Social Organization Midterm 1 23/10/2009 09:58:00

September 11, 2009

• Course outline
• No discussion of any kind
---------------------------------------
September 14, 2009

Definitions of Culture
• Complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts,
morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits
acquired by man as a member of society. ~ E.B. Taylor,
1871
• The totality of mental and physical reactions and activites
that charaterize the behaviour of the individuals
composing a social group. ~ Franz Boas, 1938
• The sum total of knowledge, attitudes, and habitual
behaviour patterns shared and transmitted by the
members of a particular society. ~ Ralph Linton, 1940
• Shared, socially learned knowledge and patterns of
behaviour. ~ James Peoples & Garrick Bailey, 2009
←
← TWO TYPES OF CULTURE
• High culture – the arts (e.g. opera, painting)
• Way of life of a group of people – the anthropological
focus
←
← CULTURE is
• Learned (something/anything not innate); exosomatic
(outside the body)
• Shared; collective (public); group phenomenon; grows
naturally overtime
o Because it’s collective, the people can understand
each other
o Common identity; distinct traditions
←
← CULTURE and SOCIETY are NOT the same – they’re bound
together.
• Socio-cultural
• SOCIETY – the group of actual people living and
interacting with each other; unit of adaptation
• CULTURE – way of life: rules, values, classification of
reality/classes; mode of adaptation
←
← COMPONENTS OF CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE
1. NORMS – a shared ideal or rule about how people
should act on certain situations
o Rules of behaviour (e.g. Custom of avoidance b/w
mother-in-law and son-in-law)
o Judgment on this standard
 S. Africa – don’t talk while eating vs. N. America
– polite conversations during supper
 Apache – rude to ask “How are you?”
(implications are you find something wrong with
him) vs. White Man – regularly asks “How are
you?”
2. VALUES – what is desirable for members of a society
o Goals; way of life (e.g. Winnipeg = bargainers; saving
money VS. Swat Valley/Pashtun (Taliban) – keeping
honor by willingness to kill somebody else to
maintain it; Structure of Violence)
o Prime motivations of behaviour
 Deeply engraved; sometimes resulting to
unconscious execution
3. SYMBOLS – immediately understood by the people in
that society
o Weber; Spider Web of Symbols; looking for
something that stands for something else
o Meanings are arbitrary; meanings are conventional
o Layers of symbolic communication
o “All human behaviour originates in the use of
symbols.” –Leslie White
 o Geertz – “layers are thick” (for symbols)
4. CLASSIFICATIONS AND CONSTRUCTIONS OF REALITY –
categorical grid; reality is divided by categories;
different divisions
o Anything that cannot be categorized is deemed
either holy/sacred or cursed.
5. WORLDVIEWS
o Abstractions; sum of everything a society know about
themselves and the world around them
o E.g. Cheyenne VS Hutterite
 Cheyenne: anthropocentric; human beings at
the centre
 Hutterites: heliocentric/theocentric
← --------------------------------------
← September 16, 2009
←
← MODES OF ADAPTATION
1. Foraging
2. Cultivation
a. Horticulture
b. Agriculture
3. Pastoralism
←
← Adaptation: organisms develop characteristics to
adapt/survive in present conditions; in humans, they adapted to
the ecosystem available to them at that time
a. Abiotic Dimension – temperature, precipitation,
altitude, etc.
b. Biotic Dimension – abundance of resources
(plants, animals, crops); disease-related organisms
in the area
c. Human Dimension – the human factor: other
inhabitants; competition between groups
(sometimes these led to extinction/annihilation of
some)
FORAGING (hunting/gathering)
• Depends on natural resources
• They do things to increase the number of organisms they
hunt, but they do not cultivate anything
• Longest lasting form of adaptation (90-95% of human
history)
• Most successful and least damaging to the environment
• As cultivation and pastoralism expanded, foragers were
pushed into more marginal areas
• ~1500s onwards the Europeans came
← KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF FORAGING SOCIETIES
a) Basic division of labour by age and gender
(men:hunt; women:gather)
b) Seasonal mobility; systematic scheduling
 Migratory factors
 Seasonal food resources
 Scheduled foraging (e.g. Weir fishing technique)
c) Patterns of concentration and dispersal of
population
 The bands of people disperse seasonally
 Usually they disperse in the winter and the units
regroup during the summer
 E.g. The !Kungs: they gather together during
dry season
d) Reciprocal Sharing
 Gift-giving (main economics)
 Everybody gives to everybody else
 Generosity
e) the band as the fundamental socio-political unit
 the bands are about *25-25 people to 100-125
(*mobile unit)
 flexible leadership; leader=headman
 decisions made thru consensus; egalitarian
f) flexible rights to resources
 they don’t defend territories
 low population density = abundant resources
  when population increases, the band group
has to split (as to not compete for
resources?)
←
← HORTICULTURE
• Low energy; high return
• Still used in the modern world (S.E. Asia)
o Swidden/Slash and burn:
 Tropical or temperate forest environments
 Extensive land use patterns
 Tools: fire; digging stick
 Crops: many different cultigens grown all mixed
together
 CULTIGEN: grows only the stuff you need
(medicines, tobacco); rids the plot of
insects; foragers carry a lot so they have
options in case some don’t yield return
• Miniature rainforest; needs aout 15-
50 years before the plot returns to
original condition
 No single time of harvest
 Long fallow periods: plots abandoned until
mature forest/soil fertility regenerated
 SWIDDEN only works for low population and
large land area; genetic variety
o Dry Land Gardening
 Arid or semi-arid environments
 Extensive land use patterns
 Tools: digging stick; the hoe
 People vary the location and planting times of
different fields
 Reason: some fields will produce but
others will not
← CULTURAL CONSEQUENCES OF HORTICULTURE
1. The size and permanence of settlements increases
2. Increased population density
 3. Rights of access to land are more defined
4. Basic socio-political unit is the independent village = 150-
200 people
← --------------------------------------
← September 18, 2009
←
← KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE
1. Both fields and human settlements become permanent
2. Fallow periods ether do not exist or are fairly short
3. An emphasis on monoculture develops, resulting to a
reliance on the growing of a single, staple crop (e.g. wheat,
rice, corn)

