Chapter 5 Flashcards
(25 cards)
Agriculture
Intensive: Marked by use of draft animals, plows, irrigation, and other techniques to increase food production.
Provided basis for the worlds 1st urban civilizations
Urban Civilizations
Were Sumerian city-states in what is now country of Iraq
Band
People who live a hunting and gathering (foraging) lifestyle, live in small related family groups.
- Bow, spear, and net hunting tech
- Practice reciprocity
Big Man Leadership
Many examples of redistribution are found among horticultural societies in the South Pacific and New Guinea which have a Big Man type of leadership. The Big Man is an informal leadership position that is based on one’s ability to influence others. Big Men organize competitive feasts and work to get others in the group to contribute their surplus goods for community-wide celebrations. A Big Man gains status and prestige when organizing such feasts. These men attempt to outdo one another by sponsoring bigger and better feasts. However, the system does not function only to bring status, it also incorporates surplus goods that will be spread among the group as a whole. Kin groups involved in collective labor may have varying levels of production at any given time. For example, one group may have excess pigs and not enough yams and another may have excess yams and not enough pigs. The feasting serves to spread the combined resources of the community more evenly across all households.
Bureaucracy
states have centralized bureaucratic institutions that establish power and authority over large populations in clearly defined territories
States have a bureaucracy that provides the administration of a state’s territorial units.
Demand Sharing
If an individual has a need, it is considered his or her right to make a request for what is needed from other group members. Demand-sharing works because group members strongly believe that it is extremely rude and uncooperative to refuse a legitimate request of another in need. In this practice, members of kin group see themselves as having the right to request aid from their kin, and having an obligation to provide help on request
Egalitarian Society
People are able to earn different amounts of status in a group because of their personal skills, but this doesn’t earn them a different quality of life or authority over others.
- Everyone has an equal opportunity to earn status based on their personal qualities or skills.
Same opportunities and access to resources.
Foraging
Collecting wild plants and hunting wild game.
Do not farm or raise livestock
- People have lived a foraging lifestyle for most of human history.
Nomadic because they lived in marginal environments and had to seek new sources of plant foods, water, and game.
Typically Egalitarian
Formalist-Substantivist Debate
A debate over whether or not Western and non-Western societies operate according to the same economic principles.
Western economic theory (“neoclassical economics”) views individual economic choices in terms of maximizing profit. This perspective, sometimes termed Homo economicus and exemplified by Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, argues that human nature is essentially calculating and motivated by self-interest. Humans make choices in order to compete with others, and ultimately to gain more resources. However, one of the earliest works to suggest that industrialized and non-industrialized societies may operate according to different principles was Emile Durkheim’s The Division of Labor in Society (1893) (see Chapter 3 for more on Durkheim). Durkheim proposed that labor was organized differently in small-scale and complex societies.
Headman
While a foraging group may have a headman or woman who leads because group members respect their decisions, that person has no power to force their will on members of the group and people only listen to them as long as they make wise decisions.
Horticulture
Large scale gardening, using only hand tools for cultivation (digging sticks & axes)
Allows for larger congregation of people due to surplus amounts of food cultivated.
Larger groups of related families; lineages and clans
Lacandon horticulture
Societies that practice horticulture are typically egalitarian.
Kula Ring
The kula ring was a trading network among the Trobriand Islanders in the Western Pacific. The Trobriand people made difficult and dangerous trips from island to island for the express purpose of exchanging shell necklaces and shell armbands. The cross-island journeys were risky, not only because sailors and traders were traversing dangerous waters, but also because the social relationships among the peoples of the various islands were competitive and tense.
Malinowski found that the kula ring involved complicated trade relations whose purpose was not to maximize profits, but to gain social status.
He stressed that cultural practices such as the kula ring (and the potlatch of the Northwest Coast Native Americans) created structural networks of interdependent relationships among the Trobriand Islanders. Engaging in this trade network set up a system of mutual debt and obligation that served to foster cooperative social relationships.
Market Exchange
Market exchange is found in state-level societies.
Market exchange is characterized by setting prices on goods, that are determined by supply and demand. In other words, items that are scarce will be more costly than items that are abundant.
However, in a society with an economy based on market exchange, people produce goods and provide services to sell, so that they earn an income to buy the things they need
Mechanical Solidarity
Small-scale societies
In this type of society there was little division of labor beyond age and sex differences. Adults were generalists rather than specialists. Any given adult man performed similar types of work and filled similar social roles, as did any given adult woman. According to Durkheim, it would be easy for any kin-based segment to break apart because each is self-sufficient
Nomadic
Pastoral peoples are also nomadic because like foragers they have been pushed to the margins of habitable areas.
In nomadic pastoralism, the entire community moves with the herds throughout the year and they have no permanent communities.
Organic Solidarity
More complex societies
Society is held together by a complex division of labor. Individuals did not perform similar tasks, but had specialized roles and occupations. For that reason, individuals in complex society were not self-sufficient, but highly dependent upon one another to meet their basic needs
Pastoralism
Livelihood based on the herding of animals.
Nomadic to a degree, motivated by demand for fresh grazing grounds and water for livestock.
- Measure wealth by herd size, do NOT eat their animals.
Societies that practice pastoralism are typically egalitarian.
Neolithic Rev - 10kya
Potlatch
Is another redistribution ceremony that occurs among some Pacific Northwest Coast cultures, such as the Kwakiutl (now called the Kwakwaka’wakw), Haida, and Tlingit.
The potlatch is a large feast, sponsored by an individual, at socially or ritually important times, such as at weddings or when an individual inherits a title. The ability to throw a large potlatch confers status on the host of the feast.
While the potlatch is a redistribution ceremony that serves to spread resources among group members, it also sets up a system of mutual debts and obligations so that attending a potlatch obligates participants to host a potlatch in the future.
Generalized Reciprocity
In generalized reciprocity, an individual or group gives to another individual (or group) with no expectation of immediate return.
The aim is to either help one another when someone is in need, or to participate in activities that serve to reinforce close social bonds. In some cultures, generalized reciprocity is manifested through what has been termed demand-sharing
The difference between demand sharing in American society and that in Lacandon society is that demand sharing is not a fundamental characteristic of the American economy as it is in a Lacandon community.
Balanced Reciprocity
In balanced reciprocity, individuals or groups involved in the exchange are expected to reciprocate with goods, services, or gifts of roughly equal value.
Rather, balanced reciprocity is the exchange between people with the expectation that at some time in the future that exchange will be reciprocated.
Negative Reciprocity
Negative reciprocity is a type of reciprocity that involves manipulation to get the better end of the exchange. Here, the level of trust is lower than that found between people who practice generalized or balanced reciprocity.
Redistribution
Redistribution is found in horticultural and agricultural societies and requires two things: production of a surplus and a recognized leadership role. In redistribution systems, the leader of a community gathers and stores surplus resources from the group and then reallocates them to members often in public feasting and festivals.
Social Stratification
When people in a society have unequal access to wealth, power, and prestige
Appears in the earliest city states.
State
Different from foraging, pastoralist and horticultural societies.
Have centralized bureaucratic institutions that establish power and authority over large populations in clearly defined territories.
Have Social Stratification
