Cultural Anthropology in a Globalizing World #SSC327

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is the mode of livelihood in which goods and services are produced through mass employment in business and commercial operations and through the creation, manipulation, management, and transfer of information through electronic media and the Internet. Most people work to produce goods not to meet basic needs but to satisfy consumer demands for essential and, increasingly, nonessential goods. Employment in agriculture decreases while jobs in manufacturing, the service sector, and electronic-based jobs increase. Unemployment is an increasingly serious problem in industrial/digital societies.

Agriculture relies on the use of domesticated animals for plowing, transportation, and organic fertilizer either in the form of manure or composted materials. It is highly dependent on artificial water sources such as irrigation channels or terracing the land. Like the modes of livelihood already discussed, agriculture involves complex knowledge about the environment, plants, and animals, including soil types, precipitation patterns, plant varieties, and pest management. Long-standing agricultural traditions are now being increasingly displaced by methods introduced from the outside, and so the world’s stock of indigenous knowledge about agriculture is declining rapidly. In many cases, it has become completely lost, along with the cultures and languages associated with it.

Two types of agriculture are discussed next: family farming and industrial agriculture.

FAMILY FARMING  Family farming (formerly termed peasant farming) is a form of agriculture in which production is geared to support the family and to produce goods for sale. Today, more than 1 billion people, or about one-sixth of the world’s population, make their living from family farming. Found throughout the world, family farming is more common in countries such as Mexico, India, Poland, and Italy than in more industrialized countries. Family farmers exhibit much cross-cultural variety. They may be full-time or part-time farmers; they may be more or less closely linked to urban markets; and they may be poor and indebted or wealthy and powerful. Activities in family farming include plowing, planting seeds and cuttings, weeding, caring for irrigation systems and terracing, harvesting crops, and processing and storing crops.

Division of Labor The family is the basic labor unit of production, and gender and age are important in organizing work. Most family farming societies have a marked gender-based division of labor. Cross-cultural analysis of gender roles reveals that men perform most of the labor in over three-fourths of the societies (Michaelson and Goldschmidt 1971). Anthropologists have proposed various theories to explain why productive work on so many family farms is male dominated ( Figure 3.4 ).

In family farms in the United States and Canada, men typically have the main responsibility for daily farm operations; women’s participation ranges from equal to minimal (Barlett 1989). Women do run farms in the United States and Canada but generally only when they are divorced or widowed. Women are usually responsible for managing the domestic domain. On average, women’s daily work hours are 25 percent more than those of men.

Balanced work roles between men and women in family farming frequently involve a pattern in which men do the agricultural work and women do marketing. This gender division of labor is common among highland indigenous groups of Central and South America. For example, among the Zapotec Indians of Mexico’s southern state of Oaxaca (wuh-HAH-kuh), men grow maize, the staple crop, and cash crops such as bananas, mangoes, coconuts, and sesame (Chiñas 1992) (see Map 4.3). Women sell produce in the town markets, and they make tortillas, which they sell from their houses. The family thus derives its income from the labor of both men and women working interdependently. Male status and female status are roughly equal in such contexts.

Female farming systems, in which women and girls play the major role in livelihood, are found mainly in southern India and Southeast Asia where wet rice agriculture is practiced. This is a highly labor-intensive way of growing rice that involves starting the seedlings in nurseries and transplanting them to flooded fields. Men are responsible for plowing the fields using teams of water buffaloes. Women own land and make decisions about planting and harvesting. Women’s labor is the backbone of this type of farming. Standing calf-deep in muddy water, they transplant rice seedlings, weed, and harvest the rice. Why women predominate in wet rice agriculture is an intriguing question but impossible to answer. Its consequences for women’s status, however, are clear. In female farming systems, women have high status: They own land, play a central role in household decision making, and have substantial personal autonomy (Stivens et al. 1994).

Children’s roles in agricultural societies range from prominent to minor, depending on the context (Whiting and Whiting 1975). The Six Cultures Study, mentioned earlier, found low rates of child labor in agricultural villages in North India and Mexico compared to high rates among the horticultural Gusii in Kenya. In many agricultural contexts, however, children’s labor participation is high. In villages in Java, Indonesia, (see Map 1.2) and Nepal (see Map 5.5), children spend more time caring for farm animals than adults do (Nag, White, and Peet 1978).

INDUSTRIAL CAPITAL AGRICULTURE  Industrial capital agriculture produces crops through capital-intensive means, using machinery and inputs such as processed fertilizers instead of human and animal labor (Barlett 1989). It is commonly practiced in the United States, Canada, Germany, Russia, and Japan and is increasingly being adopted in developing countries such as India, Brazil, Mexico, and China.

