Chapter 7 Making a Living

Culture Counts A Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Serena Nanda Richard L. Warms

Making A Living

• Where Have All the Icebergs Gone? • Human Adaptation and the Environment • Major Types of Subsistence Strategies • Bringing It Back Home: Globalization and Food Choice

• Gwich’in People: • Approximately 8000 population; live in small villages spread across the arctic and subarctic tundra and forest • Subsistence • Main source is caribou • Also hunt small animals for their pelts, which they sell for cash • For thousands of years, Gwich’in, Inuit, and peoples of the Arctic hunted large land and sea animals (caribou, polar bear, seal, walrus, and whales) • Cultural and Social organization • Adapted to their environment and foraging strategy • Values emphasize cooperation and mutual aid • Religious rituals provide effective outlets for the isolation and tension of the long, dark, winters • Flexible kinship organization

Ningiqtuq (sharing) – Inuit of Baffin Island • Set of economic practices • Orders the flow of goods and food across individuals, families, and entire communities • No one need go without food or shelter • Subsistence isn’t only about food; it is also about practices that provide individuals security Global Warming • Decreased number of caribou / decreased health of the caribou • Early river thawing causes many calves to drown crossing the rushing rivers • Glacial and snow pockets are disappearing, so caribou must move further north, out of their usual territory; this makes it harder for hunters to find them, and hunting has to begin later in the season than normal • Sea ice that is used as a highway is for dog sleds and snowmobiles is melting • Walruses have tried to climb on white boats, mistaking them for ice floats • Pelts of fox, marten, and other game are thinning, and even seasoned hunters are failing into water that used to be ice

20th Century (and global warning) • Brought significant changes to Arctic subsistence strategies • Combination of cash income and foraging • Other sources of income • Handicrafts/artwork • Tourism • Work for oil corporations • Government subsidies/for some, payments from Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Use modern technology in many ways • Snowmobiles, gasoline, fishing nets, sleeping bags • Many households have modern conveniences that they must have income for

• Problems are being caused from drilling for oil in the Arctic • Many actively fighting the exploitation and destruction of their environment

• “The next generation is not going to experience what we did. We can’t pass the traditions on as our ancestors passed on to us.” • Arctic peoples have shown great flexibility and adaptability

• Many important changes may come not only from environment but from increased presence of government and global corporations – has destructive cultural impact

• The ways societies transform the material resources of the environment into food, clothing, and shelter • They develop in response to: • Seasonal variation in the environment • Environmental variations such as drought, flood, or animal diseases

Subsistence strategies (ways of transforming material resources of the environment into food): • Allow societies to use the physical environment to provide for basic material requirements of life (food, clothing, shelter) • Productivity of any environment is related to the type of technology used to exploit it • Technology enables humans to transform a wide range of materials into sources of usable energy, allowing humans to adapt to many environments; cultural adaptations have resulted in increased populations that have altered the environment (often in unintentional ways)

FORAGING • Fishing, hunting, and collecting vegetable food • Until about 10,000 years ago, humans lived exclusively by foraging. • As tools improved, foragers spread out and developed diverse cultures, arriving to all continents worldwide except Antarctica by 16,000 to 12,500 years ago. • Sets significant limits on population growth and density (the number of people inhabiting an area of land)

• Human groups began to domesticate plants and animals about 10,000 years ago in the Old World, and 1,000 years later in the New World. • Agricultural Revolution • The domestication of plants and animals supported increased populations and sedentary village life became widespread. • Settled and living in one place. • This is also usually accompanied by a rise in population. • Led to establishment of more complex forms of social organization.

• Some groups, however, never made the transition from foraging to agriculture (for a variety of reasons; largely due to environment)

• The Industrial Revolution involved the replacement of human and animal energy by machines. • In a typical nonindustrial society, more than 80 percent of the population is involved in food production; in a highly industrialized society, 10 percent of the people produce food for the other 90 percent. • Has accelerated the environmental degredation and global warming • Societies beginning to appreciate and respect modern- day foragers

• Foraging: Fishing, hunting, and collecting vegetable food • Pastoralism: Food-getting strategy that depends on the care of domesticated herd animals • Horticulture: Production of plants using simple, non-mechanized production • Agriculture: Form of food production in which fields are in continual cultivation using plows, animals, and techniques of soil and water control • Industrialism: The use of machine technology and chemical processes for the production of foods and other goods

Each subsistence strategy: • Supports Population density: The number of people inhabiting an area of land • Has different levels of Productivity: The yield per person per unit of land • Has different levels of Efficiency: The yield per person per hour of labor invested • These criteria lead to characteristic forms of social organization and cultural patterns. • Groups can extend resource base by exchange and trade

• Relies on food naturally available in the environment (hunting, fishing, and gathering) • Does not involve any direct or indirect food production. • Strategy for 99 percent of the time humans have been on earth • Limits population growth, population density, and complexity of social organization (communities of 20-50 individuals) • Requires independence and mobility (seasonal movement to get resources) • Very small proportion of today’s populations are foragers

• Pintupi, of the Gibson Desert of Australia • More typical of foraging than the Inuit • Key to adaptation was use of wide variety of seasonally available plants and animals and their detailed knowledge of the environment • Foraging is reliable but difficult in certain seasons • Diet also includes tubers, fruits, nectars, sap, and edible insects as well as birds, bird eggs, and small mammals • Main constraint is scarcity of water during driest and hottest months

• Climatic changes are extreme • “Hungry Time” is harshest time of year • November, when temperatures continue to rise, sometimes up to 120 degrees • Water and food become less available • If rain has not come by December, foraging stops entirely; people conserve food and water • Heat, stress, and shortage of water prevent entire group from moving to areas where resources may be more available; women, children, and elderly stay at camps while men search for food • Under conditions of starvation, weak individuals may be fed blood from healthier people to get them through the worst weeks

• Involves the care and use of domesticated herd animals and their products. • Is a specialized adaptation to an environment that cannot be used by agriculturalists. • Hilly, dry climate, unsuitable soil; semiarid natural grasslands • Cannot support large human population through agriculture but can support enough native vegetation for animals if they are allowed to range over a large area • Does not require direct competition with other groups for the same resources bc animals are not fed grain that could be used to feed humans • Cattle, sheep, goats, yaks, or camels – all produce meat and milk

Transhumant Pastoralism • Found mostly in East Africa • Men and boys move the animals throughout the year as pastures become available at different altitudes or in different climatic zones. • Women and children (and some men) remain at a permanent village site.

Nomadic pastoralism • The whole population moves with the herds throughout the year. • There are no permanent villages.

• Caring for domesticated animals which produce meat and milk • Involves complex interaction among animals, land, and people • Key to this economy is HERD GROWTH (can’t eat or sell too many; must have balance between needs and future herd production) • Usually involves mixed subsistence strategies to include trade (meat, animals, wool, milk products, and hides) with sedentary neighbors for: • Manufactured goods • Grain products • Has a strong future as a subsistence strategy in large arid and semiarid zones.

• Yarahmadzai of Southeastern Iran • Occupy an arid plateau around 5,000 feet above sea level. • Chief problem is finding adequate water and pasture year round, so move from pasture to pasture according to the seasons • Live in small camps (5 – 20 families) • Disperse and congregate seasonally into large groups. • When season is dry and hot and little rainfall, some migrate to areas served by government irrigation projects to earn money by harvesting grain • Subsist primarily on milk and milk products. • Combine herding with other subsistence strategies seasonally to survive. • Participate in both local and global cash economies.

• Involves production of plants using a simple, non-mechanized technology (like hoes and digging sticks; not draft animals, irrigation techniques, or plows). • Does not use fields year after year, but allows them to recover through lying fallow. • Produces a lower yield per acre and uses less human labor than mechanized agriculture. • Does not produce surpluses for a wider market system with nonagricultural populations. • Has low population densities, usually not exceeding 150 people per square mile. • Horticultural villages are large, though, ranging from 100 to 1,000 people. • Uses a mixed subsistence strategy • Involves the use of several crops • May involve hunting, fishing, or raising domesticated animals • Primarily involves shifting residence as fields are changed, although some groups live more permanently in an area.

• Swidden (slash and burn cultivation): • Practiced in dry lands • Clearing fields by clearing trees and burning the brush • Burned vegetation remains on soil top • To prevent drying out in the sun • To provide fertilizer, returning nutrients to the soil • Fields are used for one to five years and then lie fallow up to 20 years. • Can have a debilitating effect on the environment if fields are cultivated before they fully recover. • However, logging and agribusiness are mainly responsible for disappearance of tropical forests

• Depended on swidden cultivation until 1960s • Cultigens included cotton, corn, upland rice, millet, mustard greens, and other vegetables. • Used a mixed subsistence strategy • Domesticated animals to sell in local markets • Fishing • Trapping, hunting for wild animals • No longer worked well as a subsistence strategy after 1960s because of: • Large influx of immigrants to area who were less careful about their swidden practices; land began to deteriorate • Loss of autonomy over their lands to Thai government. • Today, they are intensive agriculturalists and cattle herders • Increased need for cash economy • Cattle graze on fallow swiddens, leaving few plants for human use • Polluted waters caused by use of irrigation canals • Year-round mosquito infestations and rise in disease

• Production of plants using plows, animals, and soil and water control • Intensive use of human resources • People work hard to make land productive • More capital investment for tools and animals • Cultivation supports higher population densities than horticulture (more food) • Higher productive yields than horticulture • Part of food production is used to support non-food producing occupational specialists

• Greater vulnerability to the environment through: • Crop failure (when relying on one or two crops, this is devastating) • Animals’ disease (affects ability to do agriculture; like draft animals) • Associated with: • Sedentary villages • Rise of cities and states • Occupational diversity • Social stratification • Complex forms of social organization, including the development of a peasant class (rural cultivators who produce subsistence for their households and also are integrated into a more complex state society) • Agriculture is integrated today in a globalized, industrialized economy

• Focus of production is goods and services instead of food • Very small percent of population involved in food production • Investment in technology increasingly important • Has led to explosive changes • Vastly increased population growth • Expanded consumption of resources (especially energy) • International expansion • Occupational specialization • Shift from subsistence strategies to wage labor • Almost all transactions are mediated by money • Philosophy of constant expansion and increase of consumption; material standards must always rise • Places great demands on the environment, more than other subsistence strategies • Development of globalization (integration of resources, labor, and capital into a global network)

Contemporary groups characterized by: • Well-coordinated specialized labor forces • Much smaller elite and managerial classes than in the past • Growing government bureaucracy involved in production • Increased importance placed on: • Mobility • Skill • Education • Generate highest levels of social inequality between: • Individuals because of unequal distribution of resources and opportunities • Nations because of global systems of exchange denominating some nations as suppliers of raw materials and others as manufacturers and consumers

• Industrialism today has outgrown national boundaries. • The result has been great movement of resources, capital, and population, as the whole world has gradually been drawn into the global economy.

Good but disturbing example of Industrialism • Modern-day example of the beef industry in the United States • Prior to WWII, meat production was primarily local – from farmer to neighborhood butcher shop. • Beef became symbol of middle class • As standard of living rose after WWII, so did demand for inexpensive beef • Women working made less time available for cooking and dining together, thus favoring packaged convenience foods and meat that could be quickly prepared; evolved into demand for packaged, convenience meats • Fast food industry greatly increased demand for beef • Industry favored large corporations that could employ mass production technologies. • Cost of labor was a significant factor as meat processors succeeded in driving down wages paid to workers (frequently immigrants)

Led to: • Huge amounts of capital investment in meat industry • Destruction of family farms (by 1980s) • Increasing rural poverty (and resentment of immigrants and social problems increased; strains on health care, schools, and social services) • Migration to urban areas • Disastrous environmental effects • Livestock produces about 900 million tons of waste annually; hog farming (in Iowa) produces 50 millions of tons of waste annually; waste often seeps into local groundwater supplies, polluting critical resources • Higher inputs of chemical fertilizers • Water pollution, soil pollution, air pollution • Assembly line production workers • Unskilled, poorly trained, low pay, difficult and dangerous work

• In the past most of the food choices on our tables were locally grown. • Today, more than half of the fruit consumed in the U.S. is produced in California alone. • In fiscal year 2012, the U.S. imported $105.9 billion worth of food.

• Fruits and vegetables are available year- round from places as far away as India. • This global food network exerts a high price and a high carbon footprint. • The average tomato produces three times as much carbon dioxide than a locally- grown one.

• You decide: • What cultural, social, personal, and other obstacles do you see as standing in the way of or opening possibilities for changes in America’s food habits? • What are some of the changes in American culture and society that might result from changes in America’s food practices?

© 2015. Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. 1. According to archaeologists, the subsistence pattern engaged in for the longest time of human existence is: a) horticulture. b) fishing and farming. c) animal herding. d) foraging. e) village agriculture.

• According to archaeologists, the subsistence pattern engaged in for the longest time of human existence is foraging.

© 2015. Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. 2. Subsistence practices of most world societies are: a) geared to environmental circumstances in the immediate present. b) designed to take into account “extremes” that may occur only occasionally over time (e.g., drought, flooding, temperature changes). c) are so varied between cultures that they cannot be categorized. d) are so specialized that most cultures have been unable to adapt to industrialism.

• Subsistence practices of most world societies are designed to take into account the "extremes" that may occur only occasionally over time (e.g., drought, flooding, temperature changes).

© 2015. Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. 3. Which statement about the American beef industry is NOT correct? a) As the standard of living declined in the U.S. following WWII, so did the demand for beef. b) Beginning in the 1960s, there was an expansion of fast food restaurants. c) The cost of labor is a significant factor in the production of meat. d) Large-scale meat-packing has had disastrous environmental impacts.

• As the standard of living declined in the U.S. following WWII, so did the demand for beef is an incorrect statement.

© 2015. Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. 4. Agriculture is generally associated with all EXCEPT which of the following? a) Sedentary villages b) The rise of cities and the state c) Increase in social equality across the society d) Draft animals, plows, and control of water and soil

• Agriculture is generally not associated with an increase in social equality across the society.