Internet Activities

• Chapter 1: The Nature of Anthropology
• Chapter 2: The Nature of Culture
• Chapter 3: The Beginnings of Human Culture
• Chapter 4: Language and Communication
• Chapter 5: Making A Living
• Chapter 6: Economic Systems
• Chapter 7: Sex and Marriage
• Chapter 8: Family and Household
• Chapter 9: Kinship and Descent
• Chapter 10: Social Stratification and Groupings
• Chapter 11: Political Organization and the Maintenance of Order
• Chapter 12: Religion and the Supernatural
• Chapter 13: Artistic Expression
• Chapter 14: The Anthropology Of Health
• Chapter 15: Cultural Change and the Future of Humanity

Links to anthropology departments throughout Canada.

Indiana University Anthropology Department site.
Richard Wilk teaches a seminar in sociocultural anthropology at Indiana University. Over the years, his students have written essays on a variety of topics that you might find interesting. For example, there are a series of essays on subdisciplines of sociocultural anthropology and another set on important sociocultural anthropologists.

1. Visit some of the Canadian Anthropology Departments you can access from this website, maintained at the University of Waterloo. What impression do you get of the range and diversity of topics studied by Canadian anthropologists?
   
2. Association of American Anthropologists
   In 2002, the American Anthropological Association celebrated its centennial. The membership grew over that time from 175 to over 10,000. Read the mission and goals of the society ( AAA Mission and Goals). You can get a good idea of the diversity of the association by looking at the various sections and interest groups ( AAA Sections and Interest Groups).  Many Canadian anthropologists belong to this association and most Canadian departments of anthropology are listed in its annual Guide to Departments, as are many departments elsewhere in the world.
   
3. Anthropologists are very concerned about ethical issues. The American Anthropological Association has published a handbook, Handbook on Ethical Issues in Anthropology, edited by Joan Cassell and Sue-Ellen Jacobs. Read the chapters called "Cases and Solutions" by Sue-Ellen Jacobs and "Cases and Comments" by Joan Cassell. Pick one of the cases that you find interesting and write a short essay describing the case and analyzing the proposed solutions. Do you agree or disagree with the analysis presented? You may want to refer to some of the other cases for comparative purposes in your answer.
   
4. The American Anthropological Association takes official positions on matters of concern to the society. The positions taken on various topics recently are listed on the Statements Homepage. Pick one statement and read it. Summarize the issues involved and the position taken. What information can you find on the web regarding the significance of this issue to Canadian society?
   
5. Read one of the biographies listed. What important contribution has the person made to the study of anthropology? What other information can you find about this person on the web? You might be particularly interested in Eleanor Burke Leacock, who conducted important field research among the Innu of Labrador
   
6. Read about one of the subdisciplines listed and summarize its focus. Find some links to people or topics that are related, particularly ones with a Canadian focus.

www.melanesia.org/fieldwork/tamakoshil
Home page of Laura Zimmer-Tamakoshi's fantastic site about fieldwork.
Method (Click on "Rapport," "Culture Shock," "Participation," "Field Methods"); Writing (Click on "Field Notes," "Going native")

Canadian government web site which attempts to present
a multi-faceted view of Canadian culture.

1. Visit Laura Tamakoshi's page An Anthropologist in the Field. What are the basic stages of anthropological research (look under "Planning")?
   
2. What is culture shock and how does it affect her? You find the answer under "Method".
   
3. What are field notes and field reports (check under "Writing")?
   
4. Read the article Fictive Families in the Field by Canadian anthropologists David and Dorothy Counts, who also worked in Papua New Guinea.  What did they learn from taking their children to the field?  For some pictures of David and Dorothy, their children and their field site visit http://anthropology.uwaterloo.ca/WNB/WNBimages1.htm
   
5. Follow some of the links at culturecanada.gc.ca. Compare the Federal government's conception of Canadian culture to the definition of culture given in your textbook.
   
6. Read Who's Afraid of Canadian Culture? by Leslie Regan Shade which deals with some of the issues raised by attempting to maintain a distinct Canadian culture. What are some of the key points made in the essay?  How might an anthropologist respond to some of Shade's arguments?

The Primate Home Page.

Palomar College Anthropology Program.

1. The Primate Home Page (part of the Electronic Zoo) lists primate sites on the web. Pick a particular primate (e.g. chimpanzees, gorillas, or lemurs) and visit several sites. Write a review of the sites you visited indicating which provide the best information for students.
   
