ANT110 SOCIOCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
ANT110
SOCIOCULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
WEEK 8
THE ECONOMY
WEEK 7 KEY CONCEPTS
WEEK 7 KEY CONCEPTS
WEEK 7 KEY CONCEPTS
WEEK 8 KEY CONCEPTS
Economic Anthropology
Political Economy
Contemporary Economics
Production
Exchange
Consumption
Domestic production
Tributary production
Capitalist production
Means of production
The Market
Neoliberalism/Liberalism
Fair Trade
Commodity
Alienation
Class
Mobility/Stratification
Cultural Capital
Anthropology and The Economy
Economic Anthropology- also known as Political Economy
The subsection of anthropology that is constantly in dialogue with the discipline of economics.
Encompasses the production, exchange, consumption, meaning, and uses of both material objects and immaterial services
Contemporary Economics
Focuses mostly on market exchanges
Contemporary Economics
Economics
Studies decisions made by people and businesses and how these decisions interact with the market place
Economics functions on several assumptions
That all individual thought can be understood through a na
ow lens of rational self-interested decision making
People know what they want
Their economic choices express these wants
That their wants are defined by their culture
Economics is based on normative theory because it specifies how people should act if the want to make efficient economic decisions
Economic Anthropology
Economic Anthropology
Largely descriptive social science
We analyze what people actually do and why they do it
Does not make the assumptions that
People know what they want
People know why they want it
People are free to act on their individual decisions
Instead of focusing on market exchanges and individual decision making
Anthropologists focus on 3 distinct phases of economic activity
Production, Market Exchange, Consumption
Phases of Economic Activity
Production
Involves transforming nature and raw materials into goods that are useful and or necessary for humans
Exchange
Involves how these are goods are distributed among people
Consumption
Refers to how we use these material goods
ex. By eating food or making a house out of
icks
Production
Within production there are various modes of production
The social relations through which human labor is used to transform energy from nature using tools, skills, organization and knowledge
Originated with Anthropologists Eric Wolf which was strongly influenced by Karl Marx
Three Modes of Production in human history
Eric Wolf
Domestic (kin-ordered)
Tributary
Capitalist
Domestic (kin-ordered)
Production organizes work on the basis of family relations and does not necessarily involve formal social domination or control of and power over other people
Some power and authority may be exerted based on gender and age
Typically foragers and/or small scale subsistence farmers
Mostly egalitarian structures (except for age/gender divisions)
Labor organized around kinship relations
Ex. Indigenous populations of Southern Mexico and parts of Central America
Domestic Production
Subsistence Farming
Food is produced by the family for the family’s own consumption rather than selling it
Family production systems
Men generally clear the fields and the family works together to plant the seeds
Men also weed the crops until the seeds sprout
Children protect the seeds until they spout
Women work to dry the corn and remove the kernels from the cob for storage
Throughout the year the women ground the corn and ultimately use it to make tortillas or other staple food products
Labor and daily activities are organized around the gender and generational divisions within the family
Domestic (Kin Ordered)
Foraging societies characterized by:
Collective ownership of the primary means of production
Lower Rates of Social domination
Sharing
Ex. !Kung San
Tributary Production
The primary producers pays tribute in the form of material goods or labor to another individual or group of individuals who control production through political, religious or military force
Found in social systems divided in to classes of rulers and subjects
Subjects
Typically farmers/herders who produce for themselves and their families but also give a portion of goods/labor to ruling class
Pre-capitalist, state-level societies formed in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas
Tributary Production
Common Features
The dominant units of production are communities organized around kinship relations
The state’s society depends on the local communities and the tribute collected is used by the ruling class (not exchanged or reinvested)
Relationships between producers and rules are often conflictual
Production is controlled politically rather than through direct control of the means of production
Ex. Feudal Europe, Medieval Japan (loosely organized); Pre-Contact Inca Empire and Imperial China (tightly organized)
Tributary Production
Imperial China
Rulers not only demanded tribute in form of material goods also organized large scale production and state organized projects
i
igation systems, roads and flood control
-Imperial officers controlled large industrial and commercial enterprises
getting necessarily products like salt, porcelain,
icks etc from
non-market mechanisms
Mostly closed ranked (decent based/military service/political service) but some lower class men could potentially make it to ruling status (exception not the rule)
Capitalism
You know what capitalism is….
