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SUBSISTENCE: MAKING A LIVING (FORMS OF POLITICAL ORGANIZATION: Today any…
SUBSISTENCE: MAKING A LIVING
MOVING AWAY FROM LINEAR THINKING: Rejection of "cultural perfection"
Focus on looking at the complexity of life as interconnected past; networked present; unknown future
Subsistence strategies are simply techniques, not social types; however, they may lead to to certain ways of thinking
AVOID UNILINEARITY!
ECONOMICS FROM AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Tends to focus solely on modern advanced nations; GDP, GNP, etc.
CONCEPT OF SCARCITY
Insufficient means, limited availability/supply
Q: Is scarcity a human universal? A: No, scarcity is culturally constructed.
DEFINITION OF ECON IN ANTH: in the context of emphases based on time, space, etc.; can be cross-culturally studied
THREE PRINCIPLES ORIENTING EXCHANGE
MARKET PRINCIPLE
The market principle dominates our world capitalist economy
Value is determined by law of supply & demand
Bargaining, specialization, technology and deal-making
REDISTRIBUTION
EXAMPLE: Cherokee families sent portions of their harvests to
their leader; resources were then given to warriors, travelers, etc.
Redistribution over wide land masses; goods & services move from local level to a central level, then divided up
EXAMPLE: Modern-day taxes and fees sent to city, state, and federal governments
RECIPROCITY
BALANCED RECIPROCITY: Without balance it will cause the aforementioned relationships to suffer
Expectation of “in-kind” exchange; gift-giving relationship
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NEGATIVE RECIPROCITY: There are winners & losers
Attempt to get something for as little as possible; may involve cheating, stealing, swindling, etc.
GENERALIZED RECIPROCITY: Correlated with the closeness of the relationships between parties
No accounting kept; no expectation of return "in kind"
SUBSISTENCE:
THE DIFFERENT WAYS IN WHICH HUMANS HAVE ORGANIZED OVER THOUSANDS OF YEARS BASED ON CULTURE, ECOLOGY, ECONOMY, AND LANGUAGE
FOUR SUBSISTENCE TECHNIQUES:
FORAGING
AGRICULTURE
Requires irrigation, control the amount of water used,
terracing
Maximizing land usage
CONS: Less crop diversity; few staple crops; nutritional loss; environmental degradation, associated; with entrenched gender stratification
PROS: Enables task specialization; Suitable for supporting dense populations; Allows for growth of empires; formation of larger
political units (e.g. the nation state); Industrialized agriculture: associated w/ ecocide & increased social stratification
Agriculture's political organization:
Typically nation state (though possibly a chiefdom)
Requires high degree of political regulation: legal & judicial
system, law enforcement, etc.
Requires much greater investment of means of
production – time, energy, stratification
Hunting is ↑ prestigious
Q: How to maintain egalitarian dynamics? A: Sharing the arrows & insulting the meat
On average ♀ gathering contributes 60-75% caloric intake
Hunting/gathering of wild foods
No domestication of plants & animals
More egalitarian; Relative equality in distribution of resources & status
Q: Northern foragers less egalitarian, why? A: Tropics offer more biodiversity
Northern foragers: age & gender
Tropical Foragers: social stratification based on age
Myth: foragers are always on the brink of starvation
Reality: a well balanced & nutritious diet (often more so
than our own)
Foraging requires far fewer hours to make sure
everyone is provided for; ~20 hrs/week
Modern foragers losing ancestral lands; constant
encroaching of industrialized nation states
Modern foragers do not live in isolation; not relics of
the past; they are a part of the modern world system
Foraging's Political Organization:
band, small sized group; ~100 people related by blood and/or marriage; no formal authority figure/leader
HORTICULTURE
Shifting cultivation: Often involves slash & burn techniques
Portrayed as destructive to the environment; is actually
sustainable;
Long term intensive agriculture
Fallowing: allowing land to regenerate
PASTORALISM
Rainy season: highlands; combo w/agriculture
Dry seas: lower elevations; rivers; supplementation w/fishing
Migratory patterns: Pastoral nomadism (entire group moves); Transhumance (part of group moves with herds)
Typically must
supplement
subsistence
Dairy, wool, blood, leasing studs
Do not regularly slaughter their animals; too
valuable; rather, subsist off their products
Caring for herd animals
Planting multiple different crops
Crops mimic environment and ecology therefore
impacts the “tastes” of those living in the area
Typically ↓ pop. Density, though some villages can
be as many as 1000 people
Horticulture's political organization:
Tribe (also possibly chiefdom)
No formal government authority, contrary to popular portrayals;
tribes don’t have chiefs!
May be larger size than bands; live in villages;
organized into smaller kin groups
FORMS OF POLITICAL ORGANIZATION:
Today any of these can exist within the context of a nation state, though they are considered rare or foreign; non-dominant cultures
TRIBE: Typically kin groups based on horticulture and pastoralism without formal political structure
CHIEFDOM: More politically complex with wealth and power relationships based on kin groups/decision makers
NATION STATE: Vary in size and complexity as well as type of government: monarchy, democratic republic, theocracy, socialistic, etc.
BAND: Small group fewer than 100 people
ADAPTIVE STRATEGIES
People tend to mix techniques of production
CONCEPT OF A.S.: Societies
with common adaptive strategies will also share other cultural characteristics
A social, ecological and
materialistic approach
Similar sociological, ecological and economic causes tend to
yield similar cultural effects