What is Economic Anthropology? Pt. 2

So I took a lot of interesting classes that I feel that I have benefited from in countless ways. One of them being Economic Anthropology. Honestly I took it because I had no idea what it was and it was at a convenient time, and not only did it fulfill a requirement for my major, but the professor seemed to be such an interesting person. But I got soo much out of this class and there are things that I learned that I think of and see every single day. I just want to provide an excerpt from a  paper I wrote for the class. It was 11 pages, but I'll try and condense it down to ~ 5 paragraphs. Oh and btw, I took this class in the Fall 2006..

Economic anthropology has been an introduction to many theories and concepts that aid in understanding the connections between culture and material life. This connection is important to examine because it explains how people make decisions about producing, consuming and exchanging. Development has been a focus in the second part of the course because it implies change, evolution, and advancement. In the age of globalization it is important to understand how culture plays a role in all economic spheres of thinking and living.

A major theory that has been discussed is development theory. It explores how change in a society can best be achieved. It cannot be characterized as one specific theory; in fact it is a combination of many different theories. It is probably not surprising to discover that development around the world has many colonial roots. It is important to remember that colonial regimes affected and are still affecting many nations around the world.

There have been many negative development consequences as a result of colonial rule. Firstly, the boundaries that were set up by colonial officials were arbitrary and unplanned. So once the nation was finally freed from colonial authority, the creation of a government would be difficult. Also development among European nations would be able to occur at a much faster rate due to the colonies that have been set up.There have been several negative effects because of the Green Revolution. Since the high yield crops require the use of heavy pesticides, this has accumulated and is affecting the food chain, is contaminating the water, and creating resistance in pest organisms.

Although the Green Revolution began in Mexico it has now become a worldwide agricultural movement. Some of the crops that are being produced in many other countries under the green revolution are sorghum, maize, cassava, and beans. It does not directly help solve the immediate problem of hunger. Through the green revolution you are able to dramatically increase crop yields. By increasing crop yields, you are able to sell more of your products to receive money which you can then use to provide food for your family. The seeds have to be planted using a large amount of water, chemical pesticides, and a large amount of fertilizers.

When examining how value should be placed on particular things, it is important to discuss Arjun Appadurai. He is a social-cultural anthropologist that is particularly interested in value and commodities. In The Social Life of Things, he defines a commodity as a particular kind of social potential that exists across societies and cultures. In other words, he says that a commodity must have social use value. This idea lines up with Appadurai’s thinking when it comes to value. Georg Simmel who was an early philosopher, was one of the first people to identify that value is not an inherent property of objects. In addition, Appadurai identifies the three commodity situations as commodity phase (temporal factors), commodity candidacy (cultural factors), and commodity context (social factors).

Another facet that has been explored throughout the course of the semester is the reasons for exchange. In The Gift, Mauss explores the social phenomenon that is gift giving. The conclusion that he arrives at is that there is no such thing as a free gift and with everything there are obligations. He describes two main gift giving systems, the potlatch as it occurs among North West coast Indians and the Kula Ring among Melanesian Trobriand Islanders.

The potlatch is characterized as having three main obligations which are to give, to receive and to reciprocate. Gifts are circulated with the certainty that it will reciprocated. In essence a potlatch is either giving away all of your goods or destroying them. By giving a potlatch, one person is sure to enhance their social reputation and to validate their social rank within the community. The reason this happens is the items that are being given away are actual valuable items.

In conclusion, with closer examination there is an noticeable connection between economic practices and social structures in communities.In order to understand how and why certain cultures place value on specific items, the society itself must be examined.

So that may seem all over the place...well because it was, as I said earlier I just put a variety of paragraphs, so it's not cohesive, but I hope you learned some stuff. Until Next Time...