Week 8 · Chapter

Chapter 8 — Midterm Review & Exam

Cultural Anthropology Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~30–40 minutes · Objective 1 (explain the anthropological perspective (holism, comparison, and fieldwork), the four subfields and applied anthropology, and the culture concept, distinguishing culture from society, enculturation from acculturation, and ethnocentrism from cultural relativism as a method and from moral relativism), Objective 2 (describe and practice ethnographic methods: participant observation, two-column field notes that keep observation apart from interpretation, interviews, the genealogical method, emic and etic perspectives, thick description, and reflexivity, following the discipline's ethics of doing no harm and obtaining informed consent), Objective 3 (analyze language as a cultural system: distinguish language from communication, explain dialect, register, and code-switching, evaluate the strong and weak forms of linguistic relativity, and describe nonverbal communication and language endangerment), Objective 4 (compare how societies make a living and exchange goods: the subsistence strategies as a model, generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange, the obligations a gift creates, and documented cases such as the kula and the potlatch), Objective 5 (analyze political organization and social control: distinguish power from authority, use the band, tribe, chiefdom, and state model and the egalitarian, rank, and stratified scheme as models rather than rankings, and describe law and dispute resolution) · Read it early this week, before the review activities and well before the midterm.

In plain language

This week you look back at the first seven weeks and see how they fit together. Each topic so far turns on one key distinction, such as emic versus etic, or power versus authority. You also meet one small piece of new material: how anthropology's own ideas about culture changed since the nineteenth century. Each of those ideas became a lens (a school of thought used as a way of looking at a practice). You will try each lens on one documented case, the kula, and see which lenses the discipline kept and which one it threw away.

Why you already care about this

Picture a family holiday dinner (an illustrative scene). At the table sit 11 people from 3 generations. A cousin home after 4 months abroad describes a wedding she went to. Its 90 guests danced before the meal instead of after it. An uncle laughs and says, "They're a few steps behind us over there."

Nobody at the table blinks. Yet the uncle's line carries a whole theory inside it. It assumes every society walks the same road, that some are ahead, and that his own family sets the pace. In 1871, Tylor published Primitive Culture, the book that gave anthropology its first definition of culture. Tylor's era held a version of the uncle's theory, and the discipline later threw it out.

This chapter gathers the first half of the course into one map. Then it hands you the discipline's own history as a set of lenses, so you can catch the uncle's slip when you hear it.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

name the one distinction each of Weeks 1 to 7 asks for and apply it to a new case;
rerun the course's worked figures with the arithmetic shown;
describe unilineal evolutionism, historical particularism, functionalism, interpretive anthropology, and present-day practice in one sentence each;
read one practice, the kula, through each lens and say what each lens shows;
explain why the discipline rejected the first lens and kept the others.

Carry this line with you: a lens shows you something; a ladder only ranks.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 1 built the anthropological perspective, Week 2 defined culture, Week 3 taught fieldwork, Week 4 heard language, Week 5 asked how people get food, Week 6 sorted exchange, and Week 7 read power and authority.
This week: one distinction per week, reviewed with the figures you already worked, plus one new topic, how anthropology's ideas about culture changed, and the midterm.
How they connect: each school of thought you meet this week is a lens you can turn back on the market, the kula, and every distinction you have learned.
Where we're going next: Week 9, Kinship and Descent, opens the second half of the course, where the lenses go to work on who counts as family.

Every section below reuses a figure or a case you have already met. The running fieldwork site is still the same illustrative, unnamed weekly neighborhood farmers' market of 24 stalls. Week 3's field notes, Week 4's emic terms, Week 6's coded tally, and Week 7's governance all come from it. Week 5's subsistence table and Week 6's exchange set are illustrative too, written for this course. No new numbers appear this week.

1. Map the discipline: the four subfields

Picture a city park on a summer evening (illustrative). Families picnic, a youth soccer game runs on the far field, and an old stone wall marks where a farm once stood. Four different researchers could study that one park and ask four different questions.

