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1002:13.2 [2015/10/26 19:26] – [Snake and mongoose] Ryan Schram (admin)1002:13.2 [Unknown date] (current) – removed - external edit (Unknown date) 127.0.0.1
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-~~DECKJS~~ 
-# Around the world in 13 weeks # 
  
-## Around the world in 13 weeks ## 
- 
-Ryan Schram 
- 
-29 October 2014 
- 
-ryan.schram@sydney.edu.au 
- 
-Mills 169 (A26) 
- 
-Available at http://anthro.rschram.org/1002/13.2 
- 
-With help from Terry Woronov, Emma Young and the ANTH 1002 tutors. 
- 
-## How anthropologists look at globalization ## 
- 
-As Terry Woronov said in her 2013 review of this class, "Globalization 
-does not wipe out difference--it **produces** new dynamics that 
-sustain difference, and **enables the ongoing reproduction of 
-difference**." 
- 
-## Snake and mongoose ## 
- 
-Contemporary life is a lot like the snake and the mongoose: Fast 
-friends, arch rivals! Available for streaming now! 
- 
-{{:mongoose.movie.jpg}} 
- 
- 
- 
-## The snake and the mongoose ## 
- 
-Once upon a time there was a snake and a mongoose... 
- 
-{{:snake.mongoose.jpg|}} 
- 
-Many opposites - values, ideas, institutions - are not binary, 
-either-or. They are contradictions and they exist in an ambiguous 
-tension which is both a source of conflict but also creativity. 
- 
- 
-## Snake and mongoose ## 
- 
-That is, contemporary life is defined by its contradictions. There are 
-copresent forces in tension, leading to confict and also unexpected 
-side-effects. 
- 
-* Globalization involves change in societies. 
-* Globalization allows people to recreate a coherent cultural order 
-  with new materials. 
-   
-## Everything is mixed ## 
- 
-Categories are not dichotomous; Many opposites are actually co-present. 
- 
-* Tradition / modernity 
-* Developed / undeveloped 
-* Custom / rationality 
-* Gift / commodity 
-* Love / money 
- 
-## Gift and commodity ## 
- 
-The first part of the class was devoted to the contradiction between 
-gift and commodity. 
- 
-* What is the difference between a gift and a commodity? 
-* What is an example of each of these? 
-* What is an example where gift and commodity come together in one place? 
-    - An example we read or saw in class. 
-    - An example from your own knowledge and experience. 
- 
-## Marcel Mauss ## 
- 
-Key ideas: 
- 
-* Exchange entails obligations to one's exchange partner and to 
-  society as a whole. 
-    - The obligation to give 
-    - The obligation to receive 
-    - The obligation to reciprocate. 
-* Gifts have a spirit, the *hau*. A gift wishes to return to its 
-  birthplace. 
- 
-## Karl Marx ## 
- 
-Key ideas:  
- 
-* Capitalism is a social system based on exchanging commodities. 
-* Commodities are things that you can own as private property. 
-* Ironic twist! Commodities are created by alienating them from the 
-  people who make them. Wage labor deprives people of the true value 
-  of their labor and allows owners of wealth to reap a profit from 
-  exchange. 
-* The formula of capital is M - C - M'. 
- 
-## Marcel Mauss and Karl Marx, separated at birth?? ## 
- 
-Although Marx and Mauss did not directly address each other's ideas, 
-they seem to have an affinity. This has been very important in the 
-study of globalization. Anthropologists generally see globalization as 
-an interaction between gift systems and capitalism. 
- 
-## Spheres of exchange ## 
- 
-* Paul Bohannon presents Tiv culture as an example in which all exchanges are regulated by spheres of exchange.  
-    - Subsistence items, foodstuffs, tools.  
-    - Prestige items, i.e. brass rods and fine tugudu cloth. 
-    - Women as wives. 
- 
-* Cash did not collapse the spheres; it just got put in the lowest sphere. (At least at first.) 
- 
- 
-## When worlds collide ## 
- 
-* Tension and conflict 
-* Efflorescence 
-* Transformation  
- 
-What are some examples of each of these? 
- 
- 
-## Oil on canvas ## 
- 
-{{:no5.pollock.jpg}} 
- 
-Why is this painting worth 140 million US dollars (in 2006)?  
- 
-## The problem of commodification ## 
- 
-* Can everything be a commodity? 
- - Human organs? 
