By: Uvaice Nasir, Harman Sondhi, Kairav Naik and Suraj Gupta
• In cultures without money as a medium of
exchange, the rewards for labour are direct
• The workers in a family group consume what they
harvest, eat what the hunter/gatherer
brings home and they use the tools
they make themselves
• Even when no formal exchange medium exists,
distribution of goods occurs
• Karl Polanyi classified these cultures into three
modes; reciprocity, redistribution, and market
exchange
• definition (reciprocity): the exchange of
goods and services of approximately equal
value between two parties
• The main motive is to fulfill social
obligations and gain prestige in the
process; in North American society, it can
be compared to someone throwing a party
• Impress others through the food and drinks
served along with the types of
conversations made
• Social customs dictate the nature and occasion of
exchange (for example, each person in a camp of
Aboriginal hunters gets a share, the size depending
on the nature of the person’s kinship tie to the
hunters)
• Giving and receiving is obligatory (if the hunter does
not follow the rules of distribution, that hunter will
not get the same amount of food as the rest in the
future, when another hunter brings food to the
camp)
• This ensures community bonds
and ensures that everyone eats
• definition (generalized reciprocity): a mode of
exchange in which the value of the gift is NOT
calculated, nor is the time of repayment specified
• Gift giving and the act of a Good Samaritan
(someone who stops to help someone else in
distress) fall into this category
• Most generalized reciprocity occurs among close
kin
• In North America, the homeless use generalized
reciprocity to ensure the group's survival
• definition (balanced reciprocity): a mode of
exchange whereby the giving and the receiving
ARE specific in terms of the value of the goods
and the time of their delivery
• Examples of balanced reciprocity in North
America include trading baseball cards and
buying drinks, among a group of friends, when
it’s your turn
• Non-Western culture example: a woman of the
Crow (as observed by Robert Lowie) who is skilled
in tanning of buffalo hides might offer her service
to a neighbour who is in need of a new tipi cover.
In return, the designer herself would receive
some type of property by the tipi owner
• definition (negative reciprocity): a form of exchange
whereby the giver tries to get the better of the
exchange
• The parties involved have opposing interests, are
members of different communities, and are NOT
closely related
• Ultimate form of negative reciprocity: trying to take
something by force
• Example in North America: a car salesperson who
misleads buyers into purchasing a car of poor quality
• Navajo: “to deceive when trading with foreign peoples
is morally accepted”
• Barter is a form of negative reciprocity, that involves
the exchange of scarce items from one group for
desirable goods from another group
• Both balance reciprocity and barter used between the
Woodland and Plains Cree
• For nearly two centuries, both the Woodland and Plain
Cree dominated European trade and technology
• Symbiotic relationship between the Cree and
Europeans: the Cree became trappers in exchange for
firearms and high quality beads, blankets, pots/pans,
and fabric
• The European traders made a lot of profit bartering for
robes and pelt from other First Nations groups, selling
fresh bison meat to fur trade posts and trading goods
they had acquired from Europeans to other First
Nations groups
• The Assiniboine also served as intermediaries
between European fur companies and First Nations
groups
• When fur trade moved west, so did the Assiniboine;
adopted plains lifestyle becoming bison hunters
• By mid 18th century, they were highly regarded as
traders due to arrival of guns and horses
•
definition (silent trade) : a specialized form of barter with NO
verbal communication (usually no face-to face contact at all)
• Seen between food foraging people and their food producing
neighbours (former have supplied, for past 2000 years, various
commodities in demand)
• Process: forest people go to trading place and leave a pile of
products like wax, monkeys’ gall bladders and birds’ nests for
Chinese soup. They retreat and the partners enter, lay down
“equal” products (metal cutting tools, bananas, etc.), and they too
leave. The forest people return and take the second pile if it is
agreeable and then the second partners return and take the first
pile presented by the forest people
• Silent trade may 1) be a work-around for lack of common language
2) control situations of distrust and 3) make exchange possible
where problems of status might make verbal communication
unthinkable
• In the end, silent trade provides for the exchange of goods between
groups in spite of potential barriers
• Not all trade is motivated by economic
considerations
• The Kula Ring is a Trobriand inter-island
trading system whereby prestige items are
ceremoniously exchanged
• Men set sail in their canoes to exchange shell
valuables with their Kula partners, who
live on distant islands
• The items include red shell necklaces
and white arm shells which are ranked
by size, colour, how finely polished they are
and their particular histories
• These valuables are not held for very long by the
men (max ~ 10 years), as it risks disrupting the
path it must follow from one partner to another
• Trobriand men seek to create history through the
exchange.
