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| ANTHROPOLOGY 103.940 | LENVILLE J. STELLE |
| SPRING - 2007 | PARKLAND COLLEGE |
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**Owing to the quantity of email that I must process, I DO NOT ACCEPT ATTACHMENTS. The WEB EXPLORATIONS must either be composed within an email message or be composed within a word processor and then copied and pasted to the body of an e-mail message. I would personally recommend the latter technique.
Chapter 1:
1. The Society for Applied Anthropology has a professional code of ethics for its members. Read and comment on the anthropologist's responsibilities to the people being studied.
Statement of Professional and Ethical Responsibilities
While the journals of the Society are
not online, the site does provide the entirety of their newsletter at:
SFAA Newsletter
Peruse one or two of the Newsletters and summarize an article that you find to be interesting. Copy and paste the author, title, and issue information to your Exploration report. What was interesting about the article?
2. One of the weaknesses of our text,
in my opinion, is its treatment of anthropological theory. The following
site contains student papers (ok..graduate student papers, but what the
heck) describing sixteen major theoretical perspectives in anthropology.
Pick one perspective and write a one page summary of its major elements.
Anthropological
Theories: A Guide Prepared by Students for Students
1. Visit the What is Culture? web page developed by Eric Miraglia, Richard Law, and Peg Collins at the Washington State University. Read their baseline definition of culture and the definitions they include from Clifford Geertz and John Bodley. How do these definitions compare to Haviland's definition in your text?
What is Culture?
Click on the section "Women, Culture, and Power." What is the author's point?
Culture is a term that seems pretty simple when applied to other people and their societies. But what about U.S. culture. Visit the web page on "The Cultural Debate in the U.S.: Whose Culture is This, Anyway?" by Miraglia, Law, and Collins. Follow the links provided in the article and then answer the following questions from the web page: "Do the people of the United States, or of any culturally complex human society, necessarily share common cultural elements?" and "If so, who gets to decide what those elements are?"
2. Doing ethnographic fieldwork is
often considered the heart of cultural anthropology. Visit the following
site and describe the activities of Eric Metzgar in creating a documentary film on Lamotrek Atoll. Also, what is culture shock and how does it affect him?
3. If archaeology is the cultural anthropology of the dead, reconstructing lost cultures requires a very special set of methodologies. One such set is called ethnohistory. The technique only works when written or oral traditions survive. Take a look at the following site and then respond to either A. or B..
Ilimouec Ethnohistory Project: Eye Witness Descriptions of the Contact Generation, 1667 - 1700
A. Comment on my introductory remarks after you have read one of the narratives. Some of our critics have indicated that my examples are too cold and even perhaps offensive. B. Address the issue of how "The Chief", as the University of Illinois' sports mascot, differs from the images provided by ethnohistory and scientific reality.
1. Read the article, Chimpanzee
Hunting Behavior and Human Evolution by Craig B. Stanford that was
published in American Scientist. What do chimpanzees hunt? What can their
hunting activities tell us about human evolution?
2. The most thorough coverage of human
ancestors on the web is Jim Foley's Fossil
Hominids on the Talk.Origins web page. Alt.talk.origins is a usenet
newsgroup where people discuss evolution and creationism issues. The Talk.Origins
web page contains enormously useful summaries of many of these discussions.
Read the section on "Hominid Species" and browse the descriptions and photos
in "Hominid Fossils." Identify and describe the fossil sequence. What is
Ardipithecus
ramidus and who discovered it? What is a "type specimen?"
1. Always been intrigued by Egyptian hieroglyphics? Take a look at the following site, I think that there are 14 pages, and create a one sentence message to me. Send the message along with a statement regarding your interests in Egyptology and the difficulties you encountered in composing your message.
A Little Egyptian Reading Book
Also explore the date of your birth
with the Datemaker at the same site.
2. Review The
National Map of Regional Dialects of American English by William Labov
of the University of Pennsylvania. What are the major dialects of American
English? Which does your family speak? According to Labov, what are the
defining characteristics of their dialect?
1. Jean Briggs presents an interesting
treatment of one element of Inuit enculturation. It is driven by what the
authors of our text label an Interpretative theoretical orientation. This
orientation is generally thought to be most applicable to investigations
of micro social phenomena like childhood enculturation. Read her paper
and describe how and what Chubby Maata is supposed to learn. Are there
parallels to how and what you were taught as a child?
Journey
Out of Babyhood: An Inuit Childhood Drama
2. Visit the three identified sites. They address childhood issues in the US and throughout the world. The "Child Labor in America" site provides some visual images from America's past. The "Child Labor and Its Worst Forms" site examines global practices involving child labor. The Unicef site features an outstanding statement on children's rights. Read the Unicef "Convention on the Rights of the Child."
