


S1: okay... let's get started. quiet please. <P :09> the topic of today's lecture is economics. um, and there's a whole subdiscipline of anthropology devoted to the study of economic systems, around the world, and that is called, not surprisingly, economic anthropology. so today's an ec- uh, an introduction to, some of the main issues. as they've been laid out in your text and there's a lot of information there, so i'm gonna, walk you through it. make sure that we get the main points. economic anthropology is defined, in the text, um as the part of the discipline that debates issues of human nature, that relate directly, to the decisions of daily life and making a living. this idea of making a living will come up again and again today. and um, we'll think about what that means to make a living... when we say make a living we're generally talking about, what it requires for us, to, obt- you know, get our subsistence needs taken care of. subsistence being, your basic needs, clothing food shelter, and so, anthropologists use the phrase subsistence strategies for talking about the different ways, humans have come up with m- terms of how to, acquire those things that they need, that we need. so different subsistence strategies have already been introduced to you. we've seen a film and we've we've read a lot about foraging bands, bands being the tribe, the social organization form, foraging mean- being the actual economic activity going on. we've also had some introduction to agriculture, remember the slides that, Professor Kottak showed us, from Madagascar. and how rice agriculture uses, um a form of technology called terracing. so agriculture is another means of acquiring subsistence needs. another one would be pastoralism. we'll talk about that more today in depth. last, week we also heard about the Masai group in East Africa. and many of you have probably seen Masai in ads, in commercials. there was a famous Olympics ad that_ and some Nike commercials that showed Masai. um, and Masai are nomadic herders. pastoralism requires taking care of domesticated animals. and there can be different varieties of that. you can take care of camels, you can take care of cattle, you can take care of sheep goats any of a variety of things... so starting i- and then another mode that_ one that we live in, is industrialism, and i'll talk more about that on Thursday. so, those_ that's one of the ways in which we acquire our subsistence needs. so let's start briefly by going over the three that I mentioned, um three of the four. foraging, as we talked about already this is primarily hunting and gathering, acquiring your needs, pretty directly from nature. so going out, finding the food you need, hunting it, gathering it, and the people in Australia that we, we saw, they are an example of that, people in Southern Africa, people in in the rain forests of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa, these are, areas of the world where you find foraging still in existence. however, due to, vast changes that have gone on in our world, it's very untenable these days, to pursue an exclusively foraging, subsistence strategy. so most foragers now in some way or another, are involved either in food production or trade, in order to acquire things that they need. and the reasons for that, oftentimes are that governments are instituting policies, that restrict the movement, of foragers. if you think about it from a government's perspective, it's very hard for you to have communities within your boundaries that, wanna move all the time and move, and have access to all sorts of land. and, when you have increasing population pressures and this and that, governments find this very problematic. and so they institute land policies that restrict, that create reservations, that restrict the movement, of indigenous groups that would like to use foraging as their main mode of subsistence. so, because of some of these pressures from government policy and, increasing encroachment on their land (by) other agriculturalists and people next to them, we find that foragers cannot, be exclusively reliant on foraging. very few, today. in the book, foragers are also mentioned by, by reference to a very famous anthropologist named Marshall Sahlins. Marshall Sahlins has written a lot about economic anthropology, and he sort of debunked the idea that foragers are the poorest of the poor, that no one would dare want to be a forager because, you're sc- constantly scrounging about, trying to get the basics that you need. and, drawing on the data that, um Richard Lee starts out with in that chapter for the reading for today, Richard Lee shows just how much, food is actually acquired in a very short period of time. and so that in fact, by their own standards, a lot of foraging communities, at the time that Richard Lee was doing this research mind you, in the nineteen sixties, that they were extremely affluent, because they had more than what they needed and more than what they wanted. therefore, Marshall Sahlins took this to understand, that they are the original affluent society because, they have everything they need in abundance. so that we should not look down on them as as being so wholly different and so wholly impoverished in relation to the capitalist, very wealthy West... agriculture is a widespread subsistence strategy that we have in our society as well. um, you could, no one_ i should i should emphasize that, you can have multiple subsistence strategies, within a society. um, one might be more dominant than the others, and it's generally the case, but you can have more than one, in one community. so as i just said the foragers are now mixing foraging, hunting and gathering, with some, basic food production sometimes, and (to) trade. so, as so in our society, we can get, um a bunch of different strategies together. so agriculture is one. we can have very different approaches, to agriculture... one type of agriculture, sometimes called horticulture, is known as shifting cultivation, that means that, you have a community, that, will will um farm some land for a period of time. but after time, the soil becomes depleted, of whatever it is, of the resources needed, nutrients needed for that particular crop. so what will happen is that after a period of time, people will leave that plot alone, and move on, and start another, plot with the same crop. and then they, they're just shi- moving around shifting cultivation. these are called swiddens because, you burn the ground to create a clearing that is used temporarily for agricultural purposes. now that's different from intensive agriculture, wherein the same plot of land is used over and over and over again. so, we have large-scale agriculture here, where families have been living on the same farm for, for decades, and they are, and th- what you have to do in order to maintain the, the quality of the soil, is to use technologies of various kinds to make sure that you're continually rejuvenating the soil. so fertilizers would be one means. um, in Madagascar, the rice terraces are ways of creating, a continual rich soil with a mix of water and mud. and so there're different ways in which_ also um, intercropping, i think i put that up there, intercropping is a strategy used in parts of the world, and in parts of Africa where i've worked, where you will, you will plow, i mean sorry you will um plant different crops within the same field. so that you might have beans, and in between the beans you'll have y- yams, and the reason being is that they would draw different nutrients from the soil, when you've got different things so, that is a way of maintaining the health of your soil. so there're different strategies that people have come up with, for dealing with, intensive permanent agriculture, which is different from, the shifting cultivation, that i described previously. <P :19> now the third form that i mentioned is pastoralism. and, this i- nu- the