Category: Anthropology

Participant Observation Exercise
In this Participant Observation exercise, you will practice an anthropological technique called “de-familiarizing the familiar.” Read Nacirema FIRST, (even though it is a spoof) so you understand how this works, and you may want to watch Motel of the Mysteries.
1 Choose an unfamiliar place (for instance, retail space, coffee shop, restaurant, park, lobby, office space) to do your “participant observation” for at least one hour. Do NOT choose a Starbucks or the student center.
In your essay: start by stating the place you observed, when you did it, for how long, why you chose that place.
Then write up a detailed description of what you have observed and if you participated, though it is best if you do not interact. Every interaction changes the environment. Make sure you don’t conclude anything about what you describe. Also, pay attention to your assumptions when you describe something. Imagine your description as something you do to a Martian or a person from a different country who is absolutely unfamiliar with the environment you are trying to describe.
For every sentence you write, you should be able to answer the question: HOW would I know this?
For instance, don’t write something like, “The street is filled with millennials bustling off to work.”
Do not assume that person knows what “millennials” or “bustling” or “work” and “going to work.” is all about.
Instead, you might write: “Men and women wearing suits, pressed shirts, clean double-breasted overcoats, carrying attaches which looked like they were made of leather, walked briskly down the block. I watched several of these people enter the large building. I did not see any of them speak to each other.” You will be making assumptions of common knowledge at some point, so using the words’ suit’ and ‘pressed’ and ‘men and women’ is permitted, because you would be able to answer the ‘how would you know this’ question.
What you are de-familiarizing for this exercise are the cultural signifiers. So do not say ‘they spoke for a long time’, because what is a long conversation is not long in a different context or culture. Say,’ they talked for 12 minutes.’ Do not assume emotion, so no ‘happy’, or ‘annoyed’. You can describe their facial features.
At the end of the observation answer the following question in brief sentences (not looking for an essay on this)
1) what does “de-familiarizing the familiar” mean, and why adopt this technique? 2) what were the 2 main things you learned by employing the “de-familiarizing the familiar” technique in your participant observation? Again: saying ‘it was interesting’ does not count!!
3) what were some unexpected questions that came out from this experience? The assignment should be about 800-1000 words (4 pages) in total. Make sure you proofread it (use Grammarly!). Expect to spend the majority of your time editing while you ask the question, ‘HOW would I know this?’ for every word in every sentence!
You can get a maximum of 50 points for this

I need a 4-page review on the key arguments of Murray’s Thanatopolitics. Please include the following: What is thanatopolitics (and its implications), How it’s different from necropolitics.
I attached Stuart Murray’s book The Living from the Dead & my Notes.

For this paper, write with the topic that is covered in the pptx labeled “historical ecology presentation”
Each week of this course I have offered you a combined theory/method. For example, historical ecology helps us think about long term processes and human/non human interaction. Political ecology links environmental degradation with larger political and economic systems.
For this assignment I want you to pick two or three concepts from material we read in class, and apply them to a research problem of your choice. For example, if you want to write about people building houses in the flammable wildland urban interface of California, you might use political ecology theory to explain the economic forces that push people to live in more affordable, but also, riskier landscapes.
Suggested Structure
Each paragraph should be very roughly half a page long.
The first sentence of every paragraph should concisely summarize the content of the while paragraph. For example “Political ecology theory predicts that long distance economic connections generate land grabs and local political conflicts over access to land”.
Introduction (one to two paragraphs)
Write this last. Summarize the complete paper. What theories will you use, what is your problem, and foreshadow the conclusion.
Problem Statement (two to three paragraphs)
Use a newspaper article or your own data, perhaps from fieldwork in this class, to describe a social environmental problem that you are going to be analyzing. People living in fire zones, people being flooded out of their homes, windmills being built on peoples’ back lawns… the list is endless. You may choose to use data from your group historical ecology project, but you can also write on a different topic if you prefer.
Theory (four paragraphs)
Summarize two or three theories from course readings. What I mean by a summary is that you should read your key reading closely, and find a statement which summarizes a key concept.
Quote the key concept with citation
explain what it means in your own words,
explain how you will apply this concept to make sense of your chosen research problem.
Analysis (three paragraphs)
Use the concepts you have identified in your theory section to make sense of the environmental problem you are studying.
Conclusion (two paragraphs)
Summarize the paper, tell us your findings and why they matter, and tell us what kinds of future research might be needed to substantiate or extend your findings. It is fine to guess.

