Anthro Final

Macro Level

Addresses broad issues of power and history within the global capitalist system

Local Level

Focuses on specific contexts such as village life and how local patterns of authority are affected by larger economic shifts

Imperialism

Exercise of power and influence by a strong nation over a weak nation

Colonialism

Specific way of Imperialism by direct governmental control over overseas territories or colonies (British rule over India)

3 ways of European Colonial Expansion (& Japan)

• The “discovery” of the New World: Initiated in the late 15th century by Spain and Portugal in the Americas

• Early Industrial Capitalism: Led by Great Britain in the 18th century and early 19th centuries, driven by demands for raw materials (cotton) and new markets

• Late 19th and early 20th centuries: Nations industrialized and divided the remaining parts of the world. Japan became a colonial power

Profit and the Colonies

Colonial powers generated profit through:

• Direct settlement of territories

• Resource extraction (mining and plantations for cash crops and exploiting the labor of local people)

Slave Trade

Form of direct coercion used by colonial powers to secure and control the labor of local populations

Conscription

Known as “the draft,” another method of direct coercion. Used to force local people into labor for the colonial power

Colonial Strategies of Accessing Labor

• Direct Coercion: Slave trade & Conscription

• Indirect Means: Imposed taxes that had to be paid in the colonizer’s currency

• Forced locals to work for merchants to obtain the money

• Seized land

Local Impacts of Colonialism

• Depopulation (disease and war)

• Genocide

• Dispossession of land

• Abusive labor control

• Environmental degradation

• Undermining of local cultural traditions

Disease, Depopulation, and Imperialism

• Smallpox

• Measles

• Influenza

American Indians and Disease

• Population dropped from 50 million to 5 million (90% decrease)

Herero Revolt

• 1904 in German South West Africa

• Germany sent 1500 troops to retake the colony by 1906

• Population reduced from 100,000 to 20,000

Genocide

• Homicide on a mass scale involving the systematic elimination of an entire ethnic group

The “Frontier”

• Cultural ordering of space

• East - Culture & order

• West - Nature, Chaos, Wild West

• Frontier had to be “domesticated”

Reserves

• Native Americans were forcibly moved to “less desirable lands”

Indian Removal Act of 1830

• Forced relocation of Native Americans to Oklahoma (Trail of Tears)

Land Tenure

• Colonialism often involved chanigng local systems of land tenure

Priviatization of Land v. Corporate Land

• Corporate/Communal land: Land held by a group, such as lineages in the Trobriand Islands

• Privatized Land: Individual private ownership, hallmark of capitalism

Commodification

• Land or labor turned into a commodity to be bought and sold

• In capitalist systems, labor power is bought and sold as a commodity, and the privatization of land allows it to be commodified and easily exchanged on a market

Alienable and Inalienable

Alienable: Properties that one can separate themselves from and sell.

Colonialism soguht to turn inalienable communal land into alienable private property

Inalienable: Land or heirlooms that are considered singular and have an extreme connection with the individual or group. Often not meant to be sold

The Mahele

• Mahele of 1948: Land distribution act in Kingdom of Hawaii that privatized land

• Allowed small group of Americans to buy the land, which provided the leverage to overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy

Rubber Production in the Belgian Congo

• Abusive form of labor control

• Belgians held women and children hostage and mutilated men for poor work

Phosphate Mining on Nauru

• Environmental degradation caused by short-sighted initiatives of colonial administrations. Strip mining for phosphate damaged the environment by funneling off the topsoil, leaving the land unfarmable

Scientific Racism

Discrete biological racial types can be ranked in degrees of superiority and inferiority.

Used to dehumanize people and justify slavery

Unilinear Social Evolutionism

Theory that argued that all societies pass through the same sequences of stages (Savagery → Barbarism → Civilization)

Social Darwinism

Survival of the fittest: justify imperialism and severe societal inequalities

Power and Representations

• Deconstruction to analyze where theories come from adn what they do

• Power relations are represented and maintained, such as through biopolitics (inscriptions of power onto the body)

Development

Malaysia’s 2020 Program aimed to fully industrialize the nation by attracting foreign investment and creating Free Trade Zones

Intervention Philosophies

• “White Man’s Burden”: Exploitation and Colonialism are disguised as “helping” less developed societies

• Justifies the interference of more powerful nations in the affairs of other under the guise of progress

Power & Representation

• Representations analyzed through deconstruction to understand where ideas come from and what they do

• Representations of power involve biopolitics. Social relations are inscribed onto the body to make them appear natural

Capitalist World System

• World Capitalist System is a global system of economic and political relations

Core

Highly industiralized, diverse, and influential nations (USA, Japan)

Semi-Periphery

Industrialized nations with less wealth than the core (Mexico, China)

Periphery

Nations with little industrialization and labor-intensive economies that export raw materials (Guatemala, Peru)

Globality

• Forms of social, cultural, economic, and political interlinkage

Nation State and New Forms of Governmentality

• Nation-State maintains sovereignty. Increasingly gives up some control to international trade agreements, environmental pacts, and multinational corporations. Led to new forms of governmentality where non-governmental organizations and global unions (EU) play significant roles

Identity

• Interlinkages shape identity, increasingly cast in terms of race, ethnicity, and religion as a backlash to globalization

Capitalism

• Socio-economic order governed by the logic of reinvestment for never-ending capital accumulation

• Characterized by class organization where labor power is bought and sold as a commodity and the means of production are under private ownership

Totalizing

• Form of misrepresentation that assumes capitalist logic is the only logic governing a society

• Not holistic, capitalist societies engage in non-capitalist practices like gift-giving, paying taxes, and charity

Capitalism on the Periphery

• Focused on raw materials or cash crops

• Routinized production is outsourced to these nations to take advantage of low wages

