1. Explain the Belief Cycle. How does the Belief Cycle involve itself in every facet of a Belief? Why do we even need to express Belief in such terms; in other words, how does breaking a Belief down into these smaller parts help us to better understand the Belief, the society and its culture?
One of the facts in life is that human beings always tend to obtain what he/she believes in without much struggle. Human ability is always derived from the ability of the person, which pushes the person into acting in accordance to the beliefs. Since not all the human beings have the knowledge to understand the impact of the belief, the belief cycle was introduced to breakdown the entire manner in which belief influences the human daily undertakings. The belief model is vital in assisting people understand that belief is vital in almost all the outcome that happen in the life of the humans.
In accordance to the model, it is evident that the beliefs influence the human feelings, behavior, and eventually the outcome. For this reason, it is evident that beliefs in all the human beings act as a filter, which determines the feelings of the human beings and the occurrence in the world today. The model is vital in explaining the way human is response hence the quality of the outcome people obtains. Breaking the belief model down into the four parts, belief, feelings, behavior, and outcome assists humans in explaining the diverse behaviors of the human in the society. The belief model also assists in the explanation of the diversity in the cultural beliefs in the diverse parts of the world. The behaviors of the human beings also attributes to the explanation derived from the belief model. Therefore, the belief model tries to given a vivid explanation to how humans beings behave in certain manner and different from others.
2. Explain how belief systems play a role in typical foraging (hunter/gatherer)/horticultural type societies, where livelihoods bring the society in close contact with natural earth processes. From a structuralist/functionalist point of view, how do belief systems help support such a society?
The belief system plays a chief role in a typical horticultural/ hunter and gatherer society in the sense that the people belonging to such society belief that the earth is the origin of life. The aspects in the belief system affect most members of the society making the entire society to behave in a similar behavior hence slowly but drastically developing into a livelihood. In most typical hunter and gatherer society, there are elders that always determine the behavior of the society. The ethnic leaders always analyze the character of the members of the society hence determining what is wrong and right. For this reason, the elders always have a way of enacting change in the other members especially when it comes to behavior. The rest of the members always emulate the elders hence slowly a specified behavior becomes a livelihood routine in the people.
In the hunter and gatherer societies, most of the members believe that the earth is the mother of all plants and green vegetation. The hunter and gatherer believe that destroying the earth in some places contributes to the occurrence of natural calamities in the society. For instance, the hunter and gatherer do not belief in the construction of modern infrastructure because of the destruction of the forest to construct roads. For this reason, most of the hunter and gatherer will always have close feelings attached to the natural earth processes hence will not participate in actions that will destroy the natural beauty of the forest. The functionalism, which refers to working in unity with each other assist the members of the society in accomplishing various, tasks such as traditional activities.
3. Describe in as much detail as possible the five stages of ethnographic fieldwork. How and why is the written ethnography a key part of fieldwork? What are some special
challenges the ethnographer may encounter while doing fieldwork? How important is it to maintain an ethic approach during and after fieldwork?
Ethnographic fieldwork refers to the qualitative method used in research vital in collecting information concerning the cultures and the lifestyle of various societies for the purpose of comparative research. The first procedure in ethnographic fieldwork encompass of selecting the problem to be studied. Before collecting any given information from any given society, identification and definition of the problems is vital fully to the researchers. This is essential in the sense that it assists to inform all the members of the research team about the aim of the research.
