1.

Answer one question on each of the three unit readings. Be sure to indicate which question you are answering.

Answer one of the following on Bohannon, “Shakespeare in the Bush”:

• What lesson about culture do you take away from the Bohannon article?
• Can you think of any stories you’ve been told from other cultures — perhaps myths or fairy tales–where the elements may not have meant what you thought they did?
• Do you think Bohannon was wrong to skip central aspects of the story, such as Hamlet’s soliloquy? Do you think such elements would have helped or hindered Tiv understanding of the play?
• Why did the Tiv, hearing the story of Hamlet from Shakespeare, decide that Laertes was a witch?
• Did you discover any ethnocentrism in Bohannon’s article? From whom, and what did they say?

Answer one of the following questions on Lee, “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari”:

• Why did Richard Lee feel obligated to give a valuable gift to the !Kung at Christmas? Why did they think he was a miser? Were they being ethnocentric?
• Why did the !Kung people’s insults about the impending gift bother the anthropologist so much? Were the people treating him in a special way?
• What does Lee mean by saying, “There are no totally generous acts?” Do you agree?
• Briefly compare rules about gift giving in !Kung society and your own society.

Answer one of the following questions on McCurdy, “Using Anthropology”:

• What kinds of jobs do professional anthropologists do?
• What is special about anthropology that makes fundamental knowledge of it valuable to some jobs?
• What is meant by qualitative research? Why is such research valuable to business and government?
• What difficulties did the company manager described in this article face? What solutions did she invent to deal with them? How did her knowledge of anthropology help her to deal with this problem?
• Why is ethnography useful in everyday life? Can you think of situations in which you could use ethnographic research?

2.

Answer one question on each of this week’s assigned readings. Be sure to indicate which question you are answering.

Saldanha and Klopfer “On Seeing Monkeys, Cows, and Beggars: Between Ethnography and Tourism” (2014)

• Saldhana and Klopfer suggest that how you dress, and even how you sit or stand can affect one’s relationship with research subjects. How might such concerns make fieldwork very difficult?
• How does ethnography differ from what the Saldhana and Klopfer call “research tourism”?
• Briefly summarize two cultural encounters that the authors find problematic. What does this suggest about the challenges of studying and understanding other people’s cultures?

Bourgois, Crack in Spanish Harlem (1989)

• What role does racism play in the reproduction of the culture of drugs and addiction described by Bourgois?
• What is the “cultural logic” behind expressions of violence in the culture Bourgois describes?
• Why does Bourgois argue that drug dealers in Spanish Harlem are pursuing the American Dream?

Mulock, Ethnography in Awkward Spaces: An Anthropology of Cultural Borrowing

• Briefly describe the kind of “cultural borrowing” that Mulock explores in this article. Why is such borrowing problematic?
• Why did the author hesitate to carry out research among Australian aborigines (indigenous Australians)?
• What insights does this provide into the way culture is appropriated by New Age groups. What motivates white Australians to participate in such appropriation?
• Briefly describe how the author undertook her field research. Why did she find it so “awkward”?

Write two docs separately. Each doc needs to answer 3 questions