes that people are threatening to nature
    3. An approach to conservation that allows for human–animal interaction
    4. An approach to national parks that includes building high-security fences and walls for protection
18. One of the primary reasons indigenous leaders criticize the dominant model for administering protected environmental areas is
    1. they don’t allow big-game hunting.
    2. they assume nature must be uninhabited by people.
    3. they don’t charge enough to visitors for entering the area.
    4. they focus too much on integrating animals.
19. Throughout human history, humans have tended to adapt to the land in a way that is supportive of population size, a practice referred to as
    1. climate change.
    2. environmental determinism.
    3. cultural relativism.
    4. carrying capacity.
20. Which of the following reasons explains why a collaborative approach to conservation can be so challenging?
    1. Scientists and conservationists are often skeptical of indigenous knowledge claims.
    2. Indigenous communities do not have scientifically rigorous knowledge which is necessary for conservation.
    3. The fact that indigenous people often want to continue living on their land undermines conservation goals.
    4. Collaboration is unnecessary for sustainable development.
21. Consumer capitalism contributes to increasing ecological footprints in industrialized nations because
    1. there is little threat of environmental impacts due to climate change.
    2. it promotes the idea that people need less things to be happy.
    3. goods are shipped using sustainable fuel sources.
    4. the production of goods is not sustainable and uses too many raw materials.
22. Which of the following is a key argument of ethnobiologist Brent Berlin, who compared human classification systems?
    1. Humans have a wide range of variation when it comes to classifying things.
    2. All human classification systems are reflective of an underlying cognitive structure of the human brain that organizes information in systematic ways.
    3. Humans organize information very differently depending on their environment.
    4. Non-Western people do not organize scientific knowledge like Westerners do.
23. Which of the following was not a force that drove the Green Revolution?
24. Agricultural research
25. Technology transfer
26. Infrastructure development
27. The collapse of communism
28. If a community practiced animal husbandry they might have any of the following animals except
29. goats.
30. cattle.
31. rhinos.
32. horses.
33. Landscapes that are the result of human shaping are __________ landscapes.
34. cultural
35. ecosystem
36. anthropogenic
37. artificial
38. A cultural landscape is
39. the concept that all landscapes have been shaped by people.
40. natural systems based on the interaction of nonliving factors and organisms.
41. the concept that people have images, knowledge, and concepts of the physical landscape that affect how they will actually interact with it.
42. the idea that interaction with the environment is a symbolic act.
43. Anthropologists are interested in the nutrition transition because
    1. it explains widespread changes in bodily form, eating patterns, and everyday life in urban settings.
    2. it directs attention to the spread of nutritious food because of industrial agriculture.
    3. it will aid the creation of sustainable agriculture.
    4. it demonstrates in a powerful way how foodways mark social boundaries.
44. Which of the following is not true of how food preferences relate to gender?
    1. Men always love meat, no matter which culture they are from.
    2. Foods take on qualities associated with one gender or another.
    3. Men and women are enculturated to eat certain foods.
    4. Foods are linked to gender-appropriate behaviors.
45. One of the main reasons agricultural intensification interests anthropologists is that
    1. pastoralists and foragers practice it.
    2. it’s the basis of industrial agriculture, which is the only viable way to feed large populations.
    3. it often leads to overproduction.
    4. there are many strategies for achieving it.
46. One of anthropology’s insights about the foraging mode of subsistence is that foraging people
    1. struggle to survive in harsh environments.
    2. have a cultural view of their environments as giving.
    3. settle into agriculture the first chance they get.
    4. lead largely unsustainable lifestyles.
47. Among the Kel Ewey Tuareg nomads, a perfect meal is simple and the same for everybody regardless of wealth because
    1. it provides a stable diet for all its members in a precariously dry environment.
    2. they consider the diversity of food options available in consumer capitalism wasteful.
    3. their first concern as a group is environmental conservation.
    4. they have perfected their mode of subsistence to be hyper efficient, allowing for more leisure time.
48. Long-term damage to soil quality is typical of
    1. pastoralism.
    2. foraging.
    3. horticulture.
    4. intensification.
49. What does not contribute to an individual’s ecological footprint?
    1. A person’s water waste
    2. The amount of new consumer goods a person purchases
    3. A person’s economic ideology
    4. The energy required to produce a person’s groceries
50. Political ecological perspectives are applicable to all of the following except
    1. the effects of traffic corridors on the air quality of an urban neighborhood.
