Culture and Enviro Test 2

bunds

small walls that hold in the paddy

Kofyar in Jos Plateau

- moved there in early 19th c -moved into hills for protection from slave raids -moderate level of crowding, enough to push them to farm intensively -farmsteads: heavily populated -infields farmed intensively -outfields farmed extensively -sorghum and pearl millet grow well together -fertilizing: spent a lot of time on this -tilling: waffle-riding; group-based -transplanting: seedlings -weeding: lot of effort -land modification: terracing -social institutions

conflict vs. intensification?

-A key square chicken assumption: pushing out population to avoid intensification -Tiv "Segmentary Social Structure" linked to maintaining low population density -Had a whole social structure that was adapted to pushing people out (segmentary lineage)

kulaks

rich farmers lenin russian for "fist" so tight-fisted people who grasped all of the wealth

oryza sativa

-Asian rice -Japanica (mostly short-grain, grown more in temperate areas) -Indica (mostly long grain, mostly grown in tropical areas) -Both have glutinous (sticky) and nonglutinous (nonsticky) varieties

square chicken theory

-Boserup's theory is supposed to be very general, does not account for all complexities -reducing the problem to an obviously artificial simplicity to allow an initial approximation -What a 'square chicken' accomplishes is, first, explain a large portion of the observed variability, and second, organise the consideration of other causal factors by forcing the question: 'What have we had to do to square this chicken?'

Kofyar

-Boserupian agricultural change but non-Boserupian variables at work -population pressure and also market demands causing switch -Details of intensive cultivation -Social organization of labor (cultural ecology) -Sustainable farming (in Africa)

what happened in Machakos?

-British colonialists tried to push a lot of technologies onto peoples; in some cases they were rejected in other cases they were adopted and changed a little -manuring, plowing, terracing -Multiple technologies to choose from but not heavily dependent on external inputs; "There was no Green Revolution" nobody showed up with new seeds -mixed cash/subsistence cropping -Machakos Miracle? Mortimore says no just a Boserupian response

takeaways of Kofyar

-Confirms basic Boserupian pattern (Intensive homeland, Extensive early frontier, Intensive later frontier) -Shows key non-Boserupian effect of market -Shows adaptiveness & change in social institutions for agricultural work where people are unconstrained

hydraulic agriculture

-Water key to distinctive ecology -Works well with terracing, so works on hilly landscapes -Some large-scale hydraulic landscapes but mostly by smallholders

second view

-Cultural ecologist view -Small scale conflict is relatively non-lethal way to adjust population and resources -Also serves social functions (Robert Murphy's study of Brazilian Mundurucu warfare as "safety-valve institution"; Conflict as effective means of promoting social cohesion; bonding exercise Wedgwood said Melanesian SSC gave people a way to express anger and strengthen/reaffirm ties to one another)

Boserup in India

-Farmers making decisions based on marginal utility of labor (if I put in X more work, how much more utility will I get?) -Some areas had high-labor high-production systems -Different process than industrialization but can co-occur -Continuum of extensive to intensive -EB didn't invent continuum but did theorize how it worked

balinese water temples

-Green Rev (high external inputs including info flows, official high disapproval of non-maximizing indigenous practice) -disrupts land use fallow system managed by water temple priests -insect catastrophe

pigs for the ancestors 1968 ("Religious Regulation of Environmental Relations")

-High value of pork -Conflict on frontier triggers war; fighters eat pork without drink, limiting fight -Winners plant rumbim to thank ancestors, reward allies with pork, then pork taboo -Rumbim taken up after ancestors satisfied (which turns out to happen when pigs overpopulate); pork feast -War system limits violence -Linked homeostatically with pig population and probably population/land -Adaptive value of ritual

insect catastrophe

-Water temple priests make sure that from time to time there are synchronized fallows; very important ecological point: way of controlling populations of rice pests (planthoppers) -Lansing predicted that by not allowing certain times designated for fallowing, as encouraged by Green Revolution advocates, the insect population would threaten vitality of rice

takeaways from yanomamo

-Importance of historical context -Importance of external interactions -"Isolation" usually a misguided concept -Not a window into the basic nature of humanity, "man in state of nature"; rather unfortunate side effects of contact -Some SSC is relatively non-deadly and managed by indigenous institutions (But our most famous case of this isn't a great study of it Nor is it the best case of ritual regulation of environmental relations) -Some SSC is truly deadly (But our most famous case of this isn't a good case of it But it is a good e.g. of the "exogenous/maladaptive" Tribal Zone theory)

Great Leap Forward in larger picture

-Importance of social and ecological realities of food production -tragic case of tenacity of theories (Marx, Kautsky, Lenin, Mao, Nyerere, Pol Pot) -bad policy and poor agricultural understanding (Malthusian disaster)

what good is a wuk?

