ANTHR 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Unearth, Sugar Substitute, Staple Food
Document Summary
Goods that are subject to market exchange. Used to understand capitalism and the way it works. They shape our world in the way we live our lives. Anthropology focuses on people, but anthropologists must study things like commodities to understand people. Commodity study can help us understand relationships between: Sugar has been cultivated since prehistoric times. Until colonization of the americas, it was used sparingly in europe as a spice or medicine. European trade which exchanged coffee, sugar, pots, horses, alcohol, cotton, tobacco, etc. and included slaves to maintain the plantations of sugar and other crops. From luxury spice to staple food (1850>) Sugar and tea - proletarian hunger killers. By 1900 sugar made up 20% of calories in english diet. Sugar production in the caribbean colonies and industrial production in england were inextricably linked--they fueled each other and the emergence of a global market.