Industrial agriculture has brought with it the corporate farm, a huge agricultural enterprise that produces goods solely for sale and are owned and operated by companies entirely reliant on hired labor. Industrial agriculture has major social effects ( Figure 3.5). Much of the labor demand in industrial agriculture is seasonal, creating an ebb and flow of workers, depending on the task and time of year.

tHE SUSTAINABILITY OF AGRICULTURE  Agriculture requires labor inputs, technology, and nonrenewable natural resources than the economic systems discussed earlier. The ever-increasing spread of corporate agriculture worldwide is now displacing other long-standing practices and resulting in the destruction of important habitats and cultural heritage sites in its search for land, water, and energy sources. Intensive agriculture is not a sustainable system. For many years, anthropologists have pointed to the high costs of agriculture to the environment and to humanity.

is a mode of livelihood based on cultivating domesticated plants in gardens using hand tools. Garden crops are often supplemented by foraging and by trading with pastoralists for animal products. Horticulture is still practiced by many thousands of people throughout the world. Prominent horticultural regions are found in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean islands. Major horticultural crops include yams, corn, beans, grains such as millet and sorghum, and several types of roots, all of which are rich in protein, minerals, and vitamins.

Horticulture involves the use of handheld tools, such as digging sticks, hoes, and carrying baskets. Rain is the sole source of moisture. Horticulture requires rotation of garden plots for them to regenerate. Thus, another term for horticulture is shifting cultivation. Average plot sizes are less than 1 acre, and 2.5 acres can feed a family of five to eight members for a year. Yields can support semi-permanent villages of 200 to 250 people. Overall population density per square mile is low because horticulture, like foraging, is an extensive strategy. Horticulture is more labor intensive than foraging because of the energy required for plot preparation and food processing. Anthropologists distinguish five phases in the horticultural cycle ( Figure 3.3 ).

DIVISION OF LABOR  Gender and age are the key factors structuring the division of labor, with men’s and women’s work roles often being clearly differentiated. Typically, men clear the garden area while both men and women plant and tend the staple food crops. This pattern exists in Papua New Guinea, much of Southeast Asia, and parts of West and East Africa. Food processing involves women often working in small groups, whereas men more typically form small groups for hunting and fishing for supplementary food.

Two unusual horticultural cases involve extremes in terms of gender roles and status. The first is the pre-contact Iroquois of central New York State, that is, before the arrival of Europeans (Brown 1975) ( Map 3.3 ). Iroquois women cultivated maize, the most important food crop, and they controlled its distribution. This control meant that they were able to decide whether the men would go to war, because a war effort depended on the supply of maize to support it. A contrasting example, in terms of the gender division of labor and women’s status in relation to men, is that of the Yanomami of the Venezuelan Amazon (Chagnon 1992) ( Map 3.4 ). Among the Yanomami, men are the dominant decision makers and have more social power than Yanomami women do. Yanomami men clear the fields and tend and harvest the crops. They also do much of the cooking for ritual feasts. Yanomami women, though, are not idle. They play an important role in providing the staple food,  manioc or cassava , a starchy root crop that grows in the tropics. Manioc requires lengthy processing to make it edible, including soaking it in water to remove toxins and then scraping it into a mealy consistency. We will learn about Yanomami life later in this book.

At the time of the arrival of the European colonialists, the six nations of the Iroquois extended over a wide area. The Mohawk stood guard over the eastern door of the confederacy’s symbolic longhouse, and the Seneca guarded the western door. The six nations worked out a peace treaty and established a democracy. A great orator named Hiawatha promoted the treaty throughout the tribes, and a Mohawk woman was the first to approve it.

Map 3.4

Yanomami Region in Brazil and Venezuela

No one can explain the origins of the different divisions of labor in horticulture, but we do know that the differences are related to men’s and women’s status (Sanday 1973). Most importantly, analysis of many horticultural societies shows that women’s contribution to food production is a necessary but not sufficient basis for women’s high status. In other words, if women do not contribute to producing food, their status will be low. If they do contribute, their status may, or may not, be high. The critical factor appears to be control over the distribution of what is produced, especially public distribution beyond the family. Slavery is a clear example of how a major role in production does not bring high status because slaves have no control over the product and its distribution.

Children do more productive work in horticultural societies than in any other mode of livelihood (Whiting and Whiting 1975). The Six Cultures Study is a research project that examined children’s behavior in horticultural, farming, and industrial settings. It found that children among a horticultural group, the Gusii (goo-see-eye) of western Kenya, performed the most tasks at the youngest ages. Gusii boys and girls care for siblings, collect fuel, and carry water. Children do so many tasks in horticultural societies because adults, especially women, are busy working in the fields and markets.

