Sidney W. Mintz’s ambitious attempt to analyze the history and global spread of sugar cane is Sweetness and Power, The Place of Sugar in Modern History. His approach is thorough; history and the spread of cane, technology and change of processing, the biology of taste, the anthropology of eating, slave driven agriculture, mercantilist regulation of colonial economies, upper-class display and lower-class nutrition (Goldfrank 1987:641) are all covered in just two hundred pages. The end goal is “to decipher the codes of meaning that account for the transformation of an upper-class, luxury good into a commonplace, working-class necessity” (Marino 1987:549). By evaluating the pre-19th century production, the 17-20th century consumption and addressing the meaning and usage, Mintz confronts the social, economic and political impacts of sugar.
Mintz dedicates the first chapter to establishing sugar as a learned phenomenon versus a biological imperative (Ross 1987:103). There is no gray area for Mintz; some predisposition to sweetness is indeed built in to the human equipment, but it cannot explain differing food systems and degrees of preference “anymore than the anatomy of the so-called organs of speech can ‘explain’ any particular language” (Mintz 1985:18). Mintz does not argue that humans do not have a predisposition for liking sweetness, rather he aims to look into the circumstances under which that predisposition is intensified by cultural practice. The cultural practice of living with sweetness is relevant to how strong the “sweet-tooth” is (Mintz 1985:16). According to Mintz, the fact that “everyone everywhere likes sweet things says nothing about where such tastes fit into the spectrum of taste possibilities, how important sweetness is, where it occurs in a taste-preference hierarchy, or how it is thought of in relation to other tastes” (Mintz 1985:18).
The meat of Mintz’s work aims to analyze production and consumption by investigating the history of cane, its cultivation and the efforts and effects of its production and consumption. Sugar cane was first domesticated in New Guinea. Botanists Artschwager and Brandes believe that three diffusions from New Guinea occurred, the first around 8000 BC. Two thousand years later, cane was present in the Philippines, Indonesia and India (Mintz 1985:19). Processed sugar first made its appearance in the historical record in India Sanskrit around 400-350 BC. Sugar was used in food mixes and fermented beverages, but there is no evidence to suggest that crystallized sugar was achieved at this time (Mintz 1985:20). Sugar is a newcomer in the historical record (when compared to honey, for example) and spread slowly during the first millennia of its existence, only gaining steam in its diaspora in the last 500 years (Mintz 1985:16). The two main sources of processed sucrose are sugar cane and sugar beet. Sugar cane has been the prime source of sucrose for over a millennium while the sugar beet was not economically important until the nineteenth century.
Europe’s introduction to sugar cane came with Arab expansion into Italy and the south coast of Spain. Along with other traditions, the new occupiers brought their culture of sugar. Their method of cultivation, the art of sugar making and the preference of sugar over other sweeteners were absorbed by the Spanish in particular. Sugar cultivation and production around the Mediterranean gradually gained steam and spread north. However, due to environmental factors (namely climate), production inefficiencies and Arab retraction from Europe, the epicenter of sugar production began to shift across the Atlantic to the New World (Mintz 1985:31). Climate problems and resulting low yield were simply not an issue in the colonies of the west Atlantic. In addition to better growing conditions, the introduction of African slave labor in the New World placed the Spanish as the pioneers of sugar cane in the Americas. The Spanish sugar endeavor quickly stagnated and was surpassed by Portugal’s production in Brazil. Within a century however, and with Spain and Portugal focusing on the extraction of precious metals, France and Britain seized the opportunity (Mintz 1985:35).
All European powers that attempted to cultivate sugar cane in the New World endured a process of trial and error. In many cases, such as that of the Spanish, small gains were subsequently thwarted by lack of motherland resources, bad management, and drought. However, the turning point in the British sugar endeavor came with the settlement of Barbados in 1627 and the later acquisition of Jamaica as part of Britain’s Western Design (Mintz 1985:37). Over 6000 tons of clayed sugars from these “properties” cemented sugar production as a luxury goods and profit center.
From around 1650 on, the production and consumption of sugar by the British Empire increased aggressively. The British colonies succeeded by exporting the unfinished product to the metropolis and imperial laws to control the flow of sugar and to stipulate the goods for which they were exchanged were enacted. Out of goods and trade policy was born the triangles of trade. The British employed two transatlantic triangles. The first encompassed finished goods traded between Britain and Africa, African slaves traded to American colonies and American tropical commodities (sugar) traded back to mother country. For the second, from New England went rum to Africa, from Africa went slaves to the West Indies, and from the West Indies went molasses back to New England (Mintz 1985:43). The triangles hold historical importance for the use of a “false commodity” – human beings. To obtain slaves, products were shipped to Africa. The slave labor generated the wealth in the Americas that ended up in Britain. The slaves of Africa were at the end of this vicious cycle; they were exploited in the creation of wealth for the British (Mintz 1985:43). As call and response is to musician and audience, so was the supply and demand of sugar. The more the plantations of the colonies supplied, the more Britons consumed. By 1750, only a century after the establishment of British colonies, sugar was transformed from luxury of the elite to staple of the proletariat (Mintz 1985:45).
