ANTH 212 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: New Balance, Free Market, Core Countries
6 Jun 2018
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Wed June 6, 2018
Modernization theory
• Would present modernization as something that was easy to achieve once you get over
some obstacles
• Would take small villages (for ex in Africa) and lump them all together so that way you
can pool education and medicine
o This would require uprooting entire tribes
o Reminants of previous structures still exist for example an old chief will still have
power and would still expect to be powerful afterwards
• The people who are in charged of planning these schemes are also seen → people who
devise development also have biases
o Never sure that everything is happening in good will
• Local cultures/ particularities
o Seen as a nuisance
• On a country wide scale – tanzenia modernization → assumed that everyone was happy
to get along (this is not true as there are tensions between ethnic groups)
o Allowed them to marginalize their enemies
o Certain groups that have some linguistic background seem to dominate the
landscape
• Gender relations
o In their tribes women were powerful but with Christianity and modernization –
oe could’t play religious head roles
o Gender relations within communities were upset
o Suffer even after through development projects
• Development occurs on a ladder
o Societies start off as mechanical solidarity at the bottom
o Societies at the top of the ladder are more organic solidarity
o Poorer countries can naturally climb up the ladder with the right kind of aid,
resources and help
o Failures would happen when people refuse to accept the aid and do what they
are told
Dependency theory → an alternative to modernization
• Foundation on Karl Marx
o Socialism and communism and forms of social and economic precedents that are
the antithesis of capitalism
o Societies themselves that hold the power collectively
o Foster dependence and alienation between classes so communism is exploitative
• Primary critical foundation of scholars that rely allot on Marx to provide the tools for
understanding inequality today
• Dependency theory emerged when Truman announced his proclamation that
developing countries should lead the world
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