Hunter Gatherer societies PDF

Preview

Summary

Hunter gatherer society case study along with comparison with modern society...

Description

Hunter Gatherer societies They represent our social origins but also account for a huge diversity of different cultural forms These simple societies tell us something about our own social origins, shouldn’t patronise or romanticise these Durkheim - totemism, mechanical solidarity The founding fathers of sociology contrasted later societal epochs with hunter gatherer societies Marx - primitive communism Theorising hunter gatherers Anthropologists have traditionally categorised non-modern societies according to the ways in which food is produced. These function as weberian ideal types  Hunter-gatherers  Transhumant pastoralists  Agriculturalists - the rise of settles agriculture that the 1stv class based societies built around fundamental inequalities, slavery and private property arise Economics, subsistence and survival Are hunter-gatherers the original 'affluent society' or do they live in absolute poverty? Sahlins 1930 - stone age economics The world most primitive people have few possessions but they are not poor - 1974 Examples of hunter gatherers The wayapi (brazil) The !kung bushmen of the kalihari The mbuti Australian aboriginal cultures Main features of hunter gatherer societies: o Small-scale o Mobile - nomadic/semi-nomadic o Constructions of time and space o Simple division of labour: age and gender o Reciprocal access to resources o Egalitarianism and respect o Kinship and marriage (endogamy) o Few surpluses (subsistence) o Leisure o Close relationship to nature o Importance of religion and ritual o Lack of economic structure o Lack of central political system Issues for consideration: equality H-G socs don’t have political systems = acephalous and lack hierarchal economic structure, so built around equality As pop. Increases, different types of food production come in to existence and inequalities become more pronounced Settled agriculture, accelerated the privatisation of property/land. This led to occupying larger territories and leaders evolved and then slavery Chris Harman 1942-2009

Issues for consideration: gender Egalitarianism - the division of labour and sexual equality The rise of settles agriculture and civilisation also brought with it gender inequalities = intense physical labour which favoured men - harman Boserup = womens role in economic development Issues for consideration: religion Often this religious belief is animism which structures H-Gs Relationship to the environment/ecology The future of H-Gs Future bleak due to westernization, people facing extinctions Environmental threat - mining Forced resettlement Cultural attenuation Ghettoization Conclusion = lessons for the west Globalizations not only impact upon H-Gs themselves, their very survival is at stake, but upon west who can learn from these simple societies Learning lessons about equality, gender relations and how to live sustainably West in danger of becoming a monoculture - any cultural difference is to be prized...