As the overall production and consumption of sugar increased, so did plantation efficiencies. Mintz argues, contrary to most Western historians, that the plantations were the first instance of true industry that later emerged in Europe. Mintz is careful to trace the course of plantation development, however, to the Mediterranean. The term industry here refers to the combination of agriculture and processing under one authority. Mintz sees the system of these plantations as precursors of industry to come in Europe. This is an essential concept in Mintz’s assertion that the common wisdom that Europe modeled the colonial world after the European heartland is actual the reverse (Mintz 1985:52).
The increase in sugar consumption and the development of the plantation systems in the 17th century, according to Mintz, is at the hands of a European economic realignment. This time period marks the last phase of the transition from feudal to capitalist systems. The growth of an expandable consumers’ market in Europe with ties to changes in production elsewhere, the seizure of colonies abroad that promoted European development and the creation of colonial enterprises to produce those consumer goods swung the balance of economic power from the Mediterranean and Baltic regions up to England. At once, production and consumption of tropical commodities were a cause and consequence of Britain’s growing influence in world trade (Mintz 1985:66). During the early 19th century, mercantilism and its protections gave way to free trade. With free trade, the production landscape changed; while the West Indies plantations fell out of favor, sugar supplies increased and prices plummeted. The result was cheap sugar in healthy supply, thus affordable by the working class. This change coincided with the appearance of tea, coffee and chocolate across Britain. The supply of sugar increased and the price dropped, which resulted in the increased use of sugar in tea, coffee, and preserves. Together, these trends conspired to serve the nutritional and symbolic needs of the masses (Wright 1986:111).
The rules of the game suddenly changed and the points of leverage shifted. The power elite, who once leveraged the plantations, now could leverage the masses, and to much better ends on larger scales. This was not an accident. The growth of demand for sugar was a machination of those in power (Mintz 1985:64).
It is argued that by the mid 19th century, the increased production and seemingly ubiquitous consumption of sugar, among other factors, can be traced to the meanings of sugar to both the elite and lower classes. Mintz defines these meanings of sugar as a relationship between “inside” and “outside” meaning. Outside meaning of power refers to the overt actions of the power elite and the brokers of sugar production. Planters, bankers, slaves, shippers, refiners, and others constitute the outside and are both directly and indirectly responsible for the policies and laws designed to protect and increase the trade and availability of sugar (as well as other tropical goods such as molasses, rum and tobacco). The inside meaning takes a page from Clifford Geertz’s “webs of significance” and refers to the internalization of codes of behavior and food habits (Stein 1986:363). While perhaps simplistic, it is argued that to the elite, while no longer important as an ingestible, sugar was critical to economic growth and political gain, and to the proletariat, sugar became an symbolic, but illusory elixir to the hardworking, powerless realities of a life of labor.
“Sugar, declining in price, increasing in its convenience, and finding itself used in more and more ways appreciated by the population, became a major source of calories for the British” (Ross 1987:104). Furthermore, sugar increased the caloric content of the proletariat diet without increasing quantities of meat, fish, and poultry (Mintz 1985:193). In this way, sugar as a dietary staple of the proletariat, was a propeller of labor force output and productivity. Mintz argues that the cultural, economic and political realities based around sugar, helped determine the means by which capitalism developed during the 19th century (Wright 1986:111). Therefore sugar had a hand in the success of Britain’s industrial revolution and economic acceleration, and “is closely connected to England’s fundamental transformation from a hierarchical, status based, medieval society to a social-democratic, capitalist and industrial society” (Mintz 1985:185).
Mintz’s claim that sugar’s production and consumption played a key role in the creation of a capitalist and industrial society in Britain is bold. While the perspective is illuminating, it is perhaps grandiose to imagine that a single commodity alone could have triggered the wealth acceleration and economic and political transition that resulted in Britain’s ascension as the focal point of economic control in Europe, and at the time, the world. While sugar alone may not be the single determinant, Mintz’s analysis of sugar does serve as an important lens through which to understand the strategic machinations of trade, manipulative consumption, and power.
Works Cited:
Goldfrank, Walter L.
1987 Review of Sweetness and Power. In Theory and Society 16(4):640-641.
Marino, John A.
1987 Review of Sweetness and Power. In The Journal of Modern History 59(3):549-551.
Mintz, Sidney W.
1985 Sweetness and Power. United States: Viking Penguin Inc.
Roxborough, Ian
1986 Review of Sweetness and Power. In Man 21(3):575.
Ross, Clark G.
1987 Review of Sweetness and Power. In Ethnohistory 34(1):103-105.
Stein, Stanley J.
1986 Review of Sweetness and Power. In The American Historical Review 91(2):362-363.
Wright, Winthrop R.
1986 A Nexus of Transformations. In Science 232(4746):111.
Showing posts with label Anthropology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anthropology. Show all posts
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Friday, November 2, 2007
Andre Gunder Frank
Andre Gunder Frank was an influential and prolific social thinker, economist, historian, sociologist, activist and political economist. The majority of his research provided detailed analysis of the relationship between economy and society from the post-colonial era up to the turn of the century. Frank’s contributions to the development of Dependency Theory, The World Systems Theory, and the analysis of Underdevelopment are profound. He is known for his prodigious output, his rejection of mainstream economics and for giving meaning to the study of political economy. He is one of the great intellectuals of the 20th century and has been admired throughout his career for his dedication to the condition of the working class (Chossudovsky 2005).
