I.
Marriage and Family
a. Gender imbalance in India & China
i. More boys than girls
ii. Selective-sex abortion
1. Sexist attitudes of traditional society
a. Male heir preferred to continue Patrilineage
b. Dowry to attract suitors for marriageable daughter
2. Abortion more common in India among…
a. Educated mothers
b. Urban Middle classes
c. Wealthy business families
3. Economic Liberalization
a. Foreign companies market ultrasound
b. Easy credit allows clinics to purchase ultrasound
c. Clinics market selective sex technologies
4. Attractive to Upper-Classes
a. Afford to pay for the procedute
b. Want to be seen as “modern”
c. Want male heir to keep wealth in family
5. Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act
a. India Bans doctors from revealing fetus’ sex
b. Absconds clinic ultrasounds upon violation
c. Rarely enforced
d. Families got double rupees for girls’ care
iii. One-Child Policy (China)
1. 100 girls / 120 boys
2. There was a preference for boys (traditional kinship values)
3. Policy limits couple to one child
4. Policy adjusted for rural areas to allow a second child if first is a girl
5. Strictly enforced in urban areas / less so in rural areas
a. Heavy fines per extra child
b. Denied workplace bonusses
b. Marriage
i. Why It’s important
1. A society has to reproduce itself for the security of its members
2. Marriage provides for…
a. Regulation of sexual relations
b. Reproduction & rearing of children
c. Enculturation of those children
3. A wedding is a celebration of continuation of a society and its culture
ii. Western vs. nono-Western ideas
1. Western
a. Private matter between man and woman
b. Two freely consenting adults, or “free choice”
c. Requires emotional attachment
2. Non-Western
a. Joints two families
b. Requires relatives’ consent
c. Emotional attachment not required
iii. Long houses (Melanesia)
1. Provide shelter for entire families
c. Marriage Types and Plausible reasons they exist
i. Polygamy
1. Multiple spouses, plural spouses
2. Polygyny (co-wives, senior wives & junior wives)
a. One man + more than one wife
b. Reasons:
i. Economic, a way to accumulate resources
ii. Prestige, a way to show off status
iii. Political
c. Soral Polygyny: man marries sisters
d. Unrelated wives take up separate residences
i. Wives are ranked: senior wife, junior wives.
3. Polyandry
a. One woman + more than one husband (usually brothers)
b. Very rare
i. Possibly to due to inheritance of scarce resources;
attempt to avoid splitting land among brothers
4. Group marriage (Hog Farm)
a. Several people married together
b. Hog Farm is oldest continual communal living experiment
ii. Monogamy
1. One spouse at a time
iii. Serial Monogamy
1. Several spouses through lifetime due to divorce, but only one at a time
d. Marriage Preference Rules
i. Exogamy – out-marriage
ii. Endogamy – in-group marriage
1. Caste system (India)
2. De facto: as if a rule existed, i.e. marrying within same group
3. Religious preferences, Catholic marrying Catholic…etc
e. The Incest Taboo
i. Prohibition of sexual relations with certain, usually close, relatives
ii. Cultural universal
iii. Always restricts relatives from sex within nuclear family
iv. Outside the nuclear family, the taboo is culturally constructed.
1. i.e. the culture determines which relatives are taboo for sex
v. Biological
1. Instinctual
2. Prevents transmission of recessive genes
vi. Psychological (E. Westermarck)
1. “familiarity breeds contempt;” i.e. sexual appetite dulled by people
living together for a long time
vii. Social conflict (Malinowski)
1. Sexual contact within group creates jealousy and competition among
them
viii. Avoidance theories
1.
f.
Marital Exchanges
i. Bride-wealth (bride price) – males family > female’s family
1. Compensation for loss of her services
2. Makes future children full members of male’s descent group
ii. Dowry – goods that female brings into the new household
1. Compensates man’s family for taking on the added responsibility
2. Today social problem: “Dowry Deaths” in India
iii. Bridge Service
1. Male works with woman’s family for period before wedding
iv. Dowry deaths
g. Post-Martial Residence Rules
i. Patrilocal – with or near husband’s parents
ii. Matrilocal – with or near wife’s parents
iii. Neolocal – couple sets up own household
h. Case Studies:
i. Zadruga in Bosnia (Wm. Lockwood)
1. Household group takes precedence over nuclear family
2. Composition: senior male & wife; adult married siblings & children;
unmarried adult offspring
3. Living Arrangements
a. Married couples have sleeping room
b. Common sleeping room for children > age 12
c. Three meal settings for men, women, and kids
d. All share common property; clothes
e. Adults discipline all children
f. Children stay with zagruda even after divorce
ii. Nayar (Nair) Tarawad in Southern India
1. Female –headed household
2. Ritual marriage:
a. After three days, man & woman return to separate tarawad
3. Men are warrior caste, often away to fight
4. Women have multiple sex partners
5. Children reside with mother; paternity never an issue
6. Women return “marriage” ornament at “husband’s” funeral
7. British abolished tarawad during colonialism, but women’s status
remained high
a. First Indian state to be 100% literate
b. 90% women in work force
c. Relatively travel-safe state for women
II.