That is Week 1's distinction. The four subfields are the usual division of anthropology in the United States into cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and biological anthropology, with applied anthropology running across all four.

Cultural anthropology studies ways of life in the present, mainly through long-term fieldwork among the people themselves.
Linguistic anthropology studies language in social life.
Archaeology studies past human ways of life through the material remains people left behind; it is not fossil-hunting in general.
Biological anthropology studies human evolution and human biological variation.
Applied anthropology uses anthropology's methods to address practical problems, and it runs across all four.

Worked example — four questions about one park (illustrative). Ask what each subfield would want to know.

Cultural: how the picnicking families decide who brings which dish, and what the meal means to them.
Linguistic: how the soccer coaches shift their speech between the players and the parents on the sideline.
Archaeology: what the stone wall and the objects buried near it show about the farm that stood there long ago.
Biological: how the diets people build from foods like these connect to human biological variation.

In words: one park holds four kinds of questions, and this course asks the first kind most of the time, because it is the cultural course, not the four-field survey.

Misconception check. Students often think anthropology studies dinosaurs, or that archaeology means digging up fossils of any kind. That is tempting, because films show archaeologists in dusty pits. But dinosaurs belong to paleontology, and archaeology studies past human ways of life through what people left behind. The cure: before you assign a question to a subfield, ask whether it is about humans, and if so, about which part of human life.

Memory hook: one place; four kinds of questions.

2. Separate the learned from the people: culture, society, and judgment

Think about a graduation. The caps and gowns, the walk across the stage, and the cheering in the seats all mean something nobody had to explain to you. You learned them by growing up around them. Week 2 gave you three pairs of words for what is happening there.

The first pair is culture and society.

Culture is the whole learned, shared way of life of a group, including its knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, and habits, acquired as a member of society rather than inherited; not the arts alone.
Society is the group of people who live a way of life together and interact; culture is the learned way of life, and society is the people who share it.

The second pair is about how culture is learned and how it changes.

Enculturation is the way a person learns their own culture growing up, mostly without noticing it.
Acculturation is the cultural change that follows sustained contact between groups, as each takes up and reworks some of the other's ways.

The third set is about judging, and it has three parts, not two.

Ethnocentrism is judging another culture by the standards of one's own; everyone begins from it by default.
Cultural relativism is a method: describing and understanding a practice in the terms of the culture it belongs to before judging it; it does not mean that anything goes.
Moral relativism is the philosophical claim that no moral judgment holds across cultures; it is a different idea from cultural relativism as a method.

Worked example — counting Tylor's list. Tylor (1871), Primitive Culture, gave the first anthropological definition of culture. The title is the period's wording, quoted as published.

The definition names knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, and custom: 6 items.
Of those, 1 is art.
So 6 − 1 = 5 of the named items are not the arts.

In words: you read culture as the whole learned way of life, not the arts alone.

Now return to the uncle at the holiday dinner. His joke judged the wedding by his own family's habits, which is ethnocentrism. Cultural relativism would first ask what dancing before the meal means to the people at that wedding. Neither move requires moral relativism. The American Anthropological Association takes public positions on race and on research ethics, so relativism as a method does not mean "anything goes".

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Describe a habit from your own family that a guest once found strange. How would you explain it in your family's own terms?
(b) Think of a time you judged someone else's custom by your own standards. What question could you have asked first?

Misconception check. Students often think cultural relativism means "anything goes", so an anthropologist can never say a practice causes harm. That is tempting, because "relative" sounds like "no fixed standards". But cultural relativism is a method for describing before judging, and moral relativism is a separate philosophical claim. The cure: say "describe first, then judge", and keep the method apart from the philosophy.

Memory hook: culture is what you learn; society is who you learn it with.

3. Keep what you saw apart from what it means: field notes, emic, and etic

Picture a library's quiet floor in exam season (illustrative). You notice that nobody sits at the long table by the window. That is what you saw. Maybe students avoid it because the sun glares there. That is a guess about what it means. Week 3 taught you to keep those two apart.

