Forest development the indian way

“Ecology and Subsistence”

Chapter #3 - Conflict and Conformity:

Readings in Cultural Anthropology

Core concept: ecology

Key terms:

Agriculture Hunting and gathering

Climate change Industrialism

Cultural ecology Pastoralism

Cultural environment Physical environment

Ecology Slash and burn

Horticulture Subsistence strategies

Sustainability …as a cultural concept

Ecology

The relationship of an organism to other elements within its environmental sphere (62)

Every species…simple or complex… fits into a larger ecological system

Each adapts to its ecological niche ….unless rapid environmental alterations outstrip the organisms ability and potential to adapt

Ecological studies

Look at the effect environments have in the shape and behavior of life forms (62)

“Every species has adapted biologically through

genetically produced variation

& natural selection

Homo erectus

Bipedality…

“conquering the world”

2) Development of a large, complex brain…

can classify things in our environment

can communicate symbolically through language…we can teach one another…and pass along to the next generation…

we operate with learned cultural codes

With culture

People have been able to live successfully in almost every part of the world (62)

Cultural Ecology

The way people use their culture to adapt to particular environments

Physical environment

Cultural environment

All Human Societies

Must provide for the material needs of their members

People everywhere need to eat, clothe themselves, provide shelter against the elements, and take care of social requirements eg: hospitality, gift giving, proper dress, etc

Cultural evolution and adaptation (Haviland text)

Convergent evolution

Parallel evolution

Convergent evolution

Convergent evolution

Development of similar cultural adaptations to similar environmental conditions by different peoples with different ancestral cultures.

Commanche Cheyenne

Parallel evolution

Development that takes place simultaneously in different geographic and cultural contexts.

The development of farming took place simultaneously in Southwest Asia and Mesoamerica. People in both regions already had similar life ways. They both became dependent on a narrow range of plant foods.

Both developed intensive forms of agriculture, built large cities, and created complex social and political organizations.

All societies must provide for the material needs of its members

Anthropologists use “subsistence strategies” to classify different groups into types.

The authors outlined five types of subsistence strategies in the chapter…

Societies employ different strategies to meet those needs

Organize in relation to the environment

To each other

Subsistence strategies. Each mode will involve not only natural resources but also the developed technology to effectively utilize those resources.

1) Hunting and gathering

2) Horticulture

Slash and burn agriculture

3) Pastoralism

4) Agriculture

5) Industrialism

Hunting and gathering

Nomadic

Foragers

Bands of 10-50 people

Division of labor by gender

Egalitarian social relations:

sharing and cooperation

Lack formal political, legal and religious structure, but

Members have ways of making decisions/ settling disputes

Deal ritually….

All people lived as hunters-gatherers until abt 10,000 years ago

Advent of farming and settlements

Horticulture

Earliest farming strategy

Gardening

Settlements of 50-250 people

Many tribal peoples are horticulturalists

The Neolithic Revolution (transition) began about 11,000 to 9,000 years ago.

time of significant culture change

associated with the early domestication of plants and animals and

settlement of permanent villages

The cultivation of crops using simple hand tools such as digging sticks or hoes.

Slash-and-burn cultivation (swidden farming)

An extensive form of horticulture in which the natural vegetation is cut, the slash is subsequently burned, and crops are then planted among the ashes.

When fields lose their fertility after a couple of years…they are abandoned

Transition to food production

Pastoralism

Pastoralism or animal husbandry is the subsistence pattern of raising and maintaining herds of domesticated animals, such as cattle, sheep, and goats.

nomadic.

share the similar concern of food foragers for finding fresh resources not only for their group but their herds as well.

Agriculture

Intensive cultivation of permanent land holdings

Involves using technologies other than hand tools, such as irrigation, fertilizers, and the wooden or metal plow pulled by harnessed draft animals.

Agrarian societies …high degree of complexity…

Nation-states with bureaucracies

Social stratification

Extended families and kin groups

Some occupational specialization

Religion more formal and organized

*US – 1790-1800: 90% of population

Each society exists in distinctive environments

Some societies share similarity in methods, but differences in special environmental needs

Andean farmers – 3,000 varieties of potatoes

Bhil farmers in India –create fields by damming yup small streams in their Aravalli hill villages

American farmers –learned to “contour plow” parallel to slopes in response to water erosion…and now use plow-less no till farming to prevent wind from carrying top soil

Industrialism

Highly complex

Extensive variety of subgroups and social statuses

Dominated by market economies

Goods and services exchanged…price, supply & demand

High degree of economic specialization

Mass production and more impersonal social relations

Religion, legal, political, economic…social institutions

“Post-industrial”

Post-Industrial

Deindustrialization

Shift of economic sphere

Shift in economy from extraction of natural resources; mass production of manufactured goods

Production, distribution, circulation of information and images.

FIRE….to…

Successful in microenvironments

Most groups now face major more serious adaptive challenges

Rapid Modernization, Globalization and Industrialization:

Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh

https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_UT1ROfNiw

Globalization (three theories)

McDonaldization

Clash of Cultures

Hybridity theory

Cultural anthropologist, Arjun Appadurai’s concept of the Social Imaginary

Ethnoscapes

Ideoscapes

Mediascapes

Technoscapes

Financescapes

Or to other terms and concepts from THIS week’s readings?

