ANTH1220 Week 5-6, 8-9 + The Anthropologist

Subsistence system

The set of practices used by members of a society to acquire food

Carrying capacity

The number of calories that can be extracted from a unit of land to support a human population

Thomas Malthus

Wrote against the enlightenment belief of limitless progress. He believed population growth would always stand in the way. Population grows geometrically, whereas resources grow arithmetically. Which leads to poverty and misery in the lowest classes in the population. Agricultural methods determined population.

Ester Boserup

Wrote up against Malthusian pessimism, said that necessity is the mother of invention. In times of pressure, people step up their game, to support a bigger population

Who was right between Malthus and Boserup?

So far Boserup is right, human systems evolve and adapt

What % of human history relied on hunting/gathering?

99%

Foragers

The first affluent society as said by Marshall Sahlins. They usually live in small, flexible bands. Small groups allow it to be more cooperative and adaptive. Men typically do more hunting and women typically do more gathering. Hoarding gets you nowhere in this social organization. They are egalitarian and nomadic. Some foragers have seasonal base camps. They have a diet of gathered plants and hunted foods that are highly varied. What they hunt/gather depends on where they live. Gathered foods usually provide most of the calories (80% Richard Lee) People only work 2.5 hours a day. Examples include the Hadza, Inuit, etc.

What drove the domestication of plants and animals?

Population pressure, climate change, broad spectrum foraging, possibly even more things.

Broad spectrum foraging/revolution

The shift when humans expanded their diet past big game to include fish, wild grains, plants, small game, etc. People became sedentary, causing population growth.

What happened/are the consequences of domestication?

The idea of property begins, the landscape changes, population grows, height of men and women decrease 5 inches due to diet, plants and people depend on each other, the environment changes, disease comes into fruition, and labour

Horticulturalists

They’re sedentary, they live in small villages and often continue to engage in foraging. They plant small scale farms using hand tools. They usually have a gendered division of labour, but it varies. There is often a leveling mechanism to prevent accumulation, demand sharing for example. Examples include the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea

Extensive agriculture

Slash and burn farming, it can devastate the environment, the soil gets fertilized by ash, land is left fallow, mimics controlled forest fire, leads to erosion without fallowing

Pastoralism

A way of life that revolves around herding. It’s more common in areas/environments that do not support agriculture/ferning. Such as mountainous terrain, desert, dry environments. Animals provide milk, yogurt, cheese, blood, sometimes meat. Animals aren’t killed often for meat, usually for events, etc. They typically don’t farm often trade with neighbouring groups. They are nomadic. herding is done by men and boys, while women and girls do most other tasks. They practice transhumance. Examples include Basseri of Southern Iran.

Transhumance

Type of nomadism where they move seasonally back and forth. Pastoralists and their grazing can help the biodiversity of native plants when done responsibly, they try not to overgraze. Pastoralists try to use every part of the animal.

Intensive agriculture

Has a shorter fallow period. It requires more preparation and maintenance, but had greater yields. It was independently invented 6 times. However the crops had lower nutritional quality. You need large populations which result in more complex, social, economic, and political systems. Land owners can be wealthy, a hierarchical occupational specialization. Creating nobility and peasantry. It’s more about maximizing product than conserving resources. Examples include Peru, Mexico, Mesopotamia, Aztecs, etc.

Industrial agriculture

When food is produced by mechanized industry. The Industrial Revolution changed the way people worked. Agriculture is dependent on technology and chemical inputs. Monoculture is vulnerable to pests and depletes the soil. Confined animal feeding operations are used to maximize profit. It relies on poorly paid labour of undocumented immigrants with few rights and we almost never see where we get our food from. This can cause damage to the environment or yourself

Green Revolution

When farmers in India adopted North American technologies, seeds, to increase yields of crop. It was not sustainable, the soil was stripped of nutrients, global temperatures rose and crops failed. It led to a lot of long-term environment issues. Lots of farmers protested, committed suicide. Farming protests became more common

What issues were the Sakha people of Siberia dealing with?

The most urgent issue of the Sakha people is the water on the land, preventing them from growing hay for their animals. Permafrost is melting because of climate change leading to water.

What issues were the people of Kiribati dealing with?

Sea level rise due to climate change causes flooding. In Abaiang island, the tides wash away houses, and coconut plantations. Seawalls break, then tides come in crashing, flooding homes and being forced to move

What issues were the american coastal community dealing with?

Due to climate change, the marsh is gonna retreat, people also lose homes, it impacts crabbing and oysters

What issues were the people of Peru/Andes mountains dealing with?

A tropical glacier was found in the tropical ecosystem. Being high in altitude makes for cold temps, canals are directing glacier water into fields. There will be a water crisis in 2030. Glacial retreat occurs, as they disappear they uncover metal-rich rocks, leading to heavy pollution ruining crops and threatening the water supply

Production

Turning raw materials into something that can be consumed

Distribution

Getting the resulting goods to people

Consumption

Using the goods

Feudalism

An economic system that has status, the population split into nobles and peasants, and no negotiation

Capitalism

An economic system that has free distribution, a marketplace, and supply and demand

Neoclassical economic theory

Assumes that market forces are the central forces determining production and consumption in a society

What are the three modes of exchange proposed by Marshall Sahlins?

Reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange

Reciprocity

A mode of exchange that is split into three different types: Generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity. The swapping of goods

Generalized reciprocity

Reciprocity that neither the value nor the timing of the return are specified

Balanced reciprocity

Reciprocity where there are expectations of a return of equal value within a certain time limit, like getting a gift after giving a gift

Negative reciprocity

Reciprocity where exchange partners try to get the better deal. Happens when people don’t know each other very well

Redistribution

A mode of exchange that can only happen in a centralized authority/social organization. People in power receive goods from people anmd redistributes it to everyone back equally. For example, income tax and potlatch. Redistribution is associated with chiefdoms

Potlatch

A vital gift-giving feast and ceremony practiced by the indigenous peoples of the pacific northwest coast in canada and the united states like the kwakiutl. It involves giving away or destroying wealth or valuable items in order to demonstrate a leader's wealth and power

Market exchange

A mode of exchange that is the exchange of goods according to a multipurpose standardized medium of exchange, like money. It is carried out according to supply and demand price fixing mechanisms. Markets are associated most with capitalist societies

Mode of production

The social relations through which human labour is used to transform energy from nature using tools, skills, organization, and knowledge

What are the three mode of production types that Eric Wolf identified?

Domestic (kin-ordered), tributary, and capitalist

Domestic (kin-ordered) mode

A mode of production that is organised around labour from family, kinship.

Tributary mode

A mode of production where a primary producer controls the mean of production and controls tribute of others

Capitalist mode

A mode of production that has two groups capitalists and workers. Capitalists own the means of production while workers sell their labour to capitalists

What did Karl Marx say regarding the role of conflict in production?

Says that conflict is inherent in human societies, the potential for conflict is always there. Conflict tends to follow certain patterns according to mode of production

Ideology (production)

Karl Marx used the term ideology to describe the beliefs that explain and justify the relations of production

The internal explanation

One of the explanations for the differences in patterns of consumption. The functionalist one developed by Malinowski. It demonstrated the rationality of non-western consumption practices. It couldn’t explain why consumption patterns were so dissimilar

The external explanation

One of the explanations for the differences in patterns of consumption. Cultural ecologists believed patterns of consumption were related to ecotones and econiches. Julia Steward showed how shoshone consumption practices were tied to their arid environment. Though they couldn’t explain why patterns of consumption weren’t entirely linked to the environment

The cultural explanation

One of the explanations for the differences in patterns of consumption. It allows for human agency, the other explanations assume that non-western societies must be living in hardship.

Affluence

Having more than enough to survive. The ju/’hoansi have it

What is the relationship with food storage and sharing?

Where storage does not exist, sharing is necessary. The more people have to store, the more they have to invest in storage, and the more sedentary they become.

What is coke to Trinidad?

Coke is considered an essential everyday item rather than a luxury, representing a black sweet drink

What are red and black sweet drinks associated with?

Red associated with Indian population, and black for african population

Power

The ability to influence others, with methods such as coercion and persuasion

Legitimacy

The perception that an individual has a valid right to leadership. May be established through heredity, or appeal to religious or secular authority

Social power

The power of choice over a group

Political power

Formally recognized social power, split into three different types: Visible, formal apparatus of power. Hidden, behind the scenes power. Invisible, norms that make some issues invisible

Structural power

The power to allocate labour

Thomas Hobbes

Described the state of nature as “war of all against all”

Pacific oceania big man complex

A form of leadership prevalent in Melanesian societies in Pacific Oceania, characterized by achieved, rather than inherited, power.

Azande witchcraft

A traditional belief system among the Azande people of North Central Africa that acts as a comprehensive explanation for misfortune, illness, and death. Rather than being a supernatural act with spells or potions, it is viewed as an innate, physical, or psychic power that exists within a person's body

What did Karl Marx say relating to domination and hegemony?

People believe coercion is legitimate. People accept an ideology that justifies coercion and made the concept of false consciousness, being duped by an ideology

What did Antonio Gramsci say relating to domination and hegemony?

Persuasion is more stable that coercion. He also created the terms hegemony, successfully persuading people to accept the legitimacy of your authority, and counterhegemony, the challenges by subordinate groups

Bands

Have no formal leadership, mechanisms to discourage arrogance and competitiveness. There is informal dispute resolution, often involving battles of wits. Larger scale conflict and violence is rare due to the lack of leadership.

