Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Consumption and Exchange
Chapter 5 Learning Objectives
5.1 Recognize what is consumption in a cross‐cultural
perspective.
5.2 Identify the varieties of exchange in cross‐cultural
perspective.
5.3 Illustrate how consumption and exchange are changing.
Part 5.1 Culture and Consumption
• What Is consumption?
• Modes of consumption
• Consumption funds
• Theorizing consumption inequalities
• Forbidden consumption: food taboos
What is
Consumption?
• The dominant way, in a
culture, of using up goods
and services
• Two meanings/processes:
A person’s “intake” in
terms of eating or other
ways of using things up
“Output” in terms of
spending or using
resources to obtain those
things
What is Consumption,
cont’d
• In noncash economies, people “spend”
time or labor to provide for their needs
• In money‐based economies, most
consumption depends on having cash
or some virtual form of money
Modes of
Consumption
• Related to modes of livelihood
• Based on the relationship between demand
and supply
• Two major modes:
• Minimalism—characterized by few and
finite consumer demands and adequate
and sustainable means to achieve them
• Consumerism—people’s demands are
many and infinite, and the means of
satisfying them are never sufficient
Consumerism
• United States is a primary example
• Mass media promotes the image
that consumerism is the way to
happiness
• China is now also a consumerist
giant
Costs of Consumerism
• To the environment and biological
species diversity
• To the world’s cultural diversity
• To the poor everywhere
• Personalized consumption replaced
by depersonalized consumption
Modes of Livelihood,
Consumption, and Exchange
Consumption Varies
Cross‐Culturally
• Foragers are generally egalitarian
• Sharing within the group is the norm
• Everyone has equal access to all
resources
• Most agricultural and
industrial/informatic societies exhibit
consumption inequalities, some severe
Modes of
Consumption:
Leveling Mechanisms
• An important process in small‐scale
societies that works to keep people equal
• Unwritten, culturally embedded rules that
prevent an individual from becoming
wealthier or more powerful
• Maintained through social pressure and
gossip
Leveling Mechanism
Potlach Example
• Gift‐giving feast held on the
occasions of births, deaths,
weddings and other major events
• Power is shown through the giving
away or destroying of gifts
• Once banned by Canadian and US
federal law from 1884 – 1951
• Practice has resumed within Native
American Pacific Northwest tribes
Consumption Funds
• Definition: categories within a person’s or household’s
budget used to provide for needs and desires
5 Consumption Funds:
• Of varying importance, depending on
the cultural context:
– Basic needs fund
– Recurrent costs fund
– Entertainment fund
– Ceremonial fund
– Rent/tax fund
Entitlement Theory
Culturally defined rights to provide for one’s life needs
Through entitlements (own land, money from job, inheritance) people
provide for their consumption
Direct entitlement Indirect entitlement
• Secure access • Riskier, get through exchange
• Example: owning land that • Example: working for a wage to
produces food earn money and buy food
• Foraging societies • Industrial/informatics
Entitlement Inequalities at 3 Levels
• International
– The global economy means some countries are more
secure than others (ex: ability to avoid famine)
• State/Government
– Those with direct entitlements may be more secure than
those with indirect entitlements
• Household
– Some members are more secure than others
Consumption Microcultures
• Microcultures have distinct entitlement
patterns
• Social inequality may play important role
and affect human welfare
• New Guinea example, women deprived
protein from pork, turned to cannibalism,
ate contaminated corpses, contract disease
• Examples:
• Class
• Gender
• “Race”/Ethnicity
Example of Gender Impacting Shopping
Patterns
• Entrenched gendered expectations
impact decision making
• Women
• Advertisements are more detailed
• Women appreciate fine distinctions
• Shopping as a process
• Men
• Advertisements focus on main object
• Do not appreciate ’irrelevant’
information’
• Shopping as a mission
Forbidden Symbolic/Interpretivist Explanation:
Dogs sleep in beds, sit at tables
Consumption: waiting for food, participate in
Food Taboos American homes as subjects, given
proper names, and are seen near
equals to humans. (Sahlins)
Case Study: American Cultural Materialist Explanation:
taboos on eating dog Disadvantages of an American dog
meat industry‐ provide security and
meat companionship. Dogs only consumed
as a food source in cultures that lack
cheaper alternative sources of protein
from other domestic animals. (Harris)
Gift Economy (~4 mins)
Reminders
• Turn in Participation Sheets
• Reading check (via REVEL) due
before next class
• Should be finishing the Exchange
of Chocolate Assignment –DUE
BEFORE NEXT CLASS
Chapter 5
Consumption and Exchange:
Part 2
EXCHANGE OF CHOCOLATE DICUSSION
1) Who did you choose to interview, and what about them made you ask them?