Week 3 gave you three distinctions.

Observation versus interpretation. Field notes are the fieldworker's written record of a visit, with what was observed kept in one column and what it might mean kept in a separate column, and with people identified by role, never by name.
Emic versus etic. Emic means describing the insider's own categories and meanings, in the words the people themselves use. Etic means describing an outside analyst's categories, chosen so that cases from different places can be compared.
Ethnography versus ethnology. Ethnography is the detailed study of one community, and the written account of that study. Ethnology is the comparison of many cultures to find patterns and differences among them.

Worked example — Visit 1, revisited. These field notes are illustrative, constructed for this course, not a real place.

The visit: Visit 1 ran from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m., so 2 hours, or 2 × 60 = 120 minutes.
The notes: it produced 10 field-note entries, one every 120 ÷ 10 = 12 minutes on average.
Two columns: each entry you reread keeps the observed column apart from the possible-interpretation column. Entry 4 records a vendor who greets a shopper with "The usual?" and bags two pounds of apples before the shopper asks. Its interpretation column says only that the shopper may be one of the vendor's "regulars".
Emic and etic: the vendors' "regulars" is the emic term. An observer's repeat buyers, people seen buying at the same stall on at least 3 of 4 weekly visits, is the etic counterpart. That threshold is 3 ÷ 4 × 100 = 75 percent of the visits.

In words: "regulars" and repeat buyers describe the same shoppers from two angles, and neither label is the right one.

Misconception check. Students often think emic is the right view and etic is the wrong one, because the insiders know their own lives best. That is tempting, because "respect the insider" is a good habit. But the etic term is what lets you compare the market with a supermarket or a flea market, and the emic term is what keeps the vendors' meaning in view. The cure: write both, and label which is which.

Memory hook: what you saw goes left; what it might mean goes right.

4. Tell language from communication: two forms of relativity

A dog barks at the door, and you know someone is there. A friend texts "omw", and you know she is on her way. Both passed you information. Only one used a learned system that can also talk about last year, next week, and things that never happened.

That is Week 4's distinction.

Communication is any passing of information from one living thing to another, by sound, sight, touch, or smell; many animals communicate without using language.
Language is a symbolic system of learned words and rules that lets people say and understand an unlimited number of new things, including things not present; it is one kind of communication, not a synonym for it.

Week 4 also posed a big question as a debate over the size of an effect. Linguistic relativity is the idea, associated with Sapir and Whorf, that the language a person speaks shapes their thought.

The strong form of linguistic relativity claims that language determines thought, so speakers cannot perceive or think what their language has no word for; the evidence does not support it.
The weak form of linguistic relativity claims that language influences habits of attention, sorting, and memory without fixing what a speaker can think; it has limited support.

Worked example — the interview's emic terms. The interview excerpt (Dataset F) is illustrative, with an unnamed vendor.

The excerpt has 5 answers.
4 of them carry an emic term: "regulars", "seconds", "the swap", and "the bell".
So 4 ÷ 5 × 100 = 80 percent of the answers carry an emic term.

Now try the two forms on "seconds", the vendors' word for bruised or misshapen produce sold at a lower price. The word may help a vendor sort tomatoes fast, a habit of attention, which fits the weak form. A first-time buyer who lacks the word still sees the bruises, so the strong form fails.

In words: the vendors' terms are learned words that shape what they notice first, but they do not decide what anyone can see.

Misconception check. Students often think linguistic relativity means your language traps your thinking, so you cannot grasp an idea your language lacks a word for. That is tempting, because the strong form makes a dramatic claim. But the evidence does not support the strong form, and the weak form claims only limited influence on habits. The cure: when you hear "language shapes thought", ask "how much?"

Memory hook: a bark is communication; a sentence about tomorrow is language.