example i'm gonna draw on today is the Masai-speaking, Maa-speaking communities of East Africa. the Masai are not the only people who speak the Maa language, there are at least four other groups, the Samburu, the Ariaal, the Chamus, and the (Uparkulu,) who also speak Maa languages. and they're slight variants in the, dialects of the same language. but they're mutually intelligible so a Samburu can go to a Masai community and speak with people and be understood and similarly be understood by them. so, the Maa speakers_ i mean, first of all, pastoralism, as i said is is having nomadic peoples who move with their animals, and are free to follow their animals, to better grazing areas or water sources, and so they're very mobile like the foragers. and their whole life is oriented around, whatever animal it is that they_ or groups of animals that they take care of. so animal husbandry is what designates pastoralism as a as another subsistence strategy. so the Maa speakers <P :06> as you can see uh this is a map of Kenya, and then down below is Tanzania, and the Maa are the_ the Ariaal you see them in the middle, Samburu... the Ariaal the Samburu, Masai you see Masai come all the way down into Tanzania. um, and these are the communities that speak the Maa language. so it's spread over a wide area. now as i said, you've probably seen, pictures of Masai this being one, that appears oh, can you even see that? <P :04> in some local magazines this is current i- i just took it out about a month ago. and they an- the Masai are famous, they're sort of the iconic representative of noble savage. i'll talk about that in a little bit <P :05> so like foragers, pastoralists are under, considerable pressures, those from governments and from neighboring groups. because of the the need they have to continually move. and this is problematic if you're a farmer nearby and you don't necessarily want a a group of Masai coming through with their cattle to trample your fields. you can see how that would create a conflict of interests in terms of how land is aprop- uh used and allocated. um... nation-states are also cro- are concerned with boundaries and who, are their citizens. so if you have as i showed you on the map, the Maa, the Maasa- Masai straddle, they are found both in Kenya and Tanzania. when the nation-state boundaries were determined, no one paid any mind to who lives where. and so the boundary cut through, Masai territory. as a result, you have Masai i- in Kenya, and in Tanzania who consider themselves part of the same group, and they feel that they ought to have the right to go back and forth as they always have, for, for years and years and years. and so the creation of this, essentially in their minds artificial boundary that they have to have a paper in order to cross, is another conflict of interest between state and, Masai groups. so, policing their boundaries, these are some of the pressures that they face, today. another pressure is the creation of national parks. i would venture to say that, there are two images that are dominant in our media, about Africa, and one is of starving malnourished, war-ridden human communities, very negative portrayals of humans. we're seeing a lot of that in terms of the Mozambique crisis. it's true, but it's just the dominance of it in the media. and secondly, beautiful positive images of animals, so that you wanna go on safari and this and that. so you have the two images that come out in Af- of Africa. um, so the creation of national parks to feed this Western desire to be able to go to beautiful places and see animals like giraffes and lions, in their natural habitat, is something else that is a relatively recent development. and that has also entailed another pressure placed on the Masai communities because that's exactly where they live. and so, when governments go in, they wanna cordon off an area and say this is only, for the use, exclusive use of tourists. then of course that eats away again, at traditional grazing areas that the Masai have always used. so that's yet another pressure. a third is the creation of commercial ranches. the government has decided that there is indeed profit to be had from, raising cattle. and so_ but the problem is the Masai don't necessarily want to do all the things that, the government wants 'em to do. so all the, sort of the medicines, that the government would have you give to your cattle to ensure, whatever, you know, good growth and, quality of beef. these are not things that Masai are totally interested in, in terms of technological, um investment in their in their cattle. they have different ideas, that have worked for them for centuries, on how to raise cattle. so they don't necessarily want these in- these uh um sort of uh, problems from the government as they see them. so, commercial ranches so now the government has decided to, uh um create an environment where people are invited to invest and create big large-scale ranches for the keeping of cow- cattle, and that that will follow the government's guidelines in terms of, vaccinations and this and that and the other. um, so again now you have commercial ranches competing for the same land, that the Masai have always used. and then finally large-scale agriculture. there are new, um new developments in terms of the creation of large-scale wheat farms and coffee plantations and all sorts of things, that again are another, threat to Masai grazing areas. so between all of this, the Masai are having a difficult time, trying to be able to maintain their pastoral way of life, because there's always encroachment, on the land that they need, to follow their cattle around. and mind you, Africa is a very difficult environment to live in. i'm gonna show you some pictures of it. but it's very arid, this area of Kenya that was on the map. very arid and dry, and, there's a rainy season and a dry season. so you have to move, in accordance with the seasons. when it's the dry season you have to go to the few areas that you know of, where there's a constant supply of water. and, during the rainy season you have more opportunities to go elsewhere and take advantage of different grazing areas. so, because of the environment, they have to have that mobility, and that mobility is increasingly infringed upon, by these, different factors... now Masai have, also a problem dealing with the prob- the issue of land, because they, they don't conceive of, land as being owned individually. so when the government gives plots, tracts of land to commercial ranches, or to large-scale agriculturalists, they_ i mean, for Masai, you can own cattle individually. a person can identify a cow that belongs to him or her. but the idea of land as being owned by a person, is is somewhat foreign. and so, that's another conflict because, they think that, how can you own this land? this is something we've been using for for decades. and who are you to say that we cannot have access to this water hole that we've always taken our cattle to since my grandfather and his grandfather, etcetera. so, the idea of land as being owned individually, is problematic because they don't have land, a conception of private ownership of land. they do have it for cattle. it's not that they don't know what private ownership is, but they just don't apply that principle to the ownership of land. so they therefore are not totally respectful of the idea of other people owning land. so that's another problem. now Professor Kottak told you that, Masai have these named age sets. and they, they occur for about a seven-year period. just as uh, the example of graduating class of whatever, you are, you are moving through a four-year span of time with your age set. uh, Masai groups, and Samburu, and Ariaal, and all the, neighboring communities that engage in this have seven-year span groups. so, any boy that is born within the same seven-year period of time, will be a member of that age set. and will go