Routinization of Production & Taylorism

• Automation and taylorlist management techniques that optimize factory layouts and machine placement to allow for unskilled labor

Multi-National Corporations

• Operate globally, seeking out FTZs so they can manufacture products with few regulations regarding taxes or pollution

Proletarianization

• Process of using forms of discipline to turn village people into efficient industrial workers

Capitalist Discipline

• Targets the body through work uniforms and regulates time via “tyranny of the clock”

• Creates a “fractured" day” that strictly separates work from socializing

Anthropological Perspective on “the Political”

The assumptions, contestations, and relations pertaining to power

Power

Power is viewed as something that regulates and disciplines bodies for efficiency

Docile Bodies

• Worker’s bodies are rendered “docile” and easily regulated for industrial production

Malaysia

Post-colonial nation pushing for rapid industrialization to move up in the world capitalist system

2020 Plan

Aimed to fully industrialize Malaysia by the year 2020 through foreign investment and the creation of FTZs

Kampung (Village)

Rural village life is governed by two cultural sources: Adat (Customary law) and Islam

Gender & Authority in Village Homes

• Authority lies with the father, through mother have strong connections to children

Female Threats to Male Spiritual Purity

• Men are believed to have stronger spiritual purity, while women are seen as spiritually weaker and more vulnerable to spirits (Hanu)

• Women are often controlled because they are perceived as a threat to male spiritual purity

Dangerous Places

• Restrooms, prayer halls where the “male eye” of the supervisor is absent

• Considered dangerous places where spirit possession is most likely to occur

Spirits (Hantu)

• Nature spirits believed to possess people. Spirit possession on the factory floor is interpreted by anthropologists as a form of resistance against the stress and discipline of the industrial environment

Stages of Woman’s life

• Youth (virg): Women are in their weakest spiritual state, stay in the village and are under the authority of their fathers

• Sxually Mature/Married: Women are spiritually stronger but are perceived as the greatest threat to male spiritual purity. Under the authority of their husbands and are expected to be self-disciplining

• Elderly: Spiritually strong (like men), no longer a threat to men, and are highly respected

Janda

• Divorced/widowed women

• Viewed negatively and considered “dangerous’ because they are not under any male authority

• Exist outside traditional Malaysian cultural categories

Time in the Kampung vs the Factory

• Time is “passed” and flows with the rhythm w prayers and chores, socializing and work are seamless

Tyranny of the Clock

• Time is spent and regulated by the tyranny of the clock

Fractured Day

• Work and socializing are strictly separated, unlike the “seamless” experience of village life

Education, Work (Sons & Daughters)

• Sons were expected to obtain government jobs and were excused from chores

• Daughters were expected to marry

• Factory work provides a new opportunity for daughters, allowing them to bring household income and gain leverage over their brothers

Changes in Authority in the Village

• Working daughters provide significant income = they and their mothers become the de facto allocators of income in many households

Micro-Chip Factories in the Village

• attracting a young female workforce

• Corporates hire young women because of low wages and to avoid the costs of eye care; women often quit to marry before their eyesight deteriorates from microscope work

Reproduction of Patriarchy in the Factory

• Factories use terms like father and daughter and provide prayer halls to make the environment feel familiar

• Maintain more direct supervision than what exists in the village

Unlimited Production Demands

• efficiency is the goal, requiring workers to be strictly regulated by a “male eye” via supervisors and two-way mirrors

Discipline in the Factory v. the Kampung

• Factory discipline is more direct and intrusive (uniforms, clocks, constant surveillance) compared to the village, where supervision of young women are primarily handled by elderly women

Worker Responses to Stress

• Workers may respond to the pressure of factory discipline by crying, having “accidents,” or doing deliberately poor work

Spirit Possessions on the Shop Floor

• Since “male eye” is absent in restrooms and prayer halls, these are considered dangerous places where spirit possession occurs

• Possession regularly interrupts production, and companies must hire shamans for exocisisms to get women to return to work

Bio-Politics (Bio-Power)

• Inscription of power relations onto the body

Constructions of Female Bodies

• Rationalize hiring “oriental women” by claiming they are biologically the “best” at assembly because of naturally dexterous and precise hands

Biological Determinism

• Biological makeup sets constraints or propensities\

• Used to make social power differences appear “natural” rather than socially constructed

Public Perceptions of Female Factory Workers

• Malaysian often views female factory workers negatively, associating them with moral decadence and seeing them as bebas (unrestricted)

• Many workers become “hyper-islamic” to regulate their public image

Hegemony

A condition where power relations are accepted by society as “natural,” legitimate,” or “god-given”

Public Transcript & Hidden Transcript

Public Transcript - open, observable interaction between those who hold power and those who are subordinated (Formal meetings, public ceremonies)

Hidden Transcript - Speeches, jokes, gestures, and practices that takes place offstage, away from the eyes of the powerholders (rumors, folktales, underground music)

Discourse

• Communicated message about the truth and how we see the world

• Hegemonic discourse supports current power relations

• Counter-hegemonic discourse challenges them

Applied Anthropology

• Using theories, methods, and data of anthropology to solve contemporary social, economic, and health problems

• Field related to the study of colonialism and global power

Cultural Imperialism

• Practices of promoting and imposing the culture of a polticially powerful nation over a less powerful one

• “White Man’s Burden”

Indigenizing Popular Culture

• PRocess by which local cultures take global cultural products (movies, music, brands) and modify or reinterpret them to fit their own cultural context

Disapora

• Dispersion or spread of any people from their original homeland across the globe

Postmodernism in Anthropology

• Theoretical perspective that questions objective “truth” and focuses on history, and representation shape our knowledge of the world