Directions for Filling out the Archaeology Field Journal:
STEP BY STEP
For this semester, we will be completing a series of projects located at the back of the textbook
in Appendix A, (and also in a Microsoft Word version online) called “The Archaeology Field
Journal.” The due date will be announced by me in the syllabus and/or on the
“Announcements” page on Canvas (it will be near the end of the semester). When you are
done with the projects, you will scan them and upload them to Canvas as a single document.
DO NOT simply take photos and upload – you will need to use your phone or computer to scan
the pages into a single document. This is very good experience for your future, and to get in
touch with your phone/computer scanning abilities. Also, always remember to READ
DIRECTIONS and USE GOOD PRINTING on the page or TYPE OUT THE PROJECTS (you may type
the written projects, print, and scan them. This is an especially good idea if you have bad
printing).
Here’s how to complete the Archaeology Field Journal:
1. Fill out the signature page, including your 900 number and signature at the bottom.
2. Don’t worry about the “Grading Rubric” page.
3. READ THE INTRODUCTION!!
4. Do Archaeology Project #1 (Draw an Archaeologist).
5. Do Archaeology Project #2 (Describe What Attracts You to Archaeology)
(we did this already in the chat)
6. Do Archaeology Project #3 (Translate Archaeological Jargon)
Here, you only have to do one sentence (not four). This is the sentence to
translate:
“I suggest that to truly understand the spaces with which we exist, we need not
invite non-humans into our ontologies, but rather reincorporate ourselves into
theirs.”
If you do more, that’s okay too!
7. Do Archaeology Project #4 (Planning an Archaeological Project)
This is best done on a separate sheet of paper. Be thorough, and don’t forget
the crew!
8. Do Archaeology Project #5 (Archaeological Survey)
Use a separate sheet of paper to make the map! Follow directions on the page
and also on my YouTube video. NOTE – Online classes do NOT have to figure out
their meters per pace – just simply use your paces to make the map.
9. SKIP Project #6 (On Ground Classes Only!).
10. SKIP Project #7 (On Ground Classes Only!).
11. Do Archaeology Project #8 (Lunch Project)
Follow directions.
12. Do Archaeology Project #9 (Annotated Bibliography)
Follow directions! The Annotated Bibliography will be turned in at a different
module on Canvas. You simply type it in MS Word or Google Docs and when
finished, upload to the “Annotated Bibliography” module. I will also have a
YouTube video up soon to help with common questions.
That’s it! I highly suggest starting this ASAP (or at least after we get to Module 7).7. Do Archaeology Project #4 (Planning an Archaeological Project)
This is best done on a separate sheet of paper. Be thorough, and don’t forget
the crew!
8. Do Archaeology Project #5 (Archaeological Survey)
Use a separate sheet of paper to make the map! Follow directions on the page
and also on my YouTube video. NOTE – Online classes do NOT have to figure out
their meters per pace – just simply use your paces to make the map.
9. SKIP Project #6 (On Ground Classes Only!).
10. SKIP Project #7 (On Ground Classes Only!).
11. Do Archaeology Project #8 (Lunch Project)
Follow directions.
12. Do Archaeology Project #9 (Annotated Bibliography)
Follow directions! The Annotated Bibliography will be turned in at a different
module on Canvas. You simply type it in MS Word or Google Docs and when
finished, upload to the “Annotated Bibliography” module. I will also have a
YouTube video up soon to help with common questions.

Carefully read the text “Articulate(d) bodies: Traditional medicine in a Tanzanian hospital” by Stacey Langwick. Think of a relevant question and answer the question in a paragraph of not more than 200 words.