Religion & Culture
a. See handout…
b. Religion is a cultural phenomenon
c. Non-religion is an individual phenomenon
d. Outside the observable world; not measurable
e. Belief of an effect in this world
f. Accepted on the basis of “faith”
g. Early Anthropological Theories of Religion:
i. Unilineal Cultural Revolution
1. E.B Tylor
a. “Belief in spiritual beings”
b. Animism is the earliest form of religion
c. Proposes stages of religious evolution:
i. Animism
ii. Polytheism
iii. Monotheism
d. Critiques of Tylor:
i. even monotheistic religions have animist beliefs
ii. Polytheistic religions, i.e. Hinduism, persist today
iii. Religion also encompasses moral/ethical doctrines
2. R.R. Marrett
a. Revises stages religious evolution:
i. Animatism
ii. Animism
iii. Polytheism
iv. Monotheism
b. His evidence:
i. Mana in Melanesian (south Pacific regions)
ii. Suggests animatism predates animism in Tylor’s stages
3. Sir James Frazier
a. Magic: controlling the world through rites and spells
b. Religion: belief in supernatural beings required worship &
sacrifices
c. Science: systematic knowledge by observing cause-and-effect
relationships
d. Critique of Frazier
i. Magic common in societies based on scientific
knowledge
ii. Religion is also a moral/ethical system
iii. All cultures possess practical, technical knowledge
based on trial-and-error and empirical evidence:
indigenous knowledge.
ii. Concepts:
1. Animism, Animatism (mana)
a. Animatism: belief in an impersonal supernatural force that can
affect outcomes in the visible, tangible world.
b. Animism: belief in spiritual beings that have humanlike
qualities, i.e. soul, ghosts, spirits
2. Magic: controlling the world through rites and spells
a. Imitative Magic: performing an activity similar to the desired
outcome
b. Contagious Magic: contact with sacred can result in desired
outcome
3. Polytheism
4. Monotheism
h. Reasons for Religiion
i. Sociological View (Durkheim & Marx’s critique of alienation)
1. Emile Durkheim: Religion maintains social order
a. “Social Solidarity:” brings people together for common purpose
b. Expresses moral values, collective beliefs
2. Karl Marx: religion alienates
a. Religion oppresses working class
b. Religion diverts peoples’ attention from their exploitation;
creates subservience, promising rewards in afterlife
ii. Social solidarity, sacred & profane
1. The “Sacred”
a. Phenomena that inspire respect, awe & reverence; expressed
through religious symbols
2. The “Profane”
a. The ordinary, routine & natural phenomena in everyday world
iii. Psychological (Malinowski)
1. Bronislaw Malinowski – religion relieves anxiety
a. Life is full of uncertainty and uncontrollable events, regardless
of technological development
b. Religion inspires hope & gives confidence as people face the
challenges of living
c. Malinowski’s insight:
i. Trobrianders’ use no magical chants when fishing in
calm waters; use elaborate chants in dangerous seas
iv. Cognitive/Intellectual
1. Religion explains the unknown
a. Why do we exist?
b. How did the universe come into existence…
2. Without explanations, world is incomprehensible; it’s a confusing place
i.
Religion & Change
i. Syncretism
ii. Revitalization Movements: Cargo cults & Ghost Dance
j.
Case Studies:
i. Chinese Religious Syncretism in Southeast Asia
1. Syncretism: blending of one or more cultural traits, many times
involving religion but also art & music
2. Chinese reasons for adopting Christian ideas
a. Belief all religions good and teach morality
b. Cannot disprove existence of spirit world, safer to believe than
not believe
c. Doesn’t hurt to get help from various religious sources
d. Pluralistic nature of Filipino society; tolerance for foreign
elements
ii. Cargo cults in Melanesia
1. Based on “cargo” or shipping goods
2. Colonial situation
a. Europeans bring material goods
3. Feasting and Prestige Cultures: leaders, “big men” hold feasts to
redistribute agricultural produce
4. Local people work for Europeans, expect wealth to be redistributed
5. What they got:
a. Low wages on plantations
b. Ask themselves: Europeans use what kind of ritual to obtain
material goods?
c. Rituals emerge based on material goods
6. Cargo Cults
a. The Rituals
i. Build airplane control tower, use tin cans to establish
radio contact
ii. Buka Solomon Islands build docks for cargo
iii. Take on U.S. names, i.e. John Frum, Prince Philip…
b. The Effects
i. Doomed to disappointment; Europeans don’t leave
ii. Cults create “social solidarity” across multilingual
islands to resist colonialism
iii. Cults basis for modern political parties & labor
movements in post-independence
iii. The Ghost Dance & Wounded Knee
1. Wounded Knee: last armed conflict between US Army & Native
Americans, 1890.