PROPERTY RELATIONS  Private property, as something that an individual can own and sell, is not characteristic of horticultural societies. Use rights are typically important and more clearly defined and formalized than among foragers. By clearing and planting an area of land, a family puts a claim on it and its crops. The production of surplus goods allows the possibility of social inequality in access to goods and resources. Rules about sharing within the larger group decline in importance as some people gain higher status.

HORTICULTURE AS A SUSTAINABLE SYSTEM  Fallowing is crucial in maintaining the viability of horticulture. Fallowing allows the plot to recover lost nutrients and improves soil quality by allowing the growth of weeds whose root systems keep the soil loose. The benefits of a well-managed system of shifting cultivation are clear as are the two major constraints involved: the time required for fallowing and the related need for extensive access to land so that some land is in use while other land is fallowed. Using a given plot for too many seasons or reducing fallowing time quickly results in depletion of soil nutrients, decreased crop production, and soil erosion.

including contact with outsiders. In addition to learning about stress, Savishinsky discovered the importance of dogs to the Hare people:

… when I obtained my own dogteam, I enjoyed much greater freedom of movement, and was abl to camp with many people whom I had previously not been able to keep up with. Altogether I travelled close to 600 miles by dogsled between mid-October and early June. This constant contact with dogs, and the necessity of learning how to drive, train and handle them, led to my recognition of the social and psychological, as well as the ecological, significance of these animals in the lives of the people. (1974:xx)

The 14 households owned 224 dogs for an average of nearly 14 dogs per household. People estimate that six dogs are required for travel.

More than being economically useful, dogs play a significant role in people’s emotional lives. They are a frequent topic of conversation: “Members of the community constantly compare and comment on the care, condition, and growth of one another’s animals, noting special qualities of size, strength, color, speed, and alertness.”

Emotional displays, uncommon among the Hare, are frequent and visible between people and their dogs. According to Savishinsky, “Pups and infants are … the only recipients of unreserved positive affect in the band’s social life… (pp. 169-170).

Early European colonialists named the local people Hare because of their reliance on snowshoe hares for food and clothing. The Hare people became involved in the wage-labor economy and were afflicted by alcoholism, tuberculosis, and other diseases. Efforts to reestablish claims to ancestral lands began in the 1960s. Over 600 First Nations in Canada continue to fight for rights from the Canadian government.Hare Indian children use their family’s sled to haul drinking water to their village.

FORAGING AS A SUSTAINABLE SYSTEM  When untouched by outside influences and with abundant land available, foraging systems are sustainable, which means that crucial resources are regenerated over time in balance with the demand that the population makes on them. North Sentinel Island, one island in the Andaman Islands, provides a clear case of foraging as sustainable, because its inhabitants have long lived in a “closed” system (see  Map 3.2 ). So far, the few hundred indigenous people live in almost complete isolation from the rest of the world, other than the occasional helicopter flying overhead and the occasional attempt by outsiders to land on their territory.

The 576 islands are geologically part of Myanmar and Southeast Asia. The British Empire controlled them until India’s independence in 1947.

One reason for the sustainability of foraging is that foragers’ needs are modest. Anthropologists have typified the foraging lifestyle as the original affluent society because needs are satisfied with minimal labor efforts. This term is used metaphorically to remind people living in contemporary consumer cultures that foraging is not a miserable, inadequate way to make a living, contrary to most ethnocentric thinking.

A Ju/wasi traditional shelter in southern Africa in the 1960s.

In contrast to foragers of temperate climates, those living in the circumpolar regions of North America, Europe, and Asia devote more time and energy to obtaining food and providing shelter. The specialized technology of circumpolar peoples includes spears, nets, and knives, as well as sleds and the use of domesticated animals to pull them. Dogs or other animals used to pull sleds are an important aspect of circumpolar peoples’ technology and social identity (see Think Like an Anthropologist). Much work and skill are needed to construct and maintain igloos and log houses. Another time-intensive activity is making and maintaining clothing, including coats, gloves, and boots.

DIVISION OF LABOR  Among foraging peoples, the  division of labor , assigning particular tasks to particular individuals or groups, is shaped by factors of gender and age. Among temperate foraging cultures, a minimal gender-based division of labor exists. Temperate foragers obtain most of their everyday food by gathering roots, berries, larvae, small birds and animals, and fish, and both men and women collect these basic foods. Hunting large animals, however, tends to involve only men, who go off together in small groups on long-range expeditions. Large game provides a small and irregular part of the diets of temperate-climate foragers. In circumpolar groups, a significant part of people’s diet comes from large animals such as seals, whales, bears, and fish. Men do most of the hunting and fishing. Among circumpolar foragers, therefore, the division of labor is strongly gender-divided.