HORTICULTURE is still the best way to raise crops (i.e. in tropical

regions)
• Land resting is essential (ideal), however, increase in
population leads to extensive agriculture – making land
resting (almost) impossible
←
← MEANS USED TO INCREASE/INTESIFY PRODUCTION
(AGRICULTURE)
A. Usage of draft animals and the plow
B. Fertilization
C. Irrigation
D. Terracing (especially rice alongside a mountain)
E. Frequent weeding and attempts to contro insects and
other pests
←
← AGRICULTURE dramatically increased human population in
certain areas.
←
← CULTURAL CONSEQUENCES OF INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE
1. Development of the state (dominating political system):
a. supreme, single ruler
b. administrative bureaucracy
 c. permanent, hereditary social classes
d. means of extracting labour and surplus
 Agricultural production from farmers = taxable
2. Primary producers (farmers) become peasants
o Power pyramid: 1%=rulers, rich; 9%=bureaucrats;
80%=peasants, workers, poor; trickle effect of power
3. Pre-industrial food producers must pay rent/taxes
4. Full-time religious, military, and craft specialists
5. Metallurgy
6. Writing
7. Monumental architectures
←
← AGRICULTURAL Societies:
• S. America: Aztecs and Incas
←
← PASTORALISM
• Form of animal domestication
• The herds of domestic animals subsist mainly on natural
forage already available to the area (e.g. the cattle feed
on grass)
o Herding/grazing => natural forage
o ANIMALS domesticated tend to be gregarious (herd-
forming) animals: cattle, sheep, goats, camels,
reindeer, llamas
• PASTORAL SOCIETIES have VERTICAL MOBILITY: they go
upwards (more elevation) to herd
o Usually they are in elevated areas (dry)
o Pastoral societies were usually found in the Old
World regions (extensive pastoralism)
o Pastoralists traded with the low-land agriculturalists:
meat for carbohydrates (rice, corn, wheat)
• Pastoral has more competition between societies (for
resources)
 o Most of the lands occupied by pastoralists are either
marginal or totally unsuited for cultivation
• Pastoralism usually found in grasslands, deserts,
mountains, and in Eurasia in the Artic.
• Diseases are common in pastoral societies because of the
close contact with other species.
← TRANSHUMANCE ~ pastoral + horticultural
←
← ~~~
← CULTURE AREA AND CHANGES IN HUMAN SPECIES (1500 AD
Onwards)
CULTURAL AREA – sociogeographical groupings of people
based on shared cultural characteristics and/or histories
o Cultural Area
 Huge geographical area with similar natural
geographical features
 Separate socio-political groups living here
• They have broadly similar cultures
(e.g. related languages, modes of
adaptation, same lineage tracing –
matri/patri-lineal
 Areas are usually defined by:
 Language
 Religion
 Physical relationship/features
 Geographical territories
• E.G. N. America: matrilineal, lived in
lawn houses, horticulturalists
o [Traditional] Cultural Areas:
 Middle East: Islamic religion
 S. Asia: densely populated but fragmented;
Hindu caste system
 E. Asia: in the 1500s, most densely populated
area in the World; homogenous culture; most
developed and technologically advanced
societies
  S.E. Asia: cross-roads of Asia; in 1500s,
population=30-40M; ethnically diverse;
influences came from China and India
 Siberia: inhospitable; nomadic, pastoral groups
 New World (Americas): isolated from the rest of
the world (Aztecs, Incas, Mezzo-Americans);
pacific
 Australia: completely isolated
 Melanesia: New Guinea; Fiji Islands
 Polynesia: Tahiti; New Zealand
 Micronesia: Small pacific islands
 Sub-saharan: most diverse area; origin of all
culture and humans
--------------------------------------
September 21, 2009

World Culture Areas c.a. 1500 (continued)

Caucasoids – Polynesia, Siberia, Hokkaido (N. tip of Japan)

1500s – the imperial expansion of the Europeans

Globalization and Culture Change

• Two Processes:
1. Innovation – invention of something new
2. Diffusion – borrowing of cultural traits
• Globalization – process of integrating the world’s people,
economically, politically, socially, and culturally into a
single world system or community
o 1st stage – 1500 to the mid 20th century =
development of global network
o 2nd stage – end of World War 2 to present =
development of global marketing
← Old World: Europe, Asia, Africa
← New World: N. & S. America, Polynesia, Micronesia,
Melanesia
←
← Periods of European Expansion and Recent World
History
1. Maritime Mercantile Empire : 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries
a. Depopulation and re-population of the Americas
 Depopulation: caused by Old World diseases
(smallpox, measles, malaria) from animal
domestication; common Old World diseases
plagued American adults
 Because of smallpox, Aztec population declined
by 96% from 1519-1605; Measles had 57%
mortality in Hawaii island people
 Diseases made it easy for Europeans to conquer
the New World
 Massive resettling of Europeans & Africans-
Neo European & Neo-African peoples
b. The Slave Trade destabilizes Africa
 Slaves were from Sub-saharan regions
 10M people from Africa shipped to Europe to be
slaves
 Colonization of Africa didn’t take place ‘til the
19th century
 Matrilineal groups migrated down to S. Africa
c. Fortified posts and trade in Asia
 Asian countries either traded with the
Europeans or closed their doors to isolate
themselves (i.e. Japan & Thailand)
2. The Industrial Revolution: 19th century – end of WW2
a. The establishment of extensive overseas European
empires
b. Development of incipient globalization via regional
economic specialization
 Producing export crops, but these were never
for subsistence, rather they were traded
c. Colonial possessions come to be devoted to the
production of particular commodities for export
  The locals; leadig to progressive poverty of the
Old World
d. Asymmetrical economic and political relations
between Metropolis (the industrialized nations: Europe,
N. America, Japan) and Hinterland (the third world;
Africa, Asia, Latin America = source of raw materials)
INDUSTRIALIZATION –
 Financed by plantation economy in the
Caribbean region (sugar canes as commodity);
this promoted the import of African slaves
 Eric Williams – Capitalism & Slavery
 Triangular Trade:
 England went to Africa
 African slaves packed into ships and
shipped to the Caribbean
 The Caribbean merchants sent their
commodity (molasses, sugar) back to
England
 The bankers financed the triangular trade;
slavery made industrialization possible
3. The Emergence of a Global Economy: 1945 – present
a. All labour, goods, and services are bought and sold
on the global market
b. Exponential growth of World Trade
c. Development of the Transnational Corporation: a
company that produces and sells most of its products
and services outside its home country (e.g. Nokia)
←
← MAJOR CHANGES: POST WW2
1. Disintegration of colonial empires and emergence of new
states
2. New technologies development: production,
transportations, communication
3. Emergence of International finance: trade barriers
lowered, international monetary exchange
4. Emergence of a global economy
 o Transnational Corporations
o Cheap oil increased globalization

-----------------------------------------------
September 23, 2009

Culture: intangible; passed thru people’s heads;

• relics are products of culture

Social Organization: tangible

Social Anthropology: human social organization; British; how
people deal with each other

Social Structure: A.R. Radcliffe-Brown

• 1952 (on Reserve)
• Social Anthro: Theoretical, natural science of human
society
o fundamental part of human life
 human evolution and evolution of society
evolved together in a spiral
 society is natural to us
 we can study society as any other: observation,
etc
• Social Phenomena
o relations of association between individual organisms
 social phenomena examples (bees, pack of
dogs)
o Social Anthropology: forms of association in humans
• Social Structures
o The network of actually existing relations, including:
 a) all social relations of person to person, and
 b) the differentiation of individuals and classes
by social role
• Social structure: refers to a group’s established system of
social interactions and relationships – the formal norms
and customs of social interaction
←
← All humans are:
← A) an individual
← B) A social person (complex of social relationships)
←
• Rules of social relationships
←
← Essentials in a social group?:
• Like Interests
o Two or more persons desire the same object or goal
but do so separately ad individually. If one attains
the object or achieves the goal, the other will not.
 E.g. Gold medal in a swimming competition =
only one person will win the medal
• Common Interests
o Two or more persons desire the same object or goal
but must cooperate in order to succeed.
 E.g. Team sport (Stanley Cup) against another
team
 Like interest is not enough. In a social group,
common interest/value is really important.
 People must mutually adjust of self interest
to have this convergence aim for a
common goal.
 A society can fall apart if like interest is
very prevalent: every dog for itself.
 Turnbull; Ik people
• Collection
o Any actual or statistical aggregate of people
• Social Group
o an aggregate of persons actively interacting with
each other
 ties within the group; spontaneous
 Essentials of a social group:
• Boundaries: who’s in and who’s out?
• Norms: rules of behaviour, values
 • Informal sanctions
o Reactions on the part of society,
or of a considerable number of
its members, to behaviour which
is either approved (positive
sanctions) or disapproved
(negative sanctions).
 Positive sanctions:
 respect
 praise
 rewards
 social deference
 Negative sanctions:
 gossip
 ridicule
 austrocism?
 threats; blows
 lynching; execution
o These sanctions work to
discipline the group/social
conformity.
 Codified rules come later
with the state.
 Groups tend to persist for a
long time; even surpassing
the founders’ life.
 modes of behaviour
standardized
←
← Status & Role: Ralph Linton
• 1893; died Christmas eve
←
• Status
o A position in a particular pattern or system of
positions – an identity recognized in the social
consciousness
 o Most often reciprocal, involving complementary
identities; parent/child; employer/employee;
clerk/customer, etc
o Society will only work if there’s some kind of social
predictability.
 the necessity of reciprocal behaviour
 script that gives order to human social
organization
 Any status is a collection of rights and duties.
o The term “status” can also refer more generally to
the sum total of the regard, or lack of regard, that a
person’s total inventory of statuses commands in the
value system of the society in question.
o Role
 the dynamic aspect of status, the behaviour
that puts into effect the rights and duties of
association with a status.
o Ascribed statuses
 assigned to individuals without reference to
their innate differences or abilities
o Achieved statuses
 acquired by the individual during the course of
life-events
← ----------------------------------------
← September 25, 2009
←
← Role
• the dynamic aspect of status, the behaviour that puts into
effect the rights and duties of association with a status.
o Ascribed statuses
 assigned to individuals without reference to
their innate differences or abilities
 assigned by birth
o Achieved statuses
 acquired by the individual during the course of
life-events
  “good” statuses but not necessarily good (e.g.
Prime Minister; Nobel winner; Sainthood; Felon;
o no two people are the same; status and role
congenial to one but not for another
o allocated roles
o most statuses are ascribed
 actual or potential
o DAILY activities are done by ALL the statuses

Social Facts: intangible but real; prior to the individual; forced on

the individual; coercive nature
• society oppresses everyone
o some people are oppressed more than others even in
the most egalitarian society
←
← Key Dimensions for the ascription statuses in traditional
societies
• sex (biological difference between male and female)
o biggest divide in human history & culture
o basic division
o differ from place to place
• age
o basis of achievement; universal
o rite of passage (from one age bracket to another;
usually from adolescence to adulthood)
o age sets (regimens)
o residential arrangements
o ADULT MALE: warriors; aggressive; elder (wise,
gentle, tolerant)
• family relationship (kinship)
o apart from gender, status can be based on kinship.
All societies run on kinship groups.
 Kinship groups are multifunctional
omnipresent
 kin will give you protection
• strata; caste; class
 o Strata = level; very important on status role
o by birth into various levels
o sex, age affects
o script for social reaction
← “All societies rely mainly on their ascribed statuses to take
care of the ordinary business of living.”
←
← Fiji: chief is called bigwig.
←
← Raymond Firth: Social Structure and Social Organization
• “It is necessary to see how in any given case social
activity is the resultant of a complex set of elements,
including direct response to structural principles,
interpretation of them, choice between them…and the
pressures exerted by other individuals strivin to
accomplish their own ends.”
←
Social Structure:
• The formal rules and role expectations governing a
particular situation.
← Social Organization:
• How choice between valid norms is undertaken; how the
rules are manipulated, interpreted or ignored in actual
social practice.
←
← Case Study: Noakena
• grandson of the chief; self-willed, headstrong lad and has
a strong notion that he’s the sole heir to the chiefdom.
• Tikopia Island has a javelin-like game/sport
o Sport isn’t just sport around Polynesia; rank is
important. Someone is to always let the chief win.
←
← Social Organization = choice
← -----------------------------
← September 28, 2009
←
← Yanamamo: The Feast
• movie
• giving and receiving gifts
o related to kinship
• marriage connects people and makes alliances between
groups
o alliance theory of kinship
• Venezuela, 1968
• feast held in hopes of forging military alliances
o boys become soldiers at 6~12?
o 80% of the males = die because of the ambush wars
o Yanamamo = encourages display of
violence/fierceness/aggression
• The value/price of the gift is irrelevant; what’s relevant is
the ties/bonds it does between 2 parties
←
←
← Macel Mauss: The Gift (1923)
• The Spirit of the Gift
o The island of Dobu (Melanesia; Papua New Guinea)
 Every gift is accompanied by a spirit which
causes misfortune, illness, or death if the gift is
not repaid.
• Although presented everywhere as being voluntary, gifts
and gift-giving are actually obligatory, involving
obligations to give, to receive, and to repay.
o there’s no such thing as “no-strings-attached” in gift
giving
• Gifts are used to establish and maintain social
relationships.
o failure to repay a gift may sever social relationships
o acted out in The Feast movie about the Yanamamo
• Between the time of the giving of a gift and its repayment,
there exists the “peace of the gift.”
 o Behaviour restraints
• Reciprocity = a system of exchange involving the giving
and receiving of gifts
o persists overtime
← -------------------------------------
← September 30, 2009
←
← **Handout of Topics Covered**
←
← Stone’s book!
• Ch.1 – intro
o A.E. Robertson quote (XD)
o Why study kinship?
 Kinship is important in traditional social
systems, even modern culture builds ties on
this.
 Afghanistan> Pashtun > most segmented
kinship web in the world
 To understand ethnography (a guide to another
cultural world)
←
← Kinship:
• bound and intersected by gender
o Gender: becoming a more important focus in
anthropology.
3rd and 4th gender groups
←
← Stone:
• reproduction: main intersection of kinship and gender
o children: new recruits to society
 o CULTURAL RULES regarding sexual activity between
individuals (when?, with whom?)
o 1. Reproduction is regulated.
o 2. Allocation of children between individuals of the
group
o Kinship = creates alliances
←
← Gender in Comparative Perspective
Sex: biological and physical differences between males and
females
Gender: The cultural construction of sxual difference, i.e.
ideals of maleness and femaleness/ ideas about the nature
and meaning of sexual differences.

Example of the cultural construction of gender: The Hua of New

Guinea
• Gender vary with culture and place
←
← ~~Meigs~~
← Figapa: (uninitiated = “moist” = Nu – life-giving substance;
women have more of this substance)
• Children of both sexes
• women in child brearing years
• post-menopausal women who have had fewer than three
children
• elderly men
←
← Kakora: (initiated = "dry”)
• initiated males (late teens to adult years)
• post meno-pausal women wo have had 3 or more children
o older women considered as men; allowed to take
part in the “men’s house”
← **Gender is a cultural
←
← 3rd or 4th gender roles (alt)
1. cross-gender occupation or work activities – a
preference for the work of the opposite sex and/or for
work set aside for their third or fourth gender identity.
2. Transvestism – in most cultures third and fourth gender
individuals were distinguished from men and women in
their dress style. Most commonly they cross-dressed,
but sometimes they wore a combination of female and
male garments.
3. Associations with spirital power or a spiritual sanction—
possession of special powers derived from spiritual
forces combined with a personal experience
interpreted by the group as a calling.
4. Same-sex relationships – the formation of sexual and
emotional bonds with members of the same sex, who
were not themselves men-women or women-men.
o Berdache ~ Arabic for prostitute; S. America
o Hijras ~ India
 Douglas ~ every culture imposes a categorical
grid on reality; there are always stuff in nature
that cannot be classified – they are considered
either dangerous/polluting OR
sacred/holy/powerful
 Bats, birds, squirrels, flying squirrel
(doesn’t fit)
o Lele ~ congo
 Pangolin ~ mammal eating ants; it has scales
(point is it has everything (reconciliation) and
the Lele people deem them sacred.
***Third and Fourth genders are categorized with
these.***
o Wakan
o N. India
 hijras ~ institutionalized 3rd gender
  mother goddess ~ Bahuchara; hijras take after
this mother goddess; hermaphrodite
 emasculation ~ ritual that castrates; who ever
survives the operation becomes a hijra
 They take female everything:
 dress like women, exaggerated to the
point of caricature (you can spot them)
 more sexual innuendos than normal
women
 they are performers in houses where (males)
are born
 sexual innuendos; they comment on the
newborn’s genitals
• blesses the baby and his family with
fertility and health
• sacred supernatural power
← ----------------------------------
← October 2, 2009
←
← STONE’s book for topics for term paper
←
← Patterns in the Sexual Division of Labor
← Tasks performed by gender
← Extracting food and other products:
• Exclusively males
o Hunting/trapping
o woodworking/mining
o lumbering
• Predominantly males
o fishing
o clearing land/preparing soil
o tending large animals
• Either or both sexes
o gathering small land animals
o planting crops
o tending crops
 o harvesting crops
o milking animals
• predominantly females
o gathering shellfish, mollusks
o tending small animals
o gathering fuel
o gathering wild plant foods
o fetching water
← Manfacturing, processing, and preparing goods for
comsumption
• Exclusively males
o butchering
o boat building
o working ith stone, horn, bone, shell
o smelting ore
o metalworking
• predominantly male
o house building
o making rope, cordage, nets
• Either or both
o preparing skins
o making leather

Explanations for Sexual Division of Labour

• The Strength Hypothesis:
o Sexual dimorphism: a difference in size between the
sexes
 muscle strength relating to the job
 11% difference between human male or
female (small compared to other animal
species)
 • small but explains a lot; small but a
lot of difference
• The Fertility Maintenance Hypothesis
o Prolonged strenuous exercise would dampen a
women’s fertility.
 to get pregnant, there’s a required amount of
fat ratio
• The Reproductive Value of Men and Women
o Men are more expendable from a reproductive
perspective than are women
o Mortality must be lowered.
 women > men
• The Child Care Compatibility Hypothesis
o Suggested by Judith Brown: Women’s roles are those
that can be effectively combined with child-care
responsibilities:
a. fairly routine and repetitive tasks
that can be interrupted and
resumed
b. tasks that do not involve travel far
from a home base
c. tasks do not expose mothers and
children to great potential danger
Reproduction requires more energy from women than men.
• ~ making women more compatible with child care
• Biology is destiny.

