ANTH 111 Lecture 9: Week 5, Lecture 910
Economic Anthropology
How people make, share, and buy things and services.
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Concerned with the cross-cultural study of economic systems: the structured patterns and
relationships through which people exchange goods and services--and understanding how
culture and economy affect each other.
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The way people consume and exchange goods varies cross-culturally
Modes of Consumption
Consumption
Using up of goods or money
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Assigning meaning
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Intake and output
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Two main modes of consumption that are based on the relationship between
demand and supply
Minimalism
Few and finite consumer demands
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Adequate means to achieve them
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Most characteristic of foragers, but also in some degree amongst
horticulturalists and pastoralists
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Consumerism
Demands are many and infinite
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Means of satisfying them are never sufficient
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Drives colonialism, globalization, other forms of expansion
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Feature of industrial
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Personalized consumption
Productions produced by the consumers for their own use
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Or by someone consumer has met personally
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Foraging, horticulture, pastoralist
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Depersonalized consumption
Consumers are distanced from the workers who produce the goods we
consume
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Exceptions
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Modes of Exchange: transfer of something that may be material or immaterial
between at least two persons, groups, or institutions
Two distinct modes of exchange
Balanced exchange: system of transfer in which the goal is either
immediate or eventual balance in value
Relates to minimalism
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3 categories:
Based on the amount of return that is expected and the
relationship of those involved
Generalized reciprocity
Least sense of expectation of immediate return
or specification of its value
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Main form amongst foragers
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Cross-culturally - among close friends and family
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"pure gift" - extreme form
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Expected (balanced) reciprocity
Exchange of approx. equally valued goods or
services between people of roughly equal social
status
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Expectation of a return of equal value within a
time frame
Delayed reciprocity
w
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Less personal
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§
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Trobiand Island Kula Ring
An interisland exchange network in which
men pass ornamental shell armbands
(mwali) and necklaces (soulava) along to
recipients on other islands to cement
lifelong relationships between high-
ranking men on each island
w
Delayed reciprocity: a form of reciprocity
in which there is a long lag time between
giving and receiving
w
See "Thinking Like and Anthropologist:
The Role of Exchange in Managing Social
Relationships"
w
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Redistribution
Requires centralized social organization
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Central position receives economic
contributions from all group members
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Their responsibility to redistribute foods and
goods in a way that provides for every member
of the group
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Unbalanced exchange: system of transfers in which one party attempts
to make a profit
Relates to consumerism
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Second Mode of Exchange
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Negative reciprocity: the giver attempts to get something for less
or even nothing, to haggle one's way into a favorable personal
outcome
Exists between the most distant relations
Strangers or adversaries
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Market exchange
Buying and selling of commodities under competitive
conditions in which the forces of supply and demand
determine value
Mass produced and impersonal goods with no
meaning or history apart from themselves
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Evolved from "trade"
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Marketplaces can be large or small
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Periodic Markets and Permanent Markets
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Dominates the globe
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Gambling
Attempt to make a profit by playing a game of chance
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Common cross-culturally
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Theft
Taking something with no expectation or thought of
returning anything to the original owner for it
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Exploitation
Getting something of greater value for less in return
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Form of extreme and persistent unbalanced exchange
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Slavery is one type
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Economics
00:00- 22:58 foodways;
23:15-49:35 video about
foodways/economics;
49:36-1:11:27 economics
Week 5, Lecture 9/10
Thursday, February 2, 2017
2:29 PM
Document Summary
How people make, share, and buy things and services. Concerned with the cross-cultural study of economic systems: the structured patterns and relationships through which people exchange goods and services--and understanding how culture and economy affect each other. The way people consume and exchange goods varies cross-culturally. Two main modes of consumption that are based on the relationship between demand and supply. Most characteristic of foragers, but also in some degree amongst horticulturalists and pastoralists. Productions produced by the consumers for their own use. Consumers are distanced from the workers who produce the goods we consume. Balanced exchange: system of transfer in which the goal is either immediate or eventual balance in value consume. Modes of exchange: transfer of something that may be material or immaterial between at least two persons, groups, or institutions. Balanced exchange: system of transfer in which the goal is either immediate or eventual balance in value.
