Egalitarian Societies

Perception of egalitarian societies in early anthropology

-central but problematic role in quest for human origins

-hunter-gatherer society seen as early, primitive stage of human evolution

-denial of coevalness, treated as people without history

-hunter-gatherers seen as closer to ‘nature’, ‘primitive’, romanticized, defined by lack/scarcity

Definition of egalitarian societies: Woodburn (1982)

“societies in which there is the closest approximation to equality known in any human societies”

Immediate-return subsistence styles: Woodburn (1982)

-food is procured and immediately consumed rather than stored or cultivated

-six features that facilitate equality: nomadism, equal access to means of coercion, sanctions against accumulation of possessions, autonomous decision making, abundant access to food, and sharing

How egalitarianism arises: Bird-David (1990)

not the default result of any one subsistence system but a chosen and constantly renegotiated economic system based on world views that emphasize sharing and equality

Delayed return systems in Hunter-gatherer societies: Woodburn (1982)

-people have rights over assets such as tools used in production, stored food or food processing, or wild products which have been improved by human labor

-generally not egalitarian as it leads to formation of private property, ownership, accumulation, and economic competition

Indus Valley civilization: Greene (2021)

-showed a high degree of social complexity and relied on farming, but no evidence of an upper class in the form of monumental architecture or palaces

-although contested, evidence that egalitarianism can exist in other subsistence systems

“Egalitarian” societies and women

-Woodburn (1982) acknowledges the societies he denotes as egalitarian vary greatly in their treatment of women and rarely have full equality between the sexes

-anthropologists tend to focus on economic equality (emphasized in Western capitalist society), can translate into other equalities but not always

Yaka hunter-gatherers of the Congo: Lewis (2008)

-believe that nature cannot be owned and that the forest is endlessly abundant

-believe in the concept of ekila which is ruined through not sharing properly, being disrespectful to animals, or boasting, leads to a lack of abundance for you or others

-have responsibly managed the forest for decades by allowing less abundant areas to regenerate and never taking more than they need

Western approach to conservation in the Congo: Lewis (2008)

-approach conservation from a ownership-laden perspective

-view nature and wilderness as something that is scarce and must be secluded

-orgs like WWF secure land as wildlife reserves and keep indigenous people out while largely ignoring the destruction caused by logging companies elsewhere

-insufficient b/c ignores root problem (unsustainable logging), marginalizes the most qualified stewards of the land (indigenous people)

Sharing in the Nayaka society of South India: Bird-David (1990)

-all aspects of people’s lives governed by their primary metaphor of “forest as parent”, where the forest gives them what they need unconditionally

-think of each other as siblings and give and request items without expecting to return the favor, as one would their close family

Sharing in the Hadza society of Tanzania: Woodburn (1982)

-give away whatever they do not immediately need and do not consider these contractual gifts that require repayment

-redistribute meat regardless of the hunter

-Hadza men gamble away much of their non-essential possessions which promotes flow of goods based on luck rather than skill or wealth

Western approaches to egalitarian giving: Rozakou (2016)

-groups of volunteers who called themselves “solidarians” in Greece in the early 2000s believed in “gift taboo,” Greek idea that giving gifts reduces autonomy and creates hierarchy, so tried to avoid giving material possessions to refugees

-instead focused on incorporating refugees into Greek sociality by building relationships with them

-example of a social group attempting to live and act by egalitarian principles

-I argue instead should reject taboo of gifts and give freely to create equality rather than not give at all which leads to material inequality

Western fantasies about “rewilding” Lavi et al. (2023)

-British media and even anth writings portray living like hunter gatherers as a potential antidote for many modern ailments incl. physical and mental health problems

-desire for “rewilding”: returning to our “natural” states

-based on idea of hunter-gatherers as our “ancestral past” when in reality haven’t been hunter-gatherers for 6000 years in Britain

-neglects fact that there is a great deal of variability in hunter-gatherer lifestyles past and present demonstrated by archaeological evidence

“Noble Savage”: Rudge (2019)

-romanticization, homogenization, and exoticization of hunter-gatherers marginalizes modern hunter-gatherer groups by seeing them as less modern than us

-essentially rebranding of the “noble savage” idea of colonial times

“Rewilding” to address physical and mental health: Lavi et al. (2023)

-HG diet considered healthier: fasting promoted ‘like cavemen’ for weightloss, paleo diet

-sitting less and squatting and walking more

-mental health considered a modern ailment that can be cured by ‘rewilding’ ourselves

-commiditized in things like “European safaris” with digital detoxes “as wild as Africa”

-especially marketed towards men, wanting them to revert to true nature as they’ve gone “too soft” in modern world

-some medical evidence that things like low socioeconomic inequality and spending time outdoors is good for mental and physical health

-marginalizes HG groups by overlooking healthcare inequalities they face today

Colonial origins of “rewilding”: Lavi et al. (2023)

-early colonists/”social scientists” viewed “savage” hunter-gatherers as lower and less developed than farmers

-colonial undertones to bushcraft and survivalism: “How the west was won” mentality where frontier men beat natives by combining survival skills with superior knowledge/learning

-HG stereotyped as relics, contributes to marginalization by not treating them as real modern people

Ethicality of ethnoarchaeology

-often used by archaeologists and evolutionary anthropologists to test hypotheses about past against modern examples

-some argue fundamentally immoral and that present cannot be used to interpret past

-ex: Yanonami of Brazil considered “Stone Age Tribe” even though they use metal tools and are modern beings just like everyone else (Gosden 1990)

-perpetuates social evolutionist and colonialist underpinnings by making other cultures “doubly distant”: remote spatially and temporally (Gosden 1990)

Case study of ethnoarchaeology: Hawkes et al. (2001)

-Studied Hadza HGs in Tanzania to investigate male-provisioning hypothesis (bipedalism, encephalization, etc arose from male need to provide for nuclear family through hunting)

-measured time allocation to food procurement and weight during different seasons

-men usually hunt while women forage

-found child’s weight positively correlated with mother’s foraging efforts but only indirectly with father’s hunting efforts

-can’t assume that modern people like the Hadza are the same as those of the past, have evolutionary history just like everyone else

-can only deduce that male provisioning hypothesis not necessarily true because other systems of food distribution compatible with hunter gatherer lifestyle