MH Anthropology 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In Lévi-Strauss's structuralist approach, myths from different cultures are analyzed to reveal:
- Historical migration patterns of ancient peoples
- Universal underlying binary oppositions in human thought (Correct answer)
- The ecological adaptations of traditional societies
- The psychological traumas encoded in oral traditions
Correct answer: Universal underlying binary oppositions in human thought
Lévi-Strauss argued that myths worldwide share deep structural patterns based on binary oppositions (e.g., nature/culture, raw/cooked) reflecting universal human cognition.
Question 2: The 'out of Africa' hypothesis in paleoanthropology holds that:
- Early hominins evolved separately on multiple continents
- Modern Homo sapiens originated in Africa and spread globally (Correct answer)
- Homo erectus was the first hominin to migrate out of Africa
- Neanderthals and modern humans share equal African ancestry
Correct answer: Modern Homo sapiens originated in Africa and spread globally
The out of Africa model, supported by genetic and fossil evidence, posits that anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa ~200,000 years ago and subsequently dispersed worldwide.
Question 3: Medical anthropology examines health and illness primarily by focusing on:
- The efficacy of pharmaceutical interventions in non-Western settings
- The cultural, social, and political dimensions of health and healing (Correct answer)
- Genetic predispositions to disease across human populations
- The statistical epidemiology of infectious diseases globally
Correct answer: The cultural, social, and political dimensions of health and healing
Medical anthropology investigates how cultural beliefs, social structures, and power relations shape experiences of illness, healing practices, and health systems.
Question 4: The concept of 'intersectionality,' relevant to feminist anthropology, was originally coined by:
- bell hooks
- Kimberlé Crenshaw (Correct answer)
- Patricia Hill Collins
- Angela Davis
Correct answer: Kimberlé Crenshaw
Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined 'intersectionality' in 1989 to describe how overlapping identities (race, gender, class) create compounding systems of discrimination.
Question 5: An 'emic' perspective in anthropological research prioritizes:
- The researcher's analytical categories imposed on cultural data
- The insider's own categories and meanings within a culture (Correct answer)
- Cross-cultural comparative frameworks developed by scholars
- Biological measurements of human populations
Correct answer: The insider's own categories and meanings within a culture
An emic approach seeks to understand culture through the concepts, distinctions, and meanings that insiders themselves use, in contrast to externally imposed 'etic' categories.
Question 6: The Neolithic Revolution was significant in anthropological history primarily because it marked:
- The first appearance of anatomically modern humans
- The transition from foraging to food production and settled life (Correct answer)
- The development of written language and record-keeping
- The emergence of complex state-level political organization
Correct answer: The transition from foraging to food production and settled life
The Neolithic Revolution (~10,000 BCE) saw human populations shift from mobile foraging to sedentary agriculture, fundamentally reshaping social organization, diet, and population density.
Question 7: Pierre Bourdieu's concept of 'habitus' refers to:
- The set of formal rules governing behavior in a society
- Durable dispositions and tendencies acquired through lived experience (Correct answer)
- The physical habitat that shapes cultural practices
- Ritualized behaviors repeated during ceremonial occasions
Correct answer: Durable dispositions and tendencies acquired through lived experience
Habitus describes the ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions that individuals develop through their social experiences, shaping perception and practice below conscious awareness.
MH Anthropology 4
In Lévi-Strauss's structuralist approach, myths from different cultures are analyzed to reveal: