CULTURE CHANGE

1. CULTURE CHANGE & CULTURAL SURVIVAL

2. The Cultures Studied in this Course • Have all been re-shaped by colonialism & capitalism • There is no un-touched, “pristine” society • People we have studied have been changed by 4 major processes: • Genocide (Mayan peasants) • Ethnocide (!Kung, Yanomami) • Assimilation (Native Americans, Bakairí) • Resistance (Mayans, Kayapó)

3. Some History… • 1519: Conquest & territorial domination of Western Hemisphere • Complete by 1600 • Native populations reorganized by Spanish, Portuguese • Indigenous labor used in mines (Tío), plantations (Menchú), haciendas (Mexican peasants)

4. Rapid Population Decimation • 1519: 25 ML 1600: 1 ML • Yanomami: 1980—10,000; 1988—1/4 died • 16-19th C. African Slave Trade • Colonial powers turned to Africa for labor • 10 ML slaves shipped to America

5. In Africa • Congo: 8 ML died in 25 years as result of genocide & slavery • German settlers in SW Africa • War of extinction vs. Herero if they did not surrender their lands • Resistance: 1500 troops with machine guns surrounded & massacred 500 Herero (genocide) • Poisoned water holes • !Kung San: Boers, British, South Africa, reservations

6. Colonization • Europe assumed military, political, & economic dominance • 1885: Imperialist powers partitioned Africa into colonies • “To bring the benefits of civilization to primitive peoples & end their barbarous customs” • This constituted an internationally approved mandate for ETHNOCIDE

7. German Colonial Administrator: “The native tribes must withdraw from the lands on which they have pastured their cattle & so let the white man pasture his cattle on these lands…for people of the culture standard of the South African natives, the loss of their barbarism & development of a class of workers in the service of the whites is primarily a law of existence in the highest degree…this existence is justified in the degree that it is useful in the progress of development”

8. Customs seen as Backward, Primitive • “Customs of native groups, in so far as they threaten European control or offend western notions of morality must be abandoned” • “Colonial authorities have the right in virtue of their relatively civilized position to savages to enforce abstinence from immoral & degrading practices”

9. “Primitive” Customs seen as Obstacles to Progress: • Infanticide (!Kung) • Bride price (Tiv) • Polygyny (Bakairí) • Polyandry (Nepal) • Kinship obligations (Bedouin) • Extended families (India, Taiwan) “a drag on economic development & a serious obstacle of economic progress” • Initiation rites (Masaai) • Shamanism (Jívaro) • Tribal warfare (Yanomami)

10. Genocide in Australia • 1803-76: Tasmanians were extinct within 73 years of contact • British wanted land for sheep grazing • Tasmanians were shot down like animals for sport • Skulls were exhibited in museums • Truganini—the last Tasmanian

11. Native Americans • 1830s: Trail of Tears • 4000 Cherokee died • (1/4 population) • Villages burned, given blankets infected with smallpox

12. Education as Assimilation • 1889-1909: UMM Boarding School • Hopi • Taught language of the dominant culture • Imposed western dress, English names • Forbidden to speak native language • African textbook: “It is an advantage for a native to work for a white man, because the whites are better educated, more advanced in civilization than the natives and thanks to white men, the natives will make more rapid progress”

13. Industrial Revolution • Required raw materials & markets The destruction of indigenous peoples was unparalleled in its scope • 1780-1930: Tribal populations declined by 30 ML as a direct result of the spread of industrial civilization

14. Neo-Colonialism • By the 20th C.: major dislocations, population decline, reorganization • World War II was a watershed • Shift from political to economic domination • People everywhere are integrated into the world economic system • Autonomous people within state boundaries are seen as a threat (pastoralists)

15. Huarani, Ecuador • Progress Brings death to Amazon

16. Slain bishop & nun victims of Indians’ bitter struggle to survive “civilization” • Oil companies & pacification

17. Friday: “Trinkets & Beads” • “The latest victim of a brutal cultural struggle that has pitted a dwindling band of primitive warriors against civilization’s formidable army of oil companies, settlers, & christian missionaries”

