SA 532: Theoretical Perspectives in Anthropology
Suggestion study question for the course
Contribution: Ram B chhetri, om gurung , Laya Uprety, janak rai and nabin rawal
NOTE: The list of study question is meant to guide the classroom discussion and/or lectures in general. This question may also help the student in orienting themselves to the course and preparing for their exam. Having said this it should be noted that this list is not exhaustive-that is not all issues pertinent to the theories or perspectives in question have been addressed by the question in this list. Depending on the ‘material’ covered in the classroom or based on the ‘Required Reading’, slighty different types (or with different wording or focus in some cases) of question should be expected in the exams.
Unit I: Historical Development of Anthropology [20]
Unit I-I.A. Anthropology Perspectives
Unit I-I.B. History of the Discipline
1. What are the unique characteristics of anthropology perspective in general? Does anthropology have just one or many perspectives? Discuss in briefly.
2. Discuss in brief the intellectual, economy and political contexts that influence the rise of anthropology in the west as a ‘science of culture’ and as a ‘science of primitive societies’ in the 19th and 20th century. Discuss this by referring the required reading on this subject by Harries. Pels. and Trouillot.
3. Enlightenment period served as the foundation of contemporary anthropology theory and as the basic forms of reference in terms of which issues of socio-cultural inquiry is still carried out. Discuss.
4. How has positivism influence the study of socio-cultural life by anthropologist?
5. Why are three scholars, viz..Durkheim, Weber and marx important for anthropology? How have they influenced different theoretical perspectives?
6. Elaborate on the intellectual influence of Durkheim, Weber and Marx to contemporary theoretical developments and discourses in anthropology.
. Explain the relation between political and economical dominance and the forms of knowledge production in relation to the debates on the anthropology of colonialism. Use your reading to supports your arguments.
7. How does Peter Pels use the concept of governmentality in order to discuss the anthropology of colonialism as way of understanding the history the discipline of anthropology? Describe with appropriate examples.
8. How does Trouillot argue that anthropology’s construction of the “other” was not in fact its own? He contends that it actually inherited a “savage slot” from western philosophy and utopian thinking that long pre- existed anthropology. Explain with illustrations from his article.
- What is the central argument of the article “Anthropology and the savage slot. The poetics and politics of otherness” by Michel-Rolp Trouillot? How does he go about explaining it?
- Critically examine the idea that scientific racism was practiced in the US in the early 19th century and as such it still has implications for the rise of anthropology. Cite works by anthropologists to support your answer.
Unit I-2.over view of the Development of Anthropology in the world…..
1. Write an essay on the development of Anthropology in the US, UK, France, Germany, South Asia (particular references to India) and Nepal based on a theoretical review and major theoretical approaches(This question can be broken down into several question-at least one for each of the region/ countries listed here).
2. Briefly discuss the similarities and differences in the historical trajectories of the development of anthropological fieldwork traditional in the UK and USA.
3. Trace the development of theoretical contribution by American anthropologists beginning from Boas and Kroeber. Discuss briefly the major theoretical orientation of American anthropologists.
4. “Much of French anthropology has been theory driven”. Substantiate this statement with reference to the theoretical contribution of leading 20th century French anthropologists.
5. Discuss in briefly the development in anthropological theory in Britain from the time of Tylor to the present.
6. Present a brief outline of the development of anthropology in the “German-speaking countries”, Discuss how their use of such race, psychic unity of mankind, diffusion, and human- environment relation were different from those of their counterparts in countries like the US and Britain.
7. Write a critical essay on the development of anthropology in and on Nepal. Also provide a brief discussion of the development of academic program on the subject at TU.
8. Write a short essay on the development of anthropology in Nepal. Include an examination of the state of theoretical, epistemological and substantive developments to date.
9. Discuss in briefly the history of anthropology in Nepal focusing on the trends of ethnographic researches and the institutions development of anthropology.
10. Trace the development of anthropology in Indian. What are some of concepts used in Indian anthropological works that relevance for similar works in Nepal also?
Unit II: Major Classical Theoretical Approaches [75]
Unit II-1. Culture Theories and the ‘sciences’ of cultural (10)
Unit II-1.A. Evolutionism
1. What are the key premises of classical evolutionary theory? i) Critically examine Tylor’s ideas on evolution of culture; ii) Critically examine Morgan’s ideas on evolution of the family.
2. Explain the context for Tylor’s “science of cultural” and discuss his definition of culture. Assess the modern and method he uses to talk about cultural variability.
3. According to Bohanan and Galzer “Three aspects of Morgan’s works still live”. What are they? Discuss their importance and relevance. Give examples to support your points.
4. Critically examine Morgn’s evolutionary scheme and methods as outlined in his work on “Ancient Socety”.
5. Write a critical essay on: i) E.B. Tylor’s contribution to anthropology; ii) L.H. Morgan’s contribution to anthropology.
6. Write shorts notes on:
a) Tylor’s definition of culture
b) Morgan’s Materialist approach to evolution of family
c) Method of analysis adopted by classical evolutionists
d) Psychic unity of mankind
Unit II-1.B. Diffusionism
1. What are the basic premises of Diffusionism in anthropology? Discuss the Pan-Egyptian theory with references to its major contributors. What were the major weaknesses of this school?
2. What was the context for the coming of diffusimnism in anthropology? Compare and contrast the three schools of diffusionism.
3. What concepts and methods distinguished American diffusionist from other diffusionists? Examine the key contributions made by Boas, Kroeber and Wissler.
4. Write short notes on:
a) Pan-Egyptian theory
b) Cultural circle school
c) Method adopted by Diffusionists
d) Comparative method
Unit II-1.C. Historical particularism…Franz Boas
1. What do you know about Boas as an anthropologist? Write a briefly note on his contribution to American anthropology.
2. How do you explain the concept of cultural relativism? i) How was this concept used by Boas and his followers in talking about cultural? ii) How is Boas’s ideas of ‘historical particularism’ related to cultural relativism? Use illustrations to support your answer.
3. Write an essay on Boas’s contributions to professionalization of anthropology with particular reference to his ideas on ‘Method’.
4. Write shorts notes on:
a) Cultural relativism
b) Boas and American anthropology
c) Scientific racism and Anthropology
d) History particularism
Unit II-1.D. Linking theories to….
1. What do you understanding by ‘revolution in ethnological time’? According to Trautman, what were the principal effects of time revolution in ethnology?
2. Anthropological field-work can be characterized as a travel between different ‘times as well as spaces’. Explain this ideas on the basis of a trouillot’s argument on anthropology and the savage slot.
3. Write shorts notes on:
a) The idea of west and the others in anthropology
b) Anthropology of colonialism
Unit II-2. Functionalism and Structural-Functionalism (12)
1. Critically evaluate the contribution of A.R. Radcliffe-Brown to structural-functionalism in anthropology
2. Furnish anthropology explanations on the essentials of the kula among the Argonauts of the Western Pacific.
3. How do you like the functional and structural-functional theories with ethnographic fieldwork, holism and the idea of “non-western, non-capitalist, and simple societies”? Explain with evidences.
4. Write short notes on:
a) Social structure
b) Concept of function
c) The meaning of fula
Unit II-3. French Structural Anthropology (6)
1. Write a short essay on Structuralism of Levi-Strauss. In your write-up, mention the major intellectual influences on Levi-Strauss a well as contributions and influences in anthropology.
2. How does Levi-Strauss view structural analysis? Critically examine the Alliance Theory of Kinship propounded by Levi-Strauss.
3. What consist of structures in Levi-Strauss’s structuralism? Discuss his ideas on the structure of myth with reference to the story of Asdiwal.
4. Present an outline of Levi-Strauss’s methods for classification. Examine his ideas and contributions to the theory of primitive classification as presented in his book ‘The salvage Mind’. Use illustrations to illuminate your points.
5. Write short notes on:
a) Alliance theory of kinship
b) Influence of linguistics on Levi-Strauss’s Structuralism
c) Levi-Strauss and the idea of binary opposition
Unit II-4. Anthropology and Moral Economies (10)
1. According to Mauss what power resides in the objects given in exchange that cause its recipient to pay it back? What are the major critiques of ideas by scholars?
2. Trace the key intellectual influences on Mauss. Examine his ideas on exchange and his legacy in anthropology.
3. What are the key argument in The Gift? Discuss his idea prestation with illustration of exchange in Archaic societies present the book.
4. What do you understand by ‘moral economic’. What are reasons does Shalins provide to make a point that hunter-gatherers are the original affluent society?
5. Write a critical essay on the model of exchange proposed by Sahlins in his paper “on the Sociology of Primitive Exchange”.
6. Write shorts notes on:
a) Total prestation
b) Marcel Mauss
c) Marshall Sahlins
Unit II-5. Culture and personality (8)
1. Discuss the context for the emergence of culture and perspective in anthropology. How does its focus on culture and personality differ from that of other similar approaches?
2. Trace the intellectual influences on a) Linton b) Benedict? Critically examine his/her major contribution to the culture and personality approach in anthropology. [3 questions]
3. What are the basic premises of psychological anthropology? Examine a) Linton’s contributions with reference to his ideas on the correlation between personality and culture or status and role; b) Discuss Benedict’s configuration approach to culture and personality (with reference to her book Patterns of Culture); c) Examine Mead’s idea (in coming of age in Samoa) that explanation of personality must take into account the cultural context of the individuals or groups in question. [3 questions]
4. Write shorts notes on:
a) Culture and personality
b) Status and personality
c) Socialization and personality
d) Nature and nuture debate
Unit II-6. Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology (12)
1. Write is meant by anthropology of symbolism? What are the distinctive theoretical and methodological features of symbolic anthropology? Elaborate and examine.
2. How is the study of culture as systems meaning or symbols different to the study of culture as behavior? Discuss the major concepts and approaches as evident in a) Geertz’s work on the Baliness; or b) Turner’s analysis of rituals among the Ndembu ; c) Schneider’s analysis of American kinship; or d) Doglas concepts of purity and pollution. [Four tail questions]
3. How does Geetz(1966) define culture and how does go about the task of developing a theory based on the view that religion is part of a cultural system?
4. Discuss the major concepts and approaches evident in works on interpretive anthropology. While doing so, examine his general methodological position and the significance of his work for interpretive approaches in anthropology.
5. In “Symbols in Nedmbu Ritual”, how does Victor Turner outline the basic properties of symbols and differentiates his method of symbolic analysis with psychoanalytic thought?
6. In “Symbols in Ndembu Ritual”, how does Turner go about elucidating the structure and properties of ritual symbol? In particular discuss how symbols can be made from three classes of data and also describe the two kinds of symbols and their inherent properties.
7. What conception of culture does Mary Douglas employ in her work with reference to her article “External Boundaries”? How does she show that a human body is a metaphor for society?
8. David Schneider challenged the anthropological theory and put forward the argument that Kinship was entire culture of powerful symbols and meanings. He also argued that in American cultural conception, kinship is formulated in concrete biogenetic term. Discuss.
9. According to David Schneider American Kinship can be divided into two groups. Explain them with examples.
10. Write short notes on:
(a) Culture as text
(b) Social drama
(c) Purity and pollution
Unit II-7. Ecological Approaches (13)
1.Leslie White’s main interest was not in general evolution of culture but instead it was on the overall movement of human culture as a whole and he attempted to explain what makes this occur. Elaborate with illustrations.
2. Based on the Julian Steward’s write-up “Concept and Method of cultural Ecology (1988)”, critically discuss his key concepts and fundamental procedures of cultural ecology.
3. What is meant by ecosystem? Discuss the contribution of Roy A. Rappaport to ecological perspective based on his work “Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations among a New Guinea People”.
4. Discuss the theoretical and epistemological principle of Marvin Harrin’s cultural Materialism? How does he explain the phenomenon of “Mother Cow” in “The cultural Ecology of India’s Sacred Cattle (1966)”.
Unit II-8. Marxism and Anthropology (14)
1. Critically analyze the anthropological impetus in Marxism.
2. Explain in detail the Marxian theory of value with a focus on economic and anthropological approach to value.
3. How is the Marxian approach useful in the stud of non-capitalist societies and cultures? Explain with empirical evidences.
4. How does Friedrich Engels furnish anthropological explanation of the origin of the private property, the family and the state? Explain with appropriate illustrations.
5. What is needed for any one to become a Marxist in anthropology? Furnish your interpretation based on Maurice Godelier’s ideas
6. How do you analyze the relationship between Marxism and anthropology? Furnish your explanation based on the analysis of Marxism by Maurice Bloch.
7. Write short notes on:
(a) Commodity
(b) Commodity fetishism
(c) Surplus value
Unit III: Crisis and critical Turns in Anthropology (1970-80) [10]
1. Write an essay on the crisis and critical turns in anthropology that took place during the 1970s and 1980s with reference to one particular article you have read in this course.
2. Why and how did the idea of ‘culture’, ‘field’ and ‘field work’ that have long been the heart of anthropology got challenged and debated by anthropologists in the early 1970s and 1980s? Draw from required readings (Gupta and Ferguson, Appadurai, Lila Abu-Lughod. Etc) to frame your arguments.
3. Critically examine the arguments that Talal Asad puts forth in his editorial introduction to “Anthropology and the colonial Encounter” in order to make a point that anthropological framework has its antecedents in colonial legacy.
