Development and Environmentalism

1. Development and Environmentalism • Exploitation/domination/ etc comes frequently in the form of core-based multinational corporations causing economic change in periphery cultures (i.e.: Shell Oil and Nigeria). • It should be noted that even well-intentioned interference (such as the environmentalist movement) may be treated as a form of cultural domination by subject populations (i.e.: people being told how to use their traditional resources, as seen in the readings for this week).

2. Poverty and Repression • The vast majority of the world’s indigenous population of 370 million people live in extreme poverty (i.e. do not have ready access to food and clean water), are discriminated against (at the very least politically), and have been subjected to the theft and plunder of their land and traditional habitats (broken treaties, democide). • World Systems Theory • Core/Periphery relationship • Conflict theory • Current economic system

3. Cultural Extinction • Physical extinction is only the beginning… • Threat of cultural extinction also comes from migration and urbanization • Migration and urbanization often result in: • New family organization (inability to maintain solidarity) • New economic organization (wage-based) • New religious organization (various factors, including health)

4. Biomedical Imperialism • Indigenous peoples who live in isolation have no system of special protection from contact with outsiders who can expose them to viruses. • Indigenous treatment systems vs. biomedical treatment systems • Distrust of changing systems • Lack of funding • Lack of cultural awareness

5. Environmental Imperialism • The symptoms of climate change are felt especially intensely in indigenous communities and harm their means of subsistence acquisition. • Periphery countries and resource use • Industrial pollution • Impact of climate change on animal migration routes, growth patterns, etc impact periphery countries.

6. Language Imperialism • The extinction of indigenous languages (especially in the next 100 years) is advancing in a subtle and almost imperceptible manner. • Imagine for a moment all the ways a language can die… • Just one example…the responsibility for the survival of language lies primarily with parents, who as culture bearers are the link between the past and the future.

7. Disempowered woman are the major target of discrimination, mistreatment, physical and sexual assault, prostitution, and sexually-transmitted diseases among indigenous cultures world-wide • How can they transmit their identity, culture, and language to their offspring under these often new and very challenging conditions?

8. Why should we explore this topic? - to study the condition of different types of economic activities of indigenous peoples as the basis for the preservation of their traditional nature use and socio-cultural values, as well as their main source of income; DIVERSITY!!!! - to identify the level of ethno-social destruction – unemployment, poverty, growth of deviant behavior, etc… - to analyze the process of marginalization of mass consciousness regarding the fundamentals of the future development of indigenous people locally and all people globally

9. Causes of Conflict • When development threatens indigenous peoples and their environments (e.g., Brazilian example of the Yanomami). • When external relations threaten indigenous peoples (e.g., Nigeria, where international corporations impact traditional subsistence life-ways, examples from Kurdish history, etc).

10. Resistance and Survival • Systems of Domination • Various theories answering questions like “why do people fight, why do people capitulate, etc…” • Scott (1990) differentiates between public and hidden transcripts of culturally and politically oppressed peoples. • Public transcript refers to the open, public interactions between dominators and the oppressed. • Hidden transcript refers to the critique of power that goes on offstage, where the dominators cannot see it. Scott, J C (1990). Domination and the Arts of Resistance: The Hidden Transcript of Subordinate Groups

11. Gramsci’s (1971) notion of hegemony describes a politically hierarchical system where the dominant ideology of the “elite” has been internalized by the lower classes. • Bourdieu (1977) and Foucault (1979) both argue it is much easier to control people's minds than try to control their bodies… • For example…what stops people from walking on the lawns here at SJSU? • Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks • Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice • Foucault, M. (1979) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

12. Weapons of the Weak • As James Scott’s work on peasants suggests, oppressed groups may use subtle, non-confrontational methods to resist various forms of domination. • In Scotts work, Malay peasants protest the introduction of combine harvesters, steal things, and kill animals. • Consider the little things you do to resist your mom, your boss, your instructor, etc…

13. Examples of antiauthoritarian discourse include rituals (e.g., Carnival, the caroling/wassailing celebrations), folk literature (Robin Hood, etc), and oral traditions (stories of revolt by someone else).

14. Resistance is more likely to be public when the oppressed come together in groups (for example anti-assembly laws of the antebellum South, or perhaps modern “Free Speech Zones”).