    2. the role of peasant farmers in tropical deforestation.
    3. the relationship between high birth rates and overfishing.
    4. the migration of rural people to cities because of ecological crisis in the countryside.
51. Famines are often caused by
52. foreign aid.
53. ignorant farmers.
54. global warming.
55. a complex interplay of natural conditions with existing patterns of social inequality.
56. What is a key feature of nutrition transition?
57. A decline in physical activity
58. A rise in horticulture
59. A decrease in overweight populations
60. An increase in food security
61. In a tropical environment with low population density, which subsistence strategy is most likely to be used?
62. Swidden agriculture
63. Pastoralism
64. Foraging
65. Intensive agriculture
66. The concept of “fortress conservation” would be applicable to all of the following situations except
    1. the eviction of a local community from a national park to keep it pristine in the Brazilian Amazon.
    2. the criminalization of local people who practice traditional hunting in formally protected Costa Rican rain forests.
    3. the construction of ecotourist facilities to protect visitors from wandering lions in the Tanzanian savannas.
    4. the prevention of pastoralists from moving through a game reserve to gain access to a waterhole during the dry season in Morocco.
67. A political ecologist who studies people displaced by rising sea levels would probably focus on
    1. why people didn’t fortify their homes against the tides.
    2. how industrialization encouraged by the state affected the landscape.
    3. the carrying capacity of their new land.
    4. why people weren’t better educated about climate change to begin with.
68. An environmental anthropologist studying obesity and overweight would focus on
    1. cultural body norms.
    2. biological predispositions toward weight gain.
    3. the effect of industrial agriculture on nutrition transition.
    4. changes in physical activity with the rise of technology.
69. A cultural relativist would be most likely to emphasize that pastoralists
    1. are living backward lives and need to modernize.
    2. are inefficient in their adaptation to nature.
    3. have developed effective social institutions and knowledge that ensure long-term sustainability of the landscape.
    4. are a relatively new example of cultural adaptation to nature.
70. Which of the following would be least likely as an explanation given by a cultural anthropologist for the existence of food insecurity among the poor?
    1. It’s related to the ignorance of the poor to effectively feed themselves.
    2. It’s related to the globalization of foodways.
    3. It’s related to government policies and priorities.
    4. It’s related to dynamics involved in the industrialization of foodways.
71. The specific vein of environmental anthropology that studies the relationship between humans and natural ecosystems is known as __________ anthropology.
    1. terra
    2. anthropogenic
    3. landscape
    4. ecological
72. Ethnobiology refers to the study of
    1. how people in non-Western societies name and codify living things.
    2. the biological sciences.
    3. how biology influences culture.
    4. how people influence biological diversity.

True/False

1. All knowledge systems about nature, including science, are culturally based.
   1. True
   2. False
2. It has been proven that overpopulation will inevitably lead to global famine.
   1. True
   2. False
3. There are more undernourished people than obese and overweight people in the world.
   1. True
   2. False
4. In many parts of the world food is a very important way of communicating social identity.
   1. True
   2. False
5. Environmental anthropologists accept the idea that all indigenous people are environmentalists.
   1. True
   2. False
6. Many non-Western societies have conservation traditions that are based on distinct principles of human–nature relationship.
   1. True
   2. False
7. Foodways rarely change because people are conservative.
   1. True
   2. False
8. Foragers tend work less to survive than agriculturalists or pastoralists.
   1. True
   2. False
9. Societies tend to stick with one mode of subsistence.
   1. True
   2. False
10. Foodways are the structured beliefs and behaviors surrounding the production, distribution, and consumption of food.
    1. True
    2. False
11. Quantitative consumption is the concept of measuring what people consume and the waste they produce.
    1. True
    2. False
12. Scent refers to both a physical sensation and social distinction and prestige.
    1. True
    2. False
13. There are four major modes of food culture that anthropologists understand as the social relationships and practices necessary for procuring, producing, and distributing food.
    1. True
    2. False
14. Interest within environmental anthropology concerned with how non-Western societies classify natural phenomena is called ethnoscience, which was at its peak in the 1960s.
