Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
SAN 1, ANSWER THREE Qs 1500 EACH - Coggle Diagram
SAN 1
SET TEXTS
how significant is it for the analyses offered in chisungu and becoming sinners that the bemba are matrilineal and the urapmin are cognatic?
Compare and contrast the political and social importance of
ritual as portrayed in Chisungu and Becoming Sinners
urapmin ways of life and bemba ways of life are different from each other primarily because of the dtistinct problems their different social structures raise for each group. discuss.
richards and robbins both attempt to realise the goal of ethnographic holism. to what extent and in what ways does this shared goal render their ethnographies similar to one another?
‘The relationship between social structure and ritual is central to both Chisungu and Becoming Sinners’. Discuss.
how do the different theoretical approaches of Audrey Richards and Joel Robbins shape their respective ethnographies, chisungu and becoming sinners?
-
if one goal of an ethnography is to bring many aspects of a society together in a single account, discuss how Audrey Richards and or Joel Robbins bring together at least two of the following aspects of Bemba and or Urapmin society
a. politics
b. economics
c. social status
d. kinship
e. ritual and religion
In what ways are Richards’ discussion of the Chisungu ritual and Robbins’ discussion of the Spirit disco similar and in what ways are they different?
-
-
-
-
What if anything do Audrey Richards and Joel Robbins have in common as ethnographers and/or theoretical thinkers?
In what ways is the role of kinship and/or ritual similar in Urapmin and Bemba societies and in what ways is it different?
MULTI
how can ethnographic research illuminate the relationship between politics and the economy in contemporary life? answer with reference to one or more of the following
a. money and markets
b. gifts and commodities
c. consumption
d. violence
e. gender
what is distinctive about anthropological approaches to one of the following
a. money and markets
b. collective politics
c. objects and consumption
-
how have anthropolgists used insights or concepts from the study of language in their analyses of at least two of the following
a. time
b. animals
c. food
d. bodies
e. houses
‘Identity is a performance.’ Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this statement by reference to gender and/or race.
assess how successful theoretical school you have studied has been in dealing with two or more of the following
a. agency
b. power
c. social stability
d. kinship
e. change
f. meaning
what is illuminated and what is obscured by anthropological approaches to one of the following pairs
a. money and markets
b. nationalism and gender
c. nationalism and ethnicity
d. objects and value
e. social order and political organisation
what is distinctive about the way anthropologists have discussed one of the following
a. nationalism
b. money
c. social order
d. consumption
e. value
f. time
what are the most important anthropological contributions to the study of one or more of the following
a. nationalism
b. money
c. markets
d. bureaucracy
e. gifts
why and how are humans concerned with difference? discuss with reference to one or more of the following
a. race
b. gender
c. ethnicity
d. nation
discuss the ways in which at least two theoretical models of social and/or cultural life have influenced anthropological studies of at least one of the following
a. state power
b. gender
c. exchange
d. war and violence
e. witchcraft
f. corruption
what is distinctive about the ways anthropologists have attempted to understand one or more of the following
a. the state
b. nationalism
c. money
d. corruption
How might an analysis of particular objects or types of object illuminate the link between value, exchange and politics?
THEORY
how successful have one or more of the following theories been in explaining stability and change?
a. evolutionism
b. functionalism
c. practice theory
-
you have to leave some things out in order to build a successful. theoretical model. discuss in relation to one or more of the following theoretical schools
a. evolutionism
b. functionalism/ structural functionalism
c. structuralism
d. practice theory
why should one read the classics? discuss with reference to one or more of the following theoretical traditions
a. evolutionism
b. functionalism
c. structuralism
what is the benefits and limits of one or two of the following analogies in anthropological theory
a. society is like an organism
b. culture is like a language
c. cultures are like texts
How did practice theorists seek to reconcile ‘structure’ and ‘agency’, and how successful were they?
compare and contrast the way two or more of the following approaches might be used to analyse one ethnographic example of your choice
a. structural functionalism
b. structuralism
c. interpretivism/ symbolic anthropology
d. practice theory
compare and contrast the respective strengths and weaknesses of any two different theoretical approaches in anthropology
-
‘Societies are like organisms’; ‘cultures are like texts’. Discuss the ways in which anthropologists have made use of either one or both of these ideas.
Has the notion of ‘structure’ either helped or hindered anthropologists in their attempts to understand significant aspects of cultural and/or social life?
What if anything do Evans-Pritchard and Abu-Lughod have in common as ethnographers and/or theoretical thinkers?
SYMBOLISM
What use have anthropologists made of the idea that everyday things such as food, bodies or houses are "symbolic"?
‘The idea that a symbol is something that represents something else is limited and misleading’. Discuss.
does the anthropological study of everyday symbolism show that human societies are radically different from each other or that there are strong commonalities among them?
How have anthropologists used the notion of ‘symbolism’ to explore the similarities and differences between societies?