-Kofyar farming is partially market, partially subsistence -key to sustainable development: balance between market and nonmarket economies Innovation: wuk sale; if one farmer needs cash instead of labor, sell labor of neighbors in wuk group to another outside farmer -allows market/non-market flexbility

household

-Labor demands = small but continuous; Production limited more by land than labor; 5.1 mean hhold size; low rate of polygyny; Mostly nuclear; young marrieds move out as soon as possible; Swidden farmers in next valley had much larger hhold -cultural ecology: key social institution shaped by management of human work in pursuit of subsistence -private land tenure -little market production -began to move from area of crowding to area of low population density; switched from intensive to extensive (swidden) and cash cropping (yams) -social organization adjusts: production limited by labor not land -fertility rises, polygyny rates skyrocket, nuclear family replaced by multi-family; young marrieds stay home

causality both ways

-Land use shapes social institutions; social institutions shape land use practices -One intensifies and allows population to increase, the other extensifies and keeps population low -Basic ways of getting food shapes social institutions -Nigerian law turns over rural land to "traditional land use rights" → very vague

overall intensification summary

-Longer work hours -Efficiency (output:input) drops, decreasing marginal returns; this is the driver -Output per area/time ("production concentration") rises

ancient india: "tanks"

-Medium scale hydraulic engineering -Over 100,000 Tank irrigation - water flows out to rice fields

erosion and enviro. degradation in Machakos and Malthus?

-Mixed pastoralists, cultivators were compressed into reserve -Made it difficult to be pastoralist in confined area -Lot of environmental deterioration -Predictions by British colonialists that there would be complete erosion, considerable alarm -In the 1990s: a group of geological histographers were tasked to find what happened -Eroded landscape turned into terraced landscape

golden rice

-Most controversial GMO debate -Rice genetically engineered to have nutritional advantage so that it produces a nutrient that turns into vitamin A in the human body -Main research institute developing golden rice is in Philippines

asian intensive wet rice

-Most important single food production system in world -Example par excellence of some aspects of intensification -But key example of limits to classic theories of non-intensification

why are these stories kept from public?

-NGOs and press: unsubstantiated claims by NGOs and no questions asked by press -farmers: show-farmers -development officials: not much in it for you if people can develop on their own -scientists: vested interest in developing and selling external technologies

third view

-Political ecology view -Colonial powers congratulated themselves for suppressing the conflicts that they brought -Developed well in Ferguson's theory of tribal zone

intensification on the frontier

-Population density up to 100/km^2 by 1980s; market stimulus -Simple hoe technology basically unchanged -Added work in dense, complex cropping calendar -More time into weeding, mulching, fertilizing but very limited external inputs -High labor investment in complex carefully balanced agricultural calendar

spatial analysis

-Villages near posts are greatly privileged -Can raid but prefer long-term access -Most common attack is against village between you and sources -So settlement anchoring with large settlements near missions, which worsens game depletion problem -So depleted game, less communal sharing of meat (which originally worked to create solidarity) -Plus missionaries discourage long absences for hunts

integrated rice production systems

-Rice grown in bunded fields surrounded by canals -Mulberry trees on surrounding banks; leaves fed to silkworms -Silkworms produce "cash crop" of silk -Fish eat weeds, insect larvae; produce fertile muck; also food source

maring pigs

-Roy Rapport -PNG hilly area, cultural diversity -Became classic case of religious ritual as adaptive cultural institution regulating pig populations and conflict

first view

-Still prevalent view that people are prone to war (Pinker's Blank Slate) -Colonial powers congratulated themselves for paxes -But ironically, also used indigenous warfare as good excuse to wage war against indigines (i.e. Churchill)