• By circulating armbands and necklaces that accumulate
the histories of their travels and names of those who
have possessed them, men proclaim their individual
fame and talent, gaining considerable influence for
themselves in the process.
• Although the idea is to match the size and value of one
shell for another, men use their negotiation skills,
material resources and magical expertise to gain the
strongest partners and most valuable shells
• Negative Reciprocity: arises when man diverts shell
from “path” or entices others to compete; however,
success is limited!
• Elaborate complex of ceremony,
political relationships,
economic exchange, religion
and social integration
• The Kula demonstrates how
inseparable economic matters
are from the rest of the culture
• Example in modern industrial societies: United States
stopped trading with Cuba, Haiti, Iraq and Siberia due
to political reasons; economic embargoes were
increasingly popular as political weapons both
government and special-interest groups wield
• Consider the following: retail activity in Canada peaks
in December. Why?
•
definition (redistribution): a form of exchange in which goods flow into a
central place where they are sorted, counted, and reallocated
• In cultures with sufficient surplus to support some sort of centralized authority,
income flows into the public coffers in the form of gifts, taxes, and the spoils of
war; then it is distributed again.
• 3 motives: to maintain a position of superiority through a display of wealth; to
assure those who support the agent an adequate standard of living; and to
establish alliances outside of agent’s territory
• The administration of the Inca empire in Peru was one of the most efficient
the world has ever known, both in the collection of taxes and methods of
control
• Tributes in goods and in services were levied; each craft specialist had to
produce a specific quota of goods; forced labour was used for agricultural work
as well as for public works
• Though the activities of the centralized authority (i.e. government
bureaucracy), redistribution took place
• This exchange is not between individuals or between groups, but,
rather, products are funneled into one source and parceled out
again as directed by a central administration
• Involves an element of coercion
• Example of redistribution in NA: people pay taxes to government
which are redistributed to support social programs, government
services, etc.
• With the growth of federal deficit over the last few years, wealth in
Canada has been redistributed from middle class to wealthy
holders of government securities
• For redistribution to be possible, a society must have a centralized
system of political organization, as well as an economic surplus
beyond people’s immediate needs.
• definition (levelling mechanism): a societal
obligation compelling people to redistribute
goods so that no one accumulates more
wealth than anyone else.