5. Read a model, not a ladder: subsistence strategies

Think about your last grocery run. You pushed a cart, scanned a card, and carried food home, and almost none of it was grown by anyone you know. Week 5 asked how a group gets its food and gave you a model for comparing the answers.

Subsistence strategies are the ways a group gets its food, taught in this course as a model of five strategies: foraging, horticulture, pastoralism, intensive agriculture, and industrial and postindustrial economies; real communities mix strategies.

Worked example — the model's densities. The subsistence table (Dataset D) is an illustrative model with engineered whole numbers, not a description of any real people. Its densities are 1, 4, 20, and 200 people per square kilometre.

Horticultural over foraging: 20 ÷ 1 = 20.
Intensive agricultural over horticultural: 200 ÷ 20 = 10.
Intensive agricultural over foraging: 200 ÷ 1 = 200.

In words: 200 versus 1 person per square kilometre is a 200-fold difference in the model, and you read it as a difference in how people live on the land, not as a rank.

Here is the honesty note: real foraging densities are often well under one person per square kilometre, and real communities mix strategies. The table is a tool for comparison, not a census.

Misconception check. Students often read the five strategies as rungs on a ladder, with foraging as an early stage and industrial economies at the top. That is tempting, because the list runs from small to large. But the model compares how people get food, and no strategy is earlier or better than another. The cure: describe what each strategy does with land and labor, and never say "more advanced".

Memory hook: a model to compare, not a ladder to climb.

6. Sort how goods move: three reciprocities and three forms of exchange

At a holiday gift exchange among cousins, nobody sends a bill, yet everyone notices who gave what. At a phone store, you pay the posted price and walk out with no tie to the cashier. Week 6 gave you two sets of three for telling those moves apart.

The first set sorts reciprocity by how closely the giver keeps track.

Generalized reciprocity is giving with no count kept and no set time for a return, usual among close kin and close friends.
Balanced reciprocity is exchange in which each side expects a return of about equal value within a known time, and both sides keep rough track.
Negative reciprocity is exchange in which one side tries to get more than it gives, including hard haggling with strangers.

The second set sorts the forms of exchange.

Reciprocity is exchange between social equals, in which goods or help pass back and forth between people rather than through a center or a market.
Redistribution is exchange in which goods are collected by a central person or office and then given out again.
Market exchange is buying and selling at prices set by supply and demand, usually with money and with no lasting tie expected between buyer and seller.

Worked example — the keys and the tally. The exchange set (Dataset C) and the market's coded tally (Dataset A) are illustrative, constructed for this course.

The exchange set: 3 generalized + 3 balanced + 2 negative + 2 redistribution + 2 market = 12 keyed transactions.
The coded tally: 33 market + 8 generalized + 5 balanced + 4 redistribution + 0 negative = 50 exchanges.
Market exchange share: 33 ÷ 50 × 100 = 66 percent.
Generalized reciprocity share: 8 ÷ 50 × 100 = 16 percent.
The gap: 66 − 16 = 50 percentage points.

In words: buying at posted prices carries most of the market's exchanges, yet vendors still share without counting, swap at matched value, and pool unsold goods, so all three forms work in one place.

Misconception check. Students often think a gift is free, with nothing owed in return. That is tempting, because nobody names a price. But Mauss's essay on the gift argues that a gift carries three obligations: to give, to receive, and to give back. The cure: before you call something free, ask what the receiver now owes, and to whom.

Memory hook: family rarely tallies; strangers tally everything.

7. Tell power from authority: the market's manager

Picture a campus club meeting (illustrative). The elected president asks members to set up chairs, and they do. A member who grabs the speaker cable and refuses to plug it in also makes people wait. Both moved the group, but only one had the group's acceptance.

That is Week 7's distinction.

Power is the ability to make others act, even against their will, whether or not they accept it as rightful.
Authority is power that people accept as rightful, such as an elected officer's right to make decisions for a group.
Legitimacy is people's acceptance that a use of power is rightful; legitimacy is what turns power into authority.