Discussion of the film Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh

1. How would you describe social changes taking place in Ladakh? And how do you think such changes are reshaping social relations between Ladakhis and non-Ladakhis? Ladakhis and Ladakhis (class, gender, race/ethnicity, age)?India and the US? What has his got to do with “culture” or cultural dimensions of globalization? 2. What are some of the cultural dimensions of “globalization” playing out in Ladakh? Does modernization “flatten” Ladakh? How are notions of “conformity” and “conflict”, or “homogeneity” and “heterogeneity” applicable to the cultural dimensions and cultural dynamics in terms of how globalization and modernization are reshaping Ladakh?

Questions…

3. What were some of the significant changes that took place in Ladakh in the 1970s and 1980s? What can you discuss regarding matters of social change and “modernization” ; tradition/ change; tradition and modernity; social interactions (how might many developers “perceive” Ladakhis? How might many Ladakhis view developers? Westerners? What cultural dynamics might ensue within the culture?

4. Are there ideas, concepts, terms from Conflict and Conformity: Readings in Cultural Anthropology that are applicable to the changes described in Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh?

5. Do YOU have any questions to raise regarding the film clip with regard to matters of ecology, sustainability and culture?

Essays in Conflict and Conformity: Readings in Cultural Anthropology

The Hunters: Scarce Resources in the Kalahari (Richard Borshay Lee)

Illegal Logging and Frontier Conservation (Nathan Williamson)

We are Going Underwater ( Susan A. Crate)

Forest Development The Indian Way (Richard K. Reed)

#8-The Hunters: Scarce Resources in the Kalahari (Richard Borshay Lee)

How does “the title” serve to address the main idea in the essay?

Questions

1. How does Lee assess the day to day quality of life of the !Kung when they lived as foragers? How does this view compare with that held by many anthropologists in the early 1960s?

2. What evidence does Lee give to support his view about the !Kung?

3. According to Lee, !Kung children are not supposed to work until after they are married; old people are supported and respected. How does this differ from behavior in our own society? And what might explain the difference?

4. What was key to successful subsistence for the !Kung and other hunter gatherers acc to Lee?

5. In what ways has life changed for the !Kung since 1964? What caused these changes?

The Hunters: Scarce Resources in the Kalahari

Is based on a long-term study of Ju/’hoansi-Dobe !Kung living in the Kalahari desert

Discovers that rather than living "hand to mouth,"

the !Kung people had a diet that was varied and adequate

Mongongo nut (high in protein)…drought resistant

84 species edible food plants…29 species fruits, berries, melons/ 30 species of roots and bulbs

223 species local animals; 54 edible

Reveals that !Kung lived in small groups, worked on average 2.5 hours per week, and achieved time for leisure and longevity

Camps/ waterholes

Normal distances vs traveling long distances

Visiting, entertaining, trance dances

What of “productivity” and social attotudes toward those (we) might consider non-productive? How does this compare to contemporary industrialized societies such as the US?

Describes the impact of outside intervention

on their original life as successful foragers

How has this society changed

1963

1994

Changes…

Trading stores, schools, clinics,

govt feeding programs,

boreholes, airstrips

Resident civil service

Rapid social change in a generation:

From foragers/ some herders/ some who worked for others (85%)…to (30%)

”To “small-holders” …who eked out a living..herding, farming, craft production along with some hunting and gathering

Since 1975…wealth Tswana have formed borehole syndicate…staking out (cattle) ranches with 99 year leases

Shift in housing

#9-Illegal Logging and Frontier Conservation (Nathan Williamson)

Questions- Illegal Logging and Frontier Conservation

1. According to Williamson what plans and programs have been tried to promote sustainable logging in the Bolivian lowlands? How have they worked?

2. What are three main types of logging employed by people in the Chimanes and nearby forests? How destructive to the forest is each?

3. What motivates the Chimanes Indians and cuarteneros to illegally cut timber in the Chimanes National Reserve? What role does the frontier nature of the area play in their ability to get away with these activities?

4. According to Williamson why have the programs put forth by the Bolivian government and NGOs failed to work in forests that surround San Borja? What does he suggest might be a better way to promote sustainable logging there?

5. How are logging activities in the Bolivian lowlands connected in the world economy?

Illegal Logging and Frontier Conservation

Describes how conservation policy often ignores local reality in favor of ideological theory…

Williamson argues…

that conservation efforts by the Bolivian government and international organizations have failed to prevent illegal logging

Three types of logging? (Differences)

Logging

Chimanes economies

8,000 Chimanes live on the reserve (size of Rhode Island)

Use of Maniqui River as “their highway”

Relatively isolated…self-sufficient …grow/ sell rice

50% employed in illegal logging

Harvest timber themselves or in partnerships with timber buyers (use of oxcarts)

Cuartoneros

Self-employed loggers who sell to small lumber mills or timber buyers…chain saw gangs…search out mostly mahogany

Cut 5’ trails

Industrial logging (approved commercial logging)

Mechanized … bulldozers….installation of logging roads…extensive road networks

Denudes forest of most valuable trees and biodiversity

Greater destruction: illegal logging or commercial logging?

