Cultural Anthropology Test #3

Economy

A cultural adaptation to the environment that enables a group of humans to use available resources to satisfy needs through exchange of gifts, goods, and commodities.

What the Economy Includes (everyday interactions and exchanges)

Decisions about how to care for and share a commons, what to produce for survival, how much surplus to produce, how to distribute, how to save for the future. Cultural rules and you are a significant actor in the economy.

Reciprocity (generalized)

A system of giving things without taking into account of how much was given, with the assumption that at some time in the undefined future something will be given back.

Reciprocity (balanced)

Direct exchange in which something is traded or given with the expectation that something of equal value will be returned with a relatively constrained period of time.

Reciprocity (negative)

an attempt to get something for nothing. Both buyer and seller are trying to get more than they give - opponents. Theft and coercion are forms though nothing being exchanged.

Redistribution (Form of exchange)

Accumulated wealth collected from members, reallocated, counted, and redistributed by the chief, the storehouse, and the government. Leaders in small-scale societies acquire prestige. Leveling mechanism.

Why do people exchange?

Creates obligations between people, Uprapmin of Papua New Guinea, resolving conflicts or disagreements, goods circulate in community, group remains wealthy in a gift economy and cultural rules vary.

What is money?

Facilitates buying and selling of land, goods, resources, labor, and ideas. Most contemporary economic transactions are based on money as an exchange medium.

What does money do?

Double coincidence of wants, Mobility, Commodity and Frees from social obligations.

Crytpocurrencies and how they differ from state-backed money

Decentralized digital or virtual currencies, Secured through encryption, No intermediary, no state entity, no regulatory frameworks, Depends on trust/faith and No consensus about bitcoin on an international level.

What is the Industrial Revolution?

New industries relied heavily on raw materials, cheap labor and open markets. Drove next phrase of european colonialism. Movement of people.

Core and periphery economies/nations

Industrialized core extracting labor, resources. Less developed periphery providing materials, markets. Peripheral areas within core countries. 80% of world population lives in periphery countries.

Capitalism (How it works)

Materials, labor, sale. Surplus value, unpaid labor, commodity chain, New value created from worker’s labor and Extra dollar provides mobility.

Fordism/ Fordist Capitalism

Mass production, with large inventories, power of organized labor, controlled work hours and schedules, Expansion of middle-class.

Flexible Accumulation and its effects on uneven development and on work practices.

Off shoring, out-sourcing, Constant relocation of operations. Flexible conditions of work and Complex global commodity chains.

Neoliberal Capitalism

Economic and political worldview, Free market, trade. Restricted govt. role, reduction of tariffs, privatization of public assets, Has led to uneven development.

Reciprocity bean game

Negative Reciprocity: recieved more than gave, Balanced Reciprocity: gave and received the same amount, Generalized reciprocity: giving generously without reciprocation. Give zero, 1 or 2 beans to anyone who agrees to exchange objects. If listed a “negative reciprocity(recieved more than gave), you cannot go to that exchange partner to ask for any beans. If you listed a relationship of balanced you can ask for an equivalent number of beans from that person. If you listed a “generalized reciprocity” you can ask for double the number of beans.

Definition of class

A system of power based on wealth, income, income and status that creates an unequal distribution of society’s resources.

Egalitarian societies

Mainly hunting and gathering societies, sharing of resources maintains group stabillity and success, relative absence of hierarchy and violence, characterized by reciprocity.

Ranked Societies

Group in which wealth is not stratified but prestige and status are, positions of high prestige are largely hereditary, rank set regardless of skills, wisdom, or other efforts of other members. Leaders don’t usually accumulate great wealth. Potlach-Kwaiutl of Pacific Northwest.

Current patterns of stratification and hierarchy are recent developments in human history

Recent development, Linked to intensive agriculture and market towns where small elite groups (merchants, landowners) accumulated wealth. Industrialized capitalist economies more pronounced, Some countries have tried to to mitigate inequality with systems of redistribution or targeted tax benefits (Scandinavia).

Understand theories about class including ideas put forward by Marx, Weber, and Bourdieu.

Observed increasing inequalities of emerging capitalist economy of 1800s Europe, Rural to urban migration, Owners increased income by forcing workers to work longer for less wages, reducing cost of production and Allows extraction of surplus labor value from workers.

Understand what is meant by relations of production or owning the means of production.

Bourgeoise or capitalist class who own the means of production and Proletariat/working class who did not own tools, factories sold labor for wages.

Know Marx’ concepts of bourgeoise (capitalist class) as well as characteristics of a managerial class in a capitalist system. bourgeoisie (c

Managerial class educates, controls working class. Allows capitalist class to maximize extraction pf profits. Proletariat divided along race, gender, ethnicity.

Weber’s concept of class as related to prestige and life chances.

Prestige, reputation, influence, and deference bestowed on certain people because of their membership in certain groups. Prestige affected access to opportunity and life chances. Life chances, Individuals opportunities to improve quality of life and achieve life goals. Members of a common class have similar life chances, experiences and access to resources.

Bourdieus’s concepts of symbolic capital(including social capital and cultural capital)

Class distinction created through styles, choices, consumption. Economic capital (money, wealth, resources) social capital, cultural capital. People with similar volume of social, economic, and cultural capital have a similar capacity to navigate certain situations, plan futures, and embody success.

Habitus and what it means/includes

Self perception, tastes, demeanor, bodily comportment, how you carry yourself. Internalized, encultured, transferred across generations. Knowledge or “feel” of how to move, act, speak in different kinds of social contexts in which class is at play.

Know what Culture of Poverty theories are and why have been critiqued and debunked

Traces causes of poverty to cultural problems and moral deficiencies. Learned, dysfunctional behaviors of dependency. The familial transmission of maladaptive behavior. Intersection with race/racialization. Ignores structural inequalities.

Understand rising income inequality and what this means

TV and homegenized version of upper-middle-class, Debt (and consumer culture) masks growing income inequalities in the U.S, Maintain experience of middle class lifestyle.

Unnatural Causes: More than Just a Paycheck with related discussion Q’s.

What happens in this example of job loss in Michigan?

When a factory shuts down, many workers lose their jobs and health insurance, leading to increased stress, depression, and chronic diseases.

How do flexible accumulation and nnneoliberal economic policies relate to this case?

Flexible accumulation, characterized by companies moving production to areas with lower labor costs, leads to factory cosures in places like Michigan. Neoliberal policies, which prioritize deregulation and free markets, further exacerbate this by reducing social safety nets and weakening worker protections.

What comparison is made with Electrolux in Sweden and what is the Swedish government’s understanding of the global economy and collective health?

How does stress relate to health and chronic disease? Also how we treat ourselves for stress and anxiety.

What are excess deaths?

What were the Whitehall studies among British civil servants? What factor did they find was the most important long term health? (just not income)

Know what Medical Anthropologists Study and what kinds of questions they ask

Study range of pratices humans associate with disease, illness, death, and well-being.

How different cultural conceptions shape experience of health and illness.

How disease and health conditions affect specific populations and how specific cultural groups diagnose, manage, and treat health-related problems.

Why does the distribution of health and illness mirror that of wealth and power?

Recognize that health systems themselves structures of power that reproduce disparities by defining who is sick, who gets treated and how treatment is provided

Health

Not merely the absence of disease and infirmity but complete physical, mental and social well-being.