anthro 2A- midterm 2 Egan UCI

Social Organization

how society is organized to get things done and accomplish things. Includes the systems and structures that determine who does what work and how resources are allocated. NOT the same as culture

Social Structure

Part of social organization that identifies all the social groups that make up society and what are the relations between the groups. Ex: families, clans, villages and what goes on within these groups.

Institution

set of social relations/organizations organized around a particular theme or task. All kinds of different themes organized around a particular task or theme. Ex: educational institutions (teachers, custodians, principals, students, etc)

Production

Deployment of human labor. Deployment of human labor is a SOCIAL process that's always socially organized. ★Every society through human history has to answer two sets of questions: 1. What are the tasks that have to be done? Ex: someone has to fetch the eggs, wash the laundry, forage for nuts, etc 2. Who is going to do the tasks?

Means of Production

The tools, resources, and techniques used to produce goods, such as land, labor, and technology

Relations of Production

The social relationships that determine how people interact with the means of production, including who owns the resources and who works for whom

Subsistence Strategies/Techniques of Production (why techniques not social types?):

Called techniques, not social types because people mix techniques, and the change between techniques doesn't always follow unilinear evolutionary models

Foraging

AKA, Hunting and gathering. Collecting wild foods as they are out there, no human manipulation. It requires small group sizes, mobility, and extensive knowledge of the environment. Foragers live in marginalized environments, + have smaller population densities, + don't support food production for many people.

- Foragers tend to get pushed out of good environments (larger groups push them to less desirable land, ex: deserts, near arctic conditions, not good land). But they're NOT isolated

Pre-industrial Agriculture

Refers to extensive and intensive agricultural practices using simple tools and techniques like plowing and irrigation, often involving the domestication of plants and animals

Pastoralism

Pastoralism: A mode of livelihood based upon care of herd animals, ex: sheep, cows, (not pigs)

Industrialism

special technologies deploying special forms of energy, ex: nuclear energy, fossil fuels, burning coal. Massive scales of production. Extremely intensive. Achieves higher productivity, but often at a lower energy efficiency

San Foragers of the Kalahari Desert

Seemed to be simple foragers. More careful analysis of archaeological work reveals a far richer and more complex history than them just foraging

San Foragers: Group Size

Small groups of people (20-50) constituting a band kind of organizations (family/friendship ties).

San Foragers: Mobility

Mobility is very important, they move periodically and strategically depending on the weather (transhumance). These foragers have lots of knowledge about their environment

San Foragers: Gathering v. Hunting

Gathering: Mostly females. Men gathered but women mostly did it. vs Hunting: male activity, success only about 23% of the time

San Foragers: Contributions of men and women

Women economically carried the San, providing more calories to the diet than men did. 71% of calories in San Foraging diet were gathered food (plants)

San Foragers: Leisure, Health

San spent about 2.5 days a week foraging, roughly 20 hours for maintenance, and 40 including other tasks. They spent fewer hours working than people in industrial societies, leaving ample time for leisure. Health: Low cardiovascular disease rates. Didn't have processed foods and high sugars. 20% of the population is 60 years and older "Mean life expectancy" around 35

San Foragers: Sharing and Survival

Practiced Generalized Reciprocity: Everyone is supposed to contribute in some way but no deliberate accounting for what people take and give, everybody gets a share, even the visitors. Situations where one area has a shortage, bands visit other groups and everything is shared. Another year that area might have a shortage and they'll visit your band. Strategy for how to survive in these kinds of environments

Domestication

Intentional human manipulation of survival and reproduction of the domesticated species. Ex: planting a field of a crop. Leads to development of agriculture.

Extensive Agriculture (Horticulture)

Form of agriculture involving minimal energetic input and the use of simple tools. Don't put a lot of energy into fields, leaving it up to mother nature. Requires more land to be more productive

Slash and Burn (Swidden) Agriculture

Form of extensive agriculture. Clearing the field, setting it on fire, and ash is fertilizer for the field. Then planting with sticks (punch a hole in the ground, put a couple pieces of seeds in there). Not much work needed, don't need to weed, irrigate, plow, compost, etc

Intercropping

Feature of horticulture: Planting a mix of different crops (species of plants) in the same field at the same time. By doing that, you are effectively copying the natural ecosystem, in order to get an increase in the productivity and yields out of the food in the fields given that you're not putting in that other work in. EX: Iroquois: The Three Sisters (corn, squash, and beans): all planted in the same field.

Fallow

Leaving a field unused for several years to allow the soil to naturally replenish its nutrients

Intensive Agriculture

Agriculture that requires significant energetic input, involving techniques like irrigation, plowing, and terracing to support continuous farming on the same land without leaving it fallow. Not leaving it up to mother nature

Terracing, Irrigation, etc.

Techniques of intensive agriculture: Terracing- steps in the mountain side to put a retaining wall at the edge of each one to control the runoff and don't lose your top soil. Irrigation: Directing water from rivers or other sources to crops using canals or other methods

Wet-Rice Agriculture

A highly intensive form of farming where rice is grown in irrigated fields. It involves transplanting seedlings individually into rice paddies and managing water levels carefully

Intensification

The process of adding more energetic inputs into agriculture to increase productivity, often as population growth or resource pressure increases the demand for food. You can go back and forth between intensive + extensive methods because of conditions. It's a process.

Pastoralism and Ecology: livestock and environment

Pastoralists often live in environments unsuitable for crop production but where livestock can convert coarse grasses into consumable resources like milk and meat. Herd cattle, sheep, goats, reindeer, etc. NOT PIGS. Converting things we can't eat into things we can

Pastoralism and Ecology: livestock as food

Meat is consumed sparingly, while milk, blood, and other animal products are more commonly used

Transhumance

A practice where pastoralists move their herds seasonally between different environments to access resources, such as moving between higher and lower elevations depending on the season. Livelihood where people mix different techniques of production in different seasons of the year

Industrialism: Energy- Production and efficiency

Industrialism relies on large-scale energy sources like fossil fuels, nuclear power, and renewable energy to fuel massive production, but it is energetically inefficient compared to other subsistence strategies

Industrialism: Energetic Comparisons with other techniques of production

Very energetically wasteful. While foraging produces an energy output ratio of 11 calories for every 1 calorie of effort, industrial agriculture is much less efficient, requiring 10 calories of input for every 1 calorie produced

Market Principle

Items are bought and sold, using money, with an eye to maximizing profit, and value is determined by the law of supply and demand (things cost more the scarcer they are and the more people want them). Bargaining is characteristic of market principle exchanges. The buyer and the seller strive to maximize—to get their "money's worth".

Redistribution

When products, such as a portion of the annual harvest, move from the local level to a center, from which they eventually flow back out. The center may be a capital, a regional collection point, or a storehouse near a chief's residence, and products often move through a hierarchy of officials

Reciprocity

Exchanges between social equals, people who are related by some kind of personal tie, such as kinship or marriage. The dominant exchange principle in the more egalitarian societies—among foragers, cultivators, and pastoralists

Law of Supply and Demand:

Things cost more the scarcer they are and the more people want them. Prices and availability of goods are determined by the relationship between how much of a product is available (supply) and how much people want it (demand)

Generalized Reciprocity

Sharing without immediate expectation of return, often practiced in close-knit groups like the San foragers. Not primarily economic transactions but expressions of personal relationships. Ex: Parents don't keep track of time, energy, and money spent on kids, but hope their children will respect their culture's customs involving obligations to parents

Balanced Reciprocity

The giver expects something in return. This may not come immediately, but the social relationship will be strained if there is no eventual and more or less equivalent return gift. Exchanges between people who are more distantly related than are members of the same band or household

Negative Reciprocity

Mainly in dealing with people beyond their social systems. Initially, people want something back immediately. Just as in market economies, but without using money, they try to get the best possible immediate return for their investment. Goal is to get something immediately and as cheaply as possible, even if it means being cagey or deceitful or even cheating

Potlatch

A festive event within a regional exchange system among tribes of the North Pacific Coast of North America, including the Salish and Kwakiutl of Washington and British Columbia, and the Tsimshian of Alaska. The sponsoring community gave away food and wealth items, such as blankets and pieces of copper, to visitors from other villages and received prestige in return

Why have many anthropologists today concluded that the different ways of interacting with an environment to gain subsistence (foraging, extensive and intensive agriculture, pastoralism, industrialism) be thought of as "subsistence strategies" or "techniques of production" and NOT as types of societies?

Anthropologists view these methods as subsistence strategies or techniques of production because societies often mix these strategies and do not fit neatly into one category. Many groups used transhumance, in which they would mix different techniques of production in different seasons of the year. For example, the Nuer of South Sudan combine pastoralism with foraging and agriculture, showing that these techniques are not specific stages of societal development. Additionally, techniques like foraging or industrialism can coexist within the same society at different times, making it clear that they are strategies rather than fixed societal types. The change between techniques doesn't always follow unilinear evolutionary models, such as the San Foragers, who had a complex history involving many different changes.

Contrast horticulture (extensive agriculture) with agriculture (intensive agriculture). How do they represent opposite ends of a continuum? What kinds of factors would encourage a society to shift the position of its cultivation practices along this continuum?

Horticulture is extensive, requiring minimal energetic input, relying on natural processes, and often involving techniques like slash-and-burn and intercropping. Intensive agriculture, on the other hand, involves significant human intervention, including plowing, irrigation, and fertilizing, to maximize land productivity. They represent opposite ends of a continuum because horticulture stands at the "low-labor, shifting-plot" end, while agriculture stands at the "labor-intensive, permanent-plot" end. It acts as a continuum because there are intermediate economies, which combine horticultural and agricultural features. Factors like population growth, environmental degradation, or increased demand for food can push societies from extensive to intensive agriculture, as more energy is needed to maintain productivity on a smaller amount of land.

Diversity in terms (categories of kin)

Kinship terms vary widely across cultures and are often not directly translatable. Terms like "mother," "madre," and "chitnag" can differ in meaning, covering various types of relationships and nuances specific to each culture

Diversity in underlying logic of kinship ties

Different cultures define kin relationships differently. Some societies focus on shared descent, while others prioritize marriage or symbolic ties, showing that kinship can be organized through various cultural logics

Enduring Diffuse Solidarity

Concept by anthropologist Schneider, describing kin as those with whom we have long-lasting, supportive relationships that aren't limited. This solidarity spans various needs and is sustained over a lifetime. Kin are people with whom we endure diffuse solidarity.

Enduring= Life-long, Diffuse= solidarity is expressed in all sorts of kinds of ways, Solidarity: People we stand together with and support as one

Kin Terms

A list of terms in a particular language for all the categories of kin relationships relevant to that language. Ex: in America- mother, father, daughter, son, grandmother

Biological Kin Types & all notation

Descriptors of genealogical relationships. String together particular symbols that speak to actual genealogical relationships

M= Mother

F= Father

S= Son

D=Daughter

C= Child

B= Brother

Z= Sister

H= Husband

W=Wife

Kinship Diagrams:

Female= Circle

Male= Triangle

Marriage= either = sign or bracket connecting two

Descent= line coming down from a marriage

Siblingship= bracket connecting siblings to parents

Deceased= line through circle or triangle

Divorce= line through equal sign or bracket

Bar above= siblingship, Bar below= marriage

LOOK AT IMAGES ON STUDY GUIDE (esp for nuclear and expanded family)

Nuclear Family (family of orientation and family of procreation)

A family unit made up of parents and their children

Family of orientation: Your original family, ex: parents, siblings, Family of Procreation: New family that you create ex: spouses, children

Expanded Family- Extended and Collateral Family

Adding people beyond the nuclear family.

Extended: Adding vertically (ex: grandparents, parents, grandchildren).

Collateral: Expanding out to the side ex (living with cousins)

Ego

Often represented by filling it in. This person is the core person who is looking at their point of view. Designating an ego means it's from that person's point of view

Bilateral Descent

Trace descent and kinship equally through males and females. We do this in middle class america

Unilineal Descent

Tracing descent through only one gender

-Patrilineal Descent: Descent traced through the father's line, as seen in some South American societies

-Matrilineal Descent: Descent traced through the mother's line, as seen in societies like the Trobriand Islands

(look at picture on study guide)

Kindred

Not a group, rather an ego-centered network of bilateral (sons, daughters, etc), affinal (relatives through marriage), and fictive (not blood relatives, but very close to the family you refer to them as family) kin.

-Ego centered: Just relative to me

-network NOT a group (not all your acquaintances know each other)

Lineage

A group of people who can trace descent in a unilineal manner from a common founding ancestor

- Patrilineage: Descent traced through the male line, passed from fathers to sons, but includes both men and women.

-Matrilineage: Descent traced through the female line, passed through mothers but includes both men and women

Demonstrated Descent

This occurs with lineages. Everyone in that group knows how they're related to that common ancestor and how they're related to each other.

Clan

A group of people who believe themselves to be descended from a common ancestor in a unilineal manner, but they cannot demonstrate the links. Can have many lineages, and even thousands of people

- Patriclan: Clans that trace paternal ancestry.

-Matriclan: Clans that trace maternal ancestry

Stipulated Descent

This occurs with clans. Cannot demonstrate their descent, but the issue of the link is purely one of belief

Contrast Kindreds with Lineages+Clans

Lineage goes on through time, but kindred begins when you're born and ends when you die. Even full siblings don't have the same kindred. In lineages and clans, they're actually GROUPS

Corporate Groups (Corporate Functions):

Groups with corporate functions. Called a corporate group if it collectively (as a group) controls assets/resources (ex: land, herd of cattle, etc) . Like a corporation. Lineages and clans can function as corporate groups, but kindreds cannot (bc the entire kindred doesn't know each other)

study all pictures from kinship slides and camera roll

study study study

Industrialism and Family Organization: General differences by class

By class: Middle-class North Americans often establish independent households (neolocality) upon marriage, while lower-income families have a higher incidence of expanded family households (e.g., extended or collateral households) as a practical adaptation to economic challenges, pooling resources for mutual support

Industrialism and Family Organization: General Changes in North America

- age of marriage: The median age at first marriage has risen over time. For American women, it increased from 21 years in 1970 to 28 years in 2019, while for men, it went from 23 to 30 years.

-size & composition of households: Household sizes have decreased, average # of people per household declining from 3.1 in 1970 to 2.5 in 2019. Nuclear families now account for a smaller portion of all households, while single-person households and non-family households have increased. However, COVID-19 reversed this trend, pushing millions of Americans, most notably young adults, to move in with family members

-divorce rates: Higher rates of divorce than in the past. Divorce tends to be more common in matrilineal than in patrilineal societies. Of all ever-married women in the United States, only 4 percent had been divorced in 1960, 11 percent in 1980, and around 16 percent today

Genitor & Pater:

Genitor: Biological father of child. Pater: Socially recognized father

Functions of Marriage - Descent & Alliance

Leach's ideas of marriage. Marriage establishes alliances between families, transfers rights over labor and property, gives spouses monopoly in sexuality of the other establishes legal parenthood, establishes joint fund of property for children, rights over spouse's property, establishes relationships of affinity, and creates new descent lines. Give either/both spouses rights over other's property, sexuality, and labor.

Affines (affinal relatives)

Relatives through marriage, or in-laws, who become part of one's kinship network through marital alliances

Incest Taboo

A cultural prohibition on sexual relations between close kin. The definition of "close kin" varies between cultures, often shaped by the rules of descent. Ex: in trobriand island, you can marry/have sex with your father's sister's daughter because she is in a different lineage (your father's lineage), but NOT your mother's sister's daughter because of the same matrilineal lineage/clan

Monogamy

Relationship between two spouses. One person has one spouse

Polygamy

A marriage form involving multiple spouses. However, if you have an equal number of men and women, there will be some men who don't have wives if some men have multiple wives. Has two types: Polygyny and Polyandry

Polygyny

One husband with multiple wives (Like in Nuer)

Polyandry

One wife with multiple husbands (like in Himalayas)

Social Organization and Material Conditions

Material conditions, or the resources and methods people use to survive, influence social organization by shaping how people structure relationships, labor, and marriage practices. The routines by how you live your life day in day out. Material conditions DON'T cause forms of social organization, rather only influence, because there is always more than one way to solve a problem

Himalayan Agriculturists & Polyandry

In the Himalayas, fraternal polyandry (one wife marrying a set of brothers) prevents the fragmentation of land by keeping family estates intact, addressing limited arable land, and allows for corporate form of land tenure (ran within the family). Also keeps population size in check

Land Tenure

All the practices and rules that govern the rights of land and their inheritance, which help prevent land fragmentation in resource-scarce environments

Primogeniture

An inheritance system where the eldest son inherits all property, preventing land from being divided among multiple heirs. Example of another way that solves the problem of fragmentation in the Himalayas, showing material conditions don't necessarily cause forms of social organization

Exogamy and Endogamy:

Exogamy: Prohibition on marriage within one's group, requiring marriage outside one's group, as seen in lineages and clans. Endogamy: Opposite of exogamy. Required to marry someone within your own group or category, as seen within a caste or class. Maintenance of status hierarchy: Higher the hierarchy the more rigid it is to be enforced. Like in India, or dating within your own class/race.

Caste System of India

Hindu system of 4 varna. hierarchical social structure where individuals are born into castes, and marriage is often endogamous within one's caste to maintain social hierarchy. Brahmin: Priests and Scholars (most prestigious and pure). Kshatriya: Military cast, nobles. Vaishya: Tradesmen. Shudra: Cultivators, farmers, servants. Untouchables: Deemed to be outside of the Varna's

Post- Marital Residence (3)

-Matrilocal (uxorilocal) Residence: A couple lives with the wife's family after marriage

-Patrilocal (virilocal) Residence: A couple lives with the husband's family after marriage

-Neolocal Residence: A couple establishes an independent household in a new location

Bridewealth

Payment from the groom's family to the bride's family (men), symbolizing the establishment of a relationship rather than a purchase

Dowry

Opposite of bridewealth. Wealth transferred from the bride's family to the groom/husband's family, serving as an inheritance for daughters who will not inherit family property. But husband's have control over dowry

Bride Service

A husband works for his wife's family for a set period after marriage as a symbolic fulfillment of marriage obligations

Marriage Exchanges

Reciprocal exchanges of wealth between the bride's and groom's families, often competitive and symbolic of family alliances. Gendered Wealth. You want this to go well, so you get more prestige

Gendered Wealth

forms of wealth that are symbolically treated male or female. Male gendered wealth- items of wealth that men create or use. Female gendered= opposite

Male wealth (fish, hunted animals, shells, etc)

Female Wealth (textiles, yams, etc)

"Nature" and Kinship:

-cultural construction or ties of "blood"?

Kinship is culturally constructed and not strictly about biological ties. Blood" is a symbol of a shared biogenetic substance (genetic). It is defined by social relationships and practices, as shown by terms like "genitor" and "pater."

Nuer (Location and Characteristics):

Ethnic group living in South Sudan. Have patrilineages/patriclans. They are polygynous (man can have numerous wives)

Nuer (Cattle and Descendents):

Bridewealth is paid in cattle Descendants give a man immortality. Men wanted cattle because they wanted children that would continue their line an honor them. Dying the true death is dying without any descendants.

How to get descendents: Pay bridewealth to kin (male relatives) of woman (become a husband). Woman has children, and bridewealth payer is the father. Whoever gives bridewealth to woman is that woman's children's father (no biological relation, only connection is cattle)

Nuer (Ghost Marriage)

A dead man can become a husband and a father. Family finds a wife for the dead man so he doesn't die a true death. One of the man's brothers stands in for the dead man, but the woman is marrying the dead man, so the dead man can become a husband to a wife, to have descendants. That woman can have children with others, but the dead man is the father because of the bridewealth

Nuer (Woman Becoming Husbands and Fathers)

Treating barren (unable to have children) women as social men. Barren woman takes on a husband role and gives bridewealth cattle to another woman. Whole point is this barren woman wants children, so the wife is having sex/living with another man and has children. The woman who paid the bridewealth is the father, the children will worship/honor her as the father.

Nuer (Divorce):

Divorce can only be done by giving the same cows back. Keeping track of the lines of the calves (those have to go back too). Divorce is rare. The cattle is used in other bridewealth purchases. So many marriages would have to get disrupted to get those same cows back. Men cannot get a divorce after wife has several children. Nuer women can do whatever she wants (autonomy) within the marriage, and the husband can't get cattle back; can't divorce wife.

Nuer (Power Relations)

Cattle is held corporately by a lineage, and fathers have leverage/control over whether those cattle will be sent out for their sons to be married. Women not involved in negotiation of bridewealth and marriage. Political alliances are being broken and yet women are excluded from creating the political world of alliances (power relation). HOWEVER: women find autonomy in marriage. The obligation to husband via bridewealth satisfied with several children. Changes in the ways we view kinship, with ideas of ghost marriages, women as husbands/fathers

Matrilateral & Patrilateral Biological Kin Types:

Matrilateral: Biological kin types that start with the letter M. Have to start with mother. Patrilateral: Biological kin types that start with the letter F. Have to start with fathers

Parallel Cousins & Cross Cousins:

Parallel: Children of a parent's same-gendered sibling (e.g., father's brother's children or mother's sister's children).

Cross: Children of a parent's opposite-gendered sibling (e.g., mother's brother's children or father's sister's children) Crossings of generations is one generation above. Ex: Matrilateral Cross Cousins: Ego's mother's brother's kids

Ascending Generation (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc):

Generations above ego, such as parents (1st), grandparents (2nd), and great-grandparents (3rd)

Descending Generation (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc)

Generations below ego, such as children (1st), grandchildren (2nd), and great-grandchildren (3rd)

Ego's Own Generation

Ego and ego's siblings, cousins, and peers within the same generation level. Ex: first cousins.

Analyze fraternal polyandry in Himalayan south-central Asia with respect to material conditions. What specific problems are posed by what specific material conditions, and how are they solved? Is this a simple causal relationship?

In the Himalayas, limited arable land and the need to prevent land fragmentation create material conditions that favor fraternal polyandry, where one wife marries a set of brothers. This solves the problem of fragmentation, as the land remains in the family without being broken up between heirs, and the issue of limited arable land, since it restricts population size from rapidly growing. The labor is consolidated within the family. This is not a causal relationship because while material conditions set certain constraints and influences, they do not singlehandedly cause practices like fraternal polyandry and societies can choose from multiple solutions. For example, in some societies, they implement primogeniture, where the eldest son receives all the inheritance in order to solve the same problems. Cultural traditions, social preferences, and historical context also shape the choices made

Discuss Nuer kinship and marriage and its implications for how we think of kinship. What beliefs, practices, and relationships constitute Nuer kinship? Is kinship ultimately grounded in "blood ties"? What kinds of power relations are at work within Nuer kinship?

Nuer kinship and marriage practices show that kinship is not solely grounded in "blood ties" but is socially constructed through culturally significant practices like bridewealth and symbolic relationships. For the Nuer, patrilineal descent is key to a man's legacy, and the concept of immortality is tied to having descendants who honor the deceased. Bridewealth, typically paid in cattle, creates kinship links by designating a man as a woman's husband and a father to her children—even if he is deceased, as in ghost marriages. It is not ultimately grounded in blood ties at all, since the only connection sometimes between fathers and their children is the cattle in the bridewealth, not any biological basis. Additionally, a barren woman can take on the social roles of husband and father by paying bridewealth, marrying another woman, and becoming the socially recognized "father" of the other woman's children, illustrating that kinship roles are flexible and not dependent on biological ties. Power relations in Nuer kinship are influenced by lineage control over cattle, which fathers use to manage their sons' marriage prospects, and by gender dynamics, where men negotiate marriages while women gain autonomy within marriage as they bear children.

Sociopolitical Organization:

Issue of the order of relations between individuals and groups, and particularly between the groups themselves, that builds social structure. Includes, bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states

Band

Small kin-based groups. The relations were a function of kinship relations, mother/father/son/daughter/etc. No formal relations between groups, rather all individual relations. Like San in Kalahari desert

Tribe

Larger groups than band. Organized by principles of kinship, not by territory. Pan-tribal organizational principle to pull all the localized groups together onto one cooperating unit/tribe. Does NOT rely on centralized authority (nothing like a chief king, government, president). Ex: Nuer and Massai tribes, consist of smaller groups linked by a shared clan or lineage identity and territorial segmentation