Unit 4- Economic and Political Strategies

Alternative modernity

versions of modernity shaped by local social and cultural forms.

Animal domestication

the processing of animal products for use as food, textiles, and tools.

Balanced reciprocity

the practice building social relationships through the exchange of gifts of roughly equal value.

Band

a form of social organization associated with gatherer-hunter societies. Bands are relatively small, often around 50 people, ideal for a nomadic or seminomadic lifestyle.

Colonialism

the political domination of another country in the interest of economic exploitation.

Commodity fetishism

the association of commodities with magical powers of personal transformation.

Cultivation

basic manipulation of nature, such as the intentional growing of plants.

Egalitarian

emphasizing equality and sharing.

Extensive horticulture

a form of plant cultivation in which new plots are regularly cleared, prepared with digging sticks or hoes, and fertilized with animal dung, ash, or other natural products.

Extensive/shifting cultivation

a horticultural practice in which plots of land are farmed for a period of time, then left to lie fallow as farmers move on to cultivate other plots.

Fallow

describes a plot of land that is not cultivated for a period of time so that wild vegetation may grow in naturally.

Gathering-Hunting

the mode of subsistence in which people rely on resources readily available in their environment. Gathering-hunting peoples collect fruits, nuts, berries, and roots and harvest honey. They also hunt and trap wild animals.

General purpose money

money that can be exchanged for a wide variety of goods and services.

Generalized reciprocity

the practice of sharing without regard for the value of objects or interest in compensation.

Globalization

the dramatic increase in global processes of production and consumption since the 1970s.

Humus

organic matter in soil formed by the decomposition of plants.

Hxaro

a friendship developed through gift exchange, practiced among the Dobe Ju/’hoansi and other San groups of the Kalahari.

Industrialism

the mode of subsistence that uses wage labor, machines, and chemical processes to mass-produce commodities.

Intensive agriculture

a form of plant cultivation in which one plot is farmed over and over again using labor-intensive methods such as plowing, terracing, and irrigation.

Intercropping

planting certain species of plants side by side to enhance their health and growth.

Markets

institutions that allow for buyers and sellers to meet for the purposes of economic exchange.

Modes of subsistence

a way in which people interact with the environment to meet their needs. Each mode of subsistence involves its own forms of knowledge, techniques, technologies, and social organization.

Modernity

the complex of sociocultural features associated with industrial society.

Money

a medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value.

Monumental architecture

large structures built for public viewing or use, such as pyramids, temples, sports arenas, and coliseums.

Nomadism

the practice of moving frequently in search of resources.

Pastoralism

the mode of subsistence associated with the care and use of herd animals.

Peasants

small-plot farmers incorporated into larger regional economies, often states.

Plant domestication

the process of adapting wild plants for human use.

Postmodernity

the cultural shift associated with postindustrialism.

Potlatch

a feast in which a trove of gifts is presented by the host chief to the guest chief in order to demonstrate wealth and gain prestige.

Precarity

physical and psychological harm caused by lack of secure and stable income.

Redistribution

a system whereby goods are collected and stored by a leader and later given out or used for public benefit.

Seminomadic

the practice of settling in one place for a period of time, usually a few weeks, then moving to a new site to find fresh resources.

Sexual division of labor

the assignment of work based on a person’s sex.

Special purpose money

money that is exchanged for specific items or services.

Slash and Burn

the technique of preparing a new plot by cutting down the trees and shrubs, burning the vegetation to the ground, then tilling the ash into the soil as fertilizer.

Surplus

amount of harvest left over after supplying the needs of the household.

Time-space compression

the postmodern feeling that time is speeding up and global space is shrinking.

Transhumance

a technique practiced by many pastoralist groups that combines a settled lifestyle with routine movement. Societies that practice transhumance may move between two permanent settlements in an annual cycle. Another transhumance strategy involves most people residing in a settlement and sending a smaller group out to pasture the animals at certain times of the year.

Universalism

the belief that social systems have operated roughly the same way all over the world at all times past and present.

Usufruct rights

rights to use a resource but not to own or sell it

acephalous societies

communities with no formal positions of leadership.

Age sets

gendered groups of people of roughly the same age who play a distinctive role in society with important social obligations and abilities. Age-grade systems tend to be associated with acephalous societies.

