Formalism and Substantivism

Question 1

What is the ethnographic example from gudeman and what year was it in?

Answer 1

1986 the Iban in Malaysia and Indonesia continue to use hand knives rather than sickles to harvest rice as they believe that using sickles means that the spirit leaves the plant

Question 2

When does Firth write?

Answer 2

1965

Question 3

What does Firth argue 1961

Answer 3

Firth is a formalist. He applies economic logical to the Tikopia island, where he says that they are conscious of scarce resource and of their expanding population. Despite the fact that there is no monetary system, their gift exchange is still fulfilling a social want so it is rational

Question 4

What is the problem with the formalist firth’s argument?

Answer 4

He overlooks the core of gift exchange. Under formalism, people would always try to get more and more. The bonito hooks are rare and highly prized, yet people do not make them

Question 5

What paradox does the Kula offer?

Answer 5

Whilst people in western societies have to exchange to subsist , in the trobriand islanders they have to exchange to be social and so it presents the inverse of what neoclassical economics is designed for

Question 6

Is Dalton a formalist or a substantivist?

Answer 6

substantivist

Question 7

Where did Dalton do his work?

Answer 7

Rossel Islands

Question 8

What is the core of Dalton’s work?

Answer 8

In the Rossel islands they have a system of coins which can be used for payment for pigs and crops. Armstrong concluded that this was capitalist money, but less efficient. In reality, Dalton rightly acknowledges that they serve the capacity of non-cermonial exchange.

Question 9

What does Dalton’s work highlight?

Answer 9

The problems of assuming certain approaches before an ethnography.

Question 10

How can you label this debate?

Answer 10

Polemic

Question 11

Who started it?

Answer 11

Polanyi 1957

Question 12

Where was this debate played out?

Answer 12

The journal Research in Economic Anthropology

Question 13

Basically what do formalists believe?

Answer 13

That you can apply neoclassical rationale to every society

Question 14

What model, importantly, do formalists put a lot of emphasis on?

Answer 14

Rational choice model

Question 15

What do the formalists believe that every society has?

Answer 15

Rational behaviour

Question 16

What assumptions does formalism rest on?

Answer 16

Scarcity and a separate economic sphere

Question 17

Give three examples of formalists

Answer 17

Burling, firth and schneider

Question 18

Give three examples of substantivists

Answer 18

Dalton, Bohannon and Sahlins

Question 19

Rather than seeing a separate economy, what do those such as Dalton, Bohannon and Sahlins see?

Answer 19

Economy as embedded within social institutions

Question 20

Subsatnivists belive what?

Answer 20

That one cannot pre-suppose rationality/scarcity

Question 21

What is the substantives unit of analysis?

Answer 21

The whole society, rather than merely individuals within it

Question 22

What does formalism appeal to?

Answer 22

Post-enlightenment Global north understandings of what is universal

Question 23

Who is useful for thinking the debate?

Answer 23

Gudeman 1986

Question 24

Gudeman 1986 is described as what?

Answer 24

either an extreme substantivist or a culturalist

Question 25

What is Gudeman’s argument?

Answer 25

That in order to understand an economy we need to understand how people themselves see the economy

Question 26

What mistakes, according to Gudeman, have both the formalists and the substantivists made?

Answer 26

They have exported a western understanding of economic model

Question 27

How else can you think beyond the debate, other than Gudeman?

Answer 27

Ecological anthropology

Question 28

What does Ecological anthropology stress?

Answer 28

connections between humans and their environment

Question 29

How does ecological anthropology work to integrate the two positions?

Answer 29

Stresses the formalist idea of limits with the substantivist idea of a broad, non-market idea of economic activities.

Question 30

What is the debate really about?

Answer 30

The lens through which society is viewed

Question 31

What does Mayhew argue and when do they argue it?

Answer 31

1980 argues The debate to be a product of confusion of a mutual misunderstanding of positions.

Question 32

What does ELardo 2015 argue?

Answer 32

That they were talking past each other, going for an exclusive domain

Question 33

Can time be considered scarce for the Wola?

Answer 33

No

Question 34

What is the most important thing that Wilks highlights 2007?

Answer 34

Because those people traditionally studied are now increasingly integrated into global market economics, it does not matter if the substantivist position is right or not, it is no longer relevant.

Question 35

What is the flip side of the globalisation counter argument to the substantivist position?

Answer 35

Formal economics does not even fit the global north

Question 36

What concept supports the idea that Formal economics does not even fit the global north?

Answer 36

david grabber everyday communism

Question 37

Apart from the previously discussed criticism, what other 2 criticisms does Will 2007 bring out?

Answer 37

1) Formalists wrongly think substantivists equate maximisation and markets. Even love and lesuire can be maximised
2) Formalists also wrongly think that substantivists ignored the fact that everywhere there are rational people working for goals.

Question 38

What is the work of Dalton called and when in the Rossel Islands?

Answer 38

Primitive Money 1965