Instructions:
A “notes & queries” is an assignment that allows you to connect anthropological ideas found across different chapters of our textbook. Please consider and incorporate your instructor’s comments from the previous Notes and Queries assignment when completing this essay.
You will be choosing two (2) ideas from each and every chapter assigned for this assignment and relate each idea with another one found in a different chapter. For your “Notes & Queries #2,” please relate key concepts that you have found in Chapter 4, 5, and 6. This means you will be covering a total of six (6) ideas out of these three chapters.
The book is “Language, culture, and communication: the meaning of messages (8th edition) by Nancy Bonvillain
The assignment is like a mini essay (not a re-type of your class notes) and please cite specific chapter and page number(s) of our textbook when discussing each and every idea of your choice. Please also kindly format your citation into bold letters. For instance, a citation like (Chapter 4, Page 79) would help your instructor identify the source of your discussion. Each citation is one point of your grade. Missing information, such as chapter or page number, will be treated as the absence of a citation.
You must also connect the Harvey (2005), Ferguson (1976), and Olmen et al (2023) articles (please include at least author’s last name and specific journal page number in your citation) in your synthesis. You may relate these articles to one another or to a connection you made from textbook concepts.
Please also ask at least one question related to your discussion (hence the “queries” part of the assignment). Putting your question(s) in bold letter would greatly help your instructor identity this key element of your work; this question is one (1) point of your grade.
Format: Your “notes and queries” should follow the general format of double-space, font size 12, Times New Roman and 1-inch margins all around (Top, Bottom, Right, and Left). You do not need to include any personal or course information (as files are uploaded under your own name).
Your work should be one-page long and a reference cited page is NOT required.

DESIGNING THE RULES FOR “TRUE CRIME” INVESTIGATIONS
The “True Crime” genre of books, movies, TV-shows podcasts is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Moreover, a number of “True Crime” properties have shown the ability to influence the criminal justice system (e.g., Serial, Jinx), freeing those who may be innocent and holding accountable those who may be guilty.
However, can “True Crime” also be reckless? Who decides who has the right to turn intensely private and traumatic experiences of victims of crime into a product for public consumption? How far can “True Crime” investigators go in pursuing their story? What are the consequences for story tellers (and their financial backers) if a “True Crime” story sets a guilty individual free or sends an innocent individual to prison?
In this research project you will need to consider the following question:
Are the present rules enough to deal with the “True Crime” phenomenon? And, if not, how would you modify or write new rules to rectify the current situation?
Your research project has several components:
Define “True Crime” as a phenomenon.
Identify the potential benefits and problems with “True Crime” and, if possible, illustrate with examples.
Identify current criminal and civil rules that might apply to “True Crime” investigations.
Provide an analysis of whether those rules are “enough” to hold “True Crime” investigators (and/or their backers) to account.
If the current rules are not enough, what new rules would you suggest? How would you justify them?
There are no preconceptions about how you answer this prompt. However, this project is a LIBRARY RESEARCH PAPER. Common sense may be useful in when seeking inspiration for how to analyze and ‘solve’ the problem. However, you MUST also back up your ideas and perspectives using information gathered from acceptable SCIENTIFIC SOURCES.
Remember there is also a practical element to this exercise: Your analysis and suggested new “rules” must be reasonable, meaning that somebody could conceivably put your concept into place. This means that you should consider the cost, politics, legal foundations, and ethics of your proposed analysis.
Finally, EFFORT and CREATIVITY are needed for this project. You can’t dial this one in. YOU NEED TO TAKE IT SERIOUSLY TO GET A GOOD GRADE.
LIBRARY RESEARCH & ACCEPTABLE SCIENTIFIC SOURCES
You should cite relevant research from acceptable SCIENTIFIC SOURCES to support your case. SCIENTIFIC SOURCES can include peer-reviewed journal articles, law review articles, and books (that you would be able to find in the UCLA Library). That something might be an acceptable SCIENTIFIC SOURCE does NOT mean that it contains accurate or correct information. It only means that the paper has been through some form of review by peers and purports to be an honest presentation of perspectives and data.
Journal articles obtained from journals accessed through UCLA databases ISI Web of Science and J-Store are generally acceptable. Most books on the shelves of the UCLA libraries are acceptable scientific sources.
SUSPECT SOURCES
Other information from the web should be treated as a great deal of skepticism. This means information from websites such as wikepedia.org, britannica.com, joesacriminal.com, even latimes.com, etc., must be used with great care and caution.
Web pages and blogs are not peer reviewed by experts in the field and therefore they are under no obligation to use state-of-the-art theory and methods, nor are they required to be honest. In fact, it is not unreasonable to expect that blog authors are simply interested in attracting as much attention as possible. Why be careful and honest, if playing fast and loose with the facts earns you more eyeballs?
Mainstream newspapers such as the LA Times do hold themselves to a higher standard than bloggers. However, the journalistic standard is one of “confirmation” not scientific accuracy. Thus, if two or more people confirm the same outlandish story, then it is generally fit to print. If you see something in a news story that attracts your attention, you must back up the claims in that story with information from acceptable sources.
UNACCEPTABLE SOURCE
Lectures are UNACCEPTABLE as a source material for this paper. If you hear something intriguing in lecture, you must find acceptable scientific sources that back that up. Do NOT cite (Brantingham, Lecture 15)!
WARNING: I WILL DEDUCT ONE WHOLE LETTER GRADE FROM YOUR PAPER SCORE FOR EACH CITATION TO LECTURE MATERIALS.
PAPER FORMAT
Your paper MUST adhere to the following formatting guidelines:
5 page maximum, excluding references and images.
Double-spaced, 12 pt font
1” (inch) margins top, bottom, left right
Citations using APA or Chicago styles.
It is also recommended that you write your paper working from an outline. This helps you to organize your thinking and make sure you are saying all the things you want to say.

