Modes of Subsistence PDF

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How do people meet their needs? • A question of production and subsistence: • Adaptive strategies – how do people utilize and transform their environment to meet basic needs • A question of economics, or exchange: • How do people organize their relationships with one another to distribute goods and allocate resources? • A question of politics: • How do societies allocate wealth? Prestige? Power? • In what ways does this impact relations of production and systems of exchange? ***All three of these questions are intimately related to how particular societies interact with their environment*** So then what causes environmental degradation? The Malthusian Explanation: • • •

Population: grows geometrically (increases rapidly) Agricultural productivity: grows arithmetically (increases much less rapidly) Population will necessarily outpace our ability to feed the world’s growing population • “Preventative” checks – birth control, sterilization • “Positive” checks – mass starvation, poverty

The Tragedy of the Commons: • • •

Population: grows geometrically (increases rapidly) Agricultural productivity: grows arithmetically (increases much less rapidly) Population will necessarily outpace our ability to feed the world’s growing population • “Preventative” checks – birth control, sterilization • “Positive” checks – mass starvation, poverty

***But what if we look empirically at how people actually provision human needs?*** Julian Steward’s Cultural Ecology    

Economic and social organization results from using specific technology to exploit a particular environment. Importance of the natural environment in shaping core features of a culture. The approach of Cultural Ecology Study the organization of subsistence production, including division of labor, organization, and timing of work. Study how economic behavior and social organization are shaped by and adapted to specific ecological conditions

Foraging (Hunting and Gathering) 

Adaptive strategy for most of human history

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Now practiced mainly in areas where food production is difficult

Correlates:    

Small-scale society Mobility Egalitarian (minimal social stratification) Social distinctions based on age Myth • • • •

Foragers are poor – life is “nasty, brutish, and short” Foraging requires little skill and merely involves “gathering” wild food products to eek out a living Contemporary foragers are historical relics that offer us a window into humanity’s past Foragers work long hours, and spend so much time looking for food that they have little time to engage in other activities

Reality • Barring sustained contact with Western consumer culture, most foragers consider themselves relatively affluent (wants are culturally defined) • Foraging often involves the use of complex landscape management strategies and traditional ecological knowledge • Contemporary foragers have as much history as anyone else and have often been relegated to sub-optimal environments • Nonetheless, todays foragers work drastically less than we do; Richard Lee’s study of the !Kung San hunter-gathers clocked them at spending less than 20hrs/week getting food Horticulture 

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Horticulture o Small plots cultivated for household consumption (subsistence agriculture). o No intensive usage of land, labor, or machinery o Simple technology Swidden Agriculture o Most common form of horticulture o Also called “slash and burn.” o Clearing of plots for cultivation, then long periods when old plots lie fallow Myth    Reality

Swidden farming is a haphazard procedure involving little planning or knowledge Usually, and preferably, swiddens are cleared in virgin forest (rather than in areas of secondary growth) Result = tremendous loss of valuable timber

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Swidden farming follows a locally determined, well-defined pattern and requires constant attention throughout most of the year. When possible, people prefer to make swidden fields in second-growth forest (rather than in primary forests)

Pastoralism     

Dependence on herds of domesticated animals. Heavy reliance on animal products for food and clothing, supplemented by foraging and trade (with agriculturalists). Involves practices of animal husbandry (breeding and care) Nomadism: movement of entire group throughout the year (no permanent settlements) Transhumance: part of group moves with herd, part stays in village (agro-pastoral subsistence strategy) Myth • •

Pastoralists necessarily overexploit the land as individuals compete with one another over access to common lands Pastoralism is an inherently inefficient means of exploiting the landscape (would be better to plant corn or wheat) Pastoralists live primarily off the slaughter of their herds

• Reality • Pastoralists usually maintain complex social institutions to regulate the use of common lands (kinship being a key one) • Pastoralists typically occupy landscapes beyond the reach of productive agricultural lands, especially arid scrublands where irrigation is impossible • Pastoralists are more likely to use animals for their byproducts (milk, cheese, hair, wool) than for their meat, and tend to maintain trade relationships with nearby horticulturalists

Intensive Agriculture: Defined by a set of processes that intensify production and increase yields:

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o Preparing the soil o Use of simple and/or complex technologies o Use of larger labor force, including domesticated animals o Water management o Modifying plants and soils From Horticulture to Agriculture o New labor requirements and more work hours o Requires complex social organization of labor o Land used intensively and continuously o Higher yields than horticulture, but decreasing marginal returns Myth

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Agricultural production is largely inelastic, we can only produce more food by putting more land underneath the plow Growing more food on less land will necessarily require increasing dependence on industrial technologies Traditional growing techniques are largely helpless in the face of the “population bomb”

Reality • Anthropologists and related fields have repeatedly demonstrated the ways that people respond to population pressure, market demands, and political changes by growing more food on less land • In almost all cases, these innovations have relied entirely on traditional ecological knowledge and local technologies • Industrial technologies have proved much more efficient at creating overproduction Explanation #1: Malthusianism // argues that population growth will necessarily outpace ability to feed ourselves • Human food production has historically been very elastic when it comes to population growth • Moreover, human beings have developed cultural mechanisms for managing population growth Explanation #2: Tragedy of the commons // argues that, unless is placed within a system of private property, human self interest will necessarily lead to the decline of the global “commons” • Actually private property has more often been the problem than the solution (ex. Pastoralists) • Moreover human wants are culturally defined and are relative (social inequality often makes us want more)...