    1. True
    2. False
15. Although the image of burning tropical forests can be unsettling, swidden agriculture can be a sustainable form of horticulture.
    1. True
    2. False

Short Answer

1. Do you think an anthropologist studying pastoralism in a non-Western setting, such as Ethiopia or Sudan, could offer useful insights about rangeland management to ranchers in a US state like Wyoming or Texas? Explain your answer.
2. Is knowledge of how horticulture in small-scale societies works useful for rethinking how agriculture works in our society?
3. Could you apply the concept of cultural landscape to a North American suburban community? Explain your answer.
4. What role do you think perspectives drawn from environmental anthropology can play in the study of climate change?
5. Do Americans have traditional ecological knowledge? Explain your answer and use examples.
6. If you were asked to analyze food insecurity in your community as an anthropologist, what perspectives and concerns would you bring to the issue?
7. What does it mean that all knowledge systems about the environment are culturally based?
8. How does gender differentiation help organize women’s and men’s food preferences?
9. How and why do social relationships differ in distinct modes of subsistence such as foraging, horticulture, and pastoralism?
10. According to environmental anthropologists, under what conditions can a society have sustainable relations with the natural world?

Short Answer Key

1. Do you think an anthropologist studying pastoralism in a non-Western setting, such as Ethiopia or Sudan, could offer useful insights about rangeland management to ranchers in a US state like Wyoming or Texas? Explain your answer.
   1. How Do People Secure an Adequate, Meaningful, and Environmentally Sustainable Food Supply?
   2. Pastoralism is the practice of animal husbandry, which is the breeding, care, and use of domesticated herding animals such as cattle, camels, goats, horses, llamas, reindeer, and yaks (Bates 1998). Rather than raising animals for butchering as food, pastoralists mainly consume their milk and blood and exploit their hair, wool, fur, and ability to pull or carry heavy loads. This approach allows them to get more out of the animal in the long run. Pastoralists typically occupy arid landscapes where agriculture is difficult or impossible (Figure 6.4).
   3. Because a livestock herd can do quick, even irreparable, damage to vegetation in arid landscapes, this mode of subsistence requires the constant movement of herds (Igoe 2004). This movement is typically coordinated between herd­owning households. At the heart of this system is common ownership of land and social institutions that ensure herders do not sacrifice the fragile environment for short-term individual gains. These social institutions include livestock exchanges to redistribute and limit herd size, punishments for individuals who diverge from planned movement patterns, and the defense of rangeland boundaries to ensure that neighboring pastoral groups cannot invade with their own livestock (McCabe 1990). When these institutions work successfully, pastoralism is a sustainable mode of subsistence, providing people with a stable source of nutritious foods without irreversibly destroying the fragile landscape.
2. Is knowledge of how horticulture in small-scale societies works useful for rethinking how agriculture works in our society?
   1. How Do People Secure an Adequate, Meaningful, and Environmentally Sustainable Food Supply?
   2. Horticulture is the cultivation of gardens or small fields to meet the basic needs of a household. It is sometimes referred to as subsistence agriculture, which refers to cultivation for purposes of household provisioning or small-scale trade, but not investment (Bates 1998). Horticulture emerged some 12,000 years ago with domestication, which gave humans selective control over animal and plant reproduction and increased the amount of reliable food energy available to them (Figure 6.3).
   3. While the goals of horticulture and pastoralism are to feed families, the goal of intensive agriculture is to increase yields to feed a larger community. Approaches to intensification, which refers to processes that increase yields (Bates 1998), include the following:
      1. Preparing the soil, with regular weeding, mulching, mounding, and fertilizers;
      2. Using technology, which can be simple, such as a harness or yoke that allows a farmer to use horses or oxen to plow a field; complex, such as a system of canals, dams, and water pumps that provide irrigation to an arid landscape; or very complex, like a combine harvester, a machine that harvests, threshes, and cleans grain plants like wheat, barley, and corn;
      3. Using a larger labor force, such as in Asian rice farming, which sustains the nutritional and energy needs of large populations, and provides many people with employment (Geertz 1963);
      4. Managing water resources, which can range from the practice of adding pebbles to fields to retain soil moisture (as ancient Pueblo dwellers of North America did), to the use of large-scale and sophisticated irrigation systems implemented by modern states;
      5. Modifying plants and soils, through selective breeding of plants to produce better yields, reduce the time needed to mature, or create a more edible product, as farmers have done for major grains like maize, rice, and wheat (Bates 1998).