18. Ecologist: • “The people who keep taking stuff out of th forest are like shoppers at a closeout sale, rushing in & taking what they can, as fast as they can, before somebody else gets the last piece of goods”

19. Genocide in Rwanda:Ancient Tribal Hatreds? • Original Twa hunters & gatherers • Hutu settle area 1000 AD, monarchy dominated Twa • 16th C. Tutsi herders enter • 1884 Germans colonize, racist ideology vs. Hutus • After WW I Belgium took over colonial control, racist doctrines • Replace Hutu chiefs with Tutsis • Ethnic Identity cards • Allow Tutsis to take over Hutu lands • Require peasants to grow export crops (coffee) Hutu rebels

20. 1950s Tutsis struggle for independence • Belgians switch support to Hutus • 1962 independence; Hutu limit Tutsi access to education, government jobs • 1973 military coup • 1974 World Bank project for cattle ranches disadvantages Tutsi herders Tutsi refugees

21. 1989 coffee prices collapsed (major export) • Loss of income, famine • 1990 IMF austerity program impoverished farmers & workers • Cuts to education, health care • Malnutrition • Tutsi refugees invade, French provide military aid to the government • Death squads emerge, racial hatred toward Tutsis • Hutu state formed, committed to genocide • 50,000 Hutus & Tutsis killed

22. 1994 800,000 Tutsis slaughtered by Hutu-run state • The causes were carefully obscured • Based on Western stereotypes of savage Africans • “Tribal warfare involving those without the veneer of Western civilization” • Genocide not recognized until months later • As changes are instituted to accommodate capital accumulation, lives are disrupted & conditions created that fuel hatred & violence • Colonial history, state genocide, global economic integration

23. “World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, visiting a Rwandan genocide memorial, apologized on Thursday on behalf of the international community for not trying to prevent the 1994 slaughter”

24. Policies of Assimilation • (!Kung, Bakairí, Kayapó, Bedouin) • Community control of land – replaced by private property • 1887 Dawes Act • Corporate kinship groups based on kinship relations – incomprehensible to dominant society

25. Economic Development • Incorporate indigenous people into the capitalist economy-- • Forced labor • Requirement to pay taxes in cash • Work on plantations, mines, cash crops

26. Azande • (Sudan, horticulturalists): • Introduction of cotton as cash crop • 1980s decline of cotton market left Azande in economic ruin

27. Guaraní (Paraguay) • Egalitarian horticulturalists, hunting & gathering, fishing, collection of forest products for sale (agroforestry) • Integrated into European markets since contact, maintained sustainability • Engaged global economic system without becoming dependent Mate Yerba

28. Capitalist Expansion in Paraguay • Dramatic expansion of agricultural cash-crop production • Rainforest felled for intensive, industrial agriculture • Lumbering to extract hardwood for U.S. market (parquet floors) • 1970—6.8 ML has. 1984—2.1 ML has. • Small-scale producers displaced • Floral & faunal diversity destroyed

29. Guaraní Cash-crop disappeared, they enter market economy as waged laborers on cotton & tobacco plantations • 1995: 3 suicides/month (unknown before) • Economic development spawned by the needs of the global economy are destroying Guaraní

30. A casualty of the expansion of the culture of capitalism is cultural diversity • With incorporation into the world market economy “their standard of living is lowered, not raised, by economic progress… This is perhaps the most outstanding & inescapable fact to emerge from the years of research that anthropologists have devoted to the study of culture change”

31. Resistance: Sioux Ghost Dance • The Ghost Dance was a spiritual movement in the late 1880s in reaction to the destruction of Native American cultures • Wovoka died, went to the spirit world, returned as a prophet • Nativistic Movement • Told people to return to the old ways, continue dancing & whites would be destroyed, the dead & the buffalo would return

32. 1890: Wounded Knee • Wovoca had told people “You must not do harm to anyone. You must not fight.” • People believed the ghost shirts they wore made them impervious to bullets • Army troops arrived, killed 200 Lakota & Chief Big Foot • Gen. Sheridan: “The only good Indian is a dead Indian”