Rosaldo ~ women’s reproductive rules = subordination

• women are involved in the domestic, private sphere of
social life and social activities (less valued)
o sponsored, nominated male dominance?
• men are involved in the public sphere

GENDER STRATIFICATION: BASIC DIMENSIONS:

1. The kinds of roles men and women perform with
their associated rights and duties.
 o Whyte; 93 society; 52 variables
2. The cultural value attached to women’s
contribution.
3. Whether or how much women defer socially to
their husbands, male relatives and other men = social
deference.
4. Female access to positions of power and influence.
5. The extent to which some control their own lives =
degree of autonomy.
6. Cultural ideas and beliefs about the relatives
equality or superiority/inferiority of women and women =a
culture’s gender ideology.
←
← Matriarchy = rule of men by women
• kind of a mythical thing; non-existent in human history?
← Patriarchy = rule of women by men

Influences on living status:

• Contribution
• women’s control over key resources
←
← Patterns of descent and post-marital residence
• If woman stays with her family, she has a better status in
society as compared if she moves into her husbands

~~~~
Linda Stone's Kinship and Gender Chapter 1

← Kinship: biological and marriage ties

• Descent
o Relationships rooted from procreation/reproduction.
  family origins; shared biological heritage
 “Blood relatives”
 Consanguineal relatives
• Marriage
o one is related by marriage
o legal status
o Affinity
 Affinal relatives (in-laws)
 Mother could be an affinal relative because
the sperm is from the father and it already
has a little you.
• Patrilineal
 Other cultures has the father a affinal
relative because the spirit of a dead
relative who wants to be reincarnated
entered the mother.
• Matrilineal
← Carol Laderman, p.6
• Malaysia
• Baby comes from the father’s brain. First 40 days, liquid
form (sperm), transferred to the mother through sexual
intercourse.
• Man has more rationality than women so it’s rational that
the baby comes from the father.
←
←
←
← --------------------------------------
← October 5, 2009
The Kinship System:
← “All the ways in which a society defines and uses kinship.” ~
Stone, Ch 1
• Ideas about reproduction
 • The rights and obligations recognized between kin and
groups of kin.
o Can be either security or constraint
• The classificatory system of kinship terminology – the
categories into kin are linguistically classified
o nomenclature; names mean more than their name
(e.g. if you call someone “daughter” and another
person is called daughter, they should be treated
EQUALLY
• The rules that specify modes of descent – how
relationships are traded back into the past.
o could be rooted out from the patterns of residence
• Forms of marriage (e.g. number of spouses allowed) and
systems of economic exchange at marriage.
• Patterns of residence – the ‘proper’ post-marital residence
of a couple
←
← The Kinship Code (p.7)
• Triangle - male
• Circle – female
• square – person of either sex
• slashed shapes – deceased
• = -- marriage
• =/= -- divorce
• “--” – sexual relationship
• | -- descent
• ,-, -- sibling relationship
• Darkened shapes -- Ego (I); perspective of the person from
which the kinship tree is viewed
←
← Kindred ~ all of the persons that the ego recognizes as
relatives; bilateral system?
←
← Kinship Charts don’t show everything.
 • Is the father in the diagram the ego’s biological father?
• Adopted members (shown by dotted lines of descent)

← Genitor = biological father of a person

← Pater = social father of a person (e.g. blended families)
←
← Genetrix = Biological mother
← Mater = sociological mother
←
← Stone, p.9
←
← M = mother ← H = husband
← F = father ← D = daughter
← B = brother ← S = son
← Z = sister ← P = parent
← W= wife ← C = child
←
←
← Kinship Diagrams are egocentric, but they don’t have to be
always and sometimes they’re not.
←
← Sister Exchange ~ two brothers exchange sisters and they
cross-marry; brother gives out his sister for another guy to marry
and he will marry the other guy’s sister in exchange.
• small population; not ego focused diagram
←
← Key Concepts
1. Descent
o All societies trace out descents one way or another
and this continues to the future.
o Many societies use descent to form stable groups
(e.g. corporate groups)
 Three types of tracing
a. Bilateral & Cognatic
• Both Female/Mother and Male/Father
 b. Patrilineal (agnatic)
• Male/Father ONLY
c. Matrilineal (uterine)
• Female/Mother ONLY
Patrilineal and Matrilineal descents =
Unilineal
These systems form discreet, stable
groups. Major players in the social,
political, and economic life of society.
They form a boundary around
themselves.
o Human groups are essential for
survival, so these descent lines
construct cohesiveness in the
group, and these groups persist
for a long time.
o Keesing ~distinguished between
Category/Group/Corporate group (p.14)
 collection social groups
 Corporate Groups: (PROPERTY)
 collectively owns something; same rights
to property or resource; by virtue of
membership, individual has rights of
access to the collective property, however
you cannot sell it by yourself. Member also
has obligations to the other members.
 very powerful; the group comes first over
the individuals?; can function as political
units, religious cults, etc.
 legally speaking, Corp groups are
considered as ONE entity; group persists
even though individuals, founders die.
 Bilateral & cognatic; Ancestor focus rather
than Ego focus
←
← Zigod, Figof, Ragoz
 • cavemen (with weird names! Hahaha)
• p.12 example
• Unilineal descent groups are ancestor focused.
• Bilateral descent are ego focused and don’t form discreet
groups.

Hobbes ~ 1651
• people consciously chose a king and became civil
← Ferguson
• societies grow naturally like trees
←
← Cognatic are also ancestor focused.
← -------------------------------------
← October 7, 2009
←
← Read the online article listed on the syllabus
← Read Stone’s chapter 2

Paper topics handout

Bilateral = two sided kinship; trade from both mother and father;
everyone’s related to mother and mother’s kin or father and
father’s kin; in macro view everyone’s related; no boundaries
drawn between collection of relatives; quasi group called kindred
(all the people a specific person recognizes being bilaterally
related to him/her); ego-focused; not a discreet group; kin don’t
live together but they aid each other
