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Student eSources for Introducing Cultural Anthropology, 2nd ed. include chapter goals, chapter outlines, key terms, and discussion questions. Professors can access additional materials on the downloads page.

Chapter 1: The Discipline of Anthropology

Chapter Goals

After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• Describe the four subfields of anthropology and explain how they relate to one another.
• Describe the methods and concepts that distinguish cultural anthropology from related disciplines such as sociology, intercultural studies, and missiology.
• Explain how Christians contribute to anthropology, and how anthropology contributes to Christian life and service.

Chapter Outline

Finding Cultural Anthropology
What Is Cultural Anthropology?
The Four Subfields of Anthropology
Ethnography and Fieldwork
The Anthropological Perspective
Anthropology and Related Disciplines
Anthropology and Missions
Anthropology and the Christian Witness
Christians and Basic Research in Anthropology
Anthropology in a Globalized World

Key Terms

anthropological perspective
anthropology
applied anthropology
archaeology
cultural anthropology
cultural other
ethnoarchaeology
ethnographic fieldwork
ethnographic interviews
ethnography
excavation
focus groups
globalization
holistic understanding
life history
linguistics
mapping
Mound Builders
participant observation
physical (or biological) anthropology
primatology
qualitative research methods
quantitative research methods
rapid ethnographic assessment procedures (REAP)
rapport
survey

Discussion Questions

• Share about a place you visited or traveled to, where the culture was unfamiliar. If you could revisit that place and do ethnographic fieldwork, what topics would you explore?
• What are your impressions of how Christianity and anthropology fit together, or don’t fit together? Choose one point of tension, or one point of collaboration, and generate a strategy for maximizing the collaboration, or for turning the tension into an asset.
• If you were going to spend a year doing participant observation at your college or university, what kinds of methods would you use to investigate its culture? Consider methods mentioned in this chapter, such as ethnographic interviews, focus groups, maps, life histories, and surveys. How would ethnographic fieldwork shape your anthropological perspective?

Chapter 2: Culture

Chapter Goals

After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• Define the culture concept and describe its development in the field of anthropology.
• Distinguish between three major types of ethnocentrism.
• Evaluate common metaphors for culture.
• Appreciate culture as a good part of God’s creation.

Chapter Outline

Introduction
The Ethnic Fair
History of the Culture Concept in Anthropology
Cultural Relativism
Varieties of Ethnocentrism
The Culture Concept Today
Describing Culture
Culture as a Conversation
Christians and Culture

Key Terms

armchair anthropologists
cultural relativism
cultural superiority 
culture
epistemological relativism 
ethnocentrism 
historical particularism
monogenesis
moral relativism
polygenesis
racism
tacit ethnocentrism
unilinear cultural evolution
xenophobia

Discussion Questions

• Name one culture you have visited or studied in depth. Generate an example of a cultural difference that you first interpreted in an ethnocentric way and then learned to view with cultural relativism.
• Design an ethnic fair exhibit for your culture (or one of the cultures with which you identify). What items would you choose to represent your culture? Now think critically: In what ways does the ethnic fair accurately represent your culture? How does the ethnic fair approach misrepresent or oversimplify your culture?
• Read Genesis 1–2. List elements of culture present before the fall. Consider the total way of life of a group of people that is learned, dynamic, shared, power laden, and integrated. This includes symbols, language, marriage, economy, family, custom, law, and other elements of life. It includes the ways in which these elements are stable, contested, or changing. In your experience, have Christians tended to consider culture as part of God’s good creation, or as part of the fall? How might a view of culture as emerging from creation shape Christians’ cultural engagement?

Chapter 3: Language

Chapter Goals

After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• Compare and contrast historical linguistics, descriptive linguistics, and sociolinguistics.
• Explain how anthropologists use the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
• 3. Describe how sociolinguists study culture, language, and society.

