Important Concepts from Unit 6 notes

Question 1

Neoclassical economic theorists such as ______ assumed that individuals are inherently rational and self-interested (individuals are oriented towards maximizing utility and minimizing costs/individuals are primarily concerned with their own wellbeing and are indifferent to the welfare of others)

Answer 1

Adam Smith

Question 2

who raised some of the first objections from within anthropology to neoclassical theories of the “economic man”?

Answer 2

Bronislaw Malinowski

Question 3

why did Bronislaw Maloinowski reject the idea of the “economic man”? What did he observe in the Trobriand Islands and yam-farming?

Answer 3

the men in charge of the yams expended lots of energy on the aesthetics of their yams and farms, which contradicts the theory of the economic yam, and the yams didn’t even directly support them, they would all be given to the man’s sister and her family

Question 4

Anthropological approaches to the study of the economy are also typically ______

Answer 4

holistic

Question 5

what are the three phases of economic processes?

Answer 5

production
distribution/exchange
comsumption

Question 6

Production, as noted earlier, is often closely linked to and dependent on systems of _______ and _________

Answer 6

distribution and consumption

Question 7

what are the two other inter-changable words for food collectors?

Answer 7

foragers
hunters and gatherers

Question 8

____________, such as the Ju/’hoansi of southern Africa, lived in environments where resources are often patchy and, as a result, tend to relocate often in search of food.

Answer 8

Small-scale food collectors or foragers

Question 9

__________, such as the Native peoples of the northwest coast of North America, lived in environments where the resources were more plentiful and, as a result, tended to build permanent settlements

Answer 9

Complex food collectors or foragers

Question 10

_____ or _______, depend on domesticated animals for food and other economic resources

Answer 10

herders or pastoralists

Question 11

what are the three dominant modes of distribution?

Answer 11

reciprocity, redistribution, market exchange

Question 12

In _________’s view, there was no such thing as a “free gift.” Rather, he argued, gifts produce ties of obligation and debt. Practices of gift giving are both self-interested and oriented towards others.

Answer 12

Marcel Mauss

Question 13

Marshall Sahlins argues that practices of reciprocity can be divided into three forms: _______, ________, and ________

Answer 13

generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity

Question 14

__________ refers to the exchange of goods and services without expectation of an immediate return (parents to a child)

Answer 14

Generalized reciprocity

Question 15

__________ refers to the exchange of goods of equivalent value within a set time period (birthday gifts)

Answer 15

Balanced reciprocity

Question 16

perfectly balanced reciprocity is defined as…

Answer 16

the simultaneous exchange of the same types of goods at the same time

Question 17

_______: one party seeks to benefit at the expense of the other (theft, stealing)

Answer 17

negative reciprocity

Question 18

who were allowed to participate in the kula exchange? (trobriand islands)

Answer 18

rich and famous, island chiefs and their high-ranking officers

Question 19

The kula ring thus demonstrates how reciprocity and gift giving create ________

Answer 19

social relationships

Question 20

what kind of exchange/reciprocity is the Kula trading tradition?

Answer 20

balanced reciprocity, but more similar to perfect reciprocity

Question 21

_______ observed the existence of a highly respected local tradition of accumulating and exchanging banana leaves, which were known locally as “women’s wealth” in the Trobriand Islands

Answer 21

Annette Weiner

Question 22

Weiner argued that what was at work was in fact a __________ of reciprocity: yams were traded over an appropriate amount of time for banana leaves or women’s wealth

Answer 22

balanced form, these exchanges back and forth between the families reinforced the pivotal role of women in kinship relations

Question 23

A classic example of redistribution within anthropology, as well as an example key to ______’ theory of the gift, is that of the potlatch, what is a potlatch?

Answer 23

Marcel Mauss’
Potlatch is a gift giving ceremony traditionally practiced among the First Nations peoples of Canada’s west coast

Question 24

what are the three main examples given to explain redistribution?

Answer 24

potlatch
taxation
Cuba’s economic system (citizens not being able to buy their own cars/houses in the past, instead being redistributed by the government)

Question 25

__________ is the predominant form of exchange in capitalist societies

Answer 25

market exchange, it also exists in non-capitalist societies too!

Question 26

Eric Wolfe reworked Marx and Engel’s theories to develop three principle modes of production, what are they?

Answer 26

kin-ordered mode of production (tasks divided amongst members of a family)
tributary mode (labourers pay tribute to rulers)
capitalism (workers sell their own labour for wages)

Question 27

_____-value: specific material and tangible qualities and the uses to which it can be put, the usefulness of a thing

Answer 27

use-value

Question 28

______-value: the quantitative measure according to which goods can be exchanged for others

Answer 28

exchange-value

Question 29

______ argues that it is human labour that creates the value of goods under capitalism, and that labour itself is a commodity

Answer 29

Karl Marx

Question 30

_____-value: gap between the new value produced by the labour of workers and the compensation they are provided for that labour in wages

Answer 30

surplus-value, how employers make profit (can be exploited)

Question 31

Julian Steward (who studied under Franz Boas), created the term _______: which seeks to account for economic and other cultural behaviours primarily as adaptations to the physical environments that people inhabit

Answer 31

cultural ecology (second approach to the question of consumption)