Here are especially strong answers from the first exam. I will continue to add to this page as all exams are graded.

1) Cultural relativism is the belief or theory that all cultural practices are relative to the culture they are practiced in. In essence, there are no universal rights and wrongs, and everything is about a culture is relative. Cultural relativism is the opposite of universalism or ethnocentrism which is the theory that one culture is dominant over another, and there are universal rights and wrongs. An example of applied cultural relativism is present in the article on “Eggs and Wombs.” While some people would have used a harsher tone to relate the meticulous nature in which the maschigatas and the lab technicians interact, the author is able to relate the complex situation in terms relative to the Jewish tradition and culture. She does not judge the society from her own tradition but merely attempts to explain it in culturally relativistic terms.

2) RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
#1 Religious pluralism is the idea that despite personal religious affiliations, most people actually hold many different beliefs that do not fit simply into one, defined religion. An example of this would be the Azande tribe [AA: community?]. Since missionaries have come to their area, most people attend Catholic mass and value the moral beliefs of Catholicism, such as no stealing. At the same time, however, their longstanding oracle practices still have an important role in their society. Mainly the benge oracle – letting the death or survival of a poisoned chicken reveal truth – provides the final authority for many cases / trials in their society, and the vast majority of Azande people have complete faith in its effectiveness.

#2 Religious pluralism is the rational and logical belief in multiple religious systems at the same time. This can be seen with the Azande people. While Christianity spread, specifically Catholicism, the Azande began to accept and practice it. They did not, however, give up their shamanistic practices. They still relied on spirits, while also embracing Christianity.


3) GENDER
#1 Gender in American society is usually thought of as being binary – either you are male or female, have to be one, cannot be both. However gender-sex theorists argue that gender is actually a socially constructed concept. Gender is how your genes are expressed in socially constructed ways. For example, biology does not dictate that females should have long hair or wear dresses, yet this is often the case because of social norms. Gender is often used as a means to facilitate power by making differences out to be “natural” or “inevitable.” In the case of the Lese and the Efe, the Lese claimed that the Efe were more feminine in order to make their treatment and domination seem like an inevitable course of action. In the article by Emily Martin, she describes how even biology textbooks sources we believe to be without bias, have actually reinforced gender stereotypes by describing the male sperm as adventurous, daring, making decisions, and assertive, while describing the female eggs as passive, and accepting of decisions. In reality the sperm and egg work together to make a zygote, but the language of the textbooks would not suggest this view. Gender is more of a spectrum than binary and with this realization anthropologists have started asking why it has been used to dominate and facilitate power.


4) THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING
#1 The Great Chain of Being was a concept back in the Renaissance up through colonialism, and it ranked “higher orders” of the world from minerals at the bottom to God at the top. People in the middle, with “civilized” people ranked closer to God than “uncivilized” people. In the lecture, we learned that although the Great Chain of Being has ceased to have much relevance now, it has been transformed in other ways into our society. For example, people nowadays use terms like “primitive” and “developing nations” despite the fact that these terms are as subjective as “uncivilized” was. People, to this day, still have the concept of progress in nations and still say things like “China is 50 years behind the US,” even though we are in the same year as they are.

#2 The Great Chain of Being was a hierarchal order structure created in the 1500s. The order placed God at the top, then archangels, angels, humans (who were divided into barbaric, semi-civilized, civilized), animals, plants, and minerals. The Great Chain of Being illustrated the belief at the time that “anthropology” was distinguishing how far you were away from a particular society or culture. The Great Chain of Being can be applied to the practice of colonization. During colonization, people sought to “civilize” the “savages” and thus judged the society on a hierarchical scale, placing themselves at the civilized marker.



5) PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION
#1 Participant observation is the method of ethnographic research in which one lives within a community for an extended period, learns the language, becomes accepted into the community, asks questions, and takes many detailed notes. This has become the standard practice for anthropologists. One example of participant observation is Lila Abu-Lughod, who went and lived with a community of Bedouins. She became accepted into the community and lived like an adopted daughter with the Chief. She was able to observe and learn new aspects about this society, especially the beautiful poetry which had before been relatively undiscussed in research about this community.

#2 A method of anthropological study where the anthropologist lives with the people, has little outside contact, learns that culture’s language and is fluent, and immerses themselves with that culture to connect with more of the people. This particular methodology was used by anthropologist Bronislav Malinowski who went to Papua New Guinea to study their culture. He lived with them and connected these people at a personal level in order to understand what their practices were and how their culture viewed the world. Abu-Lughod was another anthropologist who used her methodology of participant observation when she went to Egypt. Although she was part Western and part Islamic, she initially associated herself with her Western side only. After she went to study about the people she become one with them, and immersed herself so much with that society that she even understood her other cultural side and started to agree with the people’s beliefs.


6) INTERSEX(ED)
#1 Intersex describes the genetic make up of one’s chromosomes being [different] than the traditionally known XX or XY. The video shown in lecture called XXXY showed two intersex people, and how their less common genetic makeup made them struggle with their identity as society, physicians, and parents implied their sex was not “natural.” However, this claim does not mean they are biologically incorrect; on the contrary, it meant that society had defined sex as a binary and therefore left no place for their third category to belong.

#2 Intersex is a sex that is neither male (xy) nor female (xx). It is another chromosomal combination and shows how sex is like a gradient rather than a binary. The lives of two intersex people were the topic of a video we watched during a class lecture. It was explained how doctors did surgery on them when they were young to try to form them into male or female (to try to fit that false binary). However, the people still felt different from both genders and would have liked to have had a choice in whether to undergo those surgeries.


7) INCEST TABOO


8) NATIVE ANTHROPOLOGIST
#1 A native anthropologist is an anthropologist who is studying their own culture, usually in their home area. Zora Neale Hurston is considered a native anthropologist concerning her work “Mules and Men” where she returns home to Eatonville, Florida to gather African American folklore and stores.