Transcript Why Conduct Qualitative Research?

Culture change - overview
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Culture is always changing.
Discoveries and inventions do not
necessarily lead to change
Diffusion is the source of innovations
Direct contact, intermediaries, and
stimulus diffusion, revolution
Acculturation in the context of
superordinate and subordinate relations
Most culture change today is the result of
the expansion of Western cultures
Innovation
Proceeds from invention, discovery,
and diffusion.
 Primary inventions (the wheel, the
lever, the keystone) and secondary
inventions.
 Independent primary inventions are
rare, but clearly do occur:
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The keystone and the dome
Process
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Social acceptance: selective elimination
according to utility.
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Amaranth has never caught on in the U.S.
Integration: there is a lag between
acceptance and integration and
integration often requires changes in
structure and infrastructure.
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The automobile required roads, refineries, gas
stations, mechanics.
Technology and social change
Hard and soft technologies:
automobiles and word processors
 Changes in technology can lead to
changes in roles: the case of office
secretaries
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Unintended consequences
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The automobile changed commerce,
as intended, but also helped
change:
Dating habits
 The distribution of housing/work
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Invention vs. discovery
Inventions: the transfer of existing
knowledge and behavior from one
context to another.
 Independent complex inventions
occur regularly: telephone,
automobile, calculus, theory of
natural selection, telegraph.
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Diffusion
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Most things, however, are borrowed
Paper:
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T'sai Lun in 105 and Chinese Turkestan in 264
Samarkand in 751
Baghdad in 793 and Egypt around 900
Morocco around 1100
Then Spain, France (1189), Italy (1276),
Germany (1391), and England (1494) where
manufacturing was introduced
Ralph Linton, 1936: the All-American man
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Bed, pajamas, shaving, windows,
umbrellas, coins, plates, steel, forks,
spoons, watermelons, coffee, eggs,
chickens, bacon, cigarettes, writing
From: "100 percent American" by Ralph Linton in his 1936
publication entitled The Study Of Man, pp. 326-327).
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Our solid American citizen awakens in a bed built on a pattern which
originated in the Near East … He shaves, a masochistic rite which seems
to have been derived from either Sumer or ancient Egypt…. He glances
through the windows, made of glass invented in Egypt, and if it is raining
… takes an umbrella, invented in southeastern Asia. …
On his way to breakfast he stops to buy a paper, paying for it with coins,
an ancient Lydian invention. He begins breakfast with an orange, from
the eastern Mediterranean and … coffee, an Abyssinian plant, with cream
and sugar. Both the domestication of cows and the idea of milking them
originated in the Near East, while sugar was first made in India. …
[He] may have the eggs of a species of bird domesticated in Indo-China,
or thin strips of the flesh of an animal domesticated in Eastern Asia
He reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the
ancient Semites upon a material invented in China by a process invented
in Germany. As he absorbs the accounts of foreign troubles, if he is a
good conservative citizen, he may thank a Hebrew deity in an IndoEuropean language that he is 100 percent American
The diffusion of tobacco
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It went from the northeast of NA around the
world to the northwest of NA.
1558: to Spain by Francisco Fernández; to
England in 1586 by Sir Walter Raleigh.
1591: Holland from England; English and
Dutch sailors move tobacco to the Baltics.
Spanish and Portuguese traders spread it
across Mediterranean to the Middle East.
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1605: Turkey bans it; Japan restricts
its cultivation. 1634: Russians try to
stop it.
Then across Russia to Siberia and
across the Bering Straits with early fur
traders.
Culture change in the modern world
Colonialism
 Globalization
 Modernization and development
 Imperial conquest is as old as the
state: Aztecs, Roman, Han, Ottoman
 Recently: Portugal (14th-20th), Spain
(16th-18th), England (17th-20th),
France, Germany, Russia, the U.S.
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Portugal focused on trade; Spain
focused on mines; Britain focused
on plantations.
 Spain and Britain were forced to rely
on political control for their labor,
leading to imperialistic colonialism.
 Britain banned the looming of cloth
in 19th century India.
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Anthropology and colonialism
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Colonialism transferred diseases,
technologies, and crops. It produced massive
voluntary and involuntary migrations, and we
can see the voluntary migrations continuing
today.
Colonialism helped finance the
industrialization of Europe and North
America, first through gold and then through
profits on cheap labor.