-
structuralist analysis in the Levi-Straussian mode tends to play down the plurality of cultures. it is concerned with culture as such, a universal attribute of humanity (leach) discuss with reference to anthropological writings on symbolism
How have anthropologists used one or more ideas from the study of language in the cultural analysis of symbolism
-
what are the advantages and disadvantages for anthropological analysis of making a distinction between symbolism and reality?
what can anthropologists learn from studying the symbolic significance of one or more of the following
a. time
b. animals
c. food
d. bodies
e. houses
How have anthropologists used concepts drawn from the analysis of language to understand the role of symbolism in social life?
VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY
How does the analysis of human practices through ethnographic films compare to the analysis of human practices through ethnographic writing?
compare how the editorial, aesthetic, and technical features of two ethnographic films of your choice communicate different theoretical ideas about human social life
What are the strengths and weaknesses of ethnographic films, in comparison with ethnographic books? Have their relative merits changed over time?
what is illuminated or obscured by analysing spatial forms like buildings or the bodies of humans or animals as representations?
What or how does an ethnographic film communicate and how does this compare to the communicative patterns of a written anthropological study?
-
-
Discuss how one’s understanding of a film might be enriched by an ethnographic text on the same topic.
-
KINSHIP
-
-
anthropologists tend to concentrate on the positive aspects of kinship rather than the more negative aspects. is this true and if so why might it be?
-
-
-
-
-
-
STATE
-
how have anthropological studies of people who have been distant from state power contributed to our general understanding of the state?
-
.If the state is ‘” fiction of the philosophers” (RADCLIFFE-BROWN), then how can it be studied anthropologically?
what are the implications of analysing the state as one or more of the following
a. an idea
b. institutions
c. practice
d. encounters
“The state… does not exist in the phenomenal world; it is a
fiction of the philosophers” (Radcliffe-Brown). Discuss.
-
Discuss the strengths and/or weaknesses of the ways in which two or more anthropologists have analysed the state.
CULTURE
Describe and evaluate some different ways in which anthropologists have used the concept of culture.
how have anthropologists used the notion of discrete 'cultures' to understand aspects of everyday life such as food, bodies, houses, etc? why have some anthropologists preferred to avoid the ideas of cultures in the plural?
what are the benefits and the limits of one or two of the following analogies in anthropological theory
a. society is like an organism
b. culture is like language
c. cultures are like texts
-
-
-
people in different cultures perceive and live in the world in radically different ways. discuss in relation to one or more of the following
a. time
b. animals
c. food
d. bodies
e. houses
the concept of culture is an ill-defined and redundant category which, over the years, has done little to clarify but much to confuse the thinking of professional anthropologists. (Edmund Leach, 1965) discuss.
POLITICS
-
-
-
What is gained and what is lost when we analyse societies by asking the question of how order is maintained?
-
political organisation is the maintenance or establishment of social order within a territorial framework by the organised exercise of coercive authority through the use, or the possibility of use, of physical force (Radcliffe Brown) discuss.
the important thing in constructing a community is the boundaries, not what they contain or exclude. discuss with reference to at least two ethnographic examples.
ECONOMICS
-
-
-
-
we can understand the economy much better if we start from a consideration of objects themselves rather than abstract processes of production, exchange and consumption. discuss
‘To understand how a society works it is necessary to give equal consideration to how things are produced, exchanged, and consumed’. Discuss.
-
HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY
‘The history of anthropological theory is a story of progress from prejudice and error towards enlightenment and truth’. Discuss.
when we look over the history of anthropology we learn more from the weaknesses of particular theories than we do from their strengths. discuss in relation to one or more of the following
a. evolutionism
b. functionalism
c. structuralism
d. Geertzian interpretivism
e. writing culture
f. practice theory
g. marxism
Anthropological theories from the past remain a vital
resource for anthropologists writing today’. Discuss.
-
why should today's anthropologists take a serious interest in one or more of the following?
a. evolutionist ideas about change and progress
b. structural-functionalist ideas about society as an organism
c. marxist concepts of inequality
d. theories of cultures as texts and/or languages
e. the idea of society as a game with rules and strategies
-
IDENTITY
Are there any human groups that are bound to share
common identity and solidarity, and if so, why?
-
Are there human social groups that are bound to exhibit a common identity and solidarity, and, if so, why?
“Identity is chosen, not given’ Discuss.
-
BODY
-
Is the body a source of, or a resource for, identity?
“The body is not just a given, but it is made as a part of social life, for instance in what we eat, how we move, or where we live.” Discuss.
-
-
NATIONALISM
-
‘Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to selfconsciousness: it invents nations where they do not exist’. (Ernest Gellner). Discuss.
it is nationalism that engenders nations, and not the other way around. (ernest gellner) discuss.
nationalism is not the awakening of an old, latent, dormant force, it is the consequence of a new form of social organisation, based on deeply internalised, education-dependent high cultures, each protected by its own state (gellner) discuss.
ETHNICITY
-
-
“The ethnic boundary, not the cultural stuff that it encloses,
defines the group.” (BARTH). Discuss.
-
ROLE OF ANTHROPOLOGY
since anthropologists have noting distinctive to contribute to our understanding of the contemporary global condition, they should confine their analysis to small scale societies
-