anthro final
Q: What is kinship?
A: Kinship is the culturally defined relationship between individuals who are commonly thought of as having family ties.
Q: What does kinship organize in society?
A: Kinship organizes family relationships, social identity, inheritance, obligations, marriage rules, residence patterns, and support networks.
Q: What is kinship by blood called?
A: Consanguineal kinship.
Q: What is consanguineal kinship?
A: Kinship based on birth or “blood” relationships, such as parents, children, siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
Q: What is kinship by marriage called?
A: Affinal kinship.
Q: What is affinal kinship?
A: Kinship created through marriage, such as spouse, in-laws, son-in-law, or daughter-in-law.
Q: What is spiritual kinship?
A: Kinship created through religious or spiritual connections, such as godparents and godchildren.
Q: What is fictive kinship?
A: Kinship-like relationships between people who are not related by blood or marriage but are treated as family.
Q: What is an example of fictive kinship?
A: Calling a close family friend “auntie,” “uncle,” “brother,” or “sister” even though they are not biologically related.
Q: What is descent?
A: Descent is the system a society uses to trace ancestry and define membership in a kin group.
Q: What is unilineal descent?
A: A descent system in which people trace ancestry through only one side of the family.
Q: What are the two main types of unilineal descent?
A: Patrilineal descent and matrilineal descent.
Q: What is patrilineal descent?
A: A system where people trace descent through the father’s line.
Q: What is matrilineal descent?
A: A system where people trace descent through the mother’s line.
Q: What is bilateral descent?
A: A descent system where people trace ancestry through both the mother’s and father’s sides.
Q: What descent system is common in North America?
A: Bilateral descent.
Q: What is a lineage?
A: A group of people who can trace descent from a known common ancestor.
Q: What is the difference between lineage and descent?
A: Descent is the rule for tracing ancestry, while lineage is the actual group of people connected through that ancestry.
Q: What is marriage?
A: Marriage is a socially recognized union that creates rights and obligations between spouses, children, families, and social groups.
Q: Why do anthropologists study marriage?
A: Because marriage organizes family ties, reproduction, property, inheritance, labour, alliances, and economic exchange.
Q: What is monogamy?
A: A marriage form involving one spouse at a time.
Q: What is polygamy?
A: A marriage form involving more than one spouse.
Q: What is polygyny?
A: A form of polygamy in which one man has multiple wives.
Q: What is polyandry?
A: A form of polygamy in which one woman has multiple husbands.
Q: What is group marriage?
A: A marriage form in which multiple men and multiple women are married to one another as a group.
Q: What is the most common form of polygamy?
A: Polygyny.
Q: What is the incest taboo?
A: A cultural rule that forbids sexual relations or marriage between certain close relatives.
Q: Why is incest taboo important anthropologically?
A: It helps regulate marriage, reduce family conflict, and encourage alliances outside the immediate family.
Q: What is endogamy?
A: Marriage within a particular social group.
Q: What is an example of endogamy?
A: Marrying within one’s religion, caste, ethnic group, class, or community.
Q: What is exogamy?
A: Marriage outside a particular social group.
Q: What is an example of exogamy?
A: Being required to marry outside one’s clan, lineage, or village.
Q: What is the key difference between endogamy and exogamy?
A: Endogamy means marrying inside a group; exogamy means marrying outside a group.
Q: What is residence in marriage?
A: Residence refers to where a married couple lives after marriage.
Q: What is matrilocal residence?
A: A residence pattern where a married couple lives with or near the wife’s family.
Q: What is patrilocal residence?
A: A residence pattern where a married couple lives with or near the husband’s family.
Q: What is marriage as economic exchange?
A: The idea that marriage often involves the transfer of goods, money, labour, or services between families.
Q: What is bride price?
A: A transfer of wealth from the groom’s family to the bride’s family.
Q: What is bride service?
A: Work or labour performed by the groom for the bride’s family.
Q: What is dowry?
A: A transfer of wealth from the bride’s family to the bride, groom, or groom’s family.
Q: What is the difference between bride price and dowry?
A: Bride price usually moves from groom’s family to bride’s family, while dowry usually moves from bride’s family to the couple or groom’s family.
Q: What is a kinship diagram?
A: A visual chart used by anthropologists to show family and kin relationships.
Q: In a kinship diagram, what does a triangle usually represent?
A: A male.
Q: In a kinship diagram, what does a circle usually represent?
A: A female.
Q: In a kinship diagram, what does an equals sign or horizontal marriage line usually show?
A: A marriage or partnership relationship.
Q: In a kinship diagram, what does a vertical line usually show?
A: Descent from parent to child.
Q: In a kinship diagram, what does a horizontal sibling line usually show?
A: Siblings connected to the same parents.
Q: In a kinship diagram, what does Ego mean?
A: Ego is the person from whose point of view the kinship diagram is drawn.
Q: What is worldview?
A: Worldview is the system of ideas, values, meanings, and assumptions through which people understand reality and their place in it.
Q: What does worldview shape?
A: Worldview shapes how people understand nature, society, the self, morality, religion, time, power, and knowledge.
Q: Why do anthropologists study worldview?
A: To understand how people assign meaning to their experiences and make sense of the world.
Q: How do anthropologists research worldview?
A: They study everyday practices, language, rituals, stories, myths, symbols, metaphors, and ways of knowing.