   4. Intensification carries certain tradeoffs. On the one hand, it solves an important problem, which is how to provide food for a large number of people, including those who do not work directly in food production. It also provides a relatively steady supply of food, though famines can still happen. On the other hand, by rearranging ecosystems to achieve greater control over nature, intensification can create environmental problems. For example, clearing a hillside to plant crops, build terraces, or install waterworks may increase productivity in the short run, but these can lead to the erosion of topsoils, the lowering of water tables, the concentration of salts in soils, the silting up of waterworks, and so on.
3. Could you apply the concept of cultural landscape to a North American suburban community? Explain your answer.
   1. Do All People See Nature in the Same Way?
   2. Environmental anthropologists—practitioners of environmental anthropology, the subfield of anthropology that studies how different societies understand, interact with, and make changes to nature—have long insisted that it is important to understand the abstract ideas people have about landscapes and other ideas that influence people’s behavior within those landscapes. One way to think of these abstract ideas is through the concept of a cultural landscape, which consists of the culturally specific images, knowledge, and concepts of the physical landscape that affect how people will actually interact with that landscape (Stoffle, Toupal, and Zedeño 2003:99). For example, the Itzaj consider nature to be an extension of their social world, full of spirits that influence their everyday lives. As a result they are less likely to wantonly destroy the landscape in which they live because doing so would equate to hurting themselves. Different social groups can also hold distinctly different and conflicting ideas of the same landscape.
4. What role do you think perspectives drawn from environmental anthropology can play in the study of climate change?
   1. Do All People See Nature in the Same Way?
   2. Environmental anthropologists—practitioners of environmental anthropology, the subfield of anthropology that studies how different societies understand, interact with, and make changes to nature—have long insisted that it is important to understand the abstract ideas people have about landscapes and other ideas that influence people’s behavior within those landscapes. One way to think of these abstract ideas is through the concept of a cultural landscape, which consists of the culturally specific images, knowledge, and concepts of the physical landscape that affect how people will actually interact with that landscape (Stoffle, Toupal, and Zedeño 2003:99). For example, the Itzaj consider nature to be an extension of their social world, full of spirits that influence their everyday lives. As a result they are less likely to wantonly destroy the landscape in which they live because doing so would equate to hurting themselves. Different social groups can also hold distinctly different and conflicting ideas of the same landscape.
5. Do Americans have traditional ecological knowledge? Explain your answer and use examples.
   1. How Does Non-Western Knowledge of Nature and Agriculture Relate to Science?
   2. These days, anthropologists interested in themes related to ethnoscience tend to focus on traditional ecological knowledge, which consists of indigenous ecological knowledge and its relationship with resource management strategies. One of the more important findings of this field is that many ecological relations recognized by indigenous peoples are not known to Western science, because those relations involve species that are not found elsewhere, or because the knowledge resides in local languages, songs, or specialized ritual knowledge. Healers and shamans are important repositories of local plant knowledge and lore, and they may even keep their knowledge secret from other people in their own society. In recent years, controversy has erupted because pharmaceutical companies have been trying to gain access to the knowledge of traditional healers to identify plants that might be useful for developing new commercial drugs, sometimes without community consent (Brown 2003).
6. If you were asked to analyze food insecurity in your community as an anthropologist, what perspectives and concerns would you bring to the issue?
   1. How Are Industrial Agriculture and Economic Globalization Linked to Increasing Environmental and Health Problems?
   2. Example: Across the United States, Black neighborhoods have fewer grocery stores and less access to fresh, affordable foods than White neighborhoods. Ashanté Reese, an anthropologist and Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has conducted ethnographic research on how residents of the predominantly Black neighborhood of Deanwood in Washington, D.C. navigate and resist the structural inequalities that create problems of food availability for them. She argues that unequal access to food is systemic, which reflects structural inequalities related to residential segregation, racism, and the practices of food retailers and corporations that shape who gets access to certain kinds of food (Reese 2019).