Three Central Features
Private property is owned by its members of the capitalist class
Workers sell their labor power to the capitalists in order to survive
Surpluses of wealth are produced
a. These surpluses are either kept as profit or reinvested in production in order to generate further surplus
Most recent mode of production- first originated Europe and North America 17th/18th century
Defining feature is private property owned by capitalist class
Capitalism
Workers typically do not own their means of production the way that domestic and tributary modes of production do
Sell their labor power to other people (capitalists) to survive
By keeping wages low, those who own the means of production, are able to sell the product of the worker’s labor for more than it costs to produce
This allows capitalists (those who own the means of production) to generate surplus that is either kept or reinvested to create more surplus
Most important distinctions between capitalism and the other two modes
The worker is separated from the means of production
Do not own their means of production
Cannot keep what they produce or even a portion of it
Do not have ultimate control over how much and how often they work
Economic Anthropologists
Stress that people and communities are differentially integrated into the capitalist mode of production
ex. Subsistence farmers may grow their own food but they may have to grow a small crop as a commodity to make money to pay for necessary tools (machetes for swindling)
ex. Capitalist societies have informal economies (babysitting, mowing lawns, garden shares etc)
Informal jobs/economies are especially important in developing countries where they make up three quarters of the economic structure
Fair Trade Farming
Small scale semi-subsistence farmers make up the largest group of people in the world (once called peasants)
Exist both inside and outside of global capitalism and state societies
Primarily use their own labor to grow food for their families to eat but also may produce a commodity to sell
They sell crops like coffee in order to buy the necessities that they can’t make (school supplies, building supplies etc)
20-25 million small scale farmers growing coffee in 50 different countries
Some form small cooperatives to sell the coffee collectively around the world called fair trade
Fair Trade Farming
Fair Trade
A trading partnership based on dialogue, transparency, and respect that seeks greater equity in international trade
Supports workers to combat poverty and strengthen their livelihoods by establishing a minimum price to pay for fair trade products
Simultaneously practice domestic modes of production AND produce agricultural commodities for global markets
*Paige West’s article
Modes of Exchange
Three ways to integrate (exchange) economic and social relations and distribute material goods
Market exchange
Sole focus on modern economics
Reciprocity
Redistribution
There are diverse modes of exchange that shape and are shaped by everyday life
Modes of Exchange
Market Exchange
Revolves around general purpose money, bargaining and supply and demand price mechanisms
Reciprocity
Involves exchange of goods and services and is rooted in a mutual sense of obligation and identity
(Malinowski, Marcel Mauss “The Gift”
Redistribution
Occurs when an authority of some type (temple, priest, chief or institution) collects economic contributions from community members and redistributes them back in the form of goods and services
Requires centralized government
Modes of Exchange
Market Exchange
Social institutions with prices or exchange equivalencies
Don’t necessarily have to be localized in geographic place (like an actual market place) but cannot exist without institutions to govern exchange (regulation)
Key distinction with reciprocity is the mechanism of supply and demand
This causes risks for people living in societies that largely distribute goods through the market
Maine Lobster Fishermen
Example of market exchange and the mechanism of supply and demand
James Acheson studied everyday economic lives of Maine lobster fishermen
Lobster markets very sensitive to supply and demand because catch volumes and prices vary radically throughout the yea
Winter- catches low because lobsters activity slow down and weather conditions are cold/stormy
isky
April lobsters are more active, water is warmer, migrate closer to shore so – catch volume increases
May prices fall dramatically- barely any tourists so demand is low while the supply is high
June/July catch volume decreases because its molting season- but prices go up because with tourist season the demand goes up
Fall- tourists leave- catch volume increases again because recently molted lobsters are coming in- prices drop again
Price and catch are inversely related- catch is high then the price is low. Catch is low then price is high
Maine Lobster Fishermen
Fishermen generally sell whole sale to dealers and have very little to do with the rest of the process (from the moment they sell to dealers to how it ends upon your dinner table)
This process after selling to the dealers is obscured for the fishermen (alienation)
To balance the risk they form long term personalized economic relationships with dealers
The dealer’s goal is to ensure large scale steady supply of lobsters for as low a price as possible
Create contracts with fishermen to always buy all the lobsters they are selling even if the market is flooded already
In return the fisherman agree to a fixed price to their lobsters regardless of the market fluctuations and lose with right to bargain
Money
General Purpose Money
It is a medium for exchange, tool for storing wealth, a way to assign interchangeable values and can be exchanged for all manner of goods
Reflects our ideas about generalized interchangeability
Takes off these different goods/items/commodities and makes them relatable and commensurable with through one specific metric (i.e. cu
ency)
***Money is highly symbolic and political***
Consumption
What does consumption mean?
Buying commodities but also buying into ideas, values, norms.
Consumption in the globalized world
Particular fear with Western consumption in non-western societies that it would lead to global homogeneity
Anthropologists argue through ethnographic research that Western influence and influx of western commodities in non western countries does not necessarily produce a ca
on copy of the West
Research has show that sometimes it actually creates a resurgence of local identities and desire for local structures over global structures/influences
Conspicuous Consumption
The idea that there are certain kinds of commodities that people consume because they signal to other people the value of the person consuming the commodities
Signaling you are a certain kind of person
Always in a social context and always signaling who you are to other people (i.e