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Midterm Study Guide
SA 101-4 1 This handout will help you assess whether you are understanding anthropological concepts and theories in your textbook and picking up the important ideas in the ethnography Healing Elements. This is a rich and complex study, focusing on specific examples in developing an anthropological analysis of the social context. If the questions below bring-to-mind some parts of discussions in the ethnography, then you are on track. If these questions seem to come out of nowhere and are confusing, then you need to go back to the ethnography. These questions give you an idea of the sorts of things you are expected to be able to talk about and write about. Anthropological research • What is culture? • What are the guiding principles of cultural anthropological research? What kinds of contributions does this approach to understanding make? • What are examples of applied anthropological work in your readings? • What distinguishes applied anthropological research and ethnographic anthropology? • Identify features of Craig’s research and analysis that illustrate what you have learned so far about the anthropological perspective and approach to analysis (holistic, cultural relativism, reflexivity, positionality, comparative etc.) • In what ways does Craig employ a holistic ethnographic approach? Outline and exemplify with specific examples Craig’s holistic approach. • Are there any descriptions of Amchi practices or client behaviour that made you uncomfortable? Which explanations from Craig helped you understand them from a cultural relativist perspective? • Consider potential sources of bias in Craig’s analysis. Anthropological theoretical perspectives • In what historical political context did Unilinear Evolutionary Theory emerge? How were differences understood by these 19th century theorists? Explain why this approach was ethnocentric. • What are some key differences between a British Functionalist Perspective and an Interpretive approach? • What was the Feminist critique of anthropology about? • What are some important anthropological sensibilities that emerge with post modernism? • In what ways is Craig applying a political economist approach to understanding Amchi practices? • What aspect of Craig’s ethnography reflect a political ecological perspective? Midterm Study Guide SA 101-4 2 Social Ecologies • Compare the different contexts for Tibetan medicinal practices in Mustang, Nepal and at Arura in Xining, China. • Describe the ways Craig shows that “standardization regulations” are cultural. • Describe the ways that Craig shows how different social ecologies lead to different perspectives on what makes a good doctor. Internalizing of modernist logics • Why does Craig explore attitudes towards Tibetan medicine and practitioners as a form of symbolic violence? • Why are binary oppositions like global/local and modern/traditional problematized by Craig? • In what ways does Craig show the way the global exists inside the local? How does this challenge distinctions between “traditional and modern”? The cultural shaping of healing efficacy • In what ways might a group’s religious beliefs impact their ideas about the causes, diagnosis, and treatment of disease? • Why does Craig discuss efficacy as a cultural construction? • What role do Amchi play in their community in rural mountain villages in Nepal? • What can we learn about the social worlds of Amchi practitioners by paying attention to social ecologies? • Why does Craig include ideas of efficacy in her anthropological analysis? Anthropological Concepts and Theories