Anthropology has been labeled the
handmaiden of colonialism.
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Ethnography satisfies our interest in exotic
peoples.
It also serves political and economic
interests.
Polygyny, bride wealth, blood feuds, were
unknown in the law of colonialists, and
anthropology filled in the gaps.
Peace Corps produces many anthropologists.
Neocolonialsm
The legacy of colonialism is no
longer simple exploitation, infant
mortality, etc. Today, many
countries are left behind in terms of
development.
 One ancient state-level society
managed to avoid colonialism and
has developed in a modern, market
economy: Japan.
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China
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China began developing in a socialist
economy, switched to a capitalist
economy, and now faces some
unanticipated problems as a result
of their success.
Unanticipated side effects
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Development is not always
successful.
The Green Revolution produced highyield crops, but the percentage of small
farms drops with consolidation that
comes with greater profits on crops
 Fertility decline led to population
increase in Mauritius
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Multinationals
Exxon-Mobile’s gross profits in 2004
were around $125b – about the GNP
of Greece, South Africa and Thailand
in 2001.
 IBM’s profits were ~$33b in 2004, or
the GNP of Morroco and Nigeria and
five times the GNP of Ghana.
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The IMF and structural adjustment
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The IMF is also a major source of change:
structural adjustment programs in the
1980s and 1990s.
In Brazil, the austerity program sent
inflation down in 1982, but drove infant
mortality up after a decade of decline.
(see Chapter in Kottak.)
Oil-rich countries borrowed in the 1970s
and 1980s against anticipated increases
in profits.
Today, anthropology continues to
serve the interests of former colonial
nations and of multinational
corporations.
 We must ask, however, what the
alternative would be.
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Theories of modernization
What accounts for the lack of
development?
 Modernization theory: this posits
that modern ideas must diffuse to
lesser developed countries in order
for those countries to modernize.
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The obvious cure for lack of
modernization, under this paradigm,
is to replace bad ideas with good
ones: birth control, sanitation, new
crops. People are seen as locked into
their cultures.
 But this theory does not explain the
causes of the differences.
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Dependency theory
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Dependency theory is an alternative to
modernization theory:
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It isn’t peasant fatalism or peasant resistance
to change. Their condition is the consequence
of colonialism, which causes resistance to
change.
Tanzania tried in the early post-colonial
era to go it alone and reduce dependency
on Britain and on MNCs.
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Like Albania, Tanzania went broke.
World systems theory
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So, what’s the answer? Emmanuel
Wallerstein showed that from 1500present, the capitalist world system has
encompassed both the developed and the
underdeveloped countries of the world in
a core and periphery structure.
This theory is ultimately based on the
market theory for the building of wealth
(Adam Smith 1776).
Cultural materialism
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Is structural and infrastructural
convergence leading to cultural
convergence?
The convergence and the independence of
symbolic, expressive culture are both
evident in Japan
Today, Japan faces a dilemma: to employ
more women, or to import labor, or to
develop more robots – or to reduce life
style.
The educational model of social change
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Under what conditions does the simple
input of information lead to
behavioral/social change?
When behavior is tied to the structure or
the infrastructure, then educating people
will not change the behavior.
When behavior is tied to culture, then
providing information does lead to desired
behavioral change: brands and
marketing.
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Anthropologists can make a contribution
to development by discovering the causes
of phenomena that we want to explain.
Why has baseball declined? Why does
China have high longevity and low per
capita GNP?
Anthropologists also contribute by
examining cases at the ground level.
Condon’s study of Holman
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Copper Inuit at Holman in Canadian arctic
1963: 135 in the Holman region
1988: 350, with 52% <20 years old
Bottle feeding, pre- and postnatal care,
better nutrition, economic security (with
guns in 1920s)
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Led to autonomy of teens and less communal
sharing.
Wage labor led to high security for those who
had it, unemployment for those who did not.
Eventually, there was a trade-off between
unemployment and hunting
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1970s seal skins brought $65. By 1985: $3.68
1987: 5 of the 90 youth had finished high school in
Yellow Knife
Demographic transition
The first transition was from the
Mesolithic to the Neolithic.
 The second began in the 18th
century in Europe and is spreading
around the world today, reaching
Mexico now.
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Country
Turkmenistan
Azerbaijan
Gambia
Uganda
Sierra Leone
Bangladesh
Korea, Dem.