• Used in cultures where people devote most of
their time to subsistence strategies
-> gradations of wealth are small
-> systems of reciprocity serve to distribute
wealth
• definition (conspicuous consumption): a
term Thorstein Veblen (economist) coined to
describe the display of wealth for social
prestige
• Strong motivating force in cultures where a
substantial surplus is produced
• Plays a prominent role in Western societies –
that is to say, economies based on consumer
wants
• definition (potlatch): a special celebration in
which the people of a community come together
to enjoy elaborate feasts, ceremonial dancing,
and gift giving. The potlatch serves as an
opportunity for chiefs to enhance their status
with public displays of generosity
• What is it? A form of conspicuous consumption
in nonindustrial societies: example of First
Nations groups (like the Kwakwaka’wakw and
Tsimshian) on the northwest coast of North
America
• They place great emphasis on inherited rank and
privileges
• The potlatch also showcases the host’s status
• An important component of a potlatch is the gift giving
• Fun Fact: in the Chinook language, the word “potlatch” means
“gift”
• Everybody receives gift and the value of gifts is based on the
guest’s rank
• Today, gifts are more likely to be money; crafts such as
embroidered or crocheted doilies; housewares; clothing; and dry
goods
• The spiritual component of the potlatch publically announced
and validated symbolic property, such as assuming a new name
• Masked dancers , who represent supernatural forces,
announced these privileges
• The Kwakwaka’wakw held potlatches to mark critical stages of
life: birth, puberty, death
• Some view the potlatch as competitive (like
among the Kwakwaka’wakw), while in other First
Nations groups (like the Nuu-chah-nulth and
Salish), this was not the case
• Others recognize it as a means of
communication, establishing bonds and support
networks between people of one community, as
well as between members of more than one
community
• It may also have been used to ensure that other
communities received adequate resources
• Not only serves as system of economic
redistribution but also as a levelling mechanism
• Potlatches reached their heyday during 18th and 19th
centuries
• Note: many First Nations coastal groups continue to
hold potlatches today!
• Late 1800s = time of “revenge potlatches”; wealthy
rival chiefs tried to outdo each other by holding the
most extravagant potlatch
• These potlatches were a response to economic and
social pressures experience by First Nations coastal
peoples when Europeans arrived
• Europeans, especially missionaries, viewed these
ceremonies wasteful and in 1884, they were banned
by the Canadian government
• Intervention of government failed to consider that the
potlatches accomplished many social, economic and
political goals for the northwest coastal people
• Fun Fact: even when it remained illegal (1884-1951),
many groups secretly continued the practice
• Unlike in Western societies, the potlatching system did
not hoard goods, but rather gave them away
• In fact, today the gift-giving part is called “give-away”
• Conclusion: served to develop social, economic and
political relationships; way to publicly and officially
recognize inheritance rights and individual status;
form of economic redistribution
•
definition (market exchange): the buying and selling of goods and
services, with prices set by the powers of supply and demand
• Loyalties and value are not supposed to play a role in market
exchange, but in reality, they often do
• WHERE the buying and selling takes place is largely irrelevant
• Some modern market transactions do occur in a specific
identifiable location (ex: trade in cotton happens in the New
Orleans Cotton Exchange)
• However, it is much more common in the modern market of North
America to buy or sell goods without being on the same side of the
continent as the other party
• With the advent of the internet, a new economy, based on ecommerce, has emerged
• The concept of “shopping” is changing
• Until well into the 20th century, market exchange
typically was carried out in specific places, as it
still is in much of the non-Western world
• In peasant or agrarian societies, marketplaces
overseen by a centralized political authority
provide the opportunity for farmers living in rural
regions to exchange some of their livestock and
produce for needed items manufactured in
factories or the workshops of a craft specialist
• Therefore, some sort of complex division of
labour as well as centralized political organization
is necessary for the appearance of markets
• What happens in these marketplaces has little to
do with the price of land, the amount paid for
labour, or the cost of service
• In this way, these marketplaces are dissimilar
from Western marketplaces
• The market is local, specific, and contained. Prices
are apt to be set on the basis of face-to-face
bargaining (buy low, sell high is the order of the
day)
• No form of money is needed to be involved in
the transaction; instead, goods may be
directly exchanged through some form of
reciprocity between the specific individuals
involved
• Non-Western marketplaces have much of the
excitement of a fair; they are vibrant places
were an individual’s senses are assaulted by a
host of colourful sights, sounds and smells
• Many of the large urban and suburban malls
built in Canada and other industrialized
countries over the past few decades have
tried to recreate, although in a more
contrived manner, some of the interest and
excitement of more traditional marketplaces
• Social relationships are even important in this
setting
• Anthropologist Stuart Platter observes, the market
place is where friends are made, love affairs begin,
and marriages arranged
• Dancers and musicians may perform
• The end of the day may be marked by
drinking, dancing, or fighting
• At the market place, people may also gather
to hear news or indulge in gossip
Aztecan Market Place
• the Aztecs were required by law to go to
the market at specific intervals to keep
informed about current events
• Government officials held court and
settled judicial disputes at the market
• Thus, the marketplace became a
gathering place where people renew
friendships, see relatives, gossip, and
keep up with the world while procuring
needed goods they cannot produce for
themselves
Money
• Although marketplaces can exist without any sort of
money exchange, no one doubts that money
facilitates trade
• definition (money): anything used to make payments
for goods or labour as well as to measure their value;
may be special-purpose or multipurpose
• Money’s critical attributes are
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durability
portability
divisibility
recognizability
fungibility (ability to substitute any item of money for any other
monetary item of the same value, as when four quarters are
substituted for a dollar bill)
• The wide range of things that have been used as
money in one or another society include salt,
shells, stones, beads feathers, fur, bones, teeth,
and of course metals, from iron to silver to gold
• Among the Aztecs of Mexico, both cacao beans
and cotton cloaks served as money
• The beans could be used to purchase
merchandise and labour, although usually as a
supplement to barter; if the value of the items
exchanged was not equal, cacao beans could be
used to make up the difference
• Cottons cloaks represent a higher denomination
in the monetary system, with 65 to 300 beans
equivalent to one cloak, depending on the
latter’s quality
• Cloaks could be used to obtain credit, to
purchase land, as restitution for theft, and to
ransom slaves, whose value in any case was
measured in terms of cloaks
• Interestingly, counterfeiting was not unknown to
the Aztecs—unscrupulous people sometimes
carefully peeled back the outer skin of cacao
beans, removed contents, and then substituted
packed earth
• Among the Tiv of West Africa, brass rods
might be exchanged for cattle, with the cattle
seller then using the rods to purchase slaves
(the economic value of the cattle being
converted into the rods and then reconverted
into slaves)
• In both the Aztec and Tiv cases, the money in
question was used only for special purposes
• To a Tiv, the idea of exchanging a brass rod for
subsistence food is repugnant, and most
market exchanges involve direct barter
• Special-purpose monies usually have moral
restrictions on their use than do general
purpose monies, which can be used to
purchase just about anything
• For example in North America it is considered
immoral, as well as illegal, to exchange money
for sexual and political favours, even though
infractions against these constraints occurs
Marketplace Structures
• In Canada and the United States, as part of the reaction to
the growing “face-to-faceless” nature of modern economic
system, there has been something of a revival and
proliferation of “flea-markets”
• Flea Market: a market where anyone, for a small fee, may
display and sell handicrafts, second hand items, farm
produce, paintings, etc. in a face-to-face setting
-Excitement is felt in search for bargains and an
opportunity for haggling
-A carnival atmosphere prevails, eating, laughing, and
items even may be bartered without any cash
exchanging
-Flea markets, garage sales, fairs, festivals, and farmer’s
markets are similar to the market places of nonWestern societies
-Flea markets raise the issue of formal and informal
sectors of the market economy
• definition (informal economy): the production
of marketable commodities that for various
reasons escape enumeration, regulation, or any
other sort of public monitoring or auditing
• These “off the book” activities have been
dismissed by economists as aberrant and,
therefore, more of an annoyance then anything
important