• E.g. Iban – Bilek
• found among foragers, hunter-gatherer, and modern
industrial societies
o Why? Emphasises the importance of nuclear families
and potential mobility
Cognatic = ancestor focused; people can end up with relatively
discreet groups (Cognatic descent groups); descent groups can
form if person is able to trace descent back to common ancestor
(male and/or female) (E.g. Zigod’s story) [theoretical and actual
memberships]

Patrilineal and Matrilineal [Unilineal]

• Extended family
o Nuclear family vs extended family
 Nuclear: man+woman+children
 Extended: Nuclear+other related nuclear
families
o 35-50 families?
• Lineage
o Goes back 4-6 generations and include only one sex
ancestor related
o they can trace relationships by specific individuals
• Clan
o People know that they are related but can’t pinpoint
exactly through which known persons (e.g. common
family names, Mennonites)
o 15-20 generations; about 600 people
• Order = Clan > Lineage > Extended Family
←
← Residence
• 2 major possibilities for descent groups
o ~Localized = living together in one place
o ~Dispersed = spread out among groups; most
commonly seen
• Post Marital Residence
• Domestic Cycles ~ Myer fortes
o idea of household or domestic group
 household – not kin; people just live together
o cycle change in the construction of households
 as members of the household matures, cycles
change
 o South Asia
 Joint family: couple+children **audio**
 Stem-family (e.g. Europe and Japan)
 the whole estate goes to one heir ONLY
(usually the eldest son)
 household branches out.

--------------------------------
← October 9, 2009
←
← Forms of Marriage (cont. from last class on Kinship)
← Fictive Kinship
• “Social” kinship
• above and beyond regular consanguine kin
• used in local societies
• Janet Hiersturn? ~ article, 1995
o kinship emerges over time; people aren’t just born
into a kinship; the kinship is made and remade
o David Schneider, 1984
 primordial base of kinship (birth, procreation)
o Langkai? Kinship is a process
 KINSHIP = BLOOD
 FOOD = BLOOD
 blood is mutual and fluid, so is kinship.
 So eating together/sharing food = kinship
 eating at home is important and people
just don't eat at other people’s
 “You are what you eat.”
 Societies of the House (house based
societies)
• basic socio-economic unit is the
house
• house and women ~
o dapur (centre of the house) ~
considered as the woman’s spot
 o every house has a female spirit
and senior
o a widow can live alone, but not a
widower
o a house isn’t built til one child is
born
o strong emphasis on bro/sis
relationship
 expected to render help to
each other for the rest of
their life
 indivisible; idea that they
cook the same food and
have lived together; they
lived inside the same womb
and gets the same blood
from their mother (nursing)
 when children are fostered,
they come to resemble
those who foster them in
appearance and character
because they EAT together
o KINSHIP IS MADE.
 When people move out of a house and hasn’t
been there for a long time and don’t eat
together anymore, they are not relatives
anymore overtime. O-o
←
← ~Evolution of Kinship~
• How much of what we see in our kinship system is unique
in our species?
←
← Infant Development (of chimpanzees) ~ Movie
• Chimpanzee females marry exogamous
• matri-focal family (Flo is the mother with children)
o fathers are not around
 o there are brotherly ties but fathers are non-existent
 their society doesn’t have specific roles for
social fathers
• Grooming ~ all primates do this…. -_-
o especially ears for Flo
 Fifi does the same thing when she has her own
kid (social learning)
 line of transmission
• strong kin recognition = similar to humans
• study of primates
o to gain perspective of human evolution
o 200 primate species
 ground dwellers: Savannah baboons;
chimpanzees
 proto-humans had lives like the baboons
who lived in the savannah areas
 chimpanzees: most closely related
relatives (DNA-wise); humans and
chimpanzees have common ancestors 5-
7million years ago; the chimp-line had
another split = the bonobos; early proto-
human life
political debate about human evolution. Was it the
female’s responsibility or the male’s?
metaphysical nonsense ~ A.J. Ayer
 logical posivitists
• Posivitists ~ language
1. tautologies
 saying the same thing two
different ways
2. Empirical statements
 statements about reality
 guide to anticipation
of reality
3. Metaphysical nonsense
  proto-human history cannot be verified or
falsified.
← ~~~~
← October 14, 2009
←
Stone: Chapter 2

Marriage Forms (human society)

• Monogamy ~ every individual is allowed only one spouse
• Polygyny ~ one man is allowed to have multiple wives
• Polyandry ~ one woman is allowed multiple husbands
• Group marriage ~ several women and men are allowed to
be married simultaneously to one another
o outgrowth of polyandry in Tibet?
← **In some primate species, they have marriage

Rules of Exogamy/Exogamous Rules

• Set of rules that you have to marry outside the boundaries
of social group/kinship
• forms alliances
← Rules of Endogamy/Endogamous Rules
• person has to marry within the boundaries of social
group/category
o e.g. caste; class; religious
o social barriers; rank and class
← Both rules operate together
• e.g. Caste endogamy with village exogamy; ethnic
endogamy with clan exogamy

p.51 – Stone’s book; 1987 – Robert Heinz?

Primates
• pentadactyly – opposable thumb and toe; grasping of
hands and feet; hand-eye-coordination; visual predators;
intelligence; sight
o retention of ancient
 o adaptation to aboreal (trees) life
o early order of mammals; adaptive radiation after the
extinction of reptiles = primates were a part of this
 Eocene (54-37 million years ago)
~~~ Prosimians (lemurs; Madagascar; nails not
claws; tarsier; nocturnals)
 most primitive of the primates
 evolved into New World and Old World
monkeys
• dental patterns retained
• brain size
• New World monkeys have tails that
they can use to grasp things
o teeth: T:2; C:1; P:3; M:3
• Old World monkeys (e.g. Baboon)
o teeth: T:2; C:1; P:2; M:3
o Homonoids – apes (lesser apes;
greater apes)
 survivors: orangutan;
gorilla; chimpanzees
 Orang (malay) = man;
utan = in the forest
prolongation of infant in the womb and the
infancy and the amount of time to be taken
care of; continual expansion of the brain =
more intelligence
~~~ Anthropoids
 Simians
←
← FOR MIDTERM: STONE, CH.2
← ~~~~
←
October 16, 2009

(Table 9.1)
PRIMATES (continued)
DNA difference: humans vs.