4. In the 1970s, the debates on the history of anthropology took a new turn with the publication of ‘Anthropology and the colonial Encounter’ in which Talal Asad critically challenged the assumed political neutrality of anthropology by tracing how colonial encounter affected anthropology. Discuss Asad’s main arguments in his introductory remarks in the book. Do you agree or disagree with Asad? Elaborate your arguments.
5. Anthropology was characterized by efforts geared towards descriptions and analysis carried out by Europeans for European audience of non-European societies dominated by Europe. Examine this statement based on Talal Asad’s editorial introduction in Anthropology ad colonial Encounter.
6. How does Arjun Appadurai argue that anthropological images such as hierarchy become hegemonic and confined to certain places under certain circumstances? Explain his key arguments presented in “putting Hierarchy in its place” (1988).
7. What is the central aim of the article in “Making the Other: Vignettes of Violence in Andamanese Cultural (2000)”? Based on this article discuss how “violence” can also be a means by which trial people designate the settlers as “others” and vice-versa?
8. Knowledge production in the west is culturally conditioned and anthropology may continue as partners of domination pr hegemony or reinvent itself by critically reexamining the notion of culture. Discuss this statement with reference to Edward said’s article “Representing the colonized: Anthropology’s Interlocutors”.
9. How does sally slocum argue that there is a male bias inherent in anthropology by re-examining the matter of evolution of Homo sapiens and in particular the concept of “Man the Hunterer”? Discuss her arguments in detail.
10. M.Z. Rosaldo makes a critical argument that existing feminist interpretive frameworks rise out of particular epistemology based on Victorian gender ideology. How has she focused on the limitations and biases that have been introduced into the feminist interpretive frameworks? Discuss.
11. Discuss the article “Theory in Anthropology: On the demise of the concept of culture” by Aram A. Yengoyan. What conclusions does he draw after putting forth his analysis for the demise of culture?
12. What is Lila Abu-Lughod’s central argument in “Writing Against Culture”? Explain how she explores the idea that feminist and halfies through their practice of anthropology are able to unsettle the boundary between “self” and reflect on the conventional nature and political effects of the distinction, thus making them reconsider the concept of culture.
Unit IV-2. Post-moderism, Post-colonialism, subaltern studies, Indigenism and Anthropology (20)
1. How does George Marcus treat ethnography as text in his post-modernist anthropological analysis? Explain in detail with illustrations.
2. Write a critical essay on ‘post-modernism and ethnography’.
3. What is post-structuralism? Examine its major influences in anthropology?
4.How dc F. Mascia-Lees, P.Sharpe and C.B. Cohen analyze the post-modernist turn in anthropology? What caution do they provide from a feminist perspective?
5.What are the intellectual and political contexts for the post-colonial and subaltern studies in anthropology? Explain in detail.
6. Critically evaluate the influences of post-colonial and subaltern studies in anthropology?
7. How do Ramchandra Guha and Terence turner contribute to the study of indigenism and anthropology? Explain in detail.
8.What are the relationships between indigenism, culture rights and anthropology? Explain in detail with illustations.
9.Write short notes on:
(a) Deconstruction
(b) Post-modernism
(c) Indigenism
Unit IV: Contemporary Theoretical Trends and Debates [45]
Unit IV-1. Practice, Power, Agency and Resistance (15)
1.Critically analyze the ‘theory of practice’ as propounded by Pierre Bourdieu.
2. How does Michel Foucault present his analysis on capillary power and governmenrakity? Discuss his intellectual influences in anthropology?
3. How do Antonio Gramsci and James Scott analyze the concepts of ‘hegemony’, ‘resistance’ and ‘agency’? How can these concepts be applied in ethnographic researches?
4. Write shot notes on:
(a) Habitus
(b) Power
(c) Agency
Unit IV-3. Anthropology: Global-Local Interface, and Anthropology(10)
1. How does Arjun Appadurai explain the cultural dimensions of globalization? Explain with special reference to global ethnoscapes.
2. Critically analyze the global-local interface by focusing on the anthropology of globalization and transnationalism?
3. How does Nancy Scherper-Huges explain local-global interface in her contribution ‘commodity fetishism in organs trafficking’? Explain in detail with illustrations.
4. Critically locate the anthropology of Nepal in the contexts or theoretical developments, crisis and shifts in anthropology.
5. Write short notes on any TWP:
(a) Globalization
(b) Transnational anthropology
(c) Global ethnoscapes
