PART 1: In our discussion of economy, we identified three key stages of any economic process: production, exchange, and consumption. Every object that you own, every piece of food that you eat, even the home that you live in, all went through these stages. At the beginning of Chapter 11, we considered the processes of production, exchange, and consumption behind a chocolate bar; now we want to examine these same processes for the home that you live in. Lets start at the very beginning. What are the raw materials used to construct your home? Where would those materials have come from? Who built your home? Do you think they were paid a fair wage? What about consumption? What will happen to your home if you leave it and move to a new town? Will your home ever be torn down?Instructions: Complete and then submit the exercise(s) below as directed by your instructor.
After considering the economic history of your home “america”, post a summary of your findings to your classs online forum. Consider the stages of production, exchange, and consumption in your discussion.PART 2: Many anthropologists have become involved in the work of civil society organizations or other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). These groups work with great vigor to right what they perceive as wrongs all around the world. For this assignment, you will found your own NGO. What cause would you seek to work for, and why? Be sure to think out the working details of your NGO. Instructions: Complete and then submit the exercise(s) below as directed by your instructor.
Post a funding proposal for your NGO to your class’s online forum. NGOs operate largely on grants and donations from private funders. You need to learn to present your NGO to a group of people and convince them that it is the most worthwhile organization to fund. Once you have read the proposals from the other students in your class, vote on which NGO should be funded. (You can’t vote for your own!)PART 3: It’s time to make use of your anthropological research skills. It’s time to make use of your anthropological research skills. Instructions: Complete and then submit the exercise(s) below as directed by your instructor.
Using the resources you have at hand, such as your library and the Internet (be sure to check with your instructor about appropriate web pages to use), find at least one culture that can be classified as a band, another that can be classified as a tribe, and one more that can be classified as a chiefdom. Consider carefully why you think the culture belongs in each type.
Post a summary description of each of the three cultures you found to your class’s online forum. Be sure to include why each culture deserves to be classified as a band, a tribe, or a chiefdom.PART 4: What is economic justice? Millions of people around the world live in poverty. Is this economic justice? How can the problem be solved? Should some people be required to give up the fruits of their own labors so that others can be lifted out of poverty? Think back over all you have learned about cultural diversity this semester and consider the problematic concept of economic justice.Instructions: Complete and then submit the exercise(s) below as directed by your instructor.
After considering the problem of economic justice from an anthropological perspective, write an editorial about how we can best achieve economic justice for the world’s inhabitants. Share your ideas with your fellow students by posting your editorial to your class’s online forum. Read your fellow students’ posts. Does someone else have a better idea than yours? Can your idea be improved by making a compromise with the ideas of your fellow students? After reading at least five other editorials, revise your original editorial and re-post it.
PART 5: The world today is full of diverse perspectives on religion and religious faiths. In your daily life, you routinely encounter places of worship, symbols of faith, and religiously inspired actions, but these encounters are so common that we often do not even notice them. For one day, bring a journal with you and note every encounter you have with a religion or religious expression. For example, you can record every church, synagogue, or mosque that you pass. Or make a note anytime you see someone wearing a religious symbol (for example, a necklace with a cross on the end, a kippah, or a head scarf). Do you ever encounter someone preaching, or praying? Do you walk by religiously inspired art? Are there religious references in the news, or in the television shows or movies you watch? Religion is all around us; take a moment to examine these daily encounters.Instructions: Complete and then submit the exercise(s) below as directed by your instructor.
Post to your class’s online forum a summary of the religious encounters you had. How frequently did you encounter religious expressions? In how many different contexts did you find them, and how many different religions did you see? Were you surprised by the diversity all around you? Be sure to be respectful of faiths that differ from your own.
PART 6:For this exercise, watch the film The Business of Being Born ( http://www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com/ ) This film examines the maternity wards of the United States to ask what are necessary medical procedures, and what are cultural norms of giving birth. While watching the film, consider the cultural concepts of health and illness discussed in Chapter 14.Instructions: Complete and then submit the exercise(s) below as directed by your instructor
Start a discussion on your classs online forum about the film The Business of Being Born. Did the film change your perspective on the process of childbirth in the United States? If so, why? If not, why not? What are salient cultural points raised by the film? Are there any salient biological points? Be sure to consider the topic of childbirth from an anthropological perspective rather than a biological one.
PART 7: Imagine for a moment that during the heat of a United States presidential election campaign, one of the candidates openly admitted that he or she was an atheist. What do you think would happen to their campaign? How do you think voters around the United States would react? Is religious faith a necessary job criterion to be the president? Using the skills you have learned from your textbook, consider what your answers to these questions say about the interplay between politics, power, and religion in the United States. Instructions: Complete and then submit the exercise(s) below as directed by your instructor.
Write an essay (3 paragraph essay) on the role of cultural power and religious faith as expressed by the president of the United States of America. Post your essay to your classs online forum. After reading your fellow classmates essays, start a discussion about what you think the connection between the president and religion should be. PART 8: After considering the role of culture in systems of health and healing, carefully reread the section “Multiple Systems of Healing” in Chapter 14. This section relates the tragic incidents of miscommunication between doctors and the Lee family. As a medical anthropologist, what strategies would you recommend to best help patients, family members, and doctors in similar incidents of cross-cultural contact?Instructions: Complete and then submit the exercise(s) below as directed by your instructor.
Post a proposal for solving problematic cross-cultural contacts in a hospital to your class’s online forum. Write the proposal as if you were presenting it to a hospital board. Carefully consider the systems of health and healing involved, as well as the limitations of a hospital budgetfor example, a hospital budget would not include enough money to hire an interpreter for every known language on the planet. What do you think would be the best solution?PART 9: While we may think of language as confined to the words that we speak, there is so much more to language than this. The world of gestures is an excellent example; many of us “speak with our hands” in order to emphasize the topics that we are trying to communicate. Italians are particularly famous for their elaborate and exaggerated language of gestures. A recent article and video from the New York Times does an excellent job of elucidating this topic. You can see the article “When Italians Chat, Hands and Fingers Do the Talking” at the following link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/world/europe/when-italians-chat-hands-and-fingers-do-the-talking.html?_r=1&;
Instructions: Complete and then submit the exercise below as directed by your instructor.
After reading the article and watching the video about Italian hand gestures, you should have a greater awareness of the role of gesture in communication. Over the course of a day, make note of the gestures that you, your friends, and your professors use, and in what contexts these gestures are used. Prepare a summary of the gestures you observed for your class’s online forum. While you can provide a written description of the gestures, your presentation will be greatly enhanced by pictures and videos. In the comment section, discuss with your classmates whether there are other possible meanings for any of the gestures you presented.
Use the order calculator below and get started! Contact our live support team for any assistance or inquiry.
[order_calculator]