Development Team

Paper No. : 02 Social-Cultural Anthropology Module : 21 Economic Organization Development Team Prof. Anup Kumar Kapoor Principal Investigator Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, Delhi Prof. Sabita Acharya Paper Coordinator Department of Anthropology, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar Content Writer Dr. Abhijeeta Das SCSTRTI, Bhubaneswar, Odisha Prof. A.K.Sinha Content Reviewer Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh 1 Social-Cultural Anthropology Anthropology Economic Organization Description of Module Subject Name Anthropology Paper Name 02 Social-Cultural Anthropology Module Name/Title Economic Organization Module Id 21 2 Social-Cultural Anthropology Anthropology Economic Organization CONTENTS Learning Outcomes 1. Introduction 2. Historical Background of economic organization 3. The Division of Labor 4. Distribution and Exchange 5. Redistribution 6. Economies of Indian tribes Learning Outcomes After studying this module: • You shall be able to learn the economic activity and types of economic organizations through the prehistoric times. • You would be able to know Thurnwald’s classification of economic organization with Indian examples. • You would be able to identify the division of labor by gender and age, exchange of goods and gifts such as the Kula, the Potlatch one of the most famous gift exchange institutions. • In addition to all these cited above, you would also understand the economies of Indian tribes along with three modes of distribution and exchange i.e. reciprocity, re-distribution and market exchange. 3 Social-Cultural Anthropology Anthropology Economic Organization 1. Introduction Like law and politics, economics is an aspect of social organization. Those who conceive economics as essentially concerned with money and prices are on firm logical ground in saying that there can be no society which do not exchange goods for money and so cannot make exact calculations of price. But this is a narrow view of economics as compared to the view of politics which holds that there cannot be politics without the state. There are many wider definitions of this field. Some have called it the science of choice. Economics is concerned with the way people manage their resources (mainly but not entirely material) and particularly the choices they make between different uses of these – ‘the allocation of scarce means to competing ends’. Raymond Firth, a leading student of the economics of small-scale societies, has called it as ‘that broad sphere of human activity concerned with resources, their limitations and uses, and the organization whereby which are brought in a rational way in relation with human wants. 2.Historical Background of economic organization Contemporary primitive economics are very similar to those of prehistoric times. This will be clear when we look at the various types of economic life listed by Thurnwald, some of which concern us directly. They are: 1. Homogeneous communities of men as hunters and trappers, women as collectors. The Kadar, the Chenchu, the Kharia, the Korwa are some of the Indian tribes falling into this category. 2. Homogeneous communities of hunters, trappers and agriculturists. The Kamar, the Baiga and the Birhor are examples of this type from tribal India. 3. Graded society of hunters, trappers, agriculturists and artisans. Most of the tribes in India fall under this category. The Chero and the Agaria, among so many others, are famous artisans. 4. The herdsmen, The Toda and some sections of the great Bhil tribe furnish classic examples in India. 5. Homogeneous hunters and herdsmen. This category is not represented among Indian tribes. The Toda do not hunt, nor do they catch fish or birds. 6. Ethnically stratified cattle-breeders and traders. The Bhotiya, of the sub-Himalayan region of Uttar Pradesh, breed yaks and jibus (cross between yak and cow) and are itinerant traders; they come down to the plains in winter and go up the hills right up to Tibet in summer. 7. Socially graded herdsmen with hunting, agricultural and artisan population. 3. The Division of Labor The development of technology consists essentially in the invention of tools and processes by means of which material goods can be produced in greater quantity and with less physical effort. Along with this goes greater and greater specialization, and a conspicuous aspect of this specialization, as we are 4 Social-Cultural Anthropology Anthropology Economic Organization familiar with it, is that the production of food is left to a small number of people, while the rest exchange for food the reward they get for their contribution to the total product of their society; this may consist in hewing coal, fixing in place some part of a motor-car, programming a computer, or even writing a book. So when we talk of societies in which there is little specialization. In such societies every household expects to provide for itself the essentials of food, clothing, and shelter. Adam Smith pictured the progressive division of labor in a rather simple way. At first, he said, human labor was directed wholly to the production of food. But there is a limit to what people can eat, and so a time came when men’s stomachs were full and there was a surplus of food. This was available to exchange for other material goods, in which, he maintained, there are infinite possibilities of variety insatiable demand. So the division of labor in societies of simple technology is not a matter of the full-time practice of different special skills. For most purposes it rests on differences of age and sex. Children and old people cannot do heavy work; children, though, begin to be taught the work of farming and household work almost as soon as they can start to walk. On the whole it is men who do the work that takes them away from the homestead and as such hunters and herdsmen are men. Division of Labor by Age Division of labor according to age is also typical of human societies. Among the Ju/’hoansi, for example, children are not expected to contribute significantly to subsistence until they reach their late teens. Freed from food taboos and other restrictions that apply to younger adults, they may handle ritual substances considered dangerous to those still involved with hunting or having children. In some food-foraging societies, women do continue to make a significant contribution to provisioning in their later years. Among the Hadza of East Africa, the input of older women is critical to their daughters, whose foraging abilities are significantly impaired when they have new infants to nurse. In many traditional farming societies, children as well as older people may make a greater contribution to the economy in terms of work and responsibility which is common in industrial or postindustrial societies. For instance, in Maya peasant communities in southern Mexico and Guatemala, children not only look after their younger brothers and sisters but also help with housework. Girls begin to make a substantial contribution to the work of the household by age 7yrs or 8yrs. By age two they are constantly busy with an array of chores-grinding corn, making tortillas, fetching wood and water, sweeping, and so forth. Similar situations are not unknown in industrial societies. In Naples, Italy, children play a significant role in the economy. At a very young age, girls begin to take on responsibilities of housework, leaving 5 Social-Cultural Anthropology Anthropology Economic Organization their mothers and older sisters free to earn money for the household. Nor is it long before little girls are apprenticed out to neighbors and kin, from whom they learn the skills that enable them, by age 14yrs, to work in a small factory or workshop. Typically, girls have over their earned wages to their mothers. Boys, too, are apprenticed out at an early age, but they may achieve more freedom from adult control by becoming involved in various street activities which is not so among girls. Division of labor by gender Anthropologists have studied extensively the social division of labor by gender in different cultures. In every culture the way whether men or women do a particular job varies from group to group, but typically work is divided into the tasks of either one or the other. For example, the practices most commonly regarded as “women’s work” tend to be those that can be carried out near home and that are easily resumed after interruption. The tasks historically often regarded as “men’s work” tend to be those requiring physical strength, rapid mobilization of high amount of energy, frequent travel at some distance from home, and encountering of high levels of risk and danger. Some exceptions occur, as in those societies where women regularly carry burdensome loads or put in long hours of hardwork cultivating crops in the fields. In some societies, women perform almost three- quarters of all work, and in several societies they have served as warriors. For example, in the 19th century West African kingdom of Dahomey, in what is now called Benin, thousands of women served in the armed forces for the Dahomean king, and some considered women to be better fighters than their male counterparts. Societies following a segregated pattern define almost all work as either masculine or feminine, so men and women rarely engage in joint efforts of any kind. In such societies, it is conceivable that someone would even think of doing something considered the work of the opposite sex. This pattern is frequently seen in pastoral nomadic, intensive agricultural and industrial societies, where men’s work keep them outside the home for much of the time. In the pattern of labor division by gender, sometimes called the dual sex configuration, men and women carry out their work separately, as in societies segregated by gender, but the relationship between them is balanced complementarily rather than inequality.

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