2. Alex Hawes wrote a nice introduction to the controversy surrounding non-human ape communication for Zoogoer called Machiavellian Monkeys & Shakespearean Apes: The Question
   of Primate Language. Read the article and Are the Brains of Apes "Ready" For Language? by P. J. Gannon et al. What do you think about the linguistic potential of non-human apes?
   
3. News stories crop up regularly about non-human apes and their language abilities. Find some recent articles. What kinds of apes (chimps, orang, or gorillas) have been in the news recently?
   
4. Dennis O'Neil is creating a series of tutorials for introductory anthropology students. He has created 16 different tutorials for biological anthropology. The first nine cover genetics and evolution, topics that are not covered in detail in your text so you might find them interesting. Read the Synthetic Theory of Evolution tutorial. What older theories are combined in the Synthetic Theory?
   
5. Anne Zeller, a primatologist at the University of Waterloo, has been photographing primates in the wild and in captivity for many years. What can you learn about primates by looking at their pictures?
   
6. The Evolution of Modern Humans covers the last half million years of human evolution. What significant cultural developments occurred during this time?

Summer Institute of Linguistics home page.

Emuseum of the Anthropology Department of Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Palomar College Anthropology Program.

1. How many languages are there? The Summer Institute for Linguistics catalogs over 6,700 languages at Ethnologue. The pages are a bit dry, but they are the best place to find information on an obscure language such as how many people speak it, where they live, and what other languages it is related to. If Chinese (Mandarin), Spanish, and English are the first three languages in terms of population, what are the fourth and fifth?
   
2. Visit the Ethnologue's page on Languages of Canada . How many languages are spoken in Canada? How many First Nations languages are there? How many people speak them?
   
3. Under "Sociolinguistics" you will find material on "Endangered Languages?" What is an endangered language? Is there anything that can be done about endangered languages? Also visit the  Endangered Languages Data Summary to get lists of endangered languages. After selecting Search/Sort, use the Sort drop-down box to select a country to find out about endangered languages in that country.
   
4. Visit the language page of the Minnesota Museum site to get a summary of the major family groupings of related languages. Select any family except Indo-European to see what languages are included in the family. For some languages there are links to additional information about the language. There are also sound files for many of the languages.
   
5. You can also study other topics in anthropological linguistics at the Emuseum ( Anthropological Linguistics). What is the Whorf Hypothesis? Read the essay on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis by Daniel Chandler at the University of Wales. What are the principles of linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity? How does moderate Whorfism differ from extreme Whorfism?
   
6. On Jennifer's language page you can learn some basic phrases in many different languages. Compare the words for "yes" and "no" in five or six Indo-European languages.
   
7. In Dennis O'Neil's tutorial on Language and Culture what does he say are the two categories linguists use for studying language? What is morphology and syntax?
   
8. In the same tutorial, what are the hidden aspects of communication? Visit the site, hidden aspect of communication. Why do we study nonverbal communication? What are some of the problems in studying nonverbal communication?

Chapter 5: Making A Living

http://anthro.palomar.edu./subsistence/default.htm
Classification of Cultures Based on the Sources and Techniques of Acquiring food and other Necessities.

1. In Dennis O'Neil's tutorial on subsistence patterns you can review and learn more about the types of subsistence described in your textbook.  What are the main characteristics of foraging societies?  What are the major differences between foraging as a way of earning a living and other modes of subsistence, such as pastoralism, horticulture, and intensive agriculture?
   
2. The Inuit and the Haida are two very different Canadian First Nations cultures which earned their living by foraging.  On the web site Our World-Our Way of Life contemporary Inuit and Haida tell about their past and about present issues in their communities. How is the foraging legacy preserved in the present?

http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/richard.robbins/legacy

SUNY Plattsburgh, Professor Richard Robbin's page on "Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism."

www.peabody.harvard.edu/exhibitions.html
Online exhibits, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University.

www.era.anthropology.ac.uk/Teach-yourself
Teach Yourself Social Anthropology.

1. In The Online Global Problems Reader, the section called Readings on the Consumer has articles on consumers in today's global economy. Read the article on "Affluenza" and ask yourself whether this story of the development of consumer culture in the U.S. has lessons for Canada as well. Take the online quiz to see if you are afflicted. What was your score?
   