• It is also very difficult to track transactions within
these informal economical sectors
• Yet in many countries of the world,
informal economy > formal economy
• In many places, large number of under- and
unemployed people who have only limited
access to the formal sector, in effect,
improvise as best they can various means of
“getting by” on scant resources
• Meanwhile more affluent society members
may evade various regulations to maximize
returns and to vent their frustrations at their
perceived loss of self-determination in the
face of increasing government regulation
• Canada is preferred by immigrants for its stable economic and
social environment, multiculturalism, ethnic diversity, AND
economic opportunity
• Chinese immigrants first came to Canada about 130 years ago
to work on Canadian Pacific Railway (largest wave of
immigrants in 1990s)
• 1.4 million Chinese in Canada by 1997
• Brought finances, skills, and infectious entrepreneurial spirit
• They opened up small businesses, which led to vibrant Chinese
commercial districts
• They send their children to school and have fuelled real estate
marked in places like Vancouver
• Those looking at investments in Canada brought along
enormous sums of money
• Contribution from Hong-Kong Chinese immigrants helped
Canada during recessionary times
• Charities: Tzu Chi Buddhist foundation donated six million to
Vancouver hospital
• Contribution to Canadian culture: dragon boat races and
Chinese New Year’s celebrations (boosts local economy as
well)
• Ethnic foods (such as dim sum) led to opening of many
Chinese restaurants, helping to create a cosmopolitan
atmosphere in major cities
• Chinatowns, or Chinese shopping centres, create
employment to many Chinese people, including refugees
• Chinese immigrants make up the majority of the 3 million
Asian people who have come to Canada
• However, many other Asian groups make up the
multicultural mosaic (ex. Japanese people came to Canada
in the 1890s to work as merchants and fishers; population
= 120,000)
• Korean (population of 130,000) and Vietnamese (170,000)
people have also contributed to Canadian economy
• Ultimately, Asian migration to Canada has resulted in a
tremendous expansion of the Canadian economy
•
definition (consumption): the ingestion of food and exploitation of
available resources
• 3rd component of economic system
• Two perspectives: (1) food and beverages that we consume and the
accompanying rituals and customs; (2) resources that we exploit in our
everyday lives
• Purpose of consumption? To meet our basic needs for food, liquid and
protection from the elements; it also fulfils our wants and desires
• Needs and wants differ from culture to culture but all are intended to
make our lives more confortable
• Consumption habits in industrial societies have
grown dramatically, as demonstrated by the 2003
blackout in eastern North America
• Consumption demands of foragers are much less
• In societies that have adopted new forms of
production(e.g. nomadic pastoralists forced to
settle in one place and become agriculturalists)
people often have difficulties fulfilling their
consumption needs and wants
• Modern communication, like computers, has
increased consumption
• People used to eat with their hands before utensils were made; some still use
hands
• Utensils started out as tools when hunters used them to cut meat
• Spoons:
– Made out of halved gourds, seashells or carved wood
– Used to dip out of communal stew pot
– Status and ranking determined who would dip first; men, then women and
children
• Fork:
– Created in the Middle Ages; spread from Italy to England to France
– Adoption of fork is gender determined
• Gentlewomen always carried their forks
• Men used knives and fingers
• Some use chopsticks
• Gestures of appreciation vary in culture
– e.g. slurping soup
• Rude in North America but considered to show
appreciation
of cook in
Japan
– e.g. leaving a
spoon or
chopstick in
rice
• Symbolizes
use by dead
in Korea
• Many taboos regarding what people can and cannot eat
– E.g. Hawaiian women could not touch certain types of foods (e.g.
pork, coconuts, fish), could not eat with men and could not cook
their food in the same oven as men
– E.g. Muslims and Jews do not eat pork
– E.g. Hindus do not eat cows
• Fasting is also a taboo
– Ukrainians do not eat meat on Christmas Eve
• Gender determined food taboo
– E.g. women were not allowed alcohol
• Food is used as connection between humans and
God
– E.g. sacrifices, ritual transactions
– E.g. Hindus offer food to deity before consuming it
themselves
– E.g. Ukrainians have blessings of food figures such as
babka and paska that are taken to church to be blessed
• Food is also important for forming and
maintaining a social group
– E.g. social gatherings like weddings, bar mitzvahs
and funerals offer certain types of foods
• Canada, a
pluralistic
country, also
contributes to
ethnic food
systems
THE END!