Tribes

They have larger populations than bands, they’re egalitarian with no formal leadership. Strategies of social integration include sodalities, gifts and feasting, marriage, segmentary lineages. There are no codified laws, they’re more interesting in resolving conflict than assigning blame. Mediators often try to negotiate settlements such as the leopard skin chief of the Nuer. Unresolved conflict can lead to war like raids and feuds

Chiefdoms

They are ranked societies, less egalitarian, everyone has access to basic resources. Higher ranking people are more distinguished from lower ranking people based on sumptuary rules. The office of chief is permanent and governed by rules of succession. Associated with redistribution. The ranking system is based on kinship. Marriage is used to cut across kin ties and reinforce rank and secret societies create cross-cutting ties that often handle matters related to law and warfare

Stratification/stratified societies

When a society is divided into different mutually exclusive, hierarchical groups. Elites control the strategic resources. An example of one is the Indian caste system.

Why did states form?

Social stratification and increased agricultural productivity were the preconditions for state formation. States form when potential subjects are circumscribed and can’t leave. Subjects of the original states were peasants

What was the first known legal code?

The Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon

Modern nation states/the nation

Did not exist prior to 1400. A group of people with a presumed common identity, language, origin, destiny, religio, ethnicity, etc. They try to create this sense of peoplehood Benedict Anderson refers to as “imagined community”

Michel Foucault

Described how biopower came into being in the 19th century. The science of statistics was born in pursuit of biopolitics

Biopower

The way modern governments control citizens not through fear or force, but by managing their bodies, health and daily lives. It was preoccupied with the bodies of subjects and the body politic was interested in population

Aihwa Ong

Studied the wealthy chinese merchant families and their relationships with the governmentality of the nation-state, market, and their families. Conforming to the governmentality of the market while eluding the governmentality of the nation-state

Fragile state

A government that cannot adequately perform the functions of a state. Not being able to protect citizens, vulnerable to coups, uprising, foreign invasion, civil war, etc.

Failed state

A state that can no longer perform any state functions at all

What is colonialism linked to?

It is linked to the fragility of postcolonial states through a legacy of distorted political and economic systems and the apparatus of repressive, authoritarian states

What is the power of the imagination/interpreting experience?

Everyone has the power to interpret experience, tswana miners question the “scars of bondage” hypothesis. Experience may be less important than how it is interpreted

Marriage

Affects both affinal and consanguineal relationships. It transforms the state of the participants, stipulates degree of sexual access, perpetuates social patterns, creates relationships, and is symbolically marked. Some cultures use marriage to creatively emphasize particular social relationships. Example: Nuer woman-woman marriage and nuer ghost marriages.

Endogamy

Marriage within a defined social group

Exogamy

Marriage outside a defined social group

Neolocal

A pattern of residence after marriage, residence is in a place of their own choosing. Found in most western nations, including Canada and the US

Patrilocal

A pattern of residence after marriage, residence is with or near the husband’s father’s family. Most common in herding and farming societies. Found in China and Turkey

Matrilocal

A pattern of residence after marriage, residence is with or near the family in which the wife was raised. Most common in horticultural groups. Found in the Iroquois, Hopi, Tlingit, etc.

Avunculocal

A pattern of residence after marriage, residence is with the husband’s mother’s brother. Found in matrilineal societies. Found in Chamorros, Taino of Turks, and Caicos Islands.

Ambilocal

A pattern of residence after marriage, residence is first with the family of one spouse and later with the family of the other. Eventually they choose which family they want to affiliate with permanently. Found in the Mbuti, and the democratic republic of the Congo, etc.

Duolocal

A pattern of residence after marriage, residence is that each partner lives with his or her own lineage even after marriage. Seen where lineage membership is the most important societal aspect. Found in the Nayar, and Minangkabau in indonesia

Monogamy

When a person only has one spouse

Polygamy

When a person is allowed to have more than one spouse

Polygyny

When a man has more than one wife, in muslim societies, its usually a polygyny, they can take up to 4 wives

Polyandry

When a woman has more than one husband, rarer than polygyny

Polygynandry

When multiple males are married with multiple females, it’s complicated

Bridewealth

The transfer of goods from the family of the groom to the family of the bride

Dowry

The tansfer of the bride’s share of the family wealth to the groom when she gets married. The womans share of inheritance

Whats the deal with dowry in India?

It has been illegal for many years in India due to abuses such as dowry violence

Family

Two or more people in an adaptable social and economic alliance that involves kinship

Household

A group of individuals who live in the same residence and share socioeconomic needs

Nuclear family

Two parents and thier offspring living together. Only 25% of north americans currently live in such family

Extended family

When there are three or more generations are living together

Joint family

When a group of brothers and sisters live together with their children

Blended family

When any combination of a couple and their children, as well as children from previous marriages, and sometimes the children of these chidren are living together

Mende

An ethnic group from Sierra Leone who have a polygynous family/dynamic. They’re complex due to relationships between co-wives and half siblings

Ashanti

An ethnic group from Ghana where the most important male-female relationship is the brother-sister relationship

Families of choice

Intentional, non-biological kinship networks built on deep emotional bonds, mutual support, and love rather than legal or blood ties. They have evolved in many LGBTQ communities

What is the process of divorce of the Nuer?

Dissolving a marriage requires the return of the bridewealth cattle, prompting the wife's family to pressure her to remain in the marriage