Describe the goals of critical legal anthropology and an example ...

[bcretired]

Describe the goals of critical legal anthropology and an example of research done from that approach.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Summarize Chagnon's central argument about violence among the Yanomami, as well as one of the alternative explanations for it described in the text.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[akpaschal]

Answer to Question 1

Answer: The ideal answer will include:
1. Critical legal anthropology examines the role of law and judicial processes in maintaining the dominance of powerful groups through discrimination against less-powerful ones.
2. It addresses systematic discrimination against, among other categories, ethnic minorities, indigenous groups, and women.
3. An example described in the text is research into differing rates of arrest and imprisonment between White and Aboriginal youth.
4. It demonstrated a pattern of discrimination against the young Aborigines.

Answer to Question 2

Answer: The ideal answer will include:
1. Napoleon Chagnon took a biological, Darwinian position and argued that the violence among the Yanomami could be understood as an evolutionary process.
2. In this process successful warriors gain more wives and thus have a higher reproductive rate and genetically pass on fierceness to sons.
3. An alternative explanation offered by Marvin Harris, a cultural materialist, suggests that territorial violence is prompted by the lack of game in certain areas and can be understood as a means to gain valuable protein.
4. A third view based on historical data is offered by Brian Ferguson, who argues that Western involvement has increased violence in several ways, such as by introducing competition for valuable trade goods.