Would you feel comfortable conducting the same interview with a stranger?
2) Did your participants naturally answer in detail on their own, or did you have to
probe them for more information and explanation?
3) How was your experience in taking notes or transcribing?
4) When color‐coding for themes, which codes were easiest and hardest to pick
out? How did you feel double‐coding for statements that touched on multiple
themes?
1) What were the major similarities and differences between the chocolate exchange on these
holidays?
2) What were the major similarities and differences in the social significance of the chocolate
exchanges?
3) What were the major similarities and differences in the social relationships that come out
of the chocolate exchange?
5) What can we learn about the American worldview through these rituals?
Part 5.2 Culture and
Exchange
• What Is exchanged?
• Modes of exchange
What Is Exchange?
The dominant way, in a culture, of
transferring goods, services, and other
items between and among people and
groups
What Do People Exchange?
– Material goods (food, gifts)
– Symbolic goods
• Example: myths in the Balgo Hills, Australia
– Labor
– Money (symbolic or material?)
– People (slavery, offspring in marriage)
– Other?
Modes of Exchange
• Balanced exchange
• Generalized reciprocity
• Pure gift
• Expected reciprocity
• Redistribution
• Unbalanced exchange
• Market exchange
• Gambling
• Theft
• Exploitation
Modes of Exchange:
Balanced Exchange
• Generalized reciprocity
• Involves the least conscious sense of
interest in material gain or of what might
be received in return
• Main form of exchange in foraging
societies
• Also found among close kin and friends
cross‐culturally
• A pure gift is an extreme form
Modes of Exchange: Balanced Exchange
• Expected reciprocity
• Exchange of approximately equally
valued goods or services between
people of roughly equal social
status
• Exchange may be simultaneous or
on an agreed‐upon schedule
• If a party fails to complete the
exchange, the relationship will
break down
Modes of Exchange:
Unbalanced Exchange
• Market exchange
• The buying and selling of
commodities under competitive
conditions in which the forces of
supply and demand determine
value and the seller seeks to make
a profit
• Ranges from informal (periodic
market) to huge shopping centers
(permanent market)
Anthropology Works:
Social Effects of Indian
Tribal Casinos
• Research to evaluate the social and
economic effects of Indian gaming
operations on tribal and local governments
in California
• Two key factors in determining if benefits
are locally felt by Indians:
• If casinos are owned by tribal
governments
• If casinos are located on existing tribal
trust lands
Anthropology Works,
cont’d
Other findings:
• Indian reservations in CA are more
economically heterogenous (varied)
• Gaming in CA led to greater economic
inequality between gaming and nongaming
reservations
• Revenue Sharing Trust Fund was created
to counteract this effect
• Gaming benefits the communities beyond
the reservation as well.
Part 5.3 Changing Patterns of
Consumption and Exchange
• Sugar, salt, and steel tools in
the Amazon
• Global networks and ecstasy in
the United States
• Alternative food movements in
Europe and North America
Trends
• Increasing power of globalization in
shaping consumption and exchange
• Some examples of resistance by local
cultures to the global economy
Example of East Influencing West
• Mari Kondo (KonMari)
• Japanese word “tokimeku”
means “to spark joy.”
• Example of minimalism and
opposition of consumerism
Chapter 5 Learning Objectives Revisited
5.1 Recognize what is consumption in a cross‐cultural
perspective.
5.2 Identify the varieties of exchange in cross‐cultural
perspective.
5.3 Illustrate how consumption and exchange are changing.
Reminders
• Turn in Participation Sheets
• Chapter Quiz via Canvas
• Reading check (via REVEL) due
before next class