problems with the pigs

-Theories with change; in 1960s-70s (heyday of cultural ecology) becomes classic -With political ecology, becomes poster child for hyperfunctional, hyperlocal -Also ahistoric, timeless -Empirical problems: not really a study of warfare; little data on land regulation -Some PNG warfare actually is quite deadly -Today, famous "Pigs" study more important as a foil for political ecology than as empirical research

segmentary lineage

-Tiv -social structure like an onion in that everyone considers themselves a part of numerous social units, one a part of the other -People are part of genealogical hierarchy that is represented in space -Have segmentary social structure and it is seen as a way to constantly grab land in order to keep agriculture as extensive as possible

kofyar and tiv

-When Kofyar expanded they sometimes encountered populations of the Tiv -Kofyar had social institutions adapted to intensification; twice as many people as Tiv in same area; Were intensifying -Tiv has social institutions adapted to conflict to allow adaptive farming ; Not intensifying How did they keep population down? -Tiv attacked people like the Kofyar that invaded their area -Would take their yams, dirty tricks, goats, chickens, crop theft, livestock theft, physical violence

conditions favoring sustainable intensive agriculture

-able to develop and adapt own social institutions -balance production for use/exchange -stimulus from pop. pressure/market

empirical support for Boserupian theory?

-broadly speaking yes -correlation studies (Papua New Guinea, Africa, elsewhere) -efficiency comparisons even though: measurement problems, industrial agriculture runs on distant, indirect, and externalized costs however square chicken

soup bowl ecology

-distinctive features of paddy ecology -several inches of water around seedlings -water = weed-preventer -self-fertilizing (nitrogen) -Years of continuous cultivation develops good waterproof hardpan covered in mud (podzolization) -May hold fertility indefinitely -But also long industry in producing organic fertilizer

what Boserup held constant

-economics -agricultural ecology: assumes that you can farm using swidden and if you have to you intensify, requiring more and more work (non-intensifiable enviros and wet rice for example) -political ecology of agricultural intensification: Boserup model of farmers simply accepting higher labor demands is power-neutral; farmers may not have access to resources, control over land, control over labor (Tiv, Kano)

what good is a mar muos?

-enjoying work together but also materialist values -Extract more labor with music, festive atmosphere, group effort -Convert earlier inputs into millet cultivation into access to labor when most needed -Advance yam heaping: innovation isn't just technological -labor intensive, especially good when work is urgent -meets simultaneous labor demands: millet storage

coculture

-rice + aquaculture -mostly with fish and/or molluscs -requires 68% less pesticide, 24% less fertilizer -Swimming carp bump plants, knock insects off and eat them; also help fertilize -Golden Apple snail

chain pump, 12th c China

-small scale hydraulic engineering -no reliance on outside resources, locally developed

Yanomamo

-southern Venezuela, Brazil -Yanomami (Chagnon's sub-group is Yanomamo) slash-burn farmers; plantains cassava peanuts maize; wild food gatherings; hunt for protein in large buffer areas be/village territories -low pop density -scarcity of women -astonishing level of conflict

role of pearl millet

-ties system together (drought resistant and quick growing) -not productivist crop (maize more so) -can eat, sell, brew -beer instrumental in farm labor

first and second views of conflict (Yanomamo)

1. Indigenous and maladaptive: natural urges in absence of "civilizing" culture: fighting over women and admit it; Chagnon cites Hobbes -We fight over women, raid villages, take women Yet not all "primitives" have such war; why here? 2. Adaptive war: Protein Theory (Marvin Harris) -Warfare and associated institutions to maintain hunting buffers for crucial protein -Protein theory

Boserup takes on

1. Malthusian theory -Agriculture inelastic; variables = amount tilled, inherent fertility 2. mid-20th century of economic development -Belief was that the third world had backward, underperforming economies; too many people locked up in backward agricultural sector

3 big ideas about conflict

1. Primitive/Indigenous war is maladaptive: needs to stopped by civilized societies; Hobbesian view that people are prone to conflict "warre" 2. Small scale conflict is indigenous and adaptive 3. SSC is exogenous and maladaptive and is caused by expansion of "civilized societies"

