Unit 8: Economic Anthropology

Economic Anthropology

The part of the discipline of anthropology that debates issues of human nature that relate directly to the decisions of daily life and making a living.

Self-Interest Model

One of three models of human nature. The self interest model stresses the fact that selfishness is natural.

Subsistence Strategies

Are looked at when comparing economies cross-culturally. It includes foraging, food production and farming.

Phases of Economic Activity

1. Distribution
2. Consumption
3. Production

Modes of Exchange

1.Reciprocity
2. Redistribution
3. Market Exchange

Reciprocity

One of the three modes of exchange. It's random and has no standard value. An example of this could be gift giving in a culture and can be postively geared or negatively symbolic.

Redistribution

Another mode of exchange. This includes the different uses of surplus that could take place.

Market Exchange

Is the third model of exchange. This is what distribution is modeled on.

Collaborative enthnography

A technique used in anthropology that explicitly and purposefully defines each point of collaboration in fieldwork in research. Collaboration is always there and it mainly goes unsaid but in this case it is made explicit.

Harlem Renaissance

A period of enlightenment in the 1920s where African Americans inspired a cultural movement that celebrated black traditions and the black way of life.

Modes of Production

Proposed by Eric Wolf.
1. Kin ordered mode
2. Tributary mode
3. Capitalist Mode

Consumption

1. Internal Model- Malinowski's hierarchy of basic human needs.
2. External Model- Cultural ecology
3. Cultural model- cultural construction of needs.
CONSUMPTION IS VERY IMPORTANT PART OF HOW SOCIETY FUNCTIONS

Gifts

Cronks article, gift giving is a universal act of reciprocity and can be positive or negative. May be symbolic of a multitude of things. Act of kindness to impression of war.