The second procedure in the ethnographic fieldwork is the collection of the data from the selected cultures and societies. The collection of the data is the most vital step in the entire ethnographic fieldwork process. This is for the key reason that the comparison will only be made if the information collected is available. The collection of the data can be conducted methods such as observation, interviews, and questionnaires. The third procedure is analyzing data obtained from the collection procedure. Analyzing the data collected might involve procedure such as the ensuring that the data is accurate and genuine. Analyzing the data also ensures that all the collected data is fully and ready to make conclusion. The various analyzing techniques are used but techniques are introduced at this stage to ensure that the results obtained are accurate. The fourth stage is the formulation of the hypothesis, which is conducted immediately after obtaining the data and analyzing it without mistakes. Formulating the hypothesis majorly depends on the data collected from the subject and determines the outcome of the results. The fifth stage is writing all that happened during the study in a simultaneously manner. This assists in determining the challenges that the researchers underwent during the data collection process. Some of the challenges that the ethnographer encounters encompass of language barrier and harsh environmental conditions. Maintaining an ethic approach reduces the local citizen’s instance of hiding the facts from the ethnographer.
4. In working with kinship systems in cultural anthropology, please define the following terms: consanguineal; affinial; fictive; patrilineal descent; matrilineal descent; bilateral descent. In addition, what are three major aspects of an individual that are revealed in kinship terms?
Consanguineal in the kinship system during cultural anthropology refers to the relation that exists between individual especially by birth. All the members of the same Consanguineal are grouped together since they are related with blood hence might have close characteristics. Affinial in the kinship system refers to the relation or connection that occurs between to individual because of marriage. In Affinial marriage is the key connection of the relationship that exists between the two individuals.
Patrilineal descent refers to the system used in the cultural anthropology to define a relationship in which the lineage of the father is used to identify the tribe and race of an individual. In accordance to the Patrilineal descent it is then obvious that the children are a lineage from the descendants of the father and not the mother. Patrilineal descent is mostly vital when it comes to inheritance of names from the father to children, property inheritance and title inheritance especially from a king to prince.
Matrilineal descent refers to the kinship system in which the members of the tribe are identified in relation to the maternal ancestral lineage. In such situations, the property is inherited from the mother to the child in relation to closeness to the maternal ancestors. Bilateral descent refers to the kinship system in which both the mothers side and the fathers lineage is vital in making decisions. In such conditions, neither the mothers lineage nor the fathers ancestral have the power over the either. Both the children of the same mother and father have equal power over decisions and inheritance.
5. Describe in as much detail as possible the four major theories that attempt to explain the
incest taboo, a prohibition found amongst all peoples. What are your ideas on why there is an incest taboo in our society? And why in almost every society does it seem that the taboo is broken?
Various theories are vital in the explanation of the existence of incest taboo, which indicates that relatives from the same ancestral family lineage ought not to intermarry. However, the diversity that exists between different societies has contributed to the diversity in opinion especially to various philosophers. The diversity in opinion among the philosophers is what contributes to the development of numerous theories to try to explain the incest taboos. One of the theories that try to explain the incest taboo is the psychoanalytic theory, which suggests that family members are not supports to intermarry at any given moment. In accordance to the psychoanalytic theory, it is vital that members of the families, mother, father and children not to intermarry at any given level. Mauss’s theory is an additional theory vital in the explanation of the incest taboo in the sense that the religious aspect of the society denies the act. In accordance to Mauss’s theory, it is evident that the society should exchange all sort of commodities and conduct all sorts of transactions.
However, marriage between the members of the same society is not supposed to take place to avoid misconnects in the given society. Alliance theory also tries to elaborate the concept of incest taboo in the sense that marriage is a form of communication between communities. Since marriage is a form of communication between the married couples and societies, then it is vital that the members of the same family not to intermarry. Folk theory tries to restrict the occurrence of incest taboo by identifying that marriage between relatives usually contributes to conflict between the families involved. This is because when the couples will fight because of marriage issues, the family involved will also participate in fighting.
The Claude Levi-Strauss theory restricts the occurrence of incest taboo although in regards to the biblical writings. However, some philosopher opposes the theory with the claims that it is outdated in the current generation. In almost all the society, the incest taboo exists to prevent relatives from intermarrying from each family. However, in every society incest taboo is broken because of ignorance and civilization among the people, which leads to negligence of the available rules and regulations guarding the behavior of the members of the society.