For the second essay assignment, you will discuss what archaeologists know about early agriculture by analyzing one of these two notable archaeological sites:
Guilá Naquitz Cave (Oaxaca, Mexico)
Tell Abu Hureyra (Raqqa Governorate, Syria)
Use specific details about your chosen site to illustrate how archaeologists have learned about early agricultural societies. Your essay must include an introduction, body, and conclusion. Introduction
In your introduction, include a thesis statement that explains why your site is important to understanding early agriculture and how we know. Introduce the subject of your paper and make sure to include a robust thesis statement explaining the following:
What are your goals in the paper?
What are you setting out to accomplish?
Explain why your site is important to understanding the development of agriculture and how archaeologists know this.
Discuss what archaeologists know, using specific examples that illustrate how archaeologists have reached an understanding of the development of agriculture in humanity’s past. Refer to information learned from key archaeological projects from one of the two sites listed, providing specific, material examples of data and the specific analytical methods that were used.
Body
Please address the following questions in the main body of your essay:
What evidence from your site was important for understanding early agriculture?
Laboratory analyses:How old is your site, and how was it dated?
What type(s) of laboratory analysis(es) were conducted?
What did the analytical result(s) indicate?
How did archaeologists combine different lines of evidence from your site to learn about early agriculture?
Why is this research and its conclusions important? How is it relevant today?
This list is intended to get you thinking about how archaeologists know and reconstruct past events based on data from the archaeological record. Be sure to include specific examples and details showing how archaeologists have addressed this topic at your site.
Conclusion
Highlight how what you presented in the body of your essay ties in with your thesis statement and your introduction.
Length
1000-1300 words: The word count does NOT include the heading or bibliography.
Sources and Citations
At minimum, you must use the following sources:
Three [3] sources from class (any combination of lectures, films, and textbooks)
Three [3] scholarly (peer-reviewed) sources outside of course-provided materialThese sources may come from the same author (e.g., you may cite two different articles written by the same author discussing your site). Examples of scholarly sources include:articles published in an academic journal
books
book chapters
Written scholarly sources must be peer reviewed. Google Scholar (scholar.google.comLinks to an external site.) is an excellent place to start looking for information about your site.
Web pages do not count as one of the three outside scholarly sources. In particular, do not cite Wikipedia, Britannica, or other popular web sources. Also avoid using journalistic articles, such as Science News or Nature News. Although this type of article is well researched, they do not qualify as scholarly sources for the purposes of this paper. However, they do usually provide a link to the actual scholarly publication and so can be useful in tracking down sources.
Include in-text citations and a bibliography using Chicago Author-Date citation style. Start the bibliography on a new page after your essay.
Along with your essay, upload pdfs of the scholarly references you used (not including the textbooks or videos – only scholarly articles your research is based on).
Format
Include a heading with your name, course, section, date, and essay title.
Include a bibliography of all of the sources used in your essay. Start the bibliography on a separate page after your essay.
Use 1-inch margins and a standard 12pt font such as Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri.
Double-space your essay. The bibliography may be double-spaced or single-spaced.
Include page numbers at either the top or bottom of each page.
Choice of Site
Pick one of the following sites for your essay:
Guilá Naquitz Cave (Oaxaca, Mexico)
Tell Abu Hureyra (Raqqa Governorate, Syria)
To be honest I couldn’t find much information from my lectures and actual class material. The lecture I attached is all the information I could find from the course and there is also this link that was given which mentions Guila Naquitz https://theconversation.com/was-agriculture-the-gr… Don’t worry about meeting the source requirements. If you want to just use one source from my class, than make up with it by using more outside sources please. There were other lectures I could potentially add also, but the file size was too big so I could only send this one. Thank you so much.