Age is an important factor affecting what tasks people do in all modes of livelihood. Boys and girls in foraging cultures often help by collecting and carrying food, fuel, and other daily requirements as well as younger siblings. Elderly people tend to stay at the camp area where they help care for young children.

PROPERTY RELATIONS  The concept of private property, in the sense of owning something that can be sold to someone else, does not exist in foraging societies. Instead, the term  use rights  is more appropriate. It means that a person or group has socially recognized priority in access to particular resources such as gathering areas, hunting and fishing areas, and water holes. This access is willingly shared with others by permission. Among the Ju/wasi, family groups control access to particular water holes and the territory surrounding them (Lee 1979:58–60). Visiting groups are welcome and will be given food and water. In turn, the host group, at another time, will visit other camps and be offered hospitality there.

FORAGING AS A SUSTAINABLE SYSTEM  When untouched by outside influences and with abundant land available, foraging systems are sustainable, which means that crucial resources are regenerated over time in balance with the demand that the population makes on them. North Sentinel Island, one island in the Andaman Islands, provides a clear case of foraging as sustainable, because its inhabitants have long lived in a “closed” system (see  Map 3.2 ). So far, the few hundred indigenous people live in almost complete isolation from the rest of the world, other than the occasional helicopter flying overhead and the occasional attempt by outsiders to land on their territory.

Map 3.2

Andaman Islands of India

The 576 islands are geologically part of Myanmar and Southeast Asia. The British Empire controlled them until India’s independence in 1947.

One reason for the sustainability of foraging is that foragers’ needs are modest. Anthropologists have typified the foraging lifestyle as the original affluent society because needs are satisfied with minimal labor efforts. This term is used metaphorically to remind people living in contemporary consumer cultures that foraging is not a miserable, inadequate way to make a living, contrary to most ethnocentric thinking.

Because foragers’ needs for goods are limited, minimal labor efforts are required to satisfy them. Foragers typically work fewer hours a week than the average employed North American. In traditional (undisturbed) foraging societies, the people spend as few as five hours a week collecting food and making and repairing tools. They have much time for storytelling, playing games, and resting. Foragers also traditionally enjoyed good health. During the early 1960s, the age structure and health status of the Ju/wasi compared well with people in the United States of around 1900 (Lee 1979:47–48). They had few infectious diseases or health problems related to aging such as arthritis.

Think Like an Anthropologist

The Importance of Dogs

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Dogs were the first domesticated animal, with archaeological evidence of their domestication from sites in Eastern Europe and Russia dating to around 18,000 years ago. In spite of dogs’ long-standing importance to humans around the world, few cultural anthropologists have focused attention on humans and their dogs. One of the rare ethnographies to do so provides insights into the economic, social, and psychological importance of dogs among a group of circumpolar foragers.

At the time of Joel Savishinsky’s fieldwork, fewer than100 Hare Indians lived in the community of Colville Lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories (1974). Their livelihood was based on hunting, trapping, and fishing in one of the coldest environments in the world. Savishinsky went to Colville Lake to study how people cope with environmental stress. Environmental stress factors include extremely cold temperatures, long and severe winters, extended periods of isolation, hazardous travel conditions along with the constant need for mobility during the harshest periods of the year, and sometimes food scarcity. Social and psychological stress factors also exist

Foraging  is a mode of livelihood based on resources that are available in nature through gathering, fishing, or hunting. The oldest way of making a living, foraging is a strategy that humans share with our nonhuman primate relatives. Although foraging supported humanity since our beginnings, it is in danger of extinction. Only around 250,000 people worldwide provide for their livelihood predominantly from foraging now. Most contemporary foragers live in what are considered marginal areas, such as deserts, tropical rainforests, and the circumpolar region. These areas, however, often contain material resources that are in high demand in core areas, such as oil, diamonds, gold, and expensive tourist destinations. Thus, the basis of their survival is threatened by what is called the resource curse: People in high-income countries desire the natural resources in their areas, which leads to conversion of foraging land to mines, plantations, or tourist destinations, in turn leading to the displacement of foragers from their homeland.