- - Priceless art treasures (*No. 5, 1948* by Jackson Pollock, sold for $140 M in 2006)? 
- - Marriage? 
-* You can't have growth in indigenous art forms without a commodity 
-  market to support it! 
-* Cannibal Tours: Tourists want a unspoiled indigenous culture, but 
-  Sepik River villagers want money to send their children to 
-  school. Which is the ‘true’ Sepik River culture? 
- 
-## The family as site of analysis ## 
- 
-People tend to assume that family is distinct from other kinds of 
-relationship, or that one is either being a relative or being an 
-economic actor. 
- 
-Families are sites of snakes and mongooses. They are **both** moral 
-**and** economic. 
- 
-* What are the readings in which a family is a site for revealing the 
-  copresence of moral and economic domains? 
-* In what ways are families units of global economic systems? How do 
-  families regulate circulation, commodification, and production? 
- 
-## Becoming an individual, becoming a factory worker ## 
- 
-In many societies, people are faced with alternative ways of being and 
-ways of presenting oneself to others. 
- 
-* What readings are examples of alternative personhoods? Where do 
-  these alternative personhoods come from? 
- 
-The concept of a culturally-constructed person is relevant to 
-understanding the global economic order. 
- 
-* What kinds of persons facilitate global capitalism as we see it? 
- 
-## Multiple modernities ## 
- 
-* Not all change is progress. 
-* There are multiple paths of change that societies can follow. 
-* Not all societies want to imitate European history.  
-* Not all social change can be described as individual liberation. 
-* 'South-South' interaction is an important type of global circulation.  
- 
-## Parallel modernities ## 
- 
-* Bollywood in Nigeria: 
- - Hindi stories allow Hausa men to imagine reimagine what change means. 
-* Globalization is changing relationship between: 
- - Media technology 
- - Patterns of circulation 
- - Patterns of consumption 
- - Politics of identity 
-* There are global routes of circulation which parallel the movement 
-  of Western forms to other societies. 
- 
-## Parallel modernities ## 
- 
-* There are many ways to move things around the world; there is no 
-single system of circulation (ie, Hollywood's model of international 
-licensing isn't the only way to get movies shown around the world.) 
- - Nigerian Bollywood: informal systems of itinerant (Lebanese) 
-traders, enmeshed in systems that bypass the formal banking system 
- - Global body shopping: a system for circulating one kind of 
-person (IT trained) around the world, driven by diasporic personal 
-relations, parallel to formal recruitment systems) 
- - Black markets (e.g., organs, drugs, 'illegal' migration). 
- 
-## Alternate modernities ## 
- 
-Alternate modernity is the thesis that the same kinds of social forces 
-which have transformed European societies have an analogue outside of 
-the West. 
- 
-Max Weber says Protestant Christianity in Europe taught people to **see 
-themselves as individuals**, and to distinguish material wealth from 
-moral thinking. 
- 
-Brenner says that expressions of Islamic modesty, especially the veil, 
-allow women to **define their identity in opposition to the village and 
-its obligations**. Being a visibly pious Muslim is a way of asserting 
-autonomy from traditional codes. 
- 
-## Alternate modernities ## 
- 
-* Max Weber predicts that as time goes by, all societies become less 
-  religious and more secular. 
-* Veiling explicitly contests secular modernity: 
-    - Western modernity is based on secularism, freedom of religion, and 
-    personal choice. 
-    - The Islamic movement is based on individual faith, self-discipline 
-    and a break with traditional *adat*. 
-* Veiling in Java is explicitly neither a "return to tradition" nor an 
-"invented tradition." Instead, it's an active search for new ways to 
-be part of the modern world, other than those dictated by the West. 
- 
-## References ## 
- 
-Blain, Andrea. 2014. "'Snake and Mongoo$e' Races into Homes This 
-Spring." PR Newschannel. January 21. http://www.prnewschannel.com/2014/01/21/action-packed-film-snake-and-mongoose-races-into-homes-this-spring/. 
- 
-Lacock, Hennie. 2013. Cobra and Mongoose. Caters New Agency. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/2013-10/29/132841640_11n.jpg. 
- 
-Pollock, Jackson. 1948. No. 5, 1948. Oil on canvas. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=No._5,_1948&oldid=631373543. 
- 
- 
-## A guide to the unit ## 
- 
-{{page>1002guide}} 
1002/13.2.1445912767.txt.gz · Last modified: 2015/10/26 19:26 by Ryan Schram (admin)