Kottak Ch. 5 - Making A Living (Subsistence)

HERE ARE SOME OF THE CHAPTER OBJECTIVES Know what an adaptive strategy is. In addition, you should be familiar with Cohen's typology of societies based on their adaptive strategies. Understand examples of how today's globalizing world and state policies are altering the ways of life of many communities that traditionally practiced different adaptive strategies. Distinguish between modes and means of production Understand how industrialism leads to the alienation of producers from their products. Distinguish between the various forms of distribution and exchange, including the market principle, redistribution, and generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity. Click here to read the previous posts on the potlatch and watch two brief videos of the ritual. Specifically, you should know what it is, where it has been practiced, and how it relates to local and regional patterns of resource abundance and shortage. What role do religious and social ceremonies play in an economy? Answer: The potlatch of the native groups of the North Pacific coast of North America is a good example of the integral role a festival can play in a group's economy. The sponsors of a potlatch traditionally gave away food, blankets, pieces of copper, and other material goods. In return, they gained social prestige, and the more they gave away, the more their prestige increased. Like most regions of the world, the North Pacific coast of North America is subject to local fluctuations in resource abundance. One village might have a good year while another experienced a bad one. A village enjoying a good year would take advantage of its surplus to increase its prestige by hosting a potlatch and inviting the members of the surrounding villages to attend. In this way, the potlatch created and maintained a regional economy in which a series of villages pooled their resources. The needy villages would receive the surplus from the wealthy villages, which in turn gained prestige.