Chapter Outline

Introduction
Historical Linguistics
Descriptive Linguistics
Sociolinguistics
Linguistic Diversity in a Globalized World
Theories of Language
Language and Scripture

Key Terms

code-switching
comparative method
creole
descriptive grammar
descriptive linguistics
diachronic
dialect
ethnosemantics (or ethnoscience)
grammar
historical linguistics
kinesics
language
language family
language hierarchy
langue
lexicon
linguistic morphology
linguistic nationalism
morpheme
official language
paralanguage
parole
phonemes
phonetics
phonology
pidgin
pragmatics
prescriptive grammar
protolanguage
regional dialect
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
semantics
social dialect
social register
sociolinguistics
structuralism
symbol
synchronic
syntax

Discussion Questions

• Choose a common phrase, such as “That’s great!” or “I love you” or “Come here!” Say the same phrase three different ways to produce different meanings. Use kinesics and paralanguage to alter the meaning of the words.
• If you were to develop a career in linguistics, would you rather work in historical linguistics, descriptive linguistics, or sociolinguistics? Offer an idea for a research project you could conduct in the field you choose.
• What are the two or three most common words you use when referring to God? How might those words shape your view of God? In general, how does people’s language for God shape their relationship with God?
• Tell a story about a time when you observed one language or dialect being valued over another. How were these social judgments communicated, and what impact did they have?

Chapter 4: Social Structure and Inequality in Race, Ethnicity, and Class

Chapter Goals

After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• Understand how anthropologists analyze social structure and inequality.
• Understand race, ethnicity, class, and caste.
• Explain how race, ethnicity, class, and caste structure and perpetuate social inequality.
• Appreciate practical ways Christians can address social inequality.

Chapter Outline

Introduction
Social Structure and Inequality
Race
Ethnicity
Class and Caste
Culture and Class
Christian Responses to Inequality

Key Terms

achieved status
ascribed status
caste
class (or social class)
cultural capital
ethnicity
institution
instrumentalism (or constructivism)
master status
power
prestige
primordialism
race
role
role conflict
role strain
social inequality
social stratification
social structure (or social organization)
status
wealth

Discussion Questions

• Consider the society you live in right now. How open and flexible is the social class system? (In other words, if a person wanted to move from a lower class to a higher class, how easy or difficult might it be for them?) On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 meaning “totally open class system,” and 10 meaning “totally rigid caste system,” rate your society’s degree of social mobility. Do students in your class rate your society in different ways? What sources of information lead them to different conclusions? What are some credible sources of information that could sharpen the accuracy of your perceptions?
• What is your ethnicity? What is your race? Is one of these easier to define than the other? Why might that be?
• Identify an area of role conflict and an area of role strain in your life. How does the anthropological perspective, seeing individual experience linked to social structure, shape how you might address these problems in your life?

Chapter 5: Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Chapter Goals

After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• Describe how anthropologists define sex, gender, and sexuality.
• Appreciate how anthropologists study the ways culture influences categories, variations, and lived experiences of sex, gender, and sexuality.
• Explain how sexuality and gender are embedded in systems of globalization and social inequality.
• Understand how anthropological perspectives on sex, gender, and sexuality can be helpful for the church.

Chapter Outline

Introduction
Sex
Gender
Sexuality
Anthropological Contributions to the Church

Key Terms

bakla
burqa
female circumcision (also female genital mutilation [FGM])
gender
gender role
gender socialization
gender status
intersex
kula ring
purdah
quinceañera
sex
sexual dimorphism
sexual identity
sexuality
third gender
two-spirit (also berdache)

Discussion Questions

• Tell a story about a time you encountered a gender norm (a status or role) that was different from the gender norms of your background. How did you recognize it as different? How did you respond to the difference?
• In your opinion, what is the most important thing Christians need to do as they address difficult issues of gender and sexuality in church and society? How could anthropological concepts or perspectives be helpful?
• If you had to pick one, which social factor do you think most strongly contributes to social inequality in society today: sex, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, or social class? Explain your choice.

Chapter 6: Economics

Chapter Goals

After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• Identify and describe different systems of production.
• Distinguish between various systems of exchange.
• Compare and contrast formalist and substantivist economic theories.
• Appreciate the variety of economic systems described in Scripture.

