Chapter 8 Anthropology Economics

Cultural anthropology chapter 8 notes

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Cards In This Set

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Economics
Academic discipline that looks at systems of production, distribution, and consumption, wherever they may be found in industrialized world.
Formal Economic Theory
Assumptions about economic behavior based on the experience of Western, industrialized economies.
Formalism
A school of economic anthropology that argues that the broad ideas of formal economic theory can serve as analytical tools to study any economic system.
Substantivism
A school of economic anthropology that seeks to understand economic processes in their role of maintaining an entire culture order often used when examining non-industrial cultures.
Allocation of Resources
A society's regulation and control of such resources as land, water, and their by-products.
Property Rights
Western concept of individual ownership. (unknown to other cultures.) in which rights and obligations to land, livestock or material possessions reside with the individual rather than the wider group.
Production
Goods are obtained from the natural environment and altered to become consumable goods for society.
Division of Labor
The assignment of day to day tasks to the various members of society.
Labor Specialization
Important descriptive characteristic of any society.
Organic Solidarity
Type of social integration based on mutual interdependence found in societies w/ elaborate division of labor.
Mechanical Solidarity
Social integration based on mutuality of interests found in societies w/ little division of labor.
Reciprocity
Mode of distribution characterized by the exchange of goods and services of equal value between parties.
Generalized Reciprocity
The practice of giving a gift without expecting one in return. Creates moral obligation. Occurs within BANDS (50-100 people.)
Balanced Reciprocity
Practice of giving a gift with the expectation that a similar gift will be given in the opposite direction after a limited period of time.
Silent Trade
Form of trading found in some small scale societies in which the trading partners have no face to face contact.