Subsistence, Economy, and Materialist Theories in Anthropology environment & technology
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Subsistence, Economy, and Materialist Theories in Anthropology Human diversity understood in terms of environment & technology Emphasis on: Constraints: land, technology, population Systematic, integrative relationships Adaptation Major Theories & Theorists 19th century social & cultural evolutionism (L.H. Morgan, E. B. Tylor) Multilinear evolution & cultural ecology (J. Steward, M. Sahlins) Neo-evolutionism (L. White, M. Harris) World systems theory (E. Wallerstein) Political Ecology Patterns of Subsistence Food Getting – FORAGING hunters & gatherers, gatherers & hunters, fishing Food Production – CULTIVATION The cultivation continuum • horticulture (ecological agriculture) • Agriculture • Pastoralism Industrialism Adaptive strategies & constraints Environment, technology, population Subsistence the market as economic organizing principle is very recent in terms of human history economy oriented toward subsistence (food getting & production) the norm for most of human history agriculture (cultivation) also recent (10,000 yrs ago) for 100,000 years of human history - foraging (food getting) was the economy of human life Adaptation and the Anthropology of Subsistence Long standing disciplinary concern Basis for materialist theoretical orientations Theories of social & cultural evolution Cultural Ecology Julian Steward - relationship between culture and the environment cultural variation found in adaptation to environmental circumstances Human ecology is the system & systematic relationships between humans, material life, & environment environment not determinant -- societies react to their ecology typology of cultures, patterns, sequences Specific or multi-linear evolution specific evolution - adaptive processes in a particular society in a particular environment; changes in one society rather than human society in general Multi-linear evolution - cultures have followed different lines of development (rather than general processes), particular to each environment Strategies of adaptation - adjustments that individuals make to obtain & use resources and to solve immediate problems Steward’s culture core constellation of features which are most closely related to subsistence activities & economic arrangements social, political, religious patterns as are empirically determined to be closely connected with those arrangements WORLD SYSTEMS (Wallerstein) Global economic relations between subsistence strategies, regions, nations Capitalism and common political, social, economic, structure Core, peripheries, & semi-peripheries Relationships of dependency World economy — development and predominance of market trade = capitalism POLITICAL ECOLOGY Putting cultural ecology in historical motion Still strongly about human/environment relations inter-relationships between groups within a world system of political, economic relations Attention to an international division of labor Temporal framework is history rather than evolution Levels of Socio-Cultural Integration & Subsistence From foragers to cultivators band, tribe, chiefdom, state Typology of ideal types FORAGING hunters & gatherers, gatherers & hunters, fishing food getting is dependent on naturally occurring resources, plants & animals Naturally occurring? Little or no human modification modern day foragers few forgers remaining San (!Kung) - Africa; Kalahari desert Mbuti - equatorial forests of west & central Africa Madagascar and SE Asia Aborigines of Australia Inuit - hunters (now using snow mobiles & rifles) Features of Foraging small communities in sparsely populated areas few hundred people related by kinship & marriage mobile lifestyle - no permanent settlements no individual land rights size of community may vary from season to season, culture to culture Band form of social organization Foraging and Social Stratification Egalitarian band societies – little social stratification social stratification by age & gender (no classes) division of labor - age & gender Foraging and Gender gender - great deal of diversity tendency is for men to hunt & women to gather gathering contributes more to daily diet than hunting women & men share equal status - more or less, egalitarian society Where hunting & fishing dominate - the status of women is lower Eleanor Leacock on Foragers and Social Stratification egalitarian societies do exist where men and women can do different jobs and remain separate but equal Dual sex societies Control over exchange of scarce resources is related to social stratification in foraging groups The Problem of Man the Hunter man the hunter model ignored evidence for modern foragers: women do some of the hunting female gathered goods account for more than half & at times nearly all of what is eaten Problem of the archaeological record woman the gatherer Re-focused model of human evolution key importance of female gathering "lost" female tools in arch. record - fiber carrying nets & baskets food sharing rather than hunting key to human evolution Food sharing & the need for social relations Conceptualizing Foragers The gender problem The “analogy” problem “living fossils of early humans,” in 19th century unilineal evolutionism Rousseau and Hobbes Noble savages or maximizing brutish life The “affluent society” (Sahlins) Forager Mode of Production Collective ownership of means of production (land and its resources) Right to reciprocal access Little emphasis on accumulation (ethos opposing hoarding) Total sharing throughout camp Equal access to tools necessary to acquire food Individual ownership of tools Professional Primitives H-G do not exist apart from more complex societies ecological “symbiosis” rural proletariat of the political economic (world system) model “freedom fighters” of indigenous perspectives The Cultivation Continuum Horticulture or ecological agriculture Agriculture Pastoralism Horticulture or Ecological Agriculture Some human modification of environment gardens & fields & technology cultivation method that works in a variety of environments - most common in temperate and tropical forests & savannas Cultivation that works with, and to varying extents, mimics the natural ecology Horticulture/Ecological Agriculture growing crops of all kinds with relatively simple tools and methods, in the absence of permanently cultivated fields break up soil only using hand tools, hoes, spades, sharpened sticks clear land for planting with simple tools, knives, axes, and fire is used to remove trees and grasses Little if any use of fertilizers Little if any effort towards increase supply of water to the fields Horticulture or Ecological Agriculture cultivation method that works in a variety of environments - most common in temperate and tropical forests & savannas Horticultural Methods Slash & burn Associated with poor tropical soils Initially big trees are cleared Brush is cut and left to dry Burned before arrival of rains providing a little fertilisation and clears the plot of weeds After several years of use must lie fallow Swidden- a garden cultivated by the slash and burn technique. Kinds of Horticulture or Ecological Agriculture Slash & burn or shifting cultivation Swidden extensive agriculture dependence on tree crops Long term use Slash and Burn characteristic features - horticulture size of settlements are larger than foragers more stable sources of food available tend to aggregate into villages - settlements are more permanent, investments of labor into fields, encourages sedentism compared to foragers horticulturalists their family and kin invest labor in improving a specific and relatively well defined territory property rights = access to resources each group laying claim to a specific area for clearing, plantings, residence by applying their labor to it Social Stratification more densely populated areas, sedentary lives divisions of labor - age & gender land & inheritance - family claims to land; heads of families, resources, claims, political & judicial orgs increased specialization - food producers vs. non food producers Public Perceptions of Horticulturalists they’re inefficient, wasteful, ignorant Destroyers of the rain forest • or they rotate crops they’re efficient and sustainable they have great knowledge of forest resources and desire to maintain the forest their livelihoods are threatened by state and international political and economic processes Agriculture - intensive cultivation a variety of techniques employed that enable the cultivation of permanent fields Large-scale human modification of land, plants, animals Agricultural Techniques nutrients back into the fields, use of fertilization and multi cropping Plant species are manipulated & fully domesticated domesticated animals and fertilization, turned loose into fields after harvest, manure, nutrients back into soil more intensive weeding Irrigation, dams and runoff, stored water & reservoirs, streams rechanneled, terracing controls water on hillside & mountains Investments greater control over land ->increased outputs/yields Increased inputs – Leslie White long term production, dependable output characteristic features sedentism, large permanent communities - villages, towns, cities growth in population size & density surpluses - a cultivator can feed many more people than just him or her self and family more need to coordinate land, labor, resources more need to regulate relations through governing bodies tributes, taxes, rents, private property Social Stratification Surpluses and people more people who don't produce food high degree of craft specialization more complex political organization larger differences in wealth and power Leslie White degree of cultural development varies directly as the amount of energy per capita per year harnessed and put to work amount of energy per capita harnessed & put to work within the culture technological means with which this energy is expended human need-serving product that accrues from the expenditure of energy E (energy) V T (technology) = P (product) food growers & non-food growers rural peoples who are integrated into a larger society politically (imposed laws, taxes, rents, etc. from outside their community) & economically (exchange products of their labor for products produced elsewhere) Increased Coordination – land, labor, resources increased need to regulate social relations -- governing bodies arise 4 major civilizations of the old world: association of intensive agriculture with large scale political organization: the state Tigris & Euphrates rive valleys of Mesopotamia Indus river valley Pakistan Shan cities of China Nile river New World Agriculture Mayans of the Yucatan Toltecs & Aztecs of Mexico Incas of Peru Wet Rice Agriculture: A Case Study Sawah – wet rice Padi – rice field Agriculture as Maladaptation (J. Diamond) Homo sapiens from genetic standpoint humans are still late paleolithic preagricultural hunters and gatherers (35,000yrs ago) Rise of new disease profile Decline in environmental/ecological diversity Decline in food diversity Pastoralism Pastoral societies are those in which a sizeable proportion of their subsistence is based on the herding of animals within a set of spatially dispersed natural resources (vegetation, water, etc.). Pastoralism herders acquire much of their food by raising, caring for, and subsisting on the products of domesticated animals many pastoralist/herders cultivate many acquire bulk of their calories from their crops rather than their animals or through trade herds subsist on natural forage and must be moved to where the forage naturally occurs Some move all the time, others move seasonally characteristic features nomadism - entire group moves or transhumance - only part of the group moves; some groups sedentary interdependence between pastoral and agricultural groups trade animal products for agri. products from cultivators sell livestock, hides, meat, wool, milk, cheese, or other products for money use livestock as beasts of burden advantages of herding as adaptation vegetation of grasslands & arid savannas & of tundra is indigestible by humans livestock turn it into milk, blood, fat, meat all of which can be eaten or drunk by herders livestock provide insurance against unpredictable environments of drought & low yields mobility - herds can be moved to fresh grass and water, avoid the tax man Pastoralists and the State Problems nomads pose for territorial states Alberta Pastoralisms or Industrial Beef Production? First Nations Pastoralisms or Foraging?
