Social Organization:Politics and Economics

Society

• A society can be defined as a group of people that share culture and institutions.

19th Century Perspectives

• Most 19th Century anthropologists like Lewis Henry Morgan were Unilineal Evolutionists: they believed that the tendency for societies was to become increasingly complex.

19th Century Perspectives

• Evolutionists organized societies into hierarchies based on cultural “achievements” like whether or not they had a written language. Societies were imagined to develop through these stages over time.

Lewis Henry Morgan’s Model

Civilization

Barbarism

Savagery

Modern Perspectives

• The Unilineal Evolutionist model has been almost universally dismissed as being ethnocentric: “civilization” always reflected the society the anthropologist was living in.

Economics and Society

• Economics studies the production, consumption and distribution of wealth (whether in the form of goods, money or services.)

• Economics is an exceptionally important factor shaping the overall form of a society.

Economics and Society

• Livelihood and Production: how do the members of a society get what they need to survive?

Subsistence Strategies

• Subsistence economies refer to economic systems where the primary purpose is the gathering or production of that which is needed for survival.

Subsistence Strategies

• Foragers: those who hunt and/or gather what they need to survive directly from the environment.

• For the vast majority of human history this was the only means of human survival.

• Agriculturalists: those that use various forms of agriculture to produce what they need to survive.

• This includes the raising of crops and/or the raising of animals for survival.

Foragers

• Foraging was the sole means of human subsistence till approximately 10,000 years ago.

• Foraging takes many different forms depending on the native environment.

Foraging• The !Kung people living in

the Kalahari Desert are traditionally hunter- gatherers. 60-80% of the diet is based on plant matter, mostly, thought not exclusively gathered by women.

• The remainder of their diet comes from game animals mainly hunted by men.

Foraging

• Inuit peoples living in arctic conditions were traditional foragers that relied almost exclusively on hunting with very little plant matter in their diet.

Foragers

• Foragers tend to form relatively small societies: usually between 10 and 50 people.

• Foragers tend to be nomadic or semi-nomadic: they follow the source of food, whether plant or animal…unless they live in particularly rich environments.

Nomadic vs. Sedentary

• Nomadic people move around, not forming permanent settlements. They typically have residences that can be easily and quickly constructed.

• Sedentary populations form permanent settlements. Their homes are typically designed to be much more durable.

Foragers

• Foragers tend to live in very egalitarian societies: they are not marked by major differences in power, wealth or status. They tend to have a high degree of equality between the sexes.

• Foragers lack the ability to produce a surplus of wealth, so no one had significantly more stuff than anyone else.

Egalitarian vs. Stratified

• An egalitarian society is composed of people of relatively equal wealth, power and prestige.

• A stratified society is composed of people whose wealth, power and prestige differ.

Foragers

• Foragers don’t have chiefs or kings. They may have individuals that are more respected, but no one can technically force others to obey them.

• Foraging societies operate around social conventions, but there are no laws that can be enforced, as there is no permanent leaders, armies or police force.

Simple Agriculture

• Simple Agriculture began around 12,000 years ago when humans began to cultivate plants and domesticate various animals.

• Simple Agriculturalists, whether horticulturalists or pastoralists tend to be semi-nomadic.

• Horticulture involves the raising of plants for food using simple tools. No plows.

• Pastoralism involves the raising of animals that typically graze (such as cows and sheep).

Maasai: Pastoralists

• Pastoralism is practiced by the Masai people of East Africa.

• Their diet is based primarily on meat, milk and blood from the cattle they raise and care for.

Horticulturalists

• The Huli people of Papua New Guinea practice simple agriculture, raising such crops as sweet potatoes. Women do most of the farming.

• Men supplement the diet by hunting.

Horticulture and Pastoralism

• Horticulture and Pastoralism are both extensive strategies of production, because they require lots of land and moving around (semi-nomadism).

• Horticulture and Pastoralism both can support larger communities: up to a few hundred.

Stratification

• Simple agriculture allows for the development of a surplus: so it is possible for some people to have more wealth than others.

• Simple agriculturalists tend to be less egalitarian than foragers. They also tend to have less equal relations between the sexes.