15. Cultural Imperialism • Cultural imperialism refers to the spread of one culture at the expense of others, usually because of differential economic or political influence (the Manifest Destiny period of American history, Soviet Russia, etc). • While mass media, popular culture, food technology, etc have contributed to the erosion of local cultures, they are increasingly being used as media for the outward diffusion of local cultures (e.g., sushi, Bollywood, youtube, etc)

16. A World System of Images • Mass media can spread and create national and ethnic identities. • Mass media plays an important role in maintaining ethnic and national identities among people who lead transnational lives. • Cable television…sports, culture, news, etc

17. A TransnationalCulture of Consumption • As with mass media, the flow of capital has become decentralized, carrying with it the cultural influences of many different sources (e.g., the wage earners in the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada, Germany sending money and culture back to host countries). • Migrant labor also contributes to cultural diffusion (both host and guest counties).

18. Globalization • Globalizationreferstotheincreasingconnectedness of theworld and itspeoples. • Withthis “connectedness”, however, come new bases foridentities (e.g., theKurdishidentitypresent in variousnation-states). • “Postmodernmoment”…an idea of personal examplesbearingout global linkages (commoditychains, etc).

19. The Continuance of Diversity • Anthropology has a crucial role to play in promoting a more humanistic vision of social change, one that respects the value of cultural diversity. • The existence of anthropology is itself a tribute to the continuing need to understand social and cultural similarities and differences. • As an anthropology instructor, I am happy to provide your various majors with an “area studies” option 

20. Effects of Anthropology • Why no bigger effect on indigenous survival? • Before the modern era, more research than applied work. • With a couple very rare aberrations, data published in Social Science Journals do not have much effect on Policy makers….

21. Conflict between Policy and Anthropology • Cultural relativism and holism important, but it is not economically fesiable… • Ethnographic studies can take a long time, often policy makers want answers right away. • Tensions between anthropolgical ethics and governmental policy .

22. Indigenous People: Oceania

23. The Peopling of Oceania The region of Oceania is comprised of Australia, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. The original inhabitants of this vast area included Aborigines, Melanesians, and Austronesians.

24. First arrived from Southeast Asia about 60,000 years ago. The various forms of social organization and isolation gave rise to a large diversity of languages and customs among indigenous groups in the region.

26. The Australian Aborigines Uniquely successful Perhaps 40,000 to 60,000 years of inhabitation… VERY SUSTAINABLE - Staying within “carrying capacity” Flexibility in social organization

27. Australian Aborigines… Little changes in population size; no full scale farming. No depletion of resources? Spiritually controlled… 4-7 hours work per day in gathering & cooking Efficiency in resource use

28. Aboriginal sustainability? Broad spectrum Subsistence. Seafood on coasts; grass seeds, lizards, kangaroo, moths, witchity grubs. Population control via varied methods common to foragers

29. Australian Aborigines… digging stick, spear, spearthrower (the woomera), stone blades, bowls, dogs fire making tools (spear thrower shaft, generally pressure tool)

30. Throwing stick/woomera

31. boomerang

32. c. “Dilly Bag” What is it? How is it used?

43. Australian Aborigines… The Dreaming… Interdependence Vitality Balance of all things Clan Totems

44. Prehistorical period during which the natural environment was shaped and humanized by the actions of mythic beings. Many of these beings took the form of human beings or of animals (“totemic”); some changed their forms. They were credited with having established the local social order and its “laws.”

45. 'Dreamtime' or 'Dreaming' has never been a direct translation of an Aboriginal word. The English language does not know an equivalent to express the complex Aboriginal spiritual concepts to white people. Aboriginal languages contain a lot of words for spirituality and beliefs, such as: tjurkurrpa, jukurrpa, tjurgurba (Pitjantjatjara people, north-western South Australia), altjeringa, alcheringa, alchera, aldjerinya (Arrernte people, central Australia), palaneri, bugaregara, ngarangani, ungud (Ngarinyin people, north-Western Australia), wongar (north eastern Arnhem Land), bugari (Broome, north-Western Australia).

46. Aboriginal spirituality does not consider the 'Dreamtime' as a time past, in fact not as a time at all. Time refers to past, present and future but the 'Dreamtime' is none of these. The Dreamtime is the environment that the Aboriginal lived in, and it still exists today, all around us. It is important to note that the Dreaming always also comprises the significance of place . The Dreaming perhaps better the timeless concept of moving from 'dream' to reality which in itself is an act of creation and the basis of many Aboriginal creation myths. None of the hundreds of Aboriginal languages contain a word for time.

47. 1. Dreamtime Ancestors

50. Australian Aborigines… Totemic exogamous clans called “Moieties” Tribal Dialects but most of Australian language intelligeble Father's + mother's + spouse's rights determined through the Law. Birth rights to territory/kin.