CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 3/E © 2005 Barbara D
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CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 3/e © 2005 Barbara D. Miller 0-205-42720-0 Exam Copy ISBN (Please use above number to order your exam copy.) Visit www.ablongman.com/replocator to contact your local Allyn & Bacon/Longman representative. sample chapter The pages of this Sample Chapter may have slight variations in final published form. Allyn & Bacon 75 Arlington St., Suite 300 Boston, MA 02116 www.ablongman.com THE BIG QUESTION • WHAT is the scope of economic anthropology? • WHAT are the characteristics of the five major modes of produc- tion? • WHAT are some directions of change in the five modes of pro- duction? 3 ECONOMIES AND THEIR MODES OF PRODUCTION CULTURE AND ECONOMIES CHANGING MODES OF PRODUCTION Typologies: Modes of Production Changing Economies of Foragers: The Tiwi of Northern Links: Globalization and the World Economy Australia MODES OF PRODUCTION Changing Economies of Horticulturalists: The Mundurucu Foraging of the Brazilian Amazon ■ Unity and Diversity: Hare Indians of Northwest Canada Changing Economies of Pastoralists: Herders of Mongolia and the Importance of Dogs Changing Worlds of Family Farmers: The Maya of Horticulture Chiapas, Mexico Pastoralism Changing Worlds of Industrialists: Taiwanese in South Africa Agriculture THE BIG QUESTIONS REVISITED ■ Lessons Applied: The Global Network of Indigenous Knowledge Resource Centers KEY CONCEPTS ■ Critical Thinking: Was the Invention of Agriculture at SUGGESTED READINGS Terrible Mistake? Industrialism and Post-Industrialism 51 In this chapter we explore how people cross-culturally make a living. This topic fits within the scope of the sub- field of economic anthropology, which is the cross-cul- tural study of economic systems. Economic systems include three major areas: production, or making goods or money; consumption, or using up goods or money; and exchange, or the transfer of goods or money between peo- ple or institutions. This chapter looks at the first area. We review the characteristics of the five major modes of pro- duction, or the dominant way of making a living in a soci- ety, and we consider examples of change in each of these modes, as well as the effects of capitalist globalization. or thousands of years of human life, people made their living by gathering food and other CULTURE AND ECONOMIES basic necessities from nature. Everyone had F This section discusses two aspects of the study of pro- equal access to life-sustaining resources. We now duction in cultural anthropology. The first introduces the live in a rather different cultural world. A woman in major modes of production. These modes provide the Florida recently established the name of the conceptual foundation for all the material that appears in Yanomami, an Amazonian tribe who live in the rain subsequent chapters of this book, so you must know forest in Venezuela, for a web site address she was them well. Second, this section initiates a discussion of auctioning: http://www.yanomami.com for $25,000. how global economic change in recent years, especially When leaders of the 26,000 Yanomami people the spread of capitalism, is affecting local forms of pro- heard about this, they were not happy. Apparently, duction and how cultural anthropologists study such in order to use their own tribal name for their site, changes. they would have to buy it. Private property has moved into the virtual realm. Cultural anthropolo- gists have long studied economic systems cross-cul- Typologies: Modes of Production turally. In this globalizing world, they have to study much more: the new global economy, e-commerce, In their study of production cross-culturally, cultural and how these changes affect economic systems anthropologists have gathered rich data that are then that have existed for thousands of years. placed into analytical categories called modes of pro- duction. Categorizing a certain society as having a par- ticular mode of production implies an emphasis on that type of production and does not mean that it is the only kind of production undertaken. In a given society, not everyone will necessarily be involved in the dominant mode of production. Also, a particular individual may be involved in more than one; for example, a person could be both a farmer and a herder. In most cultures, however, a dominant mode of production exists that ana- lysts use as a basis for classification. These categories blend with and overlap each other, but they are nonethe- less useful as broad generalizations. The modes of production are discussed in order of their historical appearance in the human record (see Fig- ure 3.1). Please note, though, that this continuum does not mean that a particular mode of production evolves into the one