Week 7 also gave you a model. Band, tribe, chiefdom, and state is a classroom model of four types of political organization, associated with Service's work of 1962; it is a tool for comparison, never a ladder of progress, and real communities mix features.

Worked example — the market's governance. Dataset A is illustrative, constructed for this course, not a real place.

Redistribution: 4 of the 50 coded exchanges were redistribution through the "Pantry" crate, which the manager passes on, and 4 ÷ 50 × 100 = 8 percent.
The manager in the notes: 2 of the 10 field-note entries show the manager acting, the bell at 8:00 a.m. and the crate at 9:20 a.m., and 2 ÷ 10 × 100 = 20 percent.
The reading: the vendors accept the manager's stall assignments and fee as rightful, and their own association votes on the rules. That acceptance is legitimacy.

In words: the manager holds authority, not only power, and the "Pantry" crate shows that redistribution runs through the person with the authority to collect and give out.

Misconception check. Students often treat power and authority as synonyms, as if anyone in charge has authority. That is tempting, because everyday speech uses the words loosely. But power is only the ability to make others act, and authority is power people accept as rightful. The cure: name the legitimacy before you call it authority.

Memory hook: power moves people; legitimacy makes them call it right.

8. Trace how the discipline's ideas changed: five lenses

Picture a family photo album that runs four generations deep (illustrative). The clothes change, the haircuts change, and so do the poses. Anthropology's ideas about culture changed in the same way, and each change left behind a way of looking. Those ways of looking are this week's one piece of new material.

You will meet five, in roughly the order they arose. Treat each as a lens: a school of thought used as a way of looking at a practice, which shows some things and hides others.

Unilineal evolutionism: the lens the discipline rejected

In the nineteenth century, many scholars compared customs from reports written by travelers, missionaries, and colonial officials. Week 1 called this the "armchair" approach. Many of those scholars shared one big idea.

Unilineal evolutionism is the nineteenth-century idea, found in Tylor and in Morgan's Ancient Society (1877), that every society passes through the same series of stages; anthropology rejected it as a ranking of societies, not a finding of biology.

Morgan (1877), Ancient Society, named three stages: "savagery", "barbarism", and "civilization". Those are Morgan's labels, quoted only as his. The scheme ranked whole societies on one ladder. The uncle at the holiday dinner was speaking unilineal evolutionism without knowing it.

Historical particularism: each culture has its own history

In the early twentieth century, anthropologists turned to long-term fieldwork, associated with Boas in the United States. Boas's approach later received a name of its own.

Historical particularism is a label later given to Boas's approach, which holds that each culture is the product of its own particular history and must be studied on its own terms before any comparison. The label came later; it was not Boas's own term.

Functionalism: practices meet needs

Malinowski (1922), Argonauts of the Western Pacific, came out of his fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands in the 1910s. He asked what a practice does for the people who carry it out.

Functionalism is an approach associated with Malinowski that explains a practice by the needs it meets for the people who carry it out.
Structural functionalism is an approach associated with Radcliffe-Brown that explains a practice by how it helps keep a society's structure of relationships going.

Interpretive anthropology: culture as meanings to read

Geertz (1973), The Interpretation of Cultures, opened with an essay that made thick description central. Thick description is a term Geertz took from the philosopher Gilbert Ryle; it means telling a wink from a twitch by describing the layers of meaning around a movement.

Interpretive anthropology is an approach associated with Geertz that treats culture as a web of meanings to be read, much as a reader works through a text, using thick description.

Present-day practice: working with communities

Present-day practice is the way anthropologists now tend to work: reflexive about their own position, collaborative, applied to practical problems, and public, often treating the communities they study as partners in the research.

Worked example — a timeline from three pinned dates. All three years are pinned in this course.

Tylor's definition appeared in 1871, Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific in 1922, and Geertz's The Interpretation of Cultures in 1973.
From the first definition to the fieldwork monograph: 1922 − 1871 = 51 years.
From that monograph to thick description: 1973 − 1922 = 51 years.
In all: 1973 − 1871 = 102 years.

