Sociocultural Anthropology

PART ONE: Please answer the following question (2670 words limit). (This question is worth 66.6% of the exam grade.)

Present a structuralist analysis of the University of California, San Diego. What cultural material would you examine, how would you break it down, and what would such an analysis tell you? Be mindful that you can use Lvi-Strauss, Mary Douglas, and or Victor Turner, either singularly or in any combination, but be clear on whose work you are drawing on. Keep in mind that the focus here is on your use and understanding of structural anthropology; the accuracy of the ethnographic information regarding your field site (UCSD) is not considered in assessing the grade.

PART TWO: Please answer one of the following questions (1330 words limit). (This question is worth 33.3% of the exam grade.)

To what degree is structuralist anthropology well suited to studying contemporary, developed environments such as the University of California, San Diego? What are its strengths and weaknesses when analyzing such a field-site?
To what degree, and in what way, is structural anthropology either universalist, particularist, or some combination of universalism and particularism?
If sociocultural anthropology is the study of variation, what sorts of human variation is structuralism best at understandings, and what sorts of human variation is structuralism poorly suited to measure or comprehend?