Economics

1
Chapter 8

• Economics

2
What We Will Learn

• How do anthropologists study economic systems
  cross-culturally?
• How do people use culture to help them adapt to
  their environment?
• How are resources such as land and property
  allocated in different cultures?
• What principles of distribution are used in
  various parts of the world?

3
Focus of Economics

• Production
• Distribution
• Consumption

4
Economic Anthropology

• Economics focuses on production, distribution,
  and consumption within the industrialized world.
• Economic anthropology studies production,
  distribution, and consumption comparatively in
  all societies of the world, industrialized and
  nonindustrialized.

5
Formal Economic Theorists

• Those economic anthropologists who suggest that
  the ideas of Western economics can be applied to
  any economic situation.

6
Question

• The sub-discipline of ________ studies
  production, distribution, and consumption
  comparatively in all societies of the world,
  industrialized and non-industrialized alike.
• economic anthropology
• cultural anthropology
• applied anthropology
• material culture

7
Answer a

• The sub-discipline of economic anthropology
  studies production, distribution, and consumption
  comparatively in all societies of the world,
  industrialized and non-industrialized alike.

8
Cross-cultural Examination of Economic Systems

1. Regulation of resources How land, water, and
   natural resources are controlled and allocated.
2. Production How material resources are converted
   into usable commodities.
3. Exchange How the commodities are distributed
   among the people of the society.

9
Allocation of Resources

• Individual property rights are strongly valued
  and protected in the United States, but in some
  parts of the world they are more loosely defined.

10
Pastoralists and Resources

• Because this group of East African pastoralists
  treats land as belonging to everyone in the
  society, you are not likely to find any No
  Trespassing signs here.

11
Kikuyu and Resources

• During the colonial period in Kenya, the British
  failed to understand that land among the Kikuyu
  was allocated according to lineage membership and
  had much more than mere economic importance.

12
Property Rights

• Western concept of individual ownership (an idea
  unknown to some non-Western cultures) in which a
  large kinship group, instead of the individual,
  determines limited rights to property.

13
Universalism

• Rewarding people on the basis of some universally
  applied set of standards.

14
Particularism

• The propensity to deal with other people based on
  ones particular relationship to them rather than
  according to a universally applied set of
  standards.

15
Production

• A process whereby goods are obtained from the
  natural environment and altered to become
  consumable goods for society.

16
Religion and Food Production

• In Hindu India the cow is sacred and never killed
  for food.
• This is an excellent example of how a religiously
  based food prohibition can be economically
  rational as well.

17
Division of Labor

• Deciding which types of people will perform which
  categories of work.
• Every society, whether large or small,
  distinguishes between the work appropriate for
  men and women and for adults and children.

18
Gender Specialization

• Women generally tend crops, gather wild foods,
  care for children, prepare food, clean house,
  fetch water, and collect cooking fuel.
• Men usually hunt, build houses, clear land for
  cultivation, herd large animals, fish, trap small
  animals, and serve as political functionaries.

19
Theories of Gender Specialization

1. Because men have greater body mass and strength,
   they are better equipped physically to engage in
   hunting, warfare, and land clearing.
2. Women do tasks that are compatible with child
   care.
3. In terms of reproduction, men tend to be more
   expendable than women.

20
Age Specialization

• usually become involved in work activities at a
  considerably earlier age.
• According to a study by the U.S. Department of
  Labor, approximately 250 million children between
  the ages of 5 and 14 work throughout Asia,
  Africa, and Latin America, and of these, nearly
  half work full-time.

21
Child Labor

• These Pakistani children are working full time in
  an embroidery shop for pennies a day rather than
  going to school.
• According to the International Labor
  Organization, there were 246 million children
  between the ages of 5 and 17 in the workforce
  worldwide in 2002.

22
Durkheim and Division of Labor

• Two types of societies
• Mechanical solidarity - societies with a minimum
  of labor specialization.
• Organic solidarity - highly specialized
  societies, solidarity is based on mutual
  interdependence.

23
Question

• Whether based simply on gender and age, or more
  complex reasons, all societies have established
  ________ to allocate tasks.
• divisions of labor
• divisions of gender
• age set categories
• hierarchical roles

24
Answer a

• Whether based simply on gender and age, or more
  complex reasons, all societies have established
  divisions of labor to allocate tasks.

25
Question

• Lack of knowledge and physical strength may be a
  reason for ________ division of labor.
• gender
• age
• specialization
• hierarchical

26
Answer b

• Lack of knowledge and physical strength may be a
  reason for age division of labor.

27
Question

• The term ________ refers to social solidarity
  resulting from increased labor specialization and
  mutual interdependence.
• labor solidarity
• organic solidarity
• social solidarity
• mechanical solidarity

28
Answer b

• The term organic solidarity refers to social
  solidarity resulting from increased labor
  specialization and mutual interdependence.

29
Modes of Distribution

• Reciprocity - The exchange of goods and services
  of roughly equal value between two trading
  partners.
• Redistribution -Goods and services are given to a
  central authority and reallocated to the people
  according to a new pattern.
• Market exchange - Involves the use of
  standardized currencies to buy and sell goods and
  services.

30
Three Kinds of Reciprocity

1. Generalized - involves giving a gift without any
   expectation of immediate return.
2. Balanced - exchange of goods and services with
   the expectation that equivalent value will be
   returned within a specific period of time.
3. Negative - exchange of goods and services
   between equals in which the parties try to gain
   an advantage.

31
Redistribution

• Goods are given to a central authority and then
  given back to the people in a new pattern.
• Redistribution involves two distinct stages
• An inward flow of goods and services to a social
  center.
• An outward dispersal of these goods and services
  back to society.

32
Big Men/big Women

• Self-made leaders, found widely in Melanesia and
  New Guinea, who convince their followers to
  contribute excess food to provide feasts for the
  followers of other big men or big women.

33
Silent Trade

• A form of trading found in some small-scale
  societies in which the trading partners avoid
  face-to-face contact.

34
Kula Ring

• A form of reciprocal trading found among the
  Trobriand Islanders involving the use of white
  shell necklaces and red shell bracelets.

35
Trading

• These shell necklaces and bracelets have been
  used for generations to facilitate trade among
  the Trobriand Islands.

36
Bridewealth

• The transfer of goods from the grooms lineage to
  the brides lineage to legitimize marriage.

37
Potlatch

• A form of competitive giveaway found among Native
  Americans from the Northwest Coast that serves as
  a mechanism for both achieving social status and
  distributing goods.

38
Potlatch

• Tlingit dancers in Alaska pose in traditional
  ceremonial attire (circa
• 1895) during a potlatch ceremony, which serves as
  a mechanism for allocating social status and
  distributing goods.

39
Market Exchange

• A form of distribution in which goods and
  services are bought and sold and their value is
  determined by supply and demand.
• Standardized currency (money)
• A medium of exchange that has well-defined and
  understood value.
• Barter
• Direct exchange of commodities between people
  that does not involve currency.

40
Question

• _______ refers to how commodities are distributed
  among the people of a society.
• The regulation of resources
• Allocation of resources
• Production
• Exchange

41
Answer d

• Exchange refers to how commodities are
  distributed among the people of a society.

42
Informal Economy

• This man selling goods on the streets of New York
  City illustrates the informal economy operating
  in the United States.

43
Globalization

• Since the 1980s the economies of the world have
  become globalized.
• Tariffs are lowered and trading is deregulated.
• Increased the gap between the haves and the
  have-nots.

44
Globalization

• Protestors demonstrate against the abuses of
  globalization at the 1999 meetings of the World
  Trade Organization in Seattle.