In words: about a century separates the armchair era's first definition from the reading of culture as meaning, and fieldwork sits halfway between them.

Five schools of thought about culture, with the question each lens asks and the person or period each is associated with
Lens	Associated with	The question it asks of a practice
Unilineal evolutionism (rejected)	Tylor and Morgan, nineteenth century	Which stage does this society occupy?
Historical particularism	Boas, a label given later	What particular history produced this practice?
Functionalism and structural functionalism	Malinowski; Radcliffe-Brown	What needs does it meet, and what structure does it keep going?
Interpretive anthropology	Geertz	What does it mean to the people who do it?
Present-day practice	the discipline now	Whose voices shape the account, and how can the community take part?

Misconception check. Students often think unilineal evolutionism was Darwin's theory of evolution applied correctly to culture. That is tempting, because both use the word "evolution". But unilineal evolutionism was a ranking of societies on a single ladder, not a finding of biology, and the discipline rejected it. The cure: when you hear "stages" or "behind", ask who built the ladder and who put themselves at the top.

Memory hook: one school ranked; the others look.

9. Read the kula through each lens

Picture holding a shell necklace for a while and then passing it on to a partner on another island. Money never changes hands. What you gain is standing and a lasting partner. That is the kula, which you met in Week 6.

The kula was an exchange in which, in the 1910s, Trobriand Islanders and their neighbors carried shell necklaces clockwise and shell armbands counterclockwise around a ring of islands. Each valuable was held for a time and passed on for prestige and lasting partnerships rather than profit, as Malinowski (1922) recorded.

Worked example — the kula through four lenses. Ask each lens its own question and write one sentence.

Unilineal evolutionism: it would file the kula as an earlier "stage" on the road to market trade. That is the reading the discipline rejected.
Historical particularism: it reads the kula as a product of the islands' own history, studied on its own terms before any comparison.
Functionalism: it reads the kula as meeting needs for alliance and prestige among partners on different islands.
Interpretive anthropology: it reads the kula as a web of meanings about fame and partnership.

In words: each school is a lens rather than a rung. The kula looks like a ranking error through the first lens and like history, needs, and meaning through the other three, so you keep the lenses that show something and drop the one that ranks.

The present-day lens adds a question rather than a new reading. It asks whose voices shape the account, and how the people whose practice it is take part in telling it. A caveat belongs here: this course describes the kula only as Malinowski recorded it in the 1910s. Every community changes, and the people of those islands speak for themselves now.

Try the lenses on a fresh case too. Picture a workplace potluck (illustrative). A functionalist reading says the potluck meets a need: coworkers from different teams get to know each other. An interpretive reading asks what bringing a family recipe means to the person who brought it. A historical particularist asks how this office's potluck habit grew from its own past. None of those readings ranks the potluck against any other workplace's lunch.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Pick one practice from the market, such as the opening bell or "the swap". Which lens shows you the most about it, and what does that lens leave out?
(b) Pick a custom from your own life, such as a birthday tradition. Read it with the functionalist lens and then the interpretive lens. Which reading would the people who do it recognize more easily?

Misconception check. Students often think functionalism says every custom is good for everyone, or that the schools march toward one correct theory with Geertz at the finish line. Both are tempting, because a needs-based story sounds approving, and a timeline sounds like progress. But a practice can meet one group's needs at another group's cost, and each lens shows something the others miss. The cure: use more than one lens, and say what each one shows.

Memory hook: keep the lenses that look; drop the one that ranks.