Chapter Outline

Introduction
Organization of Production
Economics and Social Structure
Systems of Exchange
Economic Globalization and Cultural Change
Formalist and Substantivist Economic Theories
Economics, Culture, and the Bible

Key Terms

agriculture
articulation
balanced reciprocity
biomass
dependency theory
economic anthropology
exchange systems
extensive farming
foraging (or hunting and gathering)
formalism
generalized reciprocity
horticulturalism
intensification
leveling mechanism
market economy
modernization theory
multicropping
negative reciprocity
neoliberalism
nomadic pastoralism
pastoralism
production
property rights
redistribution
subsistence farming
subsistence strategy
substantivism
swidden farming (or shifting cultivation, or slash-and-burn)
transhumant pastoralism
usufruct rights
world-systems theory

Discussion Questions

• For each system of production, discuss its presence in Scripture. How could attentiveness to economics shape biblical interpretation?
• Review the textbox “Foragers: The Original Affluent Society?” Design an experiment like Alastair Bland’s that would allow you to immerse yourself in a different system of production or exchange. What would you hope to learn?
• Consider your view of globalization. Do you lean toward a more favorable view (neoliberalism) or a more negative view (dependency theory)? What sources of information shape your view? How could ethnographic knowledge of societies around the world contribute to your global perspective?

Chapter 7: Authority and Power

Chapter Goals

After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• Define political anthropology, authority, and power.
• Distinguish between coercive, persuasive, and hegemonic power.
• Understand how anthropologists model systems of political organization with the typology of bands, tribes, chiefdoms and kingdoms, and states.
• Appreciate the variety of ways in which Christians may engage in politics.

Chapter Outline

Introduction
Power and Culture
Political Organization
Christians and Politics

Key Terms

age-set
authority
band
chiefdom or kingdom
coercive power
counterhegemony
formal negative sanctions
formal positive sanctions
formal sanctions
hegemonic power (or hegemony)
informal sanctions
oligarchy
persuasive power
political anthropology
politics
power
social sanctions
state
tribe

Discussion Questions

• What is one way that God’s power is like human power? What is one difference?
• Tell a story about a successful use of persuasive power and an unsuccessful attempt to use persuasive power. What factors make persuasion more or less likely to work?
• Consider similarities and differences between band societies, tribes, chiefdoms/ kingdoms, and state societies. What is one way in which being a Christian would be the same in all societies? What is one distinctive Christian practice or belief that would be particularly important in a band? In a tribe? In a chiefdom/kingdom? In a state?

Chapter 8: Kinship and Marriage

Chapter Goals

After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• Articulate the importance of kinship and marriage in social organization.
• Compare and contrast the various descent systems.
• Understand anthropological approaches to the study of marriage.
• Describe the variety of family systems present in the Bible.

Chapter Outline

Introduction
Kinship
Descent
Marriage
Family in the Bible

Key Terms

affinal
ambilineal descent
bilateral descent
brideservice
bridewealth (also called brideprice)
cognatic (also called nonunilineal) descent
consanguineal kin
cross-cousin marriage
descent
dowry
dual descent
fictive kinship
incest taboo
kinship
marriage
marriage exchange
matriarchy
matrilineal descent
monogenesis
neolocal residence
parallel-cousin marriage
patriarchy
patrilineal descent
plural marriage (also called polygamy)
polyandry
polygyny
primogeniture
segment
teknonymy
unilineal descent
uxorilocal residence

Discussion Questions

• Why is kinship a cultural universal? What social needs are met through kinship?
• How does your family reckon descent? Use anthropological terms to describe how your family views descent patterns. How can you see this social pattern reflected in family photographs or family trees (or other pictorial representations of family)?
• Review the “Family in the Bible” section. What are some guiding principles for how Christians today can apply scriptural insights to their societies? What are some guidelines for taking cultural difference (between biblical cultures and a contemporary society) into consideration?

Chapter 9: Religion and Ritual

Chapter Goals

After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• Define religion, ritual, and myth and explain their social functions.
• Describe the history of anthropological studies of religion.
• Understand Clifford Geertz’s definition of religion as a cultural system.
• Explain the relevance of anthropological study of religion for Christian life.

Chapter Outline

Introduction
Studying Religion
Religion, Magic, and Witchcraft
Early Anthropological Approaches to Religion
Functions of Religion
Religion as a Cultural System
Ritual Change
Christians and Religion

Key Terms

animism
atheism
cultural materialism
fetish
initiation rituals
liminal period
magic
mana
monotheism
myth
polytheism
reintegration
religion
rites of affliction
rites of intensification
rites of passage (or life-cycle rituals)
ritual (or rite)
separation
sorcery
symbol
taboo
witchcraft

Discussion Questions

• What is distinctive about studying religion from an anthropological point of view? How is the anthropological view different from a theological view, or a historical view?
• What does it feel like to subject your own religion to anthropological scrutiny? Does scientific scrutiny demean or disrespect religion, and how? Is scientific scrutiny helpful to religion, and how?
• Tell a story about a ritual that was important in your life. It should be a rite of intensification, a rite of affliction, or a rite of passage, and may be secular or religious. What factors make ritual meaningful for individuals and for communities?

