Anth 111 Study Notes

Definition: A subsistence strategy based on domesticated animal herds and the use of their products, primarily milk and milk products, and occasionally meat. It constitutes 50% or more of the diet.
Geographical Distribution: Predominantly found in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Central Asia.
Trade Networks: Highly developed and extensive.
Division of Labour:
- Families and clusters of families function as the basic units of production.
- Men are primarily responsible for herding animals.
- Women are involved in processing animal products.

Most Important Property: Domesticated animals are the most vital form of property.
Other Property: Includes housing and domestic goods.
Inheritance: Property may be inherited, particularly through male lineage.
Use Rights: Rights to land and migratory routes are often established.
Sustainability: Pastoralism can be sustainable, provided there is adequate land.

Transhumance:
- Involves seasonal movement of livestock to different pastures, often with men moving while women, children, and older men remain in permanent settlements.
Nomadism:
- No permanent villages; the entire social unit moves with livestock to find new pastures.

Definition: Involves growing crops on permanent plots utilizing techniques such as plowing, irrigation, and fertilizer to create surplus.
Types of Agriculture:
- Intensive Agriculture: Requires significant inputs of labor and resources.
- Industrial Agriculture: Characterized by mechanization and mass food production.
Surplus Production: Allows some individuals to engage in non-subsistence activities, thereby promoting specialization.

Population Support: Can support many more people per unit of land compared to horticulturalism.
Labour Input: Numerous hours are devoted to land preparation, requiring a peasantry class.
Major Activities:
- Includes plowing, planting, weeding, irrigation management, terracing, harvesting, processing, and storage.

Family: The basic unit of labor, defined by gender and age.
Gender Roles: Women's daily work hours are approximately 25% more than those of men.

Rights: Property rights are clearly defined and protected.
Acquisition: Rights can be acquired or sold, and land inheritance often takes place through marriage.
Protection: Institutions exist to safeguard property rights.

Definition: Intensive farming practices that involve mechanization and large-scale food production.
Impact of Agribusiness: Increased food production but introduced complex challenges.
Labor and Resources: Requires more labor, advanced technology, and usage of non-renewable resources than any other economic system.
Effects on Other Economies: Displaces and undermines sustainable practices in foraging, horticulture, and pastoralism.

Sedentary Lifestyle: Intensive cultivators tend to remain in one location.
Specialization of Agriculture: Agricultural economies increasingly focus on one or two caloric staples, raising specific animals to support this focus, leading to monoculture.
Horticultural Diversity:
- Horticultural plots typically maintain diverse botanical species in tropical forest settings.
- Agricultural plots decrease ecological diversity due to deforestation and concentration on staple crops.

Stability of Harvest: Agriculturalists aim for stable and long-term production, yet reliance on single staple crops can lead to famine when crops fail.
Population Considerations: Large, stationary populations benefit from this model compared to smaller, mobile populations typical of foragers and horticulturalists who mitigate risk via ecological diversity.

Principles: All three distribution principles (reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange) can coexist in the same society but may govern different transactions.

Definition: A mode of distribution characterized by the exchange of goods and services of approximately equal value between parties.
Categories:
- Generalized Reciprocity:
- Characterized by exchanges where the value is not closely monitored, and the timing of repayment is flexible.
- Most common among foragers and among close friends/family across cultures.
- Balanced Reciprocity:
- A more formalized and regularized exchange where the value is monitored, expecting reciprocal exchanges in the short term.
- Less personal than generalized reciprocity.
- Negative Reciprocity:
- One party seeks to gain more than they give, often in impersonal or hostile contexts.

Example: The Kula Ring among the Trobriand Islands illustrates delayed reciprocity, as there is a significant lag time between giving and receiving.
Kula Ring Mechanics:
- Men pass ceremonial shell armbands (mwali) and necklaces (soulava) between islands to forge lifelong relationships among high-ranking men.
- Certain mwali and soulava hold greater prestige than others.
- Emphasis on the cultural principle “to possess is to give” indicates a strong social bond formed through these exchanges.
Further References:
- "Purpose of the Kula Expedition" video resources.
- Related materials from "Argonauts of the Western Pacific" by Bronislaw Malinowski (1922).

Definition: A distribution method requiring centralized social organization where wealth is collected and reallocated in a different pattern.
Responsibility: Typically, a responsibility to redistribute goods and foods to ensure all members of the group are provided for.
Example: The Potlatch as a form of ceremonial redistribution.

Definition: A mode of distribution where goods and services are bought and sold, with values determined by supply and demand.
Evolution: This system developed from more straightforward trade practices.
Market Characteristics: Marketplaces vary in size and permanence and do not always necessitate money, as barter exists directly through the exchange of commodities without standard currency.

Definition: The culturally specific ways in which goods and services are consumed, highlighting the importance of both intake and output.
Types of Consumption:
- Minimalism:
- Involves few finite consumer demands with sufficient means to meet them.
- Common among foragers and to a lesser extent among horticulturalists and pastoralists.
- Associated with the concept of the Original Affluent Society.
- Consumerism:
- Characterized by infinite demands and inadequate means to satisfy them.
- Drives colonialism, globalization, and other expansionist activities.
- A prevalent feature of industrial economies.

Personalized Consumption:
- Products produced by consumers for their own use or by individuals they know personally; typically seen in foraging, horticulture, and pastoralism.
Depersonalized Consumption:
- Consumers are distanced from producers, a common trait in industrial agriculture.
- Notable exceptions exist where personal connections are retained.