Key terms

Lens — A school of thought used as a way of looking at a practice, which shows some things and hides others; the schools are lenses to compare, not rungs on a ladder toward one correct theory. (first used: 8. Trace how the discipline's ideas changed: five lenses)
Unilineal evolutionism — The nineteenth-century idea, found in Tylor and in Morgan's Ancient Society (1877), that every society passes through the same series of stages; anthropology rejected it as a ranking of societies, not a finding of biology. (first used: 8. Trace how the discipline's ideas changed: five lenses)
Historical particularism — A label later given to Boas's approach, which holds that each culture is the product of its own particular history and must be studied on its own terms before any comparison. (first used: 8. Trace how the discipline's ideas changed: five lenses)
Functionalism — An approach associated with Malinowski that explains a practice by the needs it meets for the people who carry it out. (first used: 8. Trace how the discipline's ideas changed: five lenses)
Structural functionalism — An approach associated with Radcliffe-Brown that explains a practice by how it helps keep a society's structure of relationships going. (first used: 8. Trace how the discipline's ideas changed: five lenses)
Interpretive anthropology — An approach associated with Geertz that treats culture as a web of meanings to be read, much as a reader works through a text, using thick description. (first used: 8. Trace how the discipline's ideas changed: five lenses)
Present-day practice — The way anthropologists now tend to work: reflexive about their own position, collaborative, applied to practical problems, and public, often treating the communities they study as partners in the research. (first used: 8. Trace how the discipline's ideas changed: five lenses)

Summary

Each of Weeks 1 to 7 asks you to keep one distinction straight.
The four subfields ask four kinds of questions about humans.
Culture is the learned way of life; society is the people living it.
Cultural relativism is a method, not moral relativism.
Field notes keep observation apart from interpretation; emic and etic are both needed.
Language is one kind of communication; the strong form of relativity is not supported.
Subsistence strategies and Service's types are models, never ladders.
Generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity differ by how closely the giver keeps track.
Authority is power people accept as rightful.
Unilineal evolutionism ranked societies, and the discipline rejected it.
Historical particularism, functionalism, interpretive anthropology, and present-day practice are lenses that each show something.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

An illustrative campus swap meet records 40 exchanges: 22 sales at posted prices, 10 items given away among friends with no count kept, 6 even trades between sellers, and 2 bags of leftovers collected by the organizer for a shelter. What share of the exchanges is market exchange, what share is generalized reciprocity, and how large is the gap between them?
A student's field note reads: "10:15 a.m., a bus stop. A commuter with a briefcase glares at a rider playing music because the commuter is annoyed by it." What is wrong with this note, and how would you rewrite it in two columns?
A classmate says, "The old stage theories were Darwin's evolution applied to culture, so they were good science for their time." Using this week's concepts, explain what is wrong with that claim.
An illustrative youth soccer team holds an end-of-season party where each player is handed a certificate naming one thing they did well. Read the party with the functionalist lens and with the interpretive lens, one sentence each.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

Market exchange is 22 ÷ 40 × 100 = 55 percent. Generalized reciprocity is 10 ÷ 40 × 100 = 25 percent. The gap is 55 − 25 = 30 percentage points, a difference between two percentages, so it is in percentage points rather than percent. A check: the even trades are 6 ÷ 40 × 100 = 15 percent and the leftovers are 2 ÷ 40 × 100 = 5 percent, and 55 + 25 + 15 + 5 = 100.
The note mixes observation with interpretation and identifies no column. "Glares" and "because the commuter is annoyed by it" are guesses about feeling and cause. Observed: a commuter with a briefcase looks toward a rider who is playing music aloud; the commuter frowns. Possible interpretation: the commuter may be bothered by the music. The roles stay as roles, with no names.
The claim treats unilineal evolutionism as biology. It was a ranking of whole societies on one ladder, built mostly from reports by travelers, missionaries, and colonial officials. The discipline rejected it for that ranking. Darwin's theory is about biological change, not about placing whole societies on stages.
Functionalist: the party meets the team's need to close the season and keep players and families tied to the team for next year. Interpretive: each certificate is a piece of a web of meanings about what the team values in a player, so the party is read for what the certificates say, not only for what the party does.

Next up in this module: the lecture, the slide deck, the Readings & Resources page, the practice set, the discussion, and the midterm — and next week the lenses meet kinship and descent, where the genealogical method maps who counts as family.

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