Chapter 10: Medical Anthropology

Chapter Goals

After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• Describe major approaches to medical anthropology.
• Appreciate how medical anthropology is applied in a variety of cultural contexts.
• Understand issues of power and inequality within medical systems.
• Describe theological implications of medical anthropology.

Chapter Outline

Introduction
Key Concepts
Ethnomedicine
Medical Anthropology in Ecological (Epidemiological) Perspective
Critical Medical Anthropology
Clinical Medical Anthropology
Christians, Health, and the Body

Key Terms

alternative medicine
biomedicine
clinical medical anthropology
critical medical anthropology
culture-bound syndrome (also called folk illness)
disease
epidemiological or ecological medical anthropology
epidemiology
ethnomedicine
illness
medical anthropology
medicalization
sickness
susto
taxonomy

Discussion Questions

• How do you define “health” or “well-being”? These conditions are experienced by individuals, but they also relate to social and cultural contexts. What conditions need to be in place for an individual to experience health or wellness?
• Jesus performed many acts of healing in his ministry, although he did not physically heal everyone with whom he came into contact. How do you believe Jesus would define “health”? What passages or quotations from Jesus would support your answer?
• What are some of the uses of the body as a metaphor, or references to parts of the body in metaphorical ways (e.g., “my heart longs after you”), in Scripture? How are those similar to or different from how you talk metaphorically about the body or aspects of the body in your culture?
• Think of something besides addiction or childbirth that is medicalized. What are the consequences (good or bad) of this process? How/why do you think it happened?

Chapter 11: Theory in Cultural Anthropology

Chapter Goals

After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• Explain the role of theory in anthropological research.
• Identify key theoretical perspectives in anthropology.
• Discuss how Christians can engage anthropological theory in thinking about faith and society.

Chapter Outline

Introduction
Theory in Anthropology
Foundations of Anthropological Theory
Early Anthropological Theories
Positivist Anthropology
Symbolic Anthropology
Postmodern Anthropological Theory
Christians Engaging Anthropological Theory

Key Terms

cultural ecology
cultural marxism (also called marxian theory)
cultural materialism
cultural traits
diffusionism
falsification
feminist theory
functionalism
historical particularism
idiographic explanation
naturalism
nomothetic explanation
perspectivalism (or standpoint theory)
positivism
postmodern theory
reflexivity
sociobiology
structural functionalism
structuralism
symbolic anthropology (also called interpretive anthropology)
theory
unilinear cultural evolution

Discussion Questions

• How does theory work in your major? Can you perceive the theoretical orientation of your professors or of major scholars in the field? Does your major focus more on nomothetic or idiographic explanations?
• Which do you find most compelling for understanding human society and culture: Marx, Durkheim, or Weber? Why?
• Use symbolic anthropology to interpret your classroom. What are some of the key symbols? How do they shape people’s understandings, behaviors, and interactions?

Chapter 12: Anthropology in Action

Chapter Goals

After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

• Articulate the relevance of anthropology for career development.
• Describe multiple applications of anthropology to work and service situations.
• Express the importance of anthropology to the global church.
• Describe some of the historic and contemporary connections between anthropology and missions.

Chapter Outline

Introduction
Anthropology at Work
Anthropology in Everyday Life
Anthropology in Ministry
Anthropology and the Global Church
Anthropology and Missions
The Future of Christians in Anthropology

Key Terms

contextualization
pastoral anthropology
subculture

Discussion Questions

• Generate an example of how anthropology can be helpful in each arena: work, everyday life, ministry, global church.
• Review the undergraduate learning outcomes from the American Anthropological Association. Which one or two have you developed while taking this course (adapt, if need be, for settings other than undergraduate programs)? Give a concrete example of a paper, project, exam, or class activity that developed these skills.