through circumcision together. so that it's not that they're all age thirteen, and they can range from, whatever, nine to sixteen. and they'll be in an age set and they'll undergo circumcision together. and these are very intense, intense groupings, sodalities, because they live together, they they they, more than sibling rela- or as close if not more so than sibling relationships in America. because this is the, this is a progression. male age-grades begin, you begin as a boy, and then, once you're circumcised you are initiated and you are called a moran. the plural form of that is, morani. okay? and so, once you become a warrior, you are sent out with the cattle. and you live away from your parents and away from the community. and you all live together out in the bush. and you're taking, you're following the cattle around, while people stay back at home. and, so because of that intense, isolation an- an- and bonding that goes on, these people see themselves as creating for the rest of their lives. and they have a name attached to their group. after being a moran, they then graduate to being a junior elder. at which point they can marry. and then after a period of being a junior elder they then ultimately become a senior elder. so these are the four stages through which, the four age-grades that, a- any given age set will pass through. women, pass through a different set. they start as young girls, are then thought of as adolescent girls, where they are (a) marriageable age, at which point once they get married, then they are married woman, and then the, the giving of birth, catapults them into the, most honored esteemed status, which is that of mother. and that's the highest status for them. um, they also thought of as elders but it's not, a formalized, thing as it is for the men... um <P :05> with all these pressures from government policy etcetera, you h- the same communities in this area are all suffering under the same pressure. so moran are a foraging community. Rendille, Ariaal, Samburu, these are all, nomadic pastoralists, Gabra i think are another foraging community Turkana are, also nomads. so all these communities which traditionally have been unfettered in their movements, now are having to negotiate all these problems with ranches and government policies etcetera. so, because of all these increasing pressures on them from outside external forces, it has led to an increase of conflict from within, so that they are not competing with each other for the scarce_ access to land that's now available. so there's an increased amount of, also conflict between these communities. um, as i said that_ you often see the, Masai used in in advertisements and in Hollywood films, and that's because they represent for people the Africa that, people think of as lost. cuz when you're just getting this barrage of negative negative human misery coming out of Africa, you wanna look to something and cling to something as somehow noble and, above all that. um, somebody just wrote to me yesterday from South Africa, about the efforts going on in Mozambique. and, for every helicopter that has been sent over as aid, to pick up people, pluck people from the water, and i'm sure you've seen some of the pictures of that. for every helicopter that's there plucking people out of the water, there are two helicopters of journalists. and how many people did any of those helicopters pluck? not a one. so, this this emphasis on past_ recapturing the misery and capturing_ and and spreading it around the world, is overwhelming. with regard to Africa. so the one sort of, refuge away from that misery, is to have a picture, something to look up to as noble and honorable. and so, but in the process, the image gets corrupted somewhat. and so we're gonna see that right now. excuse me? okay. just to give an example. <P :13> how many of you saw that movie? don't see it the rest of the you who haven't it's pretty bad. [SU-M: oh ] <SS LAUGH> unfortunately, though i have to say that i worked on that film, so the few lines of Swahili that you heard, Michael Douglas attempt to say there, was uh a result of my my great effort, but what can i do? the man wouldn't learn it. um, <SS LAUGH> anyway, i have a lot of problems with this film for a variety of reasons, and it was not presented to me in the manner in which it eventually emerged, um else i would have not have gotten involved but that that scene, is very illuminating of how, Hollywood distorts images. and i will get back to economic anthropology. but just, but this this ties into our discussion on Thursday too, of world systems, and and how the rest of it is involved with quote unquote the rest. but that that scene was the first scene where the Samburu, and this is the Samburu, although the script called for Masai, and you heard them afterwards refer to them as Masai they are in fact Samburu. they would take umbrage at the idea that they were being presented as Masai. they weren't they didn't, i don't think they've seen the film. <SS LAUGH> but anyway, they are Samburu. <LAUGH> and, um, they were flown in because Hollywood had a contact with Samburu, it did not have a contact with Sam- with the Masai. there was another film called The Air Up There, some of you may have seen, which had a Samburu community in it, and so because they knew these people, they said hey. we'll take advantage of them again, close enough, almost like the Masai. so brought them in, and um, i was asked to talk to Michael Douglas about this scene because he had this vision in his mind of how_ what he wanted this scene to d- to be when he arrives, it's his arrival scene and it's their arrival scene as well. and so he said to them, he said okay look. Carrie, i want this thing. i want, to say something, and then they all call some battle-cry response, and then they and they're jump out of the, out of the grash out of the grass. so i'm like well, you know, uh i, why don't i talk to them and see if they have such a thing as a quote unquote battle cry? i mean you could see the re- the the references to Westerns right? what was this, it's like pow <SS LAUGH> when, when they, when they come up, out of the out of the grass. i mean the, some of the cliched lines and stuff, i won't go into that. but, he wanted them to say, he wanted to scream something out and there would be this response, and so i talked to them and i said well, you guys what, what would you say, is there such a thing as a call and response thing that might go on here? and, they thought and they thought and they thought, well what about, we are moran? we are, moran, what if he just calls us warriors, you know this is what we are. and almost all of those young men were indeed from the moran age-grade. so, he s- so he does that. he says, morani. which is the plural form of the moran. and they said, okay that's good now we've got that covered. but what would sh- would we respond? and i th- and th- they thought and they thought, and finally one person said, well you know if someone calls you and you're startled by that, you would say <GRUNTS> <SS LAUGH> and so, what if we just did that, like we we're sort of surprised that he called us? and so i said well, i don't know, okay let's try that, so we go onto the set, and they had kept the Samburu away, like at a twenty-mile distance from anyone else, on the cast and crew, and, we were kept at like, i w- i was with them because i was the interpreter. and we were kept, segregated and i didn't realize really quite why that was, until we shot this scene which was the first scene and what struck me was that the cameras were not oriented_ the first setup of the cameras was not on the Masai, Samburu, but in fact on everybody else. and what i realized afterwards was what_ we were being kept apart because they wanted to capture as true as possible a sense of shock and amazement at the exotic Samburu, on everyone else's faces so Val Kilmer and all the people in the crowd were