2. The Online Global Problems Reader, the section called Readings on the Laborer has articles on the globalization of the division of labor. Try the Global Production Game. How global is your closet?  How much of the material in this reader do you think applies to Canadians?
   
3. Visit the online exhibit, "Gifting & Feasting in the Northwest Coast Potlatch" to learn about gift exchanges among Native peoples in British Columbia and Alaska.  What kinds of things were exchanged in traditional potlatches? What is exchanged today? Why did people hold potlatches?

Read about the Alaskan Tlingit and Tsimshian. What differences were there among northwest coast tribes regarding when potlatches were held? What kind of trade did the Tlingit and Tsimshian practice before European contact? Why was the potlatch outlawed?

This "Teach Yourself Social Anthropology" site features anthropological exercises designed for students in Cracow, Poland, but adaptable worldwide. Chapters in Part 2 focus on economic concepts including exchange and consumption. Also of note is the "History of Anthropology" chapter in Part I, which offers a sketch of Bronislaw Malinowski written by a Polish anthropologist.

Chapter 7: Sex and Marriage

www.umanitoba.ca/anthropology/tutor/index.html
Tutorial on kinship and social organization from the University of Manitoba.

www.fgmnetwork.org/html/index.php
Female Genital Mutilation Research Homepage.

www.samesexmarriage.ca/legal/on.html
This web site advocates the full legalization of same-sex marriage in Canada. Whatever your position on this subject, it is an important aspect of marriage in Canada today.

1. Brian Schwimmer at the University of Manitoba has a tutorial on Marriage Systems. Work through the tutorial and compare the marriage systems of the Yanomamo and the Ju/'hoansi.
   
2. Work through the tutorial that Dennis O'Neil at Palomar College has created on Sex and Marriage as well. Take the practice quizzes to test your knowledge.
   
3. Visit the The Female Genital Mutilation Education and Networking Project Page. Read the article "Female Genital Cutting: An Introduction" and browse the other sections of the web site. Of particular interest is the selection from Facing Mt. Kenya by Jomo Kenyatta. Kenyatta studied anthropology with Malinowski and later went on to be leader of the Kenyan independence movement, and eventually President of Kenya. How does Kenyatta's approach to female circumcision differ from the position taken by many of the other authors on the web site? How does the operation relate to other aspects of adolescent sex-role learning? What do you think Kenyatta is trying to do in his discussion?
   
4. Read the article "Anthropologists, Moralities and Relativities: the Problem of Female Genital Mutilations" by a Canadian anthropologist, Harriet Lyons, which was one of the first articles to deal with the problems anthropologists face in studying female circumcision. Why does female circumcision pose special problems for feminist anthropologists?
   
5. Click on the names of the provinces to find out what the current legal situation is with regard to same sex marriage.
   
6. Read about one of the first weddings between partners of the same sex in Canada. How does this marriage resemble other marriages in Canada? How is it different? How do you feel about this issue?
   
7. Read Will Roscoe's web page The Zuni Man-Woman.  How do Zuni ideas about gender and marriage differ from those of most Canadians? Click here for a picture of We'wha, the Zuni Man-Woman discussed in Roscoe's article.

Chapter 8: Family and Household

www.umanitoba.ca/anthropology/tutor
Interactive anthropology tutorial site created by University of Manitoba professor, Brian Schwimmer.

www.anthro.mankato.msus.edu
Emuseum of the Anthropology Department at Minnesota State University.

1. Work through the "Kinship and Social Organization" tutorial prepared by Brian Schwimmer.   What differences are there in the residence composition of the Turkish peasant village, the Akan, and the Dani? What differences between these societies help us to understand these differences?

Chapter 9: Kinship and Descent

Visit the links below for alternate studies of the chapter's topics:

www.palomar.edu/anthropology/
Palomar College Anthropology Program.

Also...

1. Click on "Cultures" on the top row of the Minnesota Emuseum site and then "Kinship." Read the "Why Kinship?" and "Terminology & Descent" sections. Briefly answer the question "Why Kinship?" using the material on the web site and your text.
   
2. "The Nature of Kinship." Work through the first four sections (through "Descent Groups") of the tutorial and take the practice quiz.
   
3. Now work through the sections on kin naming. Pick one of the kin terminological systems and construct a model kinship diagram.
   