Child Labor and Its Worst Forms
Unicef Convention on the Rights of the Child
Most children in poor countries are
expected to work long and hard. How serious is the global problem of child
exploitation? Why do people in poor nations think about childhood differently
than people in rich nations? Should all societies be expected to adopt,
and enforce, the Unicef Convention on the Rights of the Child? Why have the US and Somalia been the only two countries in the world to refuse to ratify the Unicef Convention? What part do we,
living in rich countries, contribute to the exploitation of children living
in the world's poor countries?
3. Read and comment on John McCreery's
critical evaluation of the Japanese personality. Beyond the issue of your
agreement or disagreement with his conclusions regarding the Japanese self,
do you think his technique provides useful insights into American and Japanese
personalities? This is one of the major questions surrounding the scientific
validity of the Interpretative Approach.
From
"Gaijin" to "Me": An American Self in Japan
4. Go to the Keirsey Temperament
and Character Web Site and take the online test to evaluate your personality.
How successful do you think the test was at classifying your personality?
Did it reinforce what you already know about yourself or did it suggest
some new qualities? What do you think the test would reveal about the temperament
of someone from a culture like the Yanomani (see links in Chapter 6)?
1. Getting food is a problem basic
to the survival of all living things. Some times with humans the nature
of their preferred food takes on symbolic, political, and social significance.
For the Makah people of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state whaling
is an ancient tradition. Describe their understanding of why they should
have the right to hunt whales.
2. Visit the following WEB sites. How
might groups like the Yanomami affect the policies of the U.N. and World
Bank? How can they protect their land from such forms of economic development
as burning the rainforest to create pasture for grazing animals (ranching)
and gold mining? What of their future can they control?
United
Nations - Sustainable Development
The Yanomami: Survival or Extinction? (Mark Behrens provides an excellent overview of the Yanomami circumstance with is term paper/web site.)
El Dorado - Yanomami People and Eugenics
Intro to Chagnon's "The Axe Fight"
AMANAKA'A AMAZON NETWORK: LETTERS FROM THE AMAZON
NATIVE-L (May 1995): mortality grows among yanomami
CHRONOLOGY OF THE YANOMAMI GENOCIDE
3. Explore NOVA's Secrets
of Easter Island site. Be sure to work through the sections called
Lost Civilization and Explore the Island (and Move a Megalith if you wish).
How was Easter Island first settled? What was the agricultural basis of
the people of Rapa Nui? What happened to Rapa Nui society?
1. Cross cultural surprises occur whenever
people of different cultures make the assumption that every culture is
like their own. Read Understanding
the Business Culture in Japan from the International Consulting Team
including the link on differences in management styles and the link on
animism. How do the examples of cross cultural surprise relate to management
style and animism?
2. International business and travel
generally requires the traveler to be sensitive to variations between cultures.
Behavior, attitudes, and feelings that are correct in one culture may be
extremely offensive in another. The following site was intended for visitors
to Arabian societies. Select five examples of Arabian customs and describe
how the practices are different from those of your own culture.
1. After visiting the following site
compare the situation and concerns of women in Africa south of the Sahara
to those of your country.
African
women from south of the Sahara
2. Particularly for American and European
women, female genital modification seems barbaric and unconscionable. It
is such an emotional issue that the practice is referred to as mutilation.
From the perspective of cultural anthropology, is this attitude a manifestation
of Euro-American ethnocentrism? Describe the practice and then tell me why you think
that it is or is not? Discuss when and how the values, traditions, and
practices of indigenous peoples should and can be changed.
For recent CNN reports of the practice
of male sexual modification in different parts of the world, take a look at the following
articles. Explain why Americans refer to cutting the female as "mutilation" and cutting the male as "modification?"
Five charged with initiation deaths
When
is adult circumcision necessary?
1. Romantic love is a transcultural
human characteristic. Unfortunately, most modern societies are endogamous.
Visit the following sites and describe the concerns and efforts of the United
For a Multicultural Japan in its pursuit of the welfare and legal rights of non-Japanese
with Japanese spouses.
2. Polygyny has always been a criminal
offense in the United States. What are your thoughts and feelings about
polygyny after visiting the following sites?
3. Visit the following site. It is large, complex, Somalian, and Muslim. Go to the page entitled "Marriage Issues." What attitudes and customs seem most different from those of your own culture?
1. Explore and summarize the marriage
and kinship patterns of one of the five societies described at the following
site.
2. The understanding of family, like all things cultural, varies through time and space.
Try not to be boringly ethnocentric as you attempt to EXPLAIN THE MOTIVATIONS behind the following behaviors.
Keep in mind that in Texas under certain circumstances a husband may kill his wife when observed in an act of sexual
infidelity (honor) with legal impunity (crime of passion - justifiable homicide).
Case Study: "Honor" Killings and Blood Feuds
Thousands of Women Killed for Family "Honor"
1. The Hindu caste system has long
been an object of discussion among Western anthropologists. Visit the following
sites and describe your thoughts about this type of stratification system.