supposed to be totally shocked by the sight of us. because it would be truly, indeed the very first time that they would see any of the Samburu. and so all th- all the the orientation of the cameras was a big clue. so anyway, so they shot the scene several times, he calls morani. they jump up out of the grass, they ran forward, they stood in a line and then they said <GRUNTS> in unison. and so then you could see, Michael Douglas wasn't quite satisfied with that, and he sat and talked with the director and they thought they thought like well, what if you sustained that? what if you kept going with it for a little bit? can we try that? so, everyone gets back in the grass, they crouch down, everyone c- the director calls action, whatever. and they come running up forward and they stand in the line and all start they start doing this again, <GRUNTS THREE TIMES> which would be like if we were to cough extendedly or hiccup extendedly, or something, <SS LAUGH> this is not, what they do. completely concocted. anyway. more on that later. but, what i wanna do, is show you, images of of what their life really truly, is like. and i wish that, i had these on slides because i think it would do better justice to them, but we'll just have to suffer with it. wait... come back here for a second, to show you what, the area that i'm talking about. Samburu area is here. and (Marawal) is the main center, where t- where S- Samburu come to trade and to buy the few things that they need from stores and stuff like that. so downtown (Marawal) looks, like this. you can see the brightly colored shops, there will be a mixture of people because it's a trading post, so not only Samburu but people from all over, who come and open up shops. you can see the, the imbrication, and the coming together of different subsistence strategies. so within (Marawal) you have this n- the pastoralist, Samburu, but you also have, shopkeepers, who are engaged in in market exchange... just a close-up. you can see some of the, the tins that are hanging from the the rooftop there... if ever you wanted_ wondered, yes there is a Hard Rock Cafe <SS LAUGH> you can't see that very well, but it does indeed say Hard Rock Cafe. <P :07> these are some cloth vendors. now, w- in the pictures that you'll see of Samburu and Masai, they have very strict color combinations of what they will and will not wear. and men are are wearing a lot of red, women wear a, wear a lot of, blue. so certain uh, as you see the_ that's not very clear. <P :04> here you can see a Samburu woman, who is now, because of the the problems with pastoralism, starting to engage in other activities. they, when these Samburu came down for the film, they were actually selling their beadworks because they realized a lot of Westerners were really into that. so you know, they they they know how to exploit the market, as well. <P :08> so coming out of (Marawal) now you see the arid environment in which they actually, do their herding and it's it's a very challenging environment. it's extremely extremely dry at times. this is called an acacia tree, which is, no movie about Africa can be without an acacia tree... and here we're going into an area that is a li- bit more lush. <P :07> now the Rendille who are an neighboring group, they herd camels. in addition to goats, in addition to cattle. they've decided, that it's better to diversify your your basket, not don't don't put all of your eggs in one basket. so they have camels and different things because they d- if if a certain disease were to hit one of their animals then they still have the other ones. Masai are pretty much, exclusively into cows. Samburu like, will mix cows and goats, but they don't deal with camels. so that's another one of the differences, between these groups. what exactly they, they domesticate. <P :06> so you can see here, a Rendille child, herding his camels... and here's a Samburu child herding some goats. <P :14> now we're gonna trace some house structures, this is a Borani hut. the Boran again are m- more foraging people, and so look, what you notice about this is that, their kraal is really, um that that sort of, very, sort of um, not terribly, involved, fencing because they're gonna pick up and move, not long afterwards. their grass_ their um their houses are made of grass. it's very um easy to take apart and very easy to construct. Samburu are more, settled than that. they move, but generally what would happen is that, the elders (will) stay in a (Boran) homestead, and the young boys, the morans, the warriors, will take the cattle and and and move around with the cattle. but you do have the elderly people and the women and the children staying, primarily in a kraal. and kraal is their homestead, the the area in which they keep their goats. when the when the people come back, from having gone around grazing... another Samburu homestead. <P :07> you can see the construction, it's much more detailed, involved, than the Borani... there's a woman gathering, wood. <P :06> now you see, these are morans. and, they're identifiable because they always walk around with three weapons. they must have a spear, they must have a knife, that is s- s- is um, tied around their waist, and they have a walking stick, which they call a wuru which is generally under one arm. so, when they come to visit somebody, they'll put the spears in the ground, and they'll and they'll start socializing that way. <P :04> now this is the cattle market. um, i was with these guys after the film, and helped to accompany them back home and pay them, and so, first thing they did with their money was to go to a cattle auction, and buy more cows for their commun- for their families. cows is how they, they have their wealth. that's how they measure wealth. and whereas we, you know consider money our our staple form of wealth, and you accrue it in your bank account, cows are like their, bank account. the more cows you have, the more security you have against hardship down the line. so here's people sitting around looking at the cows that are for sale and trying to decide, which ones they wanna, bid on... and, the beadwork is another identifying factor that distinguishes one group, from another. um, the color combinations they use in their beads. there's a distinctly Samburu beadwork patterns, that's different from the Masai, it's different from Rendille. so they can tell by looking at that, which community you're from. <P :04> now just the fact that there's an auction, shows that again, there's some market exchange going on. and school has been introduced, and so Samburu youths are now going to school. just like most other children in Kenya. <P :04> and you can see the beadwork on on women. women aqui- cumulate these beads all through their lives and they never take them off. the idea is that they'll never take 'em off. and so, it gets increasingly bigger at two points in your life, when you're older, after you've been around for quite awhile, and when you're about to get married, is when you'll be given a lot of beads by your older female relatives. so when you get to this age and then you start giving your beads away to the young girls who are about to get married... this was one of our actors, um, come back home. <P :10> and... if i don't wanna_ this one with Ruby it's just a nice, particularly nice picture. okay, so this is, this is the Samburu life that truly exists, not the one that you'd see depicted in any sort of film. and <P :05> i wanna get back to the idea of making a living because <P :06> some anthropologists have droted(sic) that_ one anthropologist, um, Brenda Williams, has talked about the difference between making a living and making life. and what does she mean by that? cuz she's doing her research in a in a community in Guyana, it's in Central, America. and, she talks about how different groups talk about each other in these terms. so for instance, Indian shopkeepers, who are the people who have started most of the shops in this community. they are talked about as being very very good at making a living, but not terribly good at making life. and what that is from the outside, it looks, for people who, are not as devoted to, shopkeeping and all the work that that entails, people say, they work all the time. they're just they're just working all the time. and so they don't have time to actually live life. they're too busy making a living. and so, she draws that distinction that, making a living is, defined as a person's industry skill or ambition, all of which result in material w- awards. the things that requires, whereas making life is, your interest in socioeconomic well-being of, others as well as your own. so that some people place, more emphasis on one, rather than the other. and the ideal, is that you should be able to balance them. we'll come back to that. so, in the book, they, let's see identified that there're, what's often talked about in the literature is three phases of economic activity, production, distribution and consumption. and i wish that i had a better computer i could actually it's kind of a circle, because what people consume, feeds back into the production, and that gets more complicated than that, you could draw lines back and forth between the distribution. how things are distributed may, increase consumption or decrease consumption, as opposed to, you know, there's that's much more complicated than just a simple, production distribution consumption linear, progression. the production means the transformation of raw materials taken out of nature, and created into products that we find useful. distribution is the allocation of goods, and services. and the consumption is the use of goods and services. oftentimes, the definition ends there. but the book is making a point that you cannot just end it there. and so they continue the, definition as saying consumption is not only the use of goods and services for human survival, but as well as, to communicate human tha- cultural values. because we have to start accounting for, the differences that come up. why in that same region of Kenya, are there pastoralists, and foragers, and agriculturalists, and shopkeepers? you can't say that, it's just for human survival, i mean if there was just one way of surviving, then we'd all be doing, pretty much the same thing. but there're, we've all found different ways. and we value those different ways and we, they have meaning for us. so what is it about consumption that also talks about culture, cultural values? <P :10> and mythological theories, have tended to focus one of these over the other. and, we're gonna look through those, but after you've had your break. so stand up and stretch for three minutes and we'll come back to the different types of data.
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S2: did you, make those slides (on the) transparencies (xx) how did you (manage to) do that? 
S1: i did (xx) [S2: they're nice. ] a little bit easier than flipping through the [S2: yeah, ] carousel. [S2: right. ] it's a bit problematic when you've got so many slides. 
<P :08> 
S2: you know i was planning to uh, (xx) under the new (xx) and one of the things that i noticed was that the transparencies were (xx) which was (xx) know how to do that, you have to send the form. do you know how_ did you turn in the form? 
S1: (i mean) only on paper. i don't think that you can, i think you'd need a color LaserJet. because that probably (isn-) 
S2: no, i've got a color DeskJet at home.
S1: (oh okay) can you make regular transparencies on that? 
S2: well no, i apparently (xx) black ones (and there all) they did the transparencies. so i've got a LaserJet, so i've been using the LaserJet to produce the uh, the transparencies, but i don't have a color LaserJet. 
S1: because the LaserJet sort of, puts, puts things on 
S2: well what do you do? do you take uh? how do you make th- these from (slides?) do you take these to (Kinko's?) 
S1: well, no these are a few pictures from Guyana, so these are some of the pics- (xx) (you drop off your pictures) (xx) but you can, like the one on the ad, [S2: mhm ] i took that to Kolossus. you can make color 
S2: you took that where? 
S1: Kolossus? 
S2: mhm. [S1: (xx) ] (you just took the ad down there then. it seems like something) i mean you must, you must be able to scan slides so that they uh, but then how do you get 'em on, (xx) 
S1: (xx) just use, P- PowerPoint now. she scans pictures in and then she has them in the computer, and and then projected them (xx) [S2: no, i don't know ] i don't know how to do that yet. 
S2: i know (xx) 
<SHOWING OVERHEAD DURING TALK> 
S1: okay we start with, we start with the middle of that line i introduced excuse me... so if you start looking at production distribution consumption, we're starting in the middle at distribution. and the theories that have arisen out of th- examination of distribution, is called exchange theory. exchange being another way of thinking about, distributing things. so, for a period of time, exchange theory was what dominated, early anthropolo- economic anthropology. because it was seen, it was it was theorized in response to what what then the dominant, economic model. which is neoclassical economic theory, as emblemized by, Adam Smith. and the book goes into that um, what what neoclassical economic theory is, that it's th- emphasis on the free market, as the motor of capitalism, that it's free because there are no traditional restrictions, determining, how things are distributed, in previous times, you know only nobles could get certain things, and some thing- there were there were d- restrictions on, how things could be distributed. now the free market is free because those rest- restrictions, supposedly don't exist. that prices fluctuate in response to the laws of supply and demand, um, that the market determines levels of production, and consumption. all this should be familiar to you, and, capitalism is the only form of economic rationality. well, the logical extension of that, of course is that, noncapitalist societies are irrational and that is something that, we do not accept. so in trying to promote that the response to this dominant paradigm... anthropologists came up with the idea of exchange theory. and, they were called substantists, substantivists excuse me. they were responding to people called formalists. formalists are there were some people within anthropology who did find that neoclassical economic theory was applicable, to noncapitalist societies, um, but substantivists rejected that claim, in saying that it's not applicable, you have to understand each society's economic system on its own basis. and so they say that, there's more than one possible economic rationality. that contrary to capitalist thought everything, does not have a price and is not for sale. that the self-interested materialism of Western capitalism, is not universal. and that trying to force non-Western economies into these Western models, irrespective of fit, is doomed to failure. because you're just you're you're imposing this. moreover they point out that the capitalist market is a relatively recent invention in the history of, humanity, and that it is not the only mode of exchange. so that noncapitalist societies have alternate modes of exchange, and they di- distribute goods in accordance with their cultural values. so, the, what goes into some examples of what these kinds of exchange are, um, in broad sweeping_ to paint it_ sweeping terms, you can you can think about it this way. that, in the West, wealth is measured by how much we consume. the house you live in, the car you drive, the clothes you wear, the number of C-Ds you have in your collection, etcetera etcetera etcetera. we ch- that's how, that's the mark o- of how wealthy someone is. how much you consume, how much you can consume. but in other parts of the world, as in Africa, and in the Northwest Coast, wealth is seen by how much you give away. that the true mark of a wealthy man, is how m- is that he can give tons of money away, gifts, you know, he can constantly give things away. so it's not the consumption but the distribution, that is the marker of wealth. so Marshall Sahlins identified three modes of exchange. in saying that, there's an alternative to the West, he c- had to come up with some alternatives. so these are, reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange being what the the West is famous for... so there are three kinds, of reciprocity, according to Marshall Sahlins. and these are, generalized reciprocity, which is where you give something with no expectation that it will be returned immediately, anytime soon... second thing is balanced reciprocity, and the example in the book was at, Christmas time, when you give gifts but you also expect to receive gifts. so, that's balance. when there's an equal exchange, when an exchange is made with the expectation that, there will be a a return to you within a prescribed period of time. so that's called balanced reciprocity. and the third one is negative reciprocity, the attempt to get something for nothing. so haggling at the market, that's if you wanna go that far. that's called negative reciprocity... redistribution is the second mode of exchange. and that is where, a central organization or a central person and the example was, the IRS, as an organization. the example of a person in a chiefdom would be a chief, who, accepts contributions from everybody in a society and then redistributes it, according to the needs, of everyone in society. so redistribution, is another form, of exchange. so as you can see these two, reciprocity and redistribution, are not in keeping with the capitalist mode. i mean there's no prices involved, um, al- the things that go on with market exchange are, do not apply. so, potlatch is something that appears in the Northwest Coast, of North America. and, that's a very famous example that anthropologists have used, to talk about, redistribution as a mode of exchange. because that's where, some noble in in this_ these Native American communities will take a lot of wealth and just give it away, or burn it, you know just, get rid of it. but, a lot of it is giving it away. and so that's seen as, irrational, or like that like he's not getting any profit from this_ why would someone do that? why would they take all their wealth and just give it all away? but that's because, in part, people who, who are confused by that are seeing wealth, and profit in singularly material terms. so that, if if if wealth is only the things that you have, then it's hard for you to understand how you can still be wealthy after you've given all that stuff away. but in other societies, wealth is measured by many different things, so you can get prestige, you can raise your status in society by having done that which is worth more than things, the dishes and the pots and everything else that you've just given away and redistributed to everybody. so, a potlatch is an example, a very famous example of redistribution. another example would be rotating credit associations. these are found all over, the world. and that's where an- i- particularly strong in women's groups. um and my experience again in Africa, has has led me to see how these things work. a rotating credit association is where, a group of women will get together. and mind you, you know life is hard. and so, your daily needs, your your daily income, whatever you do, generally just about covers what your daily needs are. and there's often not a lot of surplus there. so when a big expense comes along, like you need a new roof, or, your child needs the school fees to be paid, something big, or y- you have somebody who's getting married and you know that that's gonna be a major expenditure. when something big comes along, that often cripples the the little, person. i me- i don't mean b- but, someone who doesn't have access to a lot of wealth. so, what rotating s- credit associations do, is that they pu- you get together, with a group of your friends, people who you trust, and everyone puts in, a certain amount of money every month. and one person gets to walk away every month with the whole lump sum. and you'll plan it out, like as as you get together a woman will say, you know in October i'm gonna need to pay my scon- you know my son's school fees. and, another woman will say well, and then in November, my daughter's getting married. so, it will be planned so that somebody, everyone benefits from getting a big lump sum of money that they wouldn't be able to build themselves, on a daily basis. so that's another way of distributing, funds. in East Africa you have these things called dance societies as well, where purportedly the idea was people get together and enjoy life, and that this is a form of entertainment, getting together and dancing, and performing at weddings and stuff like that. but another thing, those societies served as self-help s- organizations too. people would come together and would help out, contribute their labor, and contribute money and gifts, for big events. so funerals and weddings being the primary two. so that if you had such an event in your family, you n- you could depend on your your dance society to come in, and show up on these required day, and be there to help cook, be there with all the extra plates you're gonna need to distribute the food, and be there to contribute money, for, all the other additional costs, that are entailed. so dance societies also serve this function, for redistributing wealth... and i put here secret societies with a question mark in America because, we have such things. and, and it's a way of maybe not distributing money so much as distributing contacts, getting, getting knowledge out about different people and, leads in to jobs and stuff like that. that can be seen as a redistribution as well, redistribution of knowledge and services and contacts. <P :08> market exchange then is the final form, of exchange, that is discussed in the book. and Karl Pulanyi is most famous for being associated with that and defining capitalism, as an exchange of goods, so trade, calculated in terms of a multipurpose medium of exchange and standard value, I-E, money. and carried on by means of a supply-demand price mechanism, I-E, the market. so these are the, these are the defining features of capitalism. and then i said before, different modes of exchange can coexist in a single society, but one general (resource) is the primary mode of operation, so that when we say capitalist, West, or capitalist America, we know that these other things occur. there are gifts, we give gifts to each other, we have reciprocity too, we also redistribute, we have that too, but the dominant mode that drives our economy as a nation, is, the market. and so therefore we are considered a capitalist society. other societies will lend weight to, something else, so in, in the Samburu community i showed you, you see people involved in trade. um, there might be some, some agriculture there too, i i haven't seen it in the Samburu but, you know there's different ways of, you you combine strategies to, to get by. now the second_ so, if we've done distribution, the middle, the middle point in that, equation, we move backward now, the next thing that came, to be very popular in anthropology is production theory. and this was, generated as a result of interest of the writings of Karl Marx. who, should be familiar to you. now Marx is, is is ve- is very famous for having recognized, and placed importance and emphasized, in human labor. so that the piece of paper that i'm holding up, is composed of pulp from wood. but, if you just see it, if you just attach its value to the value of the wood, you'd be off because what made it into paper, is not the wood but_ so much as the labor involved in taking the wood, and mashing it up, and treating it with chemicals, etcetera and pressing it. all that labor involved that that resulted in these pieces of paper. so the labor is what transforms, the natural resources, the raw materials, and takes them and creates products out of them. and the labor is often, ignored, when people are attaching prices to things. they look at, the components of something and so that's why um, he s- he seems very revolutionary for emphasizing that we need to take account, of the human labor involved, in production. he also focused on how labor links human groups. it's not a singular individual activity. it's something that we do together, and not only links us to each other but it links us to the material world. cuz that's what we're dealing with. we're taking these things from the world around us, and transforming them. so, that labor is this thing that can create, solidarities. <P :13> people sometimes get bogged down in the terminology associated with Marxist thought. so a way to think about it, is that he talks about the means of production. the means of production are the things you need, to do, the production, the act of production. so, in the case of paper you need your wood, you need your machinery to cut down wood, you need the chemicals involved in treating the wood, you need the pressers to press it into paper. all those things are means of production. and the knowledge, including the knowledge, that goes into, knowing how to transform wood into paper. so, it's this tools the skills the organization, and the knowledge, used to to extract an energy from nature. in a por- in addition to that, you have the relations of production. now, i said labor links, p- people together and creates social groupings, so what are the relationships between groups, um that link people either to the natural materials, or to each other, or to the tools in the means of production? what are the relationships between, all the people in this process? so if you take the means of the production in, conjunction with the mo- with the, relations of production, the sum total is what you will, see as the mode of production, for a given s- community. and that, as defined by Eric Wolf, is a specific, historically occurring, set of social relations through which, labor is deployed, to wrest energy from nature, by means of tools, skills, organizations and knowledge. so you see in his definition he says, the social relations, combined with, the means of production. so, that's what Karl Marx's, um, having, been able to break down, economic relations into these different components. <P :09> now Marx theorized at least eight different forms of_ modes of production. we're not gonna deal with all eight here, just gonna talk about four. one of them is the kin-ordered mode of production. the kin-ordered mode of production is where labor is deployed on the basis of kinship relations. so for instance, foragers, we saw that in the bands they're generally bands composed of family members, so that that people have s- prescribed tasks within the band, as to what they're going to do, the economic activities they're going to do. so that's a, that's an example of a kin-ordered mode of production. another one would be, peasant farmers, if you think of the family farm, where everyone on the farm, again, is assigned specific tasks. so that would be another example, of a kin-ordered mode of production. uh, tributary mode of production, is where the producer is allowed access to the means of production, but required to give tribute in exchange. lemme give you an example of that. think of feudal times, um a feudal lord (he could) have peasants working on his land. those peasants could produce for themselves as well, they had access to the means of production, the means in that case being the land, the seed, whatever tools they needed, so they had access to the means of production, but they had to pay a certain amount of it back to, th- to um, to somebody else. so they had to give tribute. okay? another example would be chiefdoms, where you have that, where people give t- bring tribute, they'll harvest their own plots of land, they'll have their plots of land, but then the, at the end of the harvest they'll come and they'll give a certain portion of that over to the chief, who will store it for times of need for everybody else. so that's where the redistribution comes in. people bring in, they give tribute to the chief, the chief stores it in times of need, he pulls out the extra stores of food, and <NOISE DISTURBANCE> (xx) distribute that. so, the tributary mode of production is another, variety. the capitalist mode of production is where, you know, Marx has done a lot of work. and it has three defining features. first of all, the means of production are owned by, the capitalists. so that, in a factory if you're given, as an example, the factory's owned by somebody who would then be called, in Marxist terms, the capitalist. workers do not own the means of production, and they must sell their labor to the capitalists in order to survive. so they are disenfranchised from the means of production, uh factory workers don't own any share of that and so that, they're just, they're selling their labor. the company's buying their labor. and finally, that worker's labor translates into profits, a surplus of wealth, for the capitalist. so Marx analyzed this whole set of relationships, and these are, and this evolves t- people get the social relationships between the capitalists and the workers, and the means of production owned by the capitalists and not the workers, that together, those sets of constraints, means that you have a capitalist mode, of production. and then Marx theorized, the creation of, uh an ideal form, in his mind a mode of production would be the socialist mode, wherein everybody in society would own all the means of production, and that would be the ideal. we know, we know from history that some communities and nations have tried to do that and not fail- and not, succeeded, but in in his theory that would be ideal, if everyone could own the means of production, that would be a truly egalitarian system. so what we see is that there's a shift now from, focus on exchange, to focus on production. and this ge- this shift in focus generated another sort of, amp- um antecedent shifts, uh in terms of anthropological, economic thought. and that is that, whereas before in in the use o- looking at exchange theory, there was more of an emphasis on exchange, um and and equality, and social equilibrium, how the system maintains itself, that you know there's there's one person and they generate, they accrue, an enormous amount of wealth, but then it reaches this level where it's just too much, and so then he has to give it all away, and so that brings everything back to zero again and it goes up again, and the and the system just keeps working over and over, to maintain this sense of equilibrium. well Marx, by talking about production, and the inequality inherent to certain types of mode of production, shifted the focus, and so now is_ we think in terms of, not so much equilibrium, but social change. and the dynamics and conflict, how different communities because of their relationship their unequal relationship or their different positions in the mode of production therefore come into contact with each other. they have different interests. <P :18> so these different, interests, often are related to, or supported by, different ideologies, that come about. and, Marx defined ideology as the products of consciousness such as morality, religion, metaphysics, that explain to people who they are and justify to them the kind of lives they lead. and, Marx had a very crude take on the relationship between ideology and economics. for him, economics is the motor of everything, and that where you are in the economic, map, or in the economic ladder, will determine what you think about that. and, since then we've moved away from that, we've we've looked at how, there's much more complex relationship between, thought and action, between ideology and, material practice, what you're actually doing every day. that that it's hard to fi- figure out that one determines the other, there's a lot of going back and forth between them. and so it's not as, easy as that. as a result Marx is thought of as being very materialist. because he's grounded in economics in the making of living, um focus. so, from production theory, we'll spend the last few minutes talking about consumption theory, the last in our, tripartite equation. and this is more recent, although one way not because Bronislaw Malinowski is talked about in your book as having thought about this too, uh, Malinowski is one of these early anthropologists that we've already mentioned in the course, who worked in the Trobriand Islands, Melanesia, and he thought, that consumption occurred to fulfill certain, primarily biological needs. that, you know you consume foods because you need food, i mean, that you create houses simply because you need shelter and that's that's the main, emphasis on consumption. simply the fulfillment of needs. and, taken to its extreme form, that can be seen as a form of biological materialism that what our bodies need therefore determines what our culture will produce for us, or what we do. and so that's that's that's it, the argument in its extreme form. it's flawed, because it reduces the complexity of human thought and action, to one single factor. that, if it was just biology, then people living in the same environment, or having access to the same kinds of foods, would all be doing the same thing because their biology sort of determines that. and we know that's not true. we know that in any given environment, a community may find one plant edible, meanwhile another community might find that plant, poisonous, as far as they're concerned, um we eat different things, we do different things, we construct different forms of shelter, um, all these things are_ there's too much diversity in how we go about fulfilling those needs, that you cannot anymore talk about simply consumption is, the fulfillment of biological needs. <P :12> the book then goes on to talk about cultural ecology, and says how, other people came and started, theorizing consumption in terms of, constraints given in the environment, that you create certain houses, you you pursue certain economic strategies, because you are limited, given your environment, on what those strategies are. so, cultural ecology is not necessarily (what we're) (xx) about, but it examines the relationship between people and their environment. and the most extreme form of it, assumes that consumption occurs only in direct relation to what the constraints are within the environment. but, as i showed you on the map of Kenya, you have a very similar environment and very different ways of approaching how to live within that same environment. so environment also, just like biology, cannot be, the only factor. there's gotta be other things contributing to it. so cultural diversity is not accounted for in either of these_ the extreme forms of these two, of these two interpretations. and there are less extreme forms, and so i i don't mean to throw out, the baby with the bath water but, um, so how do we, how to we take into (effect a) culture? culture defines the needs of its people, and shapes their strategies for responding to those needs. it gives meaning to life, and how one goes about making life, making life in the in the terminology of of Brenda Williams again. not just, it's not just about making a living. if it was just that, then we could talk about, you know, materialist reductionism, or biological reductionism, or the environmental reductionism. but, it's more than that, making a living is just one part of what we do as humans. we are involved in this edvdevor(sic) to making lives for ourselves. and life is much more than simply the eating, and the sleeping, and the and the doing that we need for our basic needs. so how is it culture then, makes us, helps us to understand, what else goes into making a living that makes us live lives that we find meaningful? and with purpose, um, the book talked about food prohibitions as different ways that culture, intervenes in the consumption process that, for instance it talks about how pork is an abominable food, in terms of Islamic and and Jewish communities, and why is that so. you know people are living it's the same meat for everybody, it's edible by some standards but ter- not at all edible by others. how is that? that's an example of culture intervening and bringing a different meaning to food. food is not simply food. food means who you are, it's a marker of identity. if you don't eat pork, that identifies you as a particular type of person, if you do eat pork, that identifies you as a particular type of person. so, it's not simply food, but fulfillment of our bodily needs. another example would be money. money you think of as a standard value, reducible to, a single price and a single value all over the world, by whatever, type of money you're dealing in. but, anthropological studies of the uses of money, also show that, money takes on, different connotations, and different meanings, so that in East Africa, among the Luo community in Uganda, where David (Parten) has done research, there's money, there's bitter money, which is bad money, and good money. and it depends on which crop it came from. if you, if you grow corn and you derive a profit from that, well then that's good money and you can use that money to pay for your daughter's wedding, or to pay for your funerals. that's good money that can be generating more life, in terms of your kin obligations. but, if you're growing tobacco, or any of a variety of other, crops that are not thought of as, as highly desirable, and it brings in a profit, you cannot then channel that money into things related to the regeneration of your family. it is seen as somehow it's gonna hurt your family. it's bad money, it's tainted. so the money's the same, and it's the same money. but it has different meanings according to where it came from. so again it's another example of culture, intervening and bringing meaning to things. and we don't ha- we're not so far off on that. we have the idea of, money laundering. right? that's taking money that came out of, bad, sources, and having to be washed somehow and made good again, so that it can be clean money, so it's not a totally foreign concept from us. <P :04> now i just have one more thing_ oh, to end with. and that's this question about making a living, versus making life in America. a few days ago, there was this article in the New York Times... about a new disease or syndrome that's that's particularly bad in the Silicon Valley area but it's also bad in other parts of the States. and it's called Sudden Wealth Syndrome. it's also called Affluenza. now what do you do when you suddenly are wildly (sic) beyond, your wildest imaginations, and all the problems that has, the the article had these families that are having to do these support groups and stuff. and, and they talk about how the kids are interviewed, and if, and if you are middle class, that's the lowest of the low, man if you only get one trip to Hawaii per year, oh you've gone to the absolute bottom of, of the social ladder. and they talk about these kids you know, it's just totally normal daddy has a helicopter plus his airplane, plus his this that and all the stresses that that comes with that. so if, making a living is what these people are are clearly excellent at, but what these articles seem to in- suggest is that they're not terribly good at making life, that they're having all these problems attached to the making of a living. so, i leave you with that, think about the (links) to be (made) (xx)
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