• Chimpanzee: 0.3%
• Humans vs Gorillas 0.6%
• Orangutan 2.8%
• Old World Monkeys 3.9%
• New World Monkeys 7.9%
←
← Primate Bondings/Quiasi-marriage:
← Pair Bonding/Monogamous relationship = mostly with
Gibbons
← Polygyny = usually in baboons; pretty stable bond
← Polyandry = 2-4 males meet with the female and cooperate
taking care of the young; usually in Tamara?
←
← Dominance Hierarchies
• associated with “Display” = aggressive show (includes:
vocalizations, bodily movement – leaping, bipedal stance,
rhythmic percussive way
o to show dominance, no real fights
o could be recognized as proto-human politics
o De Wall, Chimpanzee Politics
← Usually primates have oligarchy
← Group solidarity
← Kin recognition
• 36-47, Stone
• They can recognize their kin, particularly greater apes.
There’s a difference in how kin treat each other apart from
non-kin.
• MALES can bond together cooperatively and support each
other in dominance conflict. They also support younger
apes who are kin.
• p.39: Takayoshi Kano
o study of Bonobos (sister: kamiko died)
• chimps contract almost the same diseases as humans do
 • strong emotional connection between chimps
• Sudanese monkeys know their kin and who’s related to
who
• Social deception in the Great Apes
o lying to get what you wants
• chimps are very intelligent
o capable of rudimentary language but cannot talk
because of their body -- they don’t have vocal tracts
like humans
o as intelligent as a 3 or 4 y.o. humans
• POST-MARITAL residence
o INHERITED RANK
 patrilocal ; lives with the groom’s patrilineal
 matrilines: sons of high-ranking mothers will
highly become high-ranking males in their
group
 dominant female will support juvenile male
←
←
←
← ****
← October 19, 2009
← MIDTERM1 – OCTOBER 26
←
← PRIMATES – Chapter 2 (continued)
←
Sociobiology
• E.O. Wilson, 1975
• Richard Dawkins
 • Genetic control; goal is evolutionary success – Darwinian
fitness
o surviving long enough to get your genes to the next
generation to as many as possible
o a lot of human behavior is geared towards natural
selection that leads to evolutionary success
 programmed/wired into humans – genetic
 unconsciously aiming for this evolutionary
success
← Altruistic behavior – doing something for somebody else
without expecting a benefit or reward for one’s self (Example:
prairie dogs)
• IS THIS REALLY AN ALTRUISTIC BEHAVIOR OR A STARTLED
REACTION?
o Inclusive fitness:
 an individual can promote the transmission of
his genes to the next generation not only
through own offspring but also through other
individuals with the same genes, such as
sisters, brothers. Some of your genes will be in
your own kin and they can reproduce for you.
 not limited to the individual but also applicable
to immediate kin.
 KIN SELECTION
 proposing biological basis for Darwinian
Fitness
←
← Human males and females have different reproductive
strategies
• MALES = naturally polygamous/promiscuous; to make
sure that genes are reproduced in the next generation;
Mate Quantity
 • FEMALES = naturally monogamous; to make sure that
genes are reproduced they try to raise minimal children
who will surely live; looks for males who can protect and
provide; toned-down sexual appetite (Stone, p34?); Mate
Quality
o Nimya, Nepal = polyandrous marriage
• **Product of evolution
• Meredith Small - argued that females can also be sexually
aggressive; feminist critique of Sociobiologists; both sex
can be promiscuous
←
← DOMINANCE AND AGGRESSION IN PRIMATES
• both for patrilineal and matrilineal groups
• Males & females are equally aggressive; the male displays
aggression first before attacking, while females just
attack.
• sexual dimorphism – factor to aggression
• Male Dominance
o males have feeding priority
o spatial priority
o decide and initiate travel
**Male and female does his or her own food quest.**
o 1993, females still maintain autonomy
← Groups of Chimpanzees
1. Bachelor Bands
2. Adult (Male & female) with adolescent young (core of
the group)
3. Adult Females with Infant or small children on their own
– these females band together and protect their own
← Human and Primates
• reconstruct evolutionary path taken by humans
• HUMANS: bipedalism (factors that explain)
1. Hunting Hypothesis (Stone p.52)
  earliest hominids came down from the trees and
adapted to open country and adapted to
hunting large prey; to effectively carry tools,
bipedalism was needed and to produce tools we
needed a bigger brain
 males leading evolution; male-centric
2. Gathering Hypothesis (Tanner, Slocum)
 Women’s activity of gathering plants
 Women bipedal so carrying infant and plant
food will be easier as well as the tools they
made
 female-centric
 54-56, Stone
 hunting-gathering transition
 Fox; Synthesis
• development of division of labor by
sex
• food trade: male = meat; female =
vegetables
• male & females need each other not
only for sex but also for food
o start of marriage systems?
• Hrdy (p.57) = female primates are
sexually driven so that males will
presume that they father the child
and they will provide for the child
Key Difference Between Primates and Humans
• FOOD
o Chimps provision themselves individually on their
own
o humans share food and division of labour
• ESTRUS/ESTROUS = “Heat”
o changes in the genitals associated with ovulation
o the only time primates mate
o Humans lost this “Heat” and year-round mating
o Lovejoy:
  pair-bonding; males getting responsible for
taking care of the young
 pairbonding = kissing; that’s why humans
have lips.`-` loss of estrus
~~~~~
October 21, 2009
Relationships based on:
• 1. Descent (consanguineal)
o between siblings
• 2. Marriage (alliance)
o some primates have rudimentary marriage-like
relationships called alliances
←
← Fox – noted that in primates, there’s only one of the two
relationships. What’s unique to humans is the combination of
relationships based on BOTH descent AND alliance. (p.45, Stone)
←
← Primates and Humans Difference
• Relationships based on:
o 1. Descent (consanguineal)
 between siblings
o 2. Marriage (alliance)
 some primates have rudimentary marriage-like
relationships called alliances
←
• Humans are distinctive from primates because they
maintain life-long ties/contact with consanguineal
kin/relatives.
• Incest Taboo – universal among humans
o primates practice incest avoidance, but ONLY
humans have formal incest TABOO.
o humans: rule of exogamy for dispersal of one’s sex
o post-marriage residence contributes to the lineal