2. Lakota Adaptation
a. Shirt will resist bullets
b. Dance with rifles
c. Overall dance takes on military content
i. White people & govt. officials disturbed by dance
1. US Govt. bans ghost dance.
k. Supplementary Reading:
i. Baseball Magic
III.
Applied Anthropology
a. Worlds of Development – emerged from Cold War political climate
i. First World – developed world
1. “The North”
2. Western countries following capitalist model of development
a. Former colonizers
b. Liberal democratic traditions; i.e. parliamentary / presidential
political systems
ii. Second World
1. Countries following a communist model of development; former Soviet
Union & allies
a. State owns means of production
b. Command economies
2. Today: Cuba and North Korea
iii. Third World – developing countries
1. “The South”
a. Less developed countries, underdeveloped countries
2. Mostly former colonized territories characterized by high rates of
poverty, poor governance
a. Origin of term from India’s first prime minister
b. Key characteristics
i. Rich in natural resources
ii. Agricultural sector large part of economy
iv. Fourth World – indigenous peoples
1. Powerless ethnic groups, often the original inhabitants of a territory
who reside within nation-states
2. i.e. American Indian groups in US and Latin America
v. Less Developed Countries (LDC)
vi. Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)
1. First & Second worlds sought to influence/control Third World through
political, economic and military means
2. Third World nations met at Bandung, Indonesia to steer independent
course
a. Difficult to extract from Cold War conflicts; Firs t& Second
worlds held resources
3. NAM still exists; i.e. Group of 77 (G-77) of the United Nations
vii. Globalization
1. Process of integrating the world’s peoples economically, socially,
politically & culturally into a single world system
2. World has always been globalized to an extent, i.e. colonization
3. Today’s world integration is more immediate & extensive
a. Communications systems: internet, cell phones, etc.
b. Cheap transportation: cargo container ships, air transport
4. Result:
a. Decisions/actions in one continent immediately affect other
areas of the world
b. Applied Anthropology (Practicing Anthropology
c. A subfield of anthropology that employs anthropological methods, skills, and theories
for solving human’s practical problems, also known as “practicing anthropology”
i. Kinds of Problems:
1. Poverty
2. Food production
3. Ill-health and disease
4. Sanitation and clean water
5. Business/marketing
d. Development
i. Top-Down
1. Development imposed by outsiders
a. i.e. experts determine peoples’ needs and then implement
programs/projects to provide it
i. disaster relief
ii. infrastructure, roads, bridges, dams
iii. agricultural packages of new seeds, fertilizers &
chemicals
ii. Bottom-Up – Grass Roots development
1. People identify their needs and act upon those needs
2. “Experts” use participatory approaches to learn people’s needs, and
work with people to implement change the people desire
3. Anthropologists uniquely qualified for bottom-up approaches due to
nature of ethnographic methods
iii. Blaming the Victim Syndrome
1. Blaming people for problems they are powerless to solve or have a
legitimate reason for not wanting to solve it.
e. Green Revolution
i. The use of science and technology to improve crop production in the developing
world
ii. Key Product: High-Yielding Varieties (HYVs) – “miracle seeds”
1. New seeds require fertilizers, chemicals, irrigation
2. Research launched by Ford and Rockefeller Foundations
3. Carried to India
iii. Semi-dwarf Varieties
iv. Dr. Norman Borlaug – Agricultural Scientist
1. Father of the Green Revolution
v. International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
1. Fighting the Cold War with agricultural research
2. Bottom-up Development for Rural Areas
a. College of Agriculture of University of Indonesia
i. College Students live & work in villages
ii. Teach new agricultural techniques
iii. Listen to farmers’ concerns
3. Shift to Top-Down approach
a. Military government takes over
b. Multinational corporations tasked to conduct development
i. Distribution of “miracle seeds”
1. Smallholder farmers go into debt to buy
fertilizer & chemicals
2. Better-off farmers could afford fertilizers &
chemicals
3. Corrupt officials/better off farmers interrupt
distribution of fertilizers/chemicals
4. Better-off farmers seek to use smallholder
farmers as cheap labor in fields
5. Better off households buy out smallholders
6. West Java: better-off farmers buy small tractors
to push smallholder farmers out of rural labor
market
IV.
Case Studies
a. Richard Franke’s case Study in Indonesia
i. 40% available land represent 20% of village households; no smallholder farm
households participate in new technologies.
b. Green Revolution in Indonesia
i. Technology alone is not a magic bullet
ii. Economic & social relationships prevent farmers from accessing new
technologies
1. Is technology affordable to poor farmers?
2. If not are loans available and products easily procured?
3. Can programs be implemented without interference from entrenched
interests?
iii. Conclusion: If the answers are “no”, the rich get richer, poor get poorer