following it—for example, foragers do not necessarily transform into horticulturalists—and so on, across the continuum. Nor does this ordering imply any kind of judgment about level of sophistication or superi- ority of the more recent modes of production. Even the 52 FIGURE 13.1 Dental and Retroflex Tongue Positions. (A typical source note for creative art.) INDUSTRIALISM FORAGING HORTICULTURE PASTORALISM AGRICULTURE (CAPITALIST) Reason for Production Reason for Production Production for use Production for profit Consumption level: low Consumption level: high Exchange: sharing-based Exchange: market-based Division of Labor Division of Labor Family-based Class-based Overlapping gender roles High degree of occupational specialization Property Relations Property Relations Egalitarian and collective Stratified and private Resource Use Resource Use Extensive and temporary Intensive and expanding Sustainability Sustainability High degree Low degree oldest system involves complex and detailed knowledge periphery nations. Thus, core nations experience eco- about the environment that a contemporary city dweller, nomic growth and become more wealthy and developed, if transported to a rain forest, would find difficult to learn while periphery nations are trapped in poverty and as a basis for survival. None of these systems of produc- dependency. tion is “frozen in time,” for they have all undergone This chapter examines several modes of production change and indeed are still changing. that, over time, have been increasingly affected by the power and influence of globalization, especially the effects of capitalism. We return to a more in-depth look Links: Globalization and the at how global capitalism interacts with local economies World Economy at the end of this chapter. The spread of Western capitalism in recent centuries The spread of global capitalism has had far-reaching has had far-reaching effects on modes of production that effects on all modes of production. According to one it meets. The intensification of global trade created a social theorist, global capitalism involves world trade in global division of labor, or world economy, in which goods and transfers of labor and resources. It creates a countries compete unequally for a share of the wealth “world-economy” (Wallerstein 1979). Competition among (Wallerstein 1979). The modern world-system is stratified capitalist nations—and socialist nations as well—for mar- into three major areas: core, peripheral, and semiperiph- kets, resources, and labor has led to ever-increasing dom- eral. Core areas monopolize the most profitable activities ination of “periphery” societies by the “core” societies of the division of labor, such as the high-tech service, (Hall 1996). manufacturing, and financial activities, and they have the Core societies specialize in manufacturing, whereas strongest governments, which play a dominating role in periphery nations provide labor and raw materials. Core the affairs of other countries. Peripheral areas are stuck societies tend to have strong governments and play a with the least profitable activities, including the produc- prominent role in the affairs of periphery societies. tion of raw materials, foodstuffs, and labor-intensive Periphery societies have weak governments and are heav- goods and import high-tech goods and services from ily influenced by core societies. This system works to the other areas. They tend to have weak governments and advantage of core nations and to the disadvantage of are dominated, either directly or indirectly, by core coun- CHAPTER 3 ■ Economies and Their modes of Production 53 try governments and policies. Semiperipheral areas stand Successful foraging requires sophisticated knowledge in the middle with a mixture of wealth and power. of the natural environment: how to find particular roots According to this analysis, all areas are equally inter- buried deep in the ground, how to follow animal tracks dependent in the division of labor, but the benefits that and other signs, and how to judge the weather and water accrue from their specialized roles are highly unequal. supply. It also relies on a diverse set of tools to aid in the Core states, with about 20 percent of the system’s popu- processing of wild foods, including nutcrackers, seed- lation, control 80 percent of the system’s wealth and put grinders, and cooking containers. Depending on the envi- out 80 percent of world pollution. In the political sphere, ronment, the main activities of foraging include gather- the core states have increased their economic power and ing such food as nuts, berries, roots, honey, insects, and influence through international organizations such as the eggs; trapping or hunting birds and animals; and fishing. World Trade Organization (WTO), which forces “free Tools include digging sticks for removing roots