3 types of conflict and violence resulting from contact theory

1. Resistance (indigenous vs. Europeans) 2. Native-native under European direction; 16th, 17th century colonial wars usually fought with native auxiliaries (as late as 1883, US pursued Geronimo with Indian forces including Apache scouts) 3. Internecine war; especially over western goods, or from population displacements

how organization of work shapes social institutions

1. households 2. reciprocal labor group 3. festive labor party

GLF disrupts 4 key elements of intensive sustainable farming

1. social organization of production 2.scale of agriculture 3. risk management 4. agricultural economy and ITK (indigenous technical knowledge)

vladimir lenin and the kulaks

1918: "We must place before ourselves most seriously the problem of dividing the village by classes. Of creating in it two opposite hostile camps, setting the poorest layers of the population against the kulak elements...to arouse there the same war as in the cities." -Organize class warfare in countryside against kulaks "Hang (so the people see) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, rich men, bloodsuckers."

third view of conflict (Yanomamo)

3. maladaptive and exogenous: contact theory (political ecology) -Conflict is exogenous (comes from without) -Spread of civilization > Tribal Zone: create tribes and spread conflict/violence of 3 kinds -Waves of contact in Amazon, latest wave starts in 1940s; missions (Salesians introduce shotguns), posts, 1958 malaria control station -Depopulation and concentration of remaining population into large villages, with attendant societal disruptions -Central reason = steel tools 10 times more efficient than stone axes -So Yanomamo trek and move villages to get better access to suppliers -These + other items in posts revolutionize economic relations

Kalahari factoid

A significant number of people described as foragers in the Kalahari in the mid-20th century descended from people who owned herds that were lost in the late 19th C rinderpest epidemic.

oryza glaberrima

African rice

extensive rice farmers factoid

Although overall inputs are impossible to measure precisely, a study of extensive rice farmers in the Philippines and intensive paddy rice farmers in China found that the Chinese farmers were putting in over 4x the amount of work into their rice, but were harvesting around 4x as much.

population, agri. production factoid

From 1800-2000 world population rose just over sixfold (from around 1 to 6 billion) while agricultural production rose around tenfold.

Rio Negro factoid

At a Rio Negro archaeological site in the Amazon, soil charcoal -- apparently from swidden cultivation -- was dated to 4000 BC.

rice nursery

Crop of seedlings which grow more densely than they would in the field; transplanted to field

segmentary structure on frontier

Different Tiv lineages struggle against each other but join forces against Kofyar

ecology of intensification

Fallow shortening leads to less reliance on fire and fallow which leads to new labor demands -fertility: increased reliance on animal rearing, composting (Kano example) -tillage: land preparation; increased reliance on hoeing, plowing, draft animals (industrial: tractors) -weeding: increased reliance on mulch, hoe (industrial: herbicides, or track in industrial organic) -Insects/animals: increased reliance on indigenous controls, scouting (industrial: insecticides) -Land modification: increased reliance on terracing (industrial: laser-leveling, etc.) Irrigation -EB doesn't discuss but also have to work harder at hunting

Great Leap Forward

First surprise: World's largest Marxist revolution is agrarian Second surprise: how quickly Mao and the communists tried to remake China -1949: PROC -mid 1950s: LLP -1958-1961: GLP Private property abolished, state monopoly on grain; peasants given quotas, peasants forced into mutual aid teams of 20-40 hholds to break up family, no social life torn, Stalin-like passports issued, forced to work on state construction projects, tombs of ancestors plowed over, kulaks buried alive, forced consumption of stored foods, remarkable micromanaging of agriculture (Becker)

Boserupian Theorized Model of Intensification

If population goes up: -You can't go back to long fallowed fields because someone's already farming them and have to go to short-fallowed fields -As time goes on and population grows more, have to farm continuously shorter fallowed land -Eventually land will be entirely unfallowed -If population reaches certain level, one will have to engage in multi-cropping (growing multiple crops in same area)

maize factoid

In 1934, often cited as the key year for hybrid maize introduction, 36 million acres were taken out of production by federally-sponsored acreage reduction.

Ju/'onasi factoid

In the early 1960s Lee documented Ju/'oansi as spending an average of 2 hours daily in subsistence pursuits.

ireland factoid

Ireland not only exported large amounts of beef, pork and grain during the "Potato Famine" but exports rose. In 1846 alone, at the height of the famine, Ireland exported over 730,000 cattle and pigs to England.

