In class last week I was asked to post a few sample exam questions and model complete answers. I think this is a great idea, so I have taken a few questions from the last midterm and have answered them below.
Question 1: Identify 2 characteristics of Ardipithecus that make this discovery so exctiing. (worth 2 marks)
Ardipithecus offers evidence that bipedalism was established by 4.4 million years ago. This ancestor shows a blending of hominid traits and ape traits; for example, the big toe is still opposable, and has not been realigned to the front of the foot.
Question 2: Define and briefly explain the significance the term ethnocentrism (worth 4 marks).
Ethnocentrism is the belief that ones own culture is the best or only way of doing things, and passing judgement on other cultures based on those cultural biases. This is very limiting in anthropology, since it makes it impossible to collect complete, objective information about cultural behaviours in a foreign cultural context.
Question 3: Using Advertising Missionaries as a case study, discuss acculturation in the context of globalization and some of the consequences. (worth 6 marks)
Acculturation is large scale culture change due to interaction with a more powerful society. Globalization, and specifically the exportation of captialist economic systems and consumption patterns, is an agent of acculturation in more remote, non industrial contexts. The movie Advertising Missionaries documents the introduction of imported products and ideas such as rice, toothpaste, peanut butter, and birth control in remote highland communities of Papua New Guinea. The introduction of a cash economy will have sweeping consequences as farmers sell their agricultural products to acquire money to purchase new “luxury items”. Emphasizing imported food items like rice will change the traditional subsistence pattern of sweet potatoes and pigs and make communities less autonomous and self-sufficient. Many of these new food items will also present new helath concerns. Family planning is a central component of development programs, but in these highland cultures elders are concerned that access to birth control will encourage more illicit sexual behaviour (since there would no longer be the threat of pregnancy to mitigate this behaviour), which will have negative social repurcussions. Papua New Guinea is already seeing an increase in violence as a consequence of acculturation, as bandits acquire more lethal weapons and compete for resources and money. Many of these changes will also lead to an erosion of traditional culture values and customs like gender segregated living and the importance of pigs as items of wealth.