DIVISION OF LABOR  Among foraging peoples, the  division of labor , assigning particular tasks to particular individuals or groups, is shaped by factors of gender and age. Among temperate foraging cultures, a minimal gender-based division of labor exists. Temperate foragers obtain most of their everyday food by gathering roots, berries, larvae, small birds and animals, and fish, and both men and women collect these basic foods. Hunting large animals, however, tends to involve only men, who go off together in small groups on long-range expeditions. Large game provides a small and irregular part of the diets of temperate-climate foragers. In circumpolar groups, a significant part of people’s diet comes from large animals such as seals, whales, bears, and fish. Men do most of the hunting and fishing. Among circumpolar foragers, therefore, the division of labor is strongly gender-divided.

the is an important factor affecting what tasks people do in all modes of livelihood. Boys and girls in foraging cultures often help by collecting and carrying food, fuel, and other daily requirements as well as younger siblings. Elderly people tend to stay at the camp area where they help care for young children.

PROPERTY RELATIONS  The concept of private property, in the sense of owning something that can be sold to someone else, does not exist in foraging societies. Instead, the term  use rights  is more appropriate. It means that a person or group has socially recognized priority in access to particular resources such as gathering areas, hunting and fishing areas, and water holes. This access is willingly shared with others by permission. Among the Ju/wasi, family groups control access to particular water holes and the territory surrounding them (Lee 1979:58–60). Visiting groups are welcome and will be given food and water. In turn, the host group, at another time, will visit other camps and be offered hospitality there.

During the many thousands of years of human prehistory, people made their living by collecting food and other necessities from nature. All group members had equal access to life-sustaining resources. Now, most people live in economies much different from this description.

Economic anthropology is the subfield of cultural anthropology that focuses on economic systems cross-culturally. The term economic system includes three areas: livelihood, or making goods or money; consumption, or using up goods or money; and exchange, or the transfer of goods or money between people or institutions.

This chapter first discusses the subject of production and introduces the concept of  mode of livelihood : the dominant way of making a living in a culture. Ethnographic examples illustrate each of the five major modes of livelihood.

The section provides cross-cultural examples of the other two components of economic systems: the  mode of consumption : the dominant pattern, in a culture, of using up goods and services, and the  mode of exchange : the dominant pattern, in a culture, of transferring goods, services, and other items between and among people and groups. The chapter’s last section presents examples of contemporary change in consumption and exchange.

Making a Living: Five Modes of Livelihood

1. 3.1 Know what are the characteristics of the five modes of livelihood.

Anthropologists define five major modes of livelihood. The modes of livelihood are discussed in order of their appearance in the human record (Figure 3.1 ). This continuum does not mean that a particular mode of livelihood evolves into the one following it. For example, foragers do not necessarily transform into horticulturalists, and so on. Nor does this model imply a judgment about the sophistication or superiority of more recent modes of livelihood. The oldest system involves complex and detailed knowledge about the environment that a contemporary city dweller would find difficult to learn quickly enough to ensure survival.

Figure 3.1

Modes of Livelihood

Terminology is important in looking at the various ways people make a living. Some anthropologists use the term subsistence to refer to making a living at a minimum level with no surpluses and no luxuries. It conveys a negative view that people who do not have surpluses and luxuries are backward and inferior, and implies that they should change to be more like people in contemporary capitalist cultures. The author of this book rejects the term subsistence but uses the term poverty to convey material deprivation.  Poverty  is the lack of access to tangible or intangible resources that contribute to life and the well-being of a person, group, country, or region. Although development organizations seek to measure poverty across the world using standard criteria, anthropologists show that local definitions of what it means to be poor vary widely (Cochrane 2009, Tucker et al. 2011), along with the causes of poverty. Furthermore, many people reject being termed “poor” because it seems degrading to them. Given its importance and complexity, poverty will be discussed again in this book. A more productive way of looking at how well people are doing in a particular society is to consider  subjective well-being  (Kant et al. 2014). Instead of assessing what people do not have in material terms, well-being considers people’s values and perceptions of what is a good life that can include things like family ties, a sense of home and personal security. Subjective well-being cannot be measured by externally defined, global indicators, such as annual monetary income.

While reading this section, please bear in mind that most anthropologists are uneasy about typologies because they often do not reflect the complexity of life in any particular context. The purpose of the categories is to help you organize the ethnographic information presented in this book.

mode of reproduction  is the dominant pattern, in a culture, of population change through the combined effect of  fertility , or number of births in a given population or per woman, and  mortality , or the number of deaths in a given population. Cultural anthropologists have enough cross-cultural data to provide the general characteristics of only three modes of reproduction ( Figure 4.1 ) that correspond to three of the five modes of livelihood discussed in Chapter 3.

Figure 4.1

Modes of Livelihood and Reproduction