7. What does it mean that all knowledge systems about the environment are culturally based?
   1. How Does Non-Western Knowledge of Nature and Agriculture Relate to Science?
   2. Anthropologists try to describe the traditional knowledge that different societies have of their natural environments, recognizing that all knowledge systems about nature, including science, are culturally based. This goal dates back to the beginnings of anthropology as a discipline. For example, during his years among the Trobriand Islanders (1915–18), Bronislaw Malinowski was keenly interested in people’s knowledge of gardening, canoe building, and navigation. From observing these activities, he concluded that “primitive humanity was aware of the scientific laws of natural process” as well as magical processes, and went on to add that all people operate within the domains of magic, science, and religion (1948:196).
8. How does gender differentiation help organize women’s and men’s food preferences?
   1. How Do People Secure an Adequate, Meaningful, and Environmentally Sustainable Food Supply?
   2. Food preferences, etiquette, and taboos also mark social boundaries and identities. As anthropologist Carole Counihan (1999:8) has observed, “One’s place in a social system is revealed by what, how much, and with whom one eats.” Eating practices might mark gender differences, as when men and women eat different foods. They might mark ethnic or regional differences, as when particular groups identify themselves closely with certain foods. Or they could mark profession or class status, as when certain individuals consume certain foods identified with their social station (Lentz 1999). These social markers are closely related to differing notions of taste that may exist between or within groups. Taste can refer to both the physical sensation on the tongue (as in “this crab cake tastes good”) and social distinction and prestige (as in “her consumption of fine wine shows she has good taste”) (MacBeth 1997).
9. How and why do social relationships differ in distinct modes of subsistence such as foraging, horticulture, and pastoralism?
   1. How Do People Secure an Adequate, Meaningful, and Environmentally Sustainable Food Supply?
   2. Foraging refers to searching for edible plant and animal foods without domesticating them. Hunter-gatherers, who obtain their subsistence through a combination of collecting foods and hunting prey, are called foragers. Most foragers live mobile lives, traveling to where the food happens to be, rather than moving the food to themselves (Bates 1998). Low population densities ensure that their impacts on the environment tend to be minimal.
   3. Horticulture is the cultivation of gardens or small fields to meet the basic needs of a household. It is sometimes referred to as subsistence agriculture, which refers to cultivation for purposes of household provisioning or small-scale trade, but not investment (Bates 1998). Horticulture emerged some 12,000 years ago with domestication, which gave humans selective control over animal and plant reproduction and increased the amount of reliable food energy available to them (Figure 6.3).
   4. Pastoralism is the practice of animal husbandry, which is the breeding, care, and use of domesticated herding animals such as cattle, camels, goats, horses, llamas, reindeer, and yaks (Bates 1998). Rather than raising animals for butchering as food, pastoralists mainly consume their milk and blood and exploit their hair, wool, fur, and ability to pull or carry heavy loads. This approach allows them to get more out of the animal in the long run. Pastoralists typically occupy arid landscapes where agriculture is difficult or impossible (Figure 6.4).
   5. Because a livestock herd can do quick, even irreparable, damage to vegetation in arid landscapes, this mode of subsistence requires the constant movement of herds (Igoe 2004). This movement is typically coordinated between herd­owning households. At the heart of this system is common ownership of land and social institutions that ensure herders do not sacrifice the fragile environment for short-term individual gains. These social institutions include livestock exchanges to redistribute and limit herd size, punishments for individuals who diverge from planned movement patterns, and the defense of rangeland boundaries to ensure that neighboring pastoral groups cannot invade with their own livestock (McCabe 1990). When these institutions work successfully, pastoralism is a sustainable mode of subsistence, providing people with a stable source of nutritious foods without irreversibly destroying the fragile landscape.
10. According to environmental anthropologists, under what conditions can a society have sustainable relations with the natural world?
    1. Do All People See Nature in the Same Way?
    2. Key to understanding the cultural landscape is the idea that people use metaphors to think about their natural environments, and these metaphors are connected to social behavior, thought, and organization (Bird-David 1993:112). For example, in many hunting and gathering societies, people use metaphors of personal relatedness—sexuality, marriage, or family ties—to describe human–nature relations (Figure 6.2). Metaphors are always complex, and different people may not understand them in the same ways. Nevertheless, metaphors offer insights into a community’s cultural landscapes that symbolize the society’s feelings and values about its environment. Whether a society has sustainable relations with nature depends on many factors beyond how they conceptualize human–nature relations, a theme we examine in the next section.