Bosnia and H
Viet Nam
Rwanda
Mali
Madagascar
Niger
Burundi
Nepal
Chad
Bhutan
Burkina Faso
Malawi
United Rep.
Guinea-Bissa
Cambodia
Tajikistan
Somalia
Dem. Rep. of
Ethiopia
Eritrea
Mozambique
Sao Tome and
Sudan
PCGDP
321.000
321.000
321.000
305.000
293.000
280.000
271.000
271.000
270.000
238.000
223.000
215.000
207.000
205.000
203.000
187.000
166.000
165.000
142.000
139.000
131.000
130.000
122.000
119.000
117.000
96.000
96.000
77.000
49.000
36.000
inf. mort
57.000
33.000
122.000
113.000
169.000
78.000
22.000
13.000
37.000
125.000
149.000
77.000
114.000
114.000
82.000
115.000
104.000
97.000
142.000
80.000
132.000
102.000
56.000
112.000
89.000
107.000
98.000
110.000
51.000
71.000
life expt. (f)
68.000
74.500
48.700
42.300
39.100
58.200
75.100
75.900
69.600
43.400
49.700
60.000
50.200
48.800
57.100
49.300
54.900
47.000
41.100
52.800
45.200
55.400
70.200
50.600
54.500
51.600
52.100
48.400
.
56.400
Country
Turkmenistan
Gambia
Uganda
Sierra Leone
Banglades h
Korea, Dem.
Bosnia and H
Viet Nam
Rwanda
Mali
Madagascar
Ni ger
Burundi
Nepal
Chad
Bhutan
Burkina Faso
Malawi
United Rep.
Guinea-Bissa
Cambodia
Tajikistan
Somalia
Dem. Rep. of
TFR
3.580
5.200
7.100
6.060
3.140
2.100
1.400
2.970
6.000
6.600
5.650
7.100
6.280
4.950
5.510
5.890
6.570
6.690
5.480
5.420
4.500
3.930
7.000
6.240
5.340
7.000
6.060
.
4.610
Country
Switzerland
Liechtenstei
Japan
Luxembourg
Norway
Denmar k
Ger many
Austria
Bel gi um
France
Sweden
Iceland
United State
Netherlands
Singapore
Finland
French Guian
Hong Kong
Australia
French Polyn
New Caledoni
Ital y
San Marino
Canada
United Ki ngd
United Arab
Ireland
New Zealand
Israel
Brunei Dar us
TFR
1.460
1.450
1.480
1.760
1.880
1.820
1.300
1.420
1.620
1.630
1.800
2.190
1.960
1.550
1.790
1.830
.
1.320
1.890
2.850
2.530
1.190
.
1.610
1.720
3.460
1.800
2.020
2.750
2.700
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Twelve years ago, China had a
GNP/PC of only $330, but a life
expectancy of 70 and an IM rate of
31
Anomalies in Social Indicators
Poor Countries
Rich Countries
Country
GNP
LEW IM
TFR
Country
GNP
LEW
IM
TFR
China
777
72/68
41
1.80
Gabon
4787
54/51
87
5.40
Tajikstan
219
70/64
57
4.15
S. Africa
3404
58/52
59
3.25
Moldova
374
72/64
29
1.76
Iraq
3388
64/61
95
5.25
Vietnam
336
70/65
38
2.60
Russia
19360
73/61
18
1.34
Kyrgyzstan
366
72
40
3.21
UAR
19506
77/74
16
3.42
Armenia
533
74/67
26
1.70
Qatar
18065
75/70
17
3.74
Azerbaijan
537
74/66
36
1.99
Sol.
Islands
712
74/70
23
4.85
Ukraine
824
74/64
19
1.38
N. Korea
440
75/67
22
2.05
Inequality increases
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The UN Human Development Index shows
measures of life expectancy, literacy, and
PC purchasing power.
All 114 countries in this index have risen
on all measure over the last 40 years.
The top 20% of the world’s population,
however, accounts for about 80% of the
GNP and the bottom 20% accounts for
less than 2%.
The ratio:
 1960 30 to 1
 1970 32 to 1
 1980 45 to 1
 1991 60 to 1
 Click here for a list of countries by
inequality
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Gini coefficients for the United
States:
 1970: 0.394
 1980: 0.403
 1990: 0.428
 2000: 0.462
 2005: 0.469
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#_note-0