Julius Nyerere

brilliant, highly literary head of state in Nigeria; didn't know how bad Great Leap Forward was but did know that China was supportive of Tanzania; spearheaded program called ujamaa

better case of religious regulation of environmental relations

Lansing's work on Balinese water temples

bolsheviks take over russia in teens

Lenin's famine 1921-22; Stalin replaces Lenin and gets worse Continued attempts to incite class war in country against kulaks, started killing in 1928 1929: peasants collectivized; land, animals declared state property, organized into agricultural brigades. Peasants try to flee, so passport system installed; many killed (starvation and killings) Peasants recognized they couldn't farm that way Politically, Stalin wanted to punish Ukrainians Economically, wanted to industrialize, push economies of scale Foreign exchange from grain exports while people starved; Stalin wanted foreign exchange so he continued to export food while his people died; unclear if there was a surplus of food or not

scale of agriculture mao

Mao saw small scale as inherently bad and worked hard to push agricultural activity to large scale based on complete misunderstanding of small scale cultivations

social organization of agriculture/production

Mao thought hholds were single biggest problem in countryside opposite view of importance of hhold from Netting (Kofyar) netting: hholds key to intensive sustainable farming, adaptive institutions, reciprocal labor

metabolic rift

Marx (originally coined by JB Foster) Elite classes sucking wealth from proletariat = same idea as agriculture being sucked out -Cities exploit countryside -Capitalist agriculture exploits nature (especially soil fertility)

more people, less erosion factoid

More People Less Erosion, a study of 60 years of agriculture and population in Machakos, Kenya, showed population rose 5x, but output per km more than doubled and output per head rose more than 4x.

subsidies factoid

Over the last 15 years, government subsidies to corn production have averaged $6 billion/year (not counting ethanol subsidies and mandates that drive up the price of corn, and not counting policies allowing the externalization of costs)

agricultural ecology and ITK

Overrode indigenous management of fertility, scheduling, even pest management: -exterminating all fleas, flies, rats, sparrows -led to huge pest problem -problem with deep plowing and plowing unfarmed land worst was close-planting -Lysenko's theories meshed with Mao's obsession with class struggle -only reason millions more didn't starve was many peasants risked execution to plant correctly -If you plant seeds together, they compete with one another; in every case where seeds were planted close together, seedlings failed to thrive

Marx's developing theory of agriculture, capitalism, and revolution

Recognized a "metabolism" in agriculture -Crops and livestock reproduce themselves and feed each other Capitalism destroys this, "pulling away natural grounds," and forcing people to buy manure, fertilizer, etc. from external sources Marx/Engels 1848, Manifesto of Communist Party, advocated -Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equitable distribution of the populace -Also wanted to get rid of family; thought it was a bourgeois institution

malthus and conflict views

SSC is definitely indigenous but can be case as adaptive or maladaptive -Maladaptive with respect to overpopulated poor (too many so they fight) -Adaptive within larger system overseen by God (puts people under pressure to use land more effectively)

temporal analysis

Strong correlation between major changes in the availability of steel etc. and the outbreak of war. Missions come in, or pull out, and there are reports of wars. (More stable mission situations usually no war after their initial period.) Unequal social relations are created in the Western trade—that is the source of antagonisms--and major change precipitates actions. -steel tools produce conflict -has to do with tentacles spread into Amazon -doesn't try to explain treatment of women, just unexplained by product of exogenous forces

feeding efficiency factoid

The feeding efficiency of beef (feed:meat) has fluctuated between 9-14 in the last century.

key points about intensification theory

Upends Malthus: -Intensification is based on elasticity of farm production -Intensification reverses causality; population determines agriculture Upends Development Theory: -Intensification says rural labor can be productive in agriculture -Intensification is less efficient so won't do it unless compelled by population pressure -Intensification says agriculture growth is not dependent on external inputs -Intensification can't be taught because knowledge isn't limiting factor -Not driven by ideas (Ehrlich film on Simon) -A "necessity is the mother of invention" model (a king of induced innovation theory) -"Indigenous Technical Knowledge" (ITK, or farmer skill) is not perfect, but it rarely is the limiting factor in production -ITK important in swidden (Conklin), but much more so in complex intensive agriculture -not evolutionary

plowing

buffalo and oxes -Ming Dynasty 1400s, also India

Yanomamo factoid

Yanomamo conflicts correlated with rubber booms and arrival of steel tools.