Effects of Commercial Logging

An image from The Guardian

Explores

appealing to overconsumption patterns and

appeals to conscience, but

Questions:

Appeals to consumer conscience?

What factors do you think need be considered to make the logging industry more sustainable?

More regulations/ fewer? Geared more toward illegal logging or commercial logging? Why?

Reforestation? Does it matter?

Concludes

that an international agreement to control demands for tropical hardwood

is a more sustainable solution

including policies for reforestation

We are Going Underwater by Susan A. Crate

What social group is discussed in this essay?

Where in the world is our attention directed to?

Why?...what are some of the main points that the author discusses in this article?

Humans are part

Of a “global ecosystem”

Consider the opening words to the essay: “There are no longer any skylarks. They are gone and we don’t hear them. And now we also don’t hear the shaman’s drum.”

Questions

What are the attributes of a climate-sensitive region?

What does a focused study of the Vilui Sakha contribute to our understanding of climate change more broadly?

Vilui Sakha

Place-based people

Subartic ecosystem

For more than half a millennium…cattle and horse-breeding people

Animistic

Bull of Winter

Shamanism (shaman)

“Black” shamans

“white” shamans

According to Crate:

There are the nine changes induced by climate change in this setting….

Nine changes induced by Climate Change (Crate)

1. Winters are warm

2. Increasing water on land

3. Too much rain (change in precipitation patterns)

4. Summers are cold (effects on hay season)

5. Seasons come late (effects on slaughter, storing meat)

6. Extended Fall…repeated freezing and thawing…effects on food sources such as berries. Ice layer beneath…herds suffer.

7. Too much snow (constant shoveling instead of livelihood).Increased flooding takes toll on roads and bridges. Flooding of homes and public buildings)

8. Temperature change suddenly (and dramatically)

9. Fewer birds and animals

Eg: hares…changes in hunting ethics (youth)

Multiple stressors….physically… psychologically

Main idea

Effects of climate change on a “place-based” people…

Physical, psychological and spiritual

Changing weather patterns

Degradation of permafrost

Main Points the author makes:

Shows the real impacts that actions by people half a world away can have on indigenous peoples (horse and cattle breeding people in relation to an environment they consider “sacred”…i.e. woods filled with birds, shamans drumming…)

Narrates the struggle of the Republic of Sakha with water in the form of flooding and changing precipitation patterns

Emphasizes the repercussions of climate change for place-based peoples in climate-sensitive regions

Main Points

Effects of rapid agro-industrial state farm operations, mining and drilling and climate change on “place-based” peoples

Also effects from half a world away…

Place-based people: groups that depend on directly on their immediate environment for both their physical and spiritual sustenance.

End of article, Crate discusses

“Knowledge exchanges”

Forest Development the Indian Way by Richard K. Reed

Forest Development the Indian Way

Anthropologists claim that subsistence strategies affect a society’s social organization and ideology. Evaluate this assertion in light of reading about the way the Guarani live in their rain forest environment.

Why is horticulture more environmentally sensible than intensive agricultural and pastoral exploitation in the Amazonian rain forest?

How does Guarani intervention increase the biodiversity of the forest ecosystem? Does this change our understanding of “nature” and the “natural world”?

Guarani Indians are largely subsistence farmers and foragers, How do they use their forest environment without destroying it?

How have colonos disrupted the lives of Guarani villagers? What does this tell us about the relationship between subsistence and social structure?

How can the Guarani use their rain forest habitat to make money, and what does their experience suggest as a way to integrate forest exploitation into a market economy without environmental destruction?

Points made in the article

Describes the ways of Guaraní horticulturists practicing slash-and-burn agriculture

Notes the forest-preserving nature of their subsistence technique

Details the impact of deforestation on the forest and the Guaraní

Suggests the Guaraní use of the forest can serve as a model for commercial use of this valuable natural resource

21st Century Challenges

1) Exploitation of lands by outsiders

2) Overexploitation of environments to meet market demands

3) Climate change

Atmospheric temperatures

Rising sea levels

Questions

Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh

The Dobe !Kung (Namibia, Angola, Botswana)

The Chimanes (Bolivia)

The Vilui Sakha (Siberia)

The Guarani (Paraguay)

Do such groups simply need to be modernized, or can we learn from indigenous groups?

Do you think that ecology and subsistence strategies for the 21st century are best when decided from the “top down”, from the “bottom up”….or in “knowledge exchanges between those who make and implement policies and people who are most affected by them?

Awakening the Dreamer

“Protecting the Source: Inspiring the Future”

The Pachamama Alliance

The Achuar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnXEXiPXhbA

Next week Part Four: “Economic Systems”

“Reciprocity and the Power of Giving” by Lee Conk

“Poverty at Work: Office Employment and the Crack Alternative” by Philippe Bourgois

“Women in the Mine” by Jessica Smith Ralston

“Malawi vs the World Bank” by Sonia Patten

& the film: Life in Debt

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