YEARS 1997 & 1996 PAST EXAM PAPER FOR INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY MODULE
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY EXAM QUESTIONS FROM THURSDAY 12 JUNE 1997
There are FIFTEEN questions. Candidates should answer FOUR questions and urged to illustrate their answers with examples.
1. What is distinctive about the aims and activities of social anthropologists?.
2. Contrast the main features of pastoral societies with those of hunter-gatherers.
3. As somebody from a society which is state-organised what do you notice about societies with no formal government and no classes? Discuss.
4. Exchange involves negative as well as positive, vengeance as well as doing people favours. Discuss.
5. Are you convinced by writers who claim that witchcraft accusations can be socially constructive?
6. Cargo cults look stupid and irrational to a casual visitor in their area, but are basically sensible and well conceived. Assess this claim.
7. What are the main features of the social roles of kings?
8. How useful do you find the distinction between domestic and public domains when you are seeking to explain gender differentiation?
9. In which respects may ethnographic films be said to 'challenge' conventional written representations in anthropology?
10. What contribution can anthropologist make to the study of biomedicine?
11. Ethnicity is a response to contemporary circumstances, not a resurgence of traditionalism. Discuss.
12. Should the term 'peasant' be rejected for reasons of 'political correctness'?
13. Why is it inadequate to address the problems of poor people in terms solely of improving their productive technologies.
14. Is mafia a specialist form of patronage?
15. To what extent have the 'egalitarian' ideologies of tradition in African states influenced the development of modern Islamic republics?
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY EXAM QUESTIONS FROM THURSDAY 13TH JUNE 1996
There are FIFTEEN questions. Candidates should answer FOUR questions and are urged to illustrate their answers with examples.
1. Describe and discuss the key structural features of ONE swiddening society.
2. In the simplest societies gender is not an issue. Discuss.
3. Why is marriage so important as a social institution?
4. Examine the implications of seasonal mobility in the social organisation of any ONE pastoral society.
5. Gifts are never freely given. Discuss with reference to the comparative anthropology of exchange.
6. Critically consider how anthropologists have analysed blood-feud as a mechanism of social control in stateless societies.
7. What can studies of EITHER witchcraft accusations OR cargo cults reveal about the relationship between underlying beliefs and social experience?
8. Describe any religious ritual with which you are familiar and discuss its significance for creating and affirming a sense of communal identity.
9. Compare and contrast the relationship between language and status in at least TWO societies.
10. Discuss the way in which kinship ties continue to be important in industrialised societies among the majority and/or minority populations of those countries.
11. Anthropologists should not act as consultants for mult-national companies operating 'the Third World'. Discuss.
12. How would you identify a group of people to be peasants?
13. Is there a realistic comparison between red revolutions and green revolutions, or is this usage just a play on words?
14. Modern consumption leads to the elimination of cultural differences. Discuss.
15. Notions of the causality of illness underpin the distinction between culturally specific medical systems. Discuss.
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