4. Look at some of the Related Internet Sites. Do people today continue to be interested in descent and kinship charts?

Chapter 10: Social Stratification and Groupings

Visit the links below for alternate studies of the chapter's topics:

Rags and Riches: Wealth Inequality in Canada Summary
by Steven Kerstetter.

Listing organizations by province and territory.

Also...

1. Read the summary of  Rags and Riches: Wealth Inequality in Canada by Steven Kerstetter.  If you have time read the full article. What are some of the ways in which Canadian society is stratified? Does Kerstetter's analysis surprise you?
   
2. Follow some of the links on the page maintained by Status of Women Canada to learn about recent developments concerning Canadian women. What types of gender hierarchy are in the news and what is being done about them?
   
3. Follow some of the links to Canadian business and economic organizations.  What are some of the purposes for which these organizations are formed? How do they differ? What are some common themes?
   
4. In Canadian Society Scouts Canada  and the Girl Guides of Canada are examples of common interest associations. Visit the web pages of each group and discuss and similarities and differences in organization and emphasis that you observe. Can you learn anything about Canadian culture generally from the values expressed on these sites?

Chapter 11: Political Organization and the Maintenance of Order

Visit the links below for alternate studies of the chapter's topics:

A Political Anthropology website.

www.aaanet.org/apla/index.htm
Association for Political & Legal Anthropology.

Listing political organizations by province and territory.

Also...

1. Use this site to review the major types of political organization described in your textbook. Think of examples from your textbook of stateless societies, chiefdoms and centralized states.
   
2. What is the significance of segmentary lineage organization? How does it work to control violence?
   
3. Click on PoLAR: The Political & Legal Anthropology Review, to learn about topics explored in this vein of anthropology. Summarize the topics considered in the volumes of the review from 1999 to 2002
   
4. Use this web site to explore the structures of Canadian political organization and issues in Canadian politics. What can you find out about government in Canada from this site? What are some key political issues?
   
5. Follow this link to read about grass roots organizations and political activism in Canada. Click here to read about activism in other parts of the world. How does Canadian activism connect to a global context?
   
6. Follow this link to find an international list of education and information sites about special issues, including abortion, labor, crime & justice, and race-ethnic-religious relations. Select one of the topics listed and use the web sites to identify the issues that are being debated.

Chapter 12: Religion and the Supernatural

Visit the links below for alternate studies of the chapter's topics:

www.sacredsites.com
Places Of Peace And Power: The Sacred Site Pilgrimage of Martin Gray.

www.as.ua.edu/ant/faculty/murphy/419/419www.htm
Aweb jump station for the anthropology of religion, compiled by anthropologist m.d. murphy at university of alabama. Many of the links are to a web site maintained by a canadian group, Ontario consultants on religious tolerance.

Also.

1. Click on "Explore the Sacred Sites" to see images and text by anthropologist/photographer Martin Gray about any of the 1000+ sacred sites he has documented. Pick a part of the world to explore and then summarize the sacred places you visited. Which religious faith or faiths consider the places you visited sacred? A map of Sacred Sites of Canada can be found here.
   
2. Read the Introduction to Martin Gray's Places of Peace and Power. What happens to Gray as he visits the sites?
   
3. Click on any of numerous religious traditions you'd like to know more about from Buddhism and Judaism to Witchcraft and Shamanism. Select one of these and write a brief overview describing the basic precepts of the tradition.
   
4. One of the links on the site is the The Salem Witchcraft Trials. Visit the site and read An Account of Events in Salem. What other sites can you find on the web that relate to the Salem witchcraft trials?

Chapter 13: Artistic Expression

Visit the links below for alternate studies of the chapter's topics:

www.kstrom.net/isk/art/art_can.html
This site will link you to sites with information on many aspects of Canadian First Nations Art.

www.lib.virginia.edu/clemons/RMC/exhib/93.ray.aa/African.html
A website of depicting African Art.

www.culture.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/fr
A website about the Cave of Lascaux.

Also...

1. Click on the names of individual artists at http://www.kstrom.net/isk/art/art_can.html to learn about the tremendous variation in the styles of First Nations artists and the ways in which they understand their work.
   
2. Learn about historical and contemporary Inuit sculpture. How has this art form changed over time?
   
3. Visit the web site Artists in Canada.com to learn more about the contemporary Canadian art scene. What kinds of things do Canadian artists portray in their work? Where is it exhibited?
   
