Post on 10-May-2015
Making a LivingEconomic Systems in Cross-Cultural Perspective
Making a Living
Adaptive StrategiesForagingCultivationPastoralismModes of ProductionEconomizing and MaximizationDistribution & ExchangePotlatching
Making a Living
What are the major adaptive strategies found in nonindustrial societies?
• What is an economy, and what is economizing behavior?
• What principles regulate the exchange of goods and services in various societies?
Adaptive StrategiesFood collection vs. food production: The
advent of food production fueled major changes in human life
•Yehudi Cohen used term “adaptive strategy:” a system of economic production•Regular correlations exist between economic systems and their social features.
Adaptive Strategies
Foraging Horticulture Agriculture Pastoralism Industrialism
• Cohen discusses 5 adaptive strategies
Yehudi Cohen’s Adaptive Strategies (Economic Typology) Summarized
Foraging
All foragers rely on natural resources for subsistence, rather than cultivating plants or herding animals.
Foraging survives in environments that posed obstacles to food cultivation
• Foraging economies have relied on direct use of natural resources to make their living
Hunter-Gatherers: Societal Features
Land: use rights rather than land ownership; territoriality
Nomadism
Awá of Ecuador/Photo: F. Watson
Hunter-Gatherers: Societal Features
Technology: simple but needs knowledge of resources
no /little storage
Photo:Ituri Forest Peoples Fund
Hunter-Gatherers: Societal Features
Kinship: sharing, fluid, bilocal residenence
Photo © David SangerSouth Africa, Western Cape , Kalahari San family, Kagga Kamma
Hunter-Gatherers: Societal Features
Religion: based on nature
Ona (Tierra del Fuegan) Shaman
Hunter-Gatherers: Societal Features
Div of Labor: By Sex and Gender, no institutionalized specialists or leaders
www.peacefulsocieties.org
Recent Foragers
Historically known foraging communities that have few or no families that actively forage for food and materials, and who have thus transferred from mainly food collecting to a mixed economy
Luiseño/Kumeyaay elder workingon cultural resources managementProject/Photo: J.Fortier
Environment & Diet
Group Celsius Biomass H% G% F%
Inuit 8.5 45 40 10 50
Ainu 12 661 20 30 50
Kumiai 14.6 26 40 50 10
Hadza 17.7 1508 35 65 0
Walpiri 18.4 209 30 70 0
Siriono 20.6 2,358 25 70 5
Vedda 23 2800 35 45 20
Celsius=mean temp/year; Biomass=#kilos/km3 of vegetation; H=hunting; G=Gathering; F=fishing
Modern Foragers
People who collect their food from grocery stores
The Cultivation Continuum: Degrees of plant domestication
Manipulation - controlled burnsActive management - saving seedCultivation - keeping a seasonal gardenDomestication - selecting, cross-
breeding
There is a continuum from foraging to farming
The Cultivation Continuum
Horticulture always uses a fallow period whereas agriculture does not
Until recently, horticulture was main form of cultivation in Africa, Southeast Asia, Pacific islands, Mexico, Central America, and South American tropical forest
• Intermediate economies, combining horticulture and agricultural features, exist
+Intensity of Energy/Labor sedentary intensive foragers agriculturalists
+ Collection horticulturalists +Cultivation nomadic nomadic pastoralism foragers
- Intensity of Energy/Labor
Social Space ofEconomic Systems
Horticulture
Field not permanently cultivatedSlash-and-burn cultivationShifting cultivation
• Cultivation that makes extensive (not intensive) use of production: land, labor, capital, and machinery
– Use simple tools
Horticulturalists
Pastoralism
Pastoralists – herders whose activities focus on such domesticated animals as cattle, sheep, goats, camels, and yak
Herders attempt to protect their animals and to ensure their reproduction in return for food and other productsHerders typically make direct use of their herds for food
Pastoralists
Products: urine, blood, hides, feces, bone, hair + meat & milk
Land: little ownership Tech: simple, movable, for
weaving, carving, leatherworking
Kinship: patrilineal Religion: animal-based Div of labor: some
specialists Depend on trade
Water buffalo herding, Nepal;Photo: J. Fortier
Agriculture
Domesticated animals Many agriculturalists use animals as
means of productionIrrigation
Can cultivate a plot year after year Capital investment that increases in value
• “Intensive” Cultivation that requires more labor than horticulture does, because it uses land continuously
Agrarian Intensive Land Use
Millet fields, Nepal. Photo: J. Fortier
Intensification: People and the Environment
Agricultural economies grow increasingly specialized – focusing on: One or a few caloric staples, such as rice Animals that are raised
Agricultural economies also pose a series of regulatory problems – which central governments often have arisen to solve
• Intensive cultivators are sedentary people
Economic Anthropology
Economy – system of production, distribution, consumption, and reproduction of value, of resources
What forms can value take?
Sage collected for medicine;Kumeyaay of Baja collected ~5 tons& sold to Japan
Formalists: Focus on Maximization (Mini-Max Theories)
• Economics is the study of utility maximisation under conditions of scarcity.
• the individual will make rational choices based on full information
• Universalizing principles• We the Tikopia, R. Firth
Anthropologist Raymond Firth 1901-2002, London School of Economics
Economizing and Maximization
Economizing – rational allocation of scarce means (or resources) to alternative ends
Idea that individuals choose to maximize profits basic assumption of classical economist of 19th century
www.oeku.net/.../images/theogrundlagen-280_1.jpg
Economizing and Maximization
Maximize profit Wealth Prestige Pleasure Comfort Social Harmony
• Some economists recognize individuals may be motivated by other goals
Distribution, Exchange
Generalized reciprocity – giving with no specific expectation of exchange
Balanced reciprocity – exchanges between people who are more distantly related than are members of the same band or household
Negative reciprocity – dealing with people outside or on the fringes of their social systems
• Three types of reciprocity
Economic Integration
In North America, market principle governs many exchanges
Also support redistribution, generalized reciprocity, and Householding systems
Santa Clara Market
Potlatching
Some tribes still practice the potlatch Potlatches traditionally gave away food,
blankets, pieces of copper, or other items
• Festive event within a regional exchange system among tribes of the north Pacific Coast of North America
Potlatching
Potlaching also served to prevent the development of socioeconomic stratification, a system of social classes
• If profit motive universal, how does one explain the potlach, in which wealth is given away?
Location of Potlaching Groups
Tsimshian Potlatch; Photo:www.civilization.ca/aborig/cxs/images/cxsm10b.gif