33. Resistance: Cargo Cults • Milenarian Movements (esp. Melanesia) • Exposure to whites & material goods during World War II • Context of rapid social change, foreign domination, relative deprivation • Tribal people did all the work, whites owned all the goods

34. Converted to Christianity, but cargo did not arrive • To acquire wealth through ritual means • Creation of a new world by mimicking Europeans • Whites knew the secret of cargo • Whites had stolen cargo from ancestors • Built airstrips, killed pigs, abandoned gardens, destroyed native wealth • Ancestors would arrive with cargo in ships & planes

35. “John Frum (messiah) promised he’ll bring planeloads and shiploads of cargo to us from America if we pray to him: Radios, TVs, trucks, boats, watches, iceboxes, medicine, Coca-Cola and many other wonderful things.”

36. Total Incompatibility • Tribal economies aimed at satisfaction of subsistence needs • Hunters & gatherers • Horticulturalists • Pastoralists • Peasants • And the culture of consumption • (A Poor Man Shames Us All)

37. How is the culture of indigenous peoples incompatible with the culture of capitalism? • Communal ownership—land & valued resources can not be purchased • Distribution through sharing, gift-giving, labor reciprocity reduce need to consume & work for wages • People are not naturally driven to accumulate wealth • Conservation strategies make lands less subject to exploitation for profit

38. Culture of Capitalism • Capitalism seeks continual expansion, growth to obtain new markets, to promote consumption, increase profits • Indigenous cultures are thus vulnerable to destruction by capitalist expansion

39. Walmart • 3000+ U.S. Walmarts sell at lowest cost • $245 BL sales • Largest private employer in Mexico • Acting as Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”

40. Polanyi’s Paradox • Externalities: • Forces companies to reduce production & labor costs • Loss of 1000s of jobs as companies shift to other countries • Imports 12% Chinese exports, workers earn $32/month • Environmental damage • Energy resources for transporting goods around world • These costs do not appear on the price tag • Buyers are not saving money; they pass the cost on to someone else • 1% of the profits of 5 Walmart owners could pay decent wages & health insurance to all of its employees

41. Consumerism • We are all involved: • Progress is synonymous with having things--Macs, PCs, Cells, DVDs, IPODs • Other cultures survived 1000s of years without these luxuries; their lives were not “nasty, brutish, & short” (Hobbes) • But based on family ties, kinship relations, sharing, cooperation

42. Diseases of Industrial Society • Hypertension, circulatory system, mental stress, diabetes, obesity • Malnutrition is a hazard of “progress”

43. Is Sociocultural Diversity Worth Preserving? • Medicines: anthropologists have catalogued indigenous knowledge • Malaria: Peru—Quinine from the bark of the cinchona tree (“Out of the Forest”) • Diabetes, leukemia, Hodgkins disease—Madagascar periwinkle • Muscle relaxants—S. America (poison arrows with poison from the chondodendron tree) • Aspirin: Native Americans—willow bark

44. Adaptive Wisdom • Slash & burn horticulture (Bakairí, Kayapó) • Technologies that do not destroy the environment • Crop varieties selected over 1000s of years • High protein content: amaranth (Mesoamerica), Quinoa (Peru), Tepary Bean (Papago) • Self-sufficiency

45. What Is Progress? • The reckless pursuit of “progress” has brought the wholesale destruction of indigenous peoples • Racism, ethnocentrism, evolutionary ideas about progress justified the atrocities committed against tribal peoples • AND CONTINUE TO DO SO !!! Civilization Barbarism Savagery

46. “Progress” • Bt corn in Mexico • GM foods • Patents • Pesticide poisonings • Contamination of environment • Progress has brought erosion, over-grazing, deforestation

47. “Progress” • From hunting & gathering to market capitalism • Increasing centralization of power • Increasing concentration of access to wealth, power, prestige • Shift from egalitarian sharing of resources to increasing gap between elite & poor

48. PARADOX • Hunting & gathering societies – equality • Industrial nations – poverty, homelessness (A Poor Man Shames Us All) ALTERNATIVE WAYS OF BEING HUMAN SHOULD BE VALUED & ARE WORTH PRESERVING !