descent means of tracing (patrilineal = son living
with parents; matrilineal = females staying near
home)
←
← Why do all human systems/societies have incest taboo?
• Incest taboo: ban on marrying primary kin
o bulk of the world’s population has this system
o primary kin: mother-son; father-daughter; brother-
sister = uniquely human
Levi-Strauss – French Anthropologist
 Incest taboo is the fundamental human act: key
to being human. Humans lift themselves out of
nature into having human culture.
 Culture/Nature dichotomy = basic in human
culture
 transforming things from nature to culture
• e.g. cooking: transforming raw
(nature) to cooked (culture)
 “Others” practice incest. “We” as humans don’t
have incest.
Fox: incest vs exogamy
 incest: sex practice
 exogamy: rules of marriage
 these 2 can go together but they don’t need to.
 You can have sex with people you can’t marry.
Even though incest is allowed, it doesn’t mean
that siblings can’t marry out.
 Practically speaking, incest and exogamy,
although not linked directly, are associated with
each other.
Demographic Considerations
 lifespan considerations (e.g. mother-son)
 dispersal of offsprings (e.g. son driven out by
adult fathers, thus cutting out incest
relationship)
• THEORIES: Incest Taboo
o The Interbreeding (Genetic) Theory
  to prevent birth defects and deleterious
consequences on the offspring; recessive genes
surfacing, but this is only applicable to people
with deleterious gene PRESENT already in the
individual (e.g. Cleopatra)
 PROBLEM: early humans didn’t understand
genetics; non-association of sexual relationship
with birth defects in early humans
o The Childhood Association Theory
 Edward Westermarck: The History of Human
Marriage, 1981
 Natural human avoidance to incest; people
raised together/closely develop sexual
avoidance towards each other
 Arthur Wolfe: N. Taiwan – adopt a daughter,
marry a sister. The rich parents adopt an infant
girl and raise her together with their son, so
that when they reach maturity they will be
married off to each other. MINOR MARRIAGE
setting. Low fertility and lot of divorce on these
types of marriages.
 Communal marriages: Israel; children have no
attraction towards each other
 People reared in close proximity from childhood
do not develop sexual feelings for each other
and therefore adverse to incest.
o The Incest Taboo and Repression
 Freud: Totem and Taboo, 1918
 The incest taboo exist to stifle conscious or
unconscious desire to have sex with kin; people
are guilted out of this desire.
 Horde example; memory of primal cannibalism
 strong erotic impulses towards a parent
(Oedipus Complex; Electra Complex)
 the horror of incest is an unconscious want to
do incest -_-; mechanism of repression?
  Father-daughter incest; brother-sister; mother-
son; ranking of incest from most common to
least
 incest are usually child abuse
 People have repressed desires for incestuous
relationships which are very strong and hence
they insitute stern penalties for incest to keep
them repressed.
o The Functionalist Theory
 Malinowski: Sex and Repression in Savage
Society, 1924
 focus on family and rules in the family
 aka Psychological Theory
 before you develop sexuality, affection for
family members thus cementing family bond
 sex within the family will disrupt the family
structure
 violent emotions that can be caused by sexual
rivalry and will burst the family unit
 incest taboo is to keep the family unit intact
 family has role structure = structure is rule
 might be a very Romantic approach
 e.g. Fulani incident
o The Alliance Theory
 Levi-Strauss: Elementary Structures of Kinship
1949
 started from Tyler, 1900s
 choice made by humans is either dying in
or marrying out
 binding families together; affinal kinship and
consanguineal alliances = better chance for
survival
 families who practice incest become isolated
and culturally stagnant and eventually die out
 Levi-Strauss (S. America) – people marrying
outside to get Brothers-in-law to go hunting with
  Neanderthals – overtime declined
 homo sapiens have trade/exchange
connections outside of their boundaries
 Neanderthals stayed within themselves;
supports the Alliance Theory
~~~~~~
October 23, 2009
← Freud and Westermarck cannot be both true should they be
considered universals. Each may be partially true.
←
← Incest is a form of Child Abuse. It damages people. None of
the theories support this.
←
← Exceptions to Incest Taboo (Cultural)
• insisted in various societies in different areas
o e.g. Royal families of Egypt, Incas, Hawaii
 royal marital marriages are prescribe.
 Royalty is viewed divine and should only be
married to another divinity – marriage to a
mortal can be polluting.
 they may not have wanted power, wealth, and
status shared with another group.
 Cleopatra – married 12 year old brother and
murdered him
o Azande
 Father-daughter marriages in the royal family
 agriculture society in Africa
 to keep outsiders and others out
 ONLY kings and not ordinary people can do this
*exceptions to Incest Taboo is usually routed in social
(political); not biological instinct
o Lakher (S. Asia)
 Father owns children
 Divorced woman’s half-offsprings can marry
each
 divorced man’s half offsprings cannot marry
← Extension of the Incest Taboo
• Anyone you call mother or father or any other form of
kinship you cannot marry them
• must look into exogamous marriages/sexual relationships
• through lineage and clan
← Penalties for Incest
• Can be severe, mild, or non-existent
• Australia: most tribes punish incest with death
• Bali: humiliation, banishment
• N.America (Plains Tribe): incest is inconceivable and only
insane people will indulge on incest; punishments are mild
• Quite often SEVERE
• supernatural sanction; spirits will be offended along with
the rest of the group
• Oedipus Rex story – example of incest in Western culture
and supernatural sanction
• handsome young tien:
o Gar/DeGar (mountain tribes)
o blood anointment
o Aang (widow)
o Tieng (widower)
o beng – taboo; fornication b/w siblings
o the guilty has to pay a fine (goes to rich people) and
they would have to eat shit (just lick) to appease the
spirits and to stop the rain
o coincidence (rain) interpreted as divine displeasure
o Tieng commits suicide because he didn’t want to
move outside the village.
 Suicide also has taboo.
← Incest:
• Supernatural aspect that threatens the whole group.
• social disapproval
 23/10/2009 09:58:00
←
 23/10/2009 09:58:00
←