Arab Spring

a series of protests that spread throughout the Arab world in the early 2010s, demanding an end to oppressive government and poor living conditions.

Asafo

in Akan societies, the group of young men charged with protecting the town, performing public works, and representing public opinion. Asafo could depose corrupt and unpopular chiefs.

Authority

The exercise of power based on expertise, charisma, or roles of leadership.

Band societies

communities of gatherer-hunters in which leadership is temporary, situational, and informal.

Big man

an informal leader who has gained power by accumulating wealth, sponsoring feasts, and helping young men pay bride wealth.

Centralized societies

communities in which power is concentrated in formal positions of authority, such as chiefs or kings.

Chief

the inherited office of leadership in a chiefdom, combining coercive forms of economic, political, judicial, military, and religious authority.

Chiefdoms

societies in which political leadership is regionally organized through an affiliation or hierarchy of chiefs. Chiefdoms are associated with intensive agriculture, militarism, and religious ideologies.

Chinampas

agricultural plots created from layers of mud and vegetation in the shallow part of a lake.

Clans

large kin groups that trace their descent from a common ancestor who is either not remembered or possibly mythological.

Coercive power

the ability to enforce judgments and commands using socially sanctioned violence.

Colonial states

state governments imposed by foreigners to rule over local peoples.

Failed state

a state that cannot perform any of the essential functions of a state.

Fragile state

a state government that cannot adequately perform the essential functions of a state, such as maintaining law and order, building basic infrastructure, guaranteeing basic amenities, and defending its citizens against violence.

Hegemony

a powerful ideology that has become generally accepted by most groups in society as common sense. Hegemony emphasizes the norms and values that support the existing social order.

Ideology

an organized set of ideas associated with a particular group or class in society. Ideologies are used to explain how various realms of nature and society work, including such realms as economics, politics, religion, kinship, gender, and sexuality.

Imagined communities

citizens of a nation-state joined together by rituals and practices that give them a collective, imagined sense of community.

King

hereditary ruler of a multiethnic empire based on a chiefdom.

Leopard skin chief

an informal mediator in Nuer society who negotiated settlement in the case of homicide.

Lineage

Order societies in which extended family groups provide the primary means of social integration. Leadership in these societies is provided by elders and other temporary or situational figures.

Nation

a sense of cultural belonging or peoplehood based on a common language, common origin story, common destiny, and common norms and values. National identities are actively constructed by states.

Nation state

a political institution joining the apparatus of the state with the notion of cultural belonging or peoplehood.

Parrheisa

courageous public speech inspired by a moral desire to reveal the truth and demand social change.

Persuasive power

the ability to influence others without any formal means of enforcement.

Political economy

study of the ways in which political and economic realms continually reinforce and sometimes contradict one another over time.

Politics

all elements of the sociocultural dynamics of power

Post colonial studies

an interdisciplinary field that combines history, anthropology, political science, and area studies in an effort to understand the diversity, complexity, and legacy of colonialism throughout the world.

Proto-states

societies that exhibit some but not all of the features of state societies.

Power

the ability to influence people and/or shape social processes and social structures.

Reform

the call for systemic changes to address social problems.

Resistance

the expression of disagreement or dissatisfaction with the social order; may be explicit or implicit.

Rev

the replacement of one social order with a different one, often to create enhanced justice, equality, stability, or freedom.

Segmentary lineage

a kind of lineage order in which family units called minimal lineages are encompassed by larger groups called maximal lineages, which are subsumed by even larger groups called clans.

Social movement

an organized set of actions by a group outside of government aiming at achieving social change.

Social stratification

the division of society into groups that are ranked according to wealth, power, or prestige.

State societies

large, stratified, multiethnic societies with highly centralized leadership, bureaucracies, systems of social control, and military forces exerting exclusive control over a defined territory.

Tribal societies

an older term used by anthropologists to refer to pastoralist and horticulturalist societies in which extended family structures provide the primary means of social integration.

Tribe

an old-fashioned term used to describe ethnic groups or groups organized by lineage. Avoided by many anthropologists now because of connotations of primitivism and groupthink.

Village democracies

acephalous societies in which an array of social groups provide arenas for discussion and cons