For this assignment, 4 different interviews should be included. 8 questions for each interview and they should be the same 8 questions if the interviewees are all in the same category, for example: consumers of tobacco. Make it as the interviewees are 4 of my friends and a family member.
The 800 words of the paper will be structured into eight 100 word paragraphs, as follows:
Introduction: Reason for studying this topic, and very briefly, what the interviews reveal (a short summary of the rest of the paper)
Literature: What literature are you using and how it links to your findings. Make sure you use two authors from our readings
Findings: Expand on the themes revealed in the interview – tell your reader what four themes came up in your conversations – it can either be one theme per interview or four generic themes that come up from all the interviews
Theme 1: Talk about the theme and expand on it
Theme 2: Talk about the theme and expand on it
Theme 3: Talk about the theme and expand on it
Theme 4: Talk about the theme and expand on it
Conclusions: What can we learn from the interviews you conducted?
Please attach your interview questions and answers for each of the interviewees at the end of the paper.
I will also attach two readings that should be used as resources and I will attach the two previous assignments that might help.

Notes and Observations: Week 5
Be sure to include citations (page numbers from the textbook) for quotations and major ideas N&O assignments without citations will receive a grade of zero. For this week, comment on all three “myths of destruction.”
https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/6f6Vk2LeAz8OPQmcl2clo…
https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/cuztT8vw08IA8dnz9eKxn…
https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/pWvyNLYWpmICEsV4sns3P…
listen to this audio and write notes and observations and do citations and page numbers.
Notes and Observations: Week 6
For your notes, cover the content of one or more of the myths in each of the following chapters: chapter 24, Raven; chapter 25, African and African American Trickster Stories; and chapter 26, Prometheus. Be sure to include page number citations for these three chapters; assignments without citations will receive a zero. You should also cover the 20-minute Sunyiata video (use timestamps instead of page numbers). https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/7Bi3ZoDVZggM7C0Iu9tz7…
https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/feiT6mrHbErHGSukxHW5V…
https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/ocJyIDlhN5spPihnUmMFA…
https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/PDnb5URFRHhgGnVPYIQmH…
https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/PViaVgcswBM3L9lFU-Uhc…
you have to listen to this audio and write the Notes and observations And don’t forget to add citations and page numbers.
Week 7 Notes and Observations (cover each of the three Arthur/Grail stories, though minimal coverage of the first two is fine, and the Ramayana):
https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/NMoJkhLKd2J29bnCtY3Ms…
https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/yAqYMDh88MyQH6SEJeHTt…
https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/s_gvKVxaAAv17uYfxwaea…
https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/hRmLUcDvgfs_MJ3kc5Xpz…
https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/oUORNbzqbHgmzMZdOLsUI…
https://wiu.zoom.us/rec/play/a5212wugucokEAHpiTnLI…
listen to all the audio and write notes and observations. and don’t forget to add captions and page numbers.
All three Notes and Observations are in different PDFs. week 5, week 6, weeks 7