agricultural intensification (malthus)

agricultural growth is largely inelastic; can only put more people behind plow or more land underneath; proven wrong because agriculture has grown since he published that idea didn't know about intensification and industrialization

Green Revolution

effort to get farmers to move away from indigenous practices/knowledge and incorporate chemical fertilizer, pesticides, and seeds -Philippines was main country where rice end of g. rev occurred

sustainability of Kofyar?

environmental: Yes although forest cover greatly modified, Soil fertility managed through manuring, No drawdown of water table socio-economic: Yes, due largely to flexibilities in subsistence/cash-crop production and in-kind/cash compensation, Yes, due to reliable "affordable" inputs (local labor and freedom to mobilize it), Limited dependence on external inputs

ujamaa in tanzania

huge failure Moved thousands of people from scattered villages into "new" civilized villages People taken out of villages without electricity but had figured out ways around it and promised electricity but it was never delivered Square pieces of land, one right next to another Organized into work brigades Inspired by Mao Also excellent example of James Scott's theory that states try to make agriculture legible

protein theory

in this environment, there are resources available but protein is a limiting factor in their diet; protein in rainforest is crucial and these are areas without high densities of game animals; system designed to make it so that people have access to protein and as a byproduct you end up with huge buffer zones (after people clash, move away from one another); so idea is that institutionalizing toxic masculinity helped propel system so that people are more inclined to have clashes

festive labor party

mar muos in Kofyar mobilize unusual amounts of labor; mobilize simultaneous labor; means "farming for beer"; drummer, everyone comes

marx on farmers

misinformed view of agrarian production Famously wrote that agrarian countryside "formed by simple addition of homologous magnitudes, much as potatoes in sack form a sack of potatoes" People need to understand they're being oppressed by elites and rise up (revolution is group activity) and since farmers aren't organized, they can't revolt

risk management mao

most peasants don't care about maximizing production but instead not dying and thus manage their storage very carefully Mao telling them to eat up the grain and rice was very important to them Clean out stores instead of allowing people to manage own risk

economy of small scale

overall system is large but small individual farmers -amenable terrace cultivation so suited to hilly landscapes -skill replaces scale

stream irrigation

persian wheel

intercropping

plant and harvest multiple crops at the same time; occurs in both intensification and extensification

multi-cropping

plant and harvest one crop, then later in the year plant and harvest another; common pattern of dry vs. wet season crops

Water control with Dikes: poldered fields, 18th century China

polder - area not good for farming, build wall to keep water out, area enclosed in wall is polder -Large scale hydraulic engineering

swidden vs intensive rice

swidden = "upland rice" intensive = "paddy rice" -qualitative change to ponded (bunded) fields

boserup in a nutshell

swidden: -is preferred because it is efficient but it is extensive and requires large land base intensification: - produces more per area/time, but at increased marginal costs because it makes the farmer do more work than is needed through manipulation of natural processes (fire & fallow) -Increased marginal costs, decreased marginal returns

kark kautsky

took marx ideas to extreme 1899: differentiation of peasantry -Better-off farmers tend to acquire more land and resources -Takes idea of dialectical structure and applies it to the countryside -Rural society decomposes into larger farms and small farms agreed with marx on isolation and lack of social organization

Ester Boserup

wrote The conditions of agricultural growth theory of agricultural intensification - population change drives the intensity of agricultural production Also first one to point out huge problem of economic development in global south; idea that we need to introduce new cash jobs in these areas; men were taking up those positions, however and make women poorer

reciprocal labor group

wuk in Kofyar cross cultural form; group where it is understood that there's a labor exchange system

rice cultivation boserupian?

yes in that: -High input, local resources; High output; Under high population density But, it is relatively efficient: -In Boserupian theory, you have to work harder and harder due to ecology -Does not hold in rice cultivation because you rely on soup bowl ecology, which is different than fire and fallow farming -If you put in skill and effort in rice farming, output goes up as well