Q: Why is worldview difficult to study?
A: Because many assumptions are taken for granted and may not be directly stated by members of a culture.
Q: What is a metaphor?
A: A metaphor is a figure of speech that borrows meaning from one domain of experience and applies it to another.
Q: Why are metaphors important in anthropology?
A: Metaphors reveal how people organize meaning and understand reality.
Q: What is a key metaphor?
A: A metaphor that strongly shapes how people in a culture understand an important part of life.
Q: Why are key metaphors important?
A: They guide thought, behaviour, values, and social organization.
Q: What example of metaphor does the textbook use from North American culture?
A: Time is often understood through economic metaphors, such as “saving time,” “spending time,” or “wasting time.”
Q: What does the “time is money” metaphor show?
A: It shows that North American culture often values productivity, efficiency, and economic thinking.
Q: What example of metaphor is used in relation to hockey?
A: Hockey can be used as a metaphor for North American ideas about success, competition, hard work, achievement, and teamwork.
Q: What does the hockey example show about culture?
A: It shows that everyday activities can reflect deeper cultural values and meanings.
Q: What is a symbol?
A: A symbol is something that stands for or represents something else.
Q: Why are symbols important?
A: Symbols communicate shared meanings, values, beliefs, and identities.
Q: What are examples of symbols?
A: Flags, religious objects, clothing, gestures, rituals, masks, colours, and national icons.
Q: What is symbolic action?
A: Behaviour that communicates meaning beyond the action itself.
Q: How do rituals use symbols?
A: Rituals use symbolic actions, objects, words, and performances to express and reinforce worldview.
Q: What are ways of knowing?
A: Ways of knowing are culturally shaped methods people use to understand truth, reality, and knowledge.
Q: What are examples of ways of knowing?
A: Science, oral tradition, dreams, spiritual experience, observation, personal experience, and teachings from elders.
Q: What does the Dene Tha example show about ways of knowing?
A: It shows that knowledge can come through direct experience, stories, dreams, elders, land, animals, and spiritual relationships.
Q: How can worldview affect views of nature?
A: Some cultures see humans as separate from nature, while others see humans, animals, land, and spirits as deeply connected.
Q: What is the supernatural?
A: The supernatural refers to powers, beings, or forces believed to exist beyond the ordinary physical world.
Q: What does the anthropological study of the supernatural focus on?
A: It focuses on how beliefs in supernatural beings and forces shape society, meaning, morality, healing, and social action.
Q: What is religion?
A: Religion is a system of beliefs and practices related to supernatural beings, powers, or forces.
Q: Why is religion difficult to define?
A: Because not all societies separate religion from daily life, and different cultures define sacred power in different ways.
Q: What is one function of religion?
A: Religion helps explain the unknown.
Q: What is another function of religion?
A: Religion provides comfort during uncertainty, crisis, illness, death, or suffering.
Q: What social function does religion have?
A: Religion can create social unity and shared identity.
Q: What moral function does religion have?
A: Religion can provide rules for proper behaviour and moral order.
Q: What political function can religion have?
A: Religion can support authority, challenge authority, or legitimize leadership.
Q: What psychological function can religion have?
A: Religion can reduce anxiety and give people a sense of control or meaning.
Q: What is myth?
A: A myth is a sacred or important story that explains origins, values, beliefs, or the order of the world.
Q: Does myth mean a false story in anthropology?
A: No. In anthropology, myth means a meaningful story that expresses cultural truths.
Q: What is the purpose of myth?
A: Myth explains why the world is the way it is and teaches cultural values.
Q: What is ritual?
A: Ritual is a repeated, patterned, symbolic action connected to important beliefs or social transitions.
Q: What do rituals do?
A: Rituals express beliefs, reinforce social order, mark transitions, and connect people to sacred meanings.
Q: What are rites of passage?
A: Rituals that mark a person’s movement from one social status or life stage to another.
Q: What are the three phases of rites of passage?
A: Separation, liminality, and incorporation.
Q: What is separation in a rite of passage?
A: The person is removed from their old status or normal social role.
Q: What is liminality?
A: The in-between phase where a person is no longer in the old status but not yet fully in the new one.
Q: What is incorporation?
A: The person is brought back into society with a new status or identity.
Q: What is an example of a rite of passage?
A: Birth ceremonies, initiation, graduation, marriage, funerals, or coming-of-age rituals.
Q: What are deities?
A: Gods or goddesses believed to have supernatural power.
Q: What are ancestral spirits?
A: Spirits of dead relatives or ancestors who may influence the living.
Q: What are spirits of nature?
A: Supernatural beings associated with animals, plants, rivers, mountains, forests, or other parts of nature.
Q: What is animism?
A: The belief that spirits or spiritual beings exist in animals, plants, objects, places, or natural forces.
Q: What is animatism?
A: The belief in an impersonal supernatural force or power.
Q: What is the difference between animism and animatism?
A: Animism involves spirit beings; animatism involves an impersonal supernatural force.
Q: What are religious practitioners?
A: People who specialize in religious or spiritual knowledge and practices.
Q: What are priests and priestesses?
A: Religious specialists who usually hold formal positions in organized religious systems.
Q: What is a shaman?
A: A religious specialist who communicates with spirits, often through trance, healing, or spirit journeys.