Ethnohistory reveals how common and durable caste systems were in many
cultural traditions (for instance feudalism in Europe and Japan). Why do
you think that they were so durable?
Reforms in the Hindu Caste System
2. Slavery is an ancient form of social
stratification - slaves built the Great Pyramids of Egypt and the Roman
Forum. It has seemingly survived into the modern world. Visit the following
three sites and describe your thoughts regarding this cultural practice.
Do you think that an outside force (like the U.N.) should intervene in
the internal cultural affairs of the Sudanese people? Why or why not?
3. Complex societies evidence voluntary
associations. Identify five ways in which the following two groups are
similar.
An
Urban Ethnography of Latino Street
American
Anthropological Association
1. While fundamental human rights are
taken for granted in the U.S., this is not always so in other countries.
Visit the Amnesty International web site and read about the campaigns that
Amnesty International is waging:
Which campaign did you find the most
compelling? Typically, why are the men and women held as prisoners in these
countries? Would you be willing to write a brief letter urging the release
of one of these prisoners? Why or why not?
2. You can find out about conflict
and war all over the world by examining the following three sites:
1. There are only a few really good
Religious Resource Guides on the Internet. One of the best is the Religion
Resource Links page at Weber University in Washington. Survey the resources
and links that are available:
Madin's
Religion Resource Links
Which site did you select? Let me suggest
one for you: "Imaging
and Imagining the Ghost Dance: James Mooney's Illustrations and Photographs,
1891-1893," by Thomas W. Kavanagh. What key anthropological issues
are addressed here? What did you learn about Native American religious
expression?
2. Religion has been the source of some of humankind's most gracious achievements - and most horrific acts. Go to the following sites to learn more about what many are referring to as the "new Afghanistan."
Provide anthropologial responses (not Sunday school) to the following questions: Why are the Christians referred to as the new Crusaders? What is the Muslim response to be? Who are the "good guys?" How do you know? Isn't it, historically, the same God (the God of Abraham) sanctioning both sides? Why do you think that the same God would have some believers kill other believers? 3. Religion and healing are often closely
intertwined in traditional cultures. Visit the following site and describe
the several elements of the shamanic healing ceremony of the Nganasan people
of Siberia. Were you able to download the sound recording of the shaman's
singing? If you were able to, comment on its qualities.
Siberian
Nganasan Shamanic Healing Ceremony
1. Tattoos have long been an element
of social/artistic expression in many of the world's societies. Visit the
following two sites and describe the social meanings of five of the different
motifs.
In what ways do these expressions differ
from that found in contemporary, poplar culture?
2. Ethnomusicology is a specialized
area of investigation within anthropology. Read one of the articles in
Ethnomusicology
On Line, say, for instance, Gregory Bartz's contribution "Kwayas, Kandas,
Kiosks: Tanzanian Popular Choir Music." What are his conclusions? Did you
find the recordings interesting? In what way did they sound different from
the music to which you listen?
Kwayas:
"They're Singing Jazz in the Church!"
1. Many anthropologists have come to
argue for the survival of indigenous cultures. Visit the following site
and read a statement regarding the why of it all. Summarize the article
and discuss why you agree or disagree with the author's position.
The
Anthropology of Group Rights
2. Incredible cultural change has occurred
in many of the world's indigenous cultures. Examine the following sites,
identify the causes of change, and comment on the consequences.
1. Many of the indigenous people of sub-Saharan Africa have been the victims of a sustained drought. Explore the following site to gain an understanding
of how it has affected the Laikipia Maasai of Kenya. Discuss how natural disasters
change social conditions.
2. Explore this site to find out more
about the people of New Guinea. Do you think that it would be difficult
to manage a modern nation of so many cultural traditions and languages?
What might be some of the major problems?
PAPUA
NEW GUINEA ONLINE - People and Culture
3. Examine the following site to get
some insights into the growth of the earth's human population. What do
you see as the future of human kind given the projections offered by this
site? What will the earth be like in the year 2200? Can anthropology contribute
solutions to such a demographic catastrophe?
Chapter 2:
Chapter 3:
Chapter 4:
Chapter 5:
Chapter 6:
Chapter 7:
Chapter 8:
Chapter 9:
Chapter 10:
Chapter 11:
Chapter 12:
Worlds Apart
The History Guy: New and Recent Conflicts of the World
Countries-Conflicts
Pick a conflict that you were not aware of and answer the following questions: what are the causes, who are the main combatants, how long has it been going on, how many have died, and when will it end?
Chapter 13:
Ambon Information Website?
Text of the "Declaration of War" by Laskar Jihad Commander Ustadz Ja'far Umar Thalib, broadcast on Radio SPMM (Voice of the Maluku Muslim Struggle) on 1-3 May 2002; as published by Indonesian newspaper Berdarah web site on 8 May.
Ambon / Maluku?
How to counter Islamic extremism
Ambon, Maluku
Chapter 14:
Chapter 15:
Chapter 16: