Organizing Power: SocioPolitical Systems
Anthropology 101: Week 8 Day 1
Politics and
Social
Organization
• General patterns to explain forms
of social organization
• How is leadership
determined?
• Holistic perspective
• How does inequality occur?
• How do belief systems
support?
Bands-TribesChiefdoms-States
• Not a strict set of
categories
• More of a spectrum of
types:
• Cultural context and
history
• Coexist/ side by side
• Ex: Native
communities in
Americas
New evidence,
new theories…
• Not inevitably a one-to-one connection
between surplus resources, large
societies, and centralized authority
• Large groups without farming
• Even build monumental things…
• Ancient Turkey
• Cities and complex organization
without central authority/inequality
• Late Ice Age in Eurasia
• Indus Valley – early cities
Bands
• Oldest form
• Small groups
• Highly mobile
• Family relations
Bands
Bands:
Iñupiat
(Inuit)
• Small family groups
• Cooperation for food
• All hunters are equal
though
• Easily leave during
disputes
Tribes
• Also fairly egalitarian
• but more formalized
leadership
• Larger “polity”
• Conflicts with neighboring
communities
• Larger networks
• not just kinship
Tribes
• Formal positions and
titles for leadership
• Specific limits/extent of
power
• Generally cannot
“coerce” (force)
obedience
• persuasion/obtain
consensus
Tribes:
Montenegro &
North Albania
• Pleme (Serbian), Fis
(Albanian)
• Segmentary organization:
• Tribe
• Clan (Bratstvo,
“brotherhood”)
• House/Family (KućaSerbian, ShtëpiAlbanian)
Montenegro &
North Albania
• System of honor: value
manly
independence/autonomy
• Leaders: reputation and
example for status
• Persuasion
• No real power to coerce
Montenegro & North
Albania
• Why this system?
• Outside threat: Ottoman Turks
• Resource-poor mountains
• Smaller units: economic cooperation
• Band together for military defense