4. Surf around this site, described by Benjamin Ray, a noted Africanist, and look at some of the art and read the descriptions. How is African art linked to religion, nature, earning a living and the relations between men and women?
   
5. Visit this web site, devoted to "Recyclia", an art form which utilizes recycled materials. What kinds of materials are used? What does this art tell you about the cultures which produce it?
   
6. Click on black background to reveal the steps of a journey featuring some of the oldest surviving artwork created by humans. How old is the art at Lascaux? Who discovered it and when? Why is the cave closed to visitors now?
   
7. Also visit The Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc and examine the paintings at that site. How old is the artwork at Chauvet? Who discovered it and when? Is it similar to the art at Lascaux or is it different in the subjects depicted?

Chapter 14: The Anthropology Of Health

Visit the links below for alternate studies of the chapter's topics:

http://anthro.palomar.edu/medical/default.htm
Medical Anthropology: How Illness is Traditionally Perceived  and Cured Around the World.

www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fnihb-dgspni/fnihb/
Canada's First Nation and Inuit Health Branch.

Also...

1. Work through Dennis O'Neil's tutorial on Medical Anthropology and do the practice quizzes.  What is the difference between "naturalistic" and "personalistic" explanations of illness?  What are some "culture specific Illnesses?"
   
2. Visit the web site of UNAIDS. Click on the map to learn about how HIV/AIDS is affecting different regions of the world. Under "Sub-Saharan Africa" you will find a long but important document "Africa's Orphaned Generations" which discusses connections between HIV/AIDS and family life, a topic central to anthropology.
   
3. The First Nations and Inuit Branch of Health Canada has a 90 page Statistical Report on health among First Nations and Inuit peoples in Canada on its web site.  Click on "Highlights" to read a summary of the report. How do First Nations and Inuit peoples compare to other Canadians on three indicators of health?
   
4. This web site, maintained at McMaster University, contains many links to topics related to First Nations and Inuit Health issues. What can you learn about the growing problem of diabetes in Native Communities?
   
5. Edith Turner is an anthropologist who has worked in Africa, with her husband Victor W. Turner, and, after Victor Turner's death, with shamanic healers in Alaska. Over her lifetime she has gradually moved to accepting spirits and spiritual healing as real for her, not just for her informants, a position taken by relatively few anthropologists. Her article The Reality of Spirits describes these developments. How do you feel about this kind of research?

Chapter 15: Cultural Change and the Future of Humanity

Visit the links below for alternate studies of the chapter's topics:

http://anthro.palomar.edu/change/default.htm
Palomar College Anthropology Program.

www.cs.org
Cultural Survival-a Harvard-based advocacy organization for indigenous peoples.

www.ec.gc.ca/science/splash.htm
The Science and the Environment Bulletin of Environment Canada.

http://geography.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.flashpoints.info/FlashPoints_home.html
World Conflict website.

Also...

1. Go through the "Culture Change"  tutorial and do the practice quizzes. What are Millenarian Movements? Give some examples.
   
2. What are the processes of culture change according to the tutorial? What examples of these processes are described in your text? Can you think of any examples from Canada?
   
3. To find out about anthropology's role in maintaining cultural diversity around the world, surf around the Cultural Survival web site.  Click on some of the topics under "Regions" and "Issues to get an idea of the kinds of things this organization does. Read about the Cultural Survival Internship Program. Do any of the suggested internships appeal to you?
   
4. Read the article by Michael Asch on the Cultural Survival web site. Why, according to Asch, has there been so much resistance in the Canadian judicial system to acknowledging that First Nations communities had organized social systems at the time of contact? What have been the consequences of failing to acknowledge this?
   
5. What are some of the featured articles in the current issue of The Science and the Environment Bulletin? How are the environmental problems described in the bulletin related to culture, e.g. economics, technology? What is being done about some of them?
   
6. Got to http://www.ucsusa.org/game/index.html. Although the game at this site asks a lot of questions about the U.S., it also asks questions very relevant to Canadians. Play the Great Green Web Game and learn about the environmental impact of your consumer decisions. What did you discover about your impact on the environment?
   
7. Learn about current world conflicts at the Flash Points site.  Use the links to find information and historical commentary on all major ongoing conflicts in the world. Select a country and write a short report about the contemporary conflicts in that country.
   
8. Visit the Amnesty International web site. With what kinds of issues is this organization concerned? Is Amnesty International concerned with human rights issues in any localities we have studied in this course?