Lecture  10: Week 10

Prof. Furie

Housekeeping

-              Final exam: Mock exam available next week. Last tutorial and last lecture will be dedicated to discussing the final exam.

-              Three hour slot- to do this exam period, when its in a 24 hr period.

-              Exam period- 20th

Week 9: review Kinship and exchange

-              Nambikwara fusion of groups: Exogramy between two groups by callin each other brothers and sister

-              Political allegiances and kinship practice.

-              Notion that giving a gift can be an uninterested act only exists in a society where most economic transactions are medicated by money

-              Gift economics- feeling pressured to reciprocate is the point

-              Time is an important consideration. A commercial transaction is not an instance of reciprocity because you are immediately paid.

-              Not the same with buying stuff from the supermarket.

Week 10: Freedom and power THIS WEEK!

-              Gift exchange as a way to establish friendly contact with a Nambikwara group

-              He narrates how different groups resolve conflicts by demanding exchanges When a  am meeting between two groups is conducted peacefully, it leads to a reciprocal exchange of gifts; strife is replaced by barter

-              In the midst of the gift exchange ceremony, Levi- Strauss realizes something

Writing is used as a performance- “was he perhaps hoping to delude himself? More probably, he wanted to astonish his companions, to convince them  that he was acting as an intermediary agent and had the magical power of reading.

Triste Tropiques Chapter 28: A writing lesson

-              But according to Levi- Strauss, that is not ture

-              Most of the creative period was neothlic, only happens because of consistent review by small communtites.

-               Chief used writing as a leverage point, to have more control over his peers.

The Dawn of everything. Chapter 2: Wicked- Liberty

-              How did the question of social equality (and inequality become an issue for European intellectuals in the 18th century.

-              Texts from encounters with indigeous people of news france and the Great Lakes regions, which includes Ontario

-              Indigeous critique of European society in the 18th century focused on

-              Freedom was not oppposed to a baseline communism

-              So was the value of reasoned debate (because everyone  had to be persuaded to do things, which meant that public affairs were conducted in public forums

o   Lack of freedom

o   Lack of equality

French settlers

-              Mi’kmaq- u are envious and all the time slandering each other; you are thieves and deceivers; you are covetous

-              Wendat- they reciprocate hospitality (Wendat) and give such assistance to each other that the necessities of all are provided- blamed the Mikmwaq  because o this.

o   Freedom : According to the Wendat- the French were slaves to their superiors

The notion of freedom was not as aspirational value among Europeans. It was so among First Nations Canadians

o   Freedom was not oppposed to a baseline communism

o   So was the value of reasoned debate (because everyone  had to be persuaded to do things, which meant that public affairs were conducted in public forums

Key figs

-              Kondiaronk (The Rat) 1649-1701

-              Wendat leader and mastery of oratory

-              Key figure in the Montreal Peace of 1701

-              Gregory Bateson,

o   Anthro- 1904-1960

o   Schismogeneis: people exaggerate their dif to define themselves against one another, i.e French/british\

o   The critique of european life became the basis for Rousseau and may other enlighemtnet intelllecutals to be in advocating fro a society.

Week five: The encounter

-              Philosophical question of wether indigeous people had souls was a result of Europeans encountering different civilizations

-              Connected to the question of natural rights. Are there things that every man has a right to