Andre Gunder Frank was born in Germany in 1929. His family fled the country when Hitler was elected Chancellor, first to Switzerland and eventually to the United States where he received his undergraduate schooling at Swarthmore. After a circuitous tour of the United States doing odd jobs, he enrolled at the University Chicago where he earned a Ph.D. in Economics in 1957. His dissertation focused on Soviet agriculture. He considered “general productivity” by looking at output of agriculture over time compared to agricultural changes in measurable and immeasurable changes in input (Rojas 2005). This dissertation foreshadowed some of the concepts Frank would focus on throughout his productive career as an intellectual, educator and social activist. After completing his degrees he held lecturer and assistant professorships at Michigan, Iowa and Wayne State. He left the US for a long stint (by his standards) in Latin America in 1962, first working as an Associate Professor in anthropology at the University of Brasilia, then as an Extraordinary Professor in Economics at the University of Mexico. In 1968 he became a professor of Economics at the University of Chile in Santiago where he worked on reforms for the Salvador Allende administration until he was exiled from Chile when General Pinochet successfully toppled the socialist government and instituted a military dictatorship on September 11, 1973. From 1973 until his mandatory retirement from professorship at the University of Amsterdam in 1994, he held various positions at universities in Germany, the US, the Netherlands, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Belgium, and France. From 1994 until his death in 2005, he held other positions at five different universities in the US (Rojas 2005).
In all, Andre Gunder Frank has taught or done research in departments of anthropology, economics, geography, history, international relations, political science, and sociology, among others, in nine universities in North America, three in Latin America, and five in countries in Europe. He has also given many lectures and seminars at dozens of universities and other institutions around the world in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German and Dutch (Rojas 2005).
Frank has written extensively on economics, social and political history, contemporary development of the world system, industrially developed countries and the Third World and Latin America. His level of production is best illustrated by the following stats: he has produced over 1000 publications, including 43 books, 169 chapters in 145 books and 400 articles in over 600 issues of academic journals and newspapers (Rojas 2005). Frank’s output was for the most part, unparalleled.
Andre Gunder Frank’s influences as an economist and social activist can be traced to his studies at Chicago where he ultimately honed his approach to economics. His training in neoclassical economics under Milton Friedman resulted in the rejection of the neoliberal and late 19th Century mathematical approach to economy and society. Frank pursued a self-directed path to his degree that focused on the role political elements play in the development of economic theory, contrary to the Chicago school of neoclassical economics (Sommers 2005). Frank rejected the mainstream "stages of economic growth" and argued that poor countries were not on a path of sequential growth stages but were actually circling the drain of dependence. His analysis of serial poverty in his groundbreaking essay, “The Development of Underdevelopment,” was the first step of contributions to come in the area of dependency theory and underdevelopment (Guang 2002).
Frank has been credited as the architect of Dependency Theory. The theory, developed in the 1950s and popularized in the 1960s, seeks to explain the relationship between developed and developing countries as a dynamic interplay where exchange of goods, services and resources between countries ultimately benefits developed countries at the detriment of developing countries. Raul Prebisch, one of the fathers of the theory, put it simply:
"Poor countries exported primary commodities to the rich countries who then manufactured products out of those commodities and sold them back to the poorer countries. The "Value Added" by manufacturing a usable product always cost more than the primary products used to create those products. Therefore, poorer countries would never be earning enough from their export earnings to pay for their imports." (Ferraro 1996).
The difference between undeveloped and underdeveloped states, to which Frank has analyzed extensively, is critical to understanding the historical context and severity of the cycle of dependence. Frank defined undeveloped states as those in which resources are not being used. Underdeveloped states actively harvest their resources, however, are in a situation where the dominant state benefits from the their resources. In effect, the dependent states are dependent because they were integrated into the economic system only as “producers of raw materials or to serve as repositories of cheap labor, and were denied the opportunity to market their resources in any way that competed with dominant states.” (Ferraro 1996).
However, there are different schools of dependency theory that approach or see the concept from a different angle. Prebisch, a liberal reformer, Frank a Marxist, and Wallerstein a World Systemists, would agree to disagree on a centralized definition. There are three common features to which most theorists agree. First, the developed or dominant states (center) is advanced and industrialized, and the dependent states (periphery) are those with low per capita GNPs and rely heavily on a single export. Second, external forces are the drivers of economic activity within the dependent states, and include corporations, markets or foreign assistance from the dominant state. Finally, these relations are dynamic and over time are reinforced and intensified. In essence, a cycle is created where the dominant state continues to prosper while the dependent state become just that, dependent (Ferraro 1996).
Frank has been called a Marxist, however, it is important to look at where Frank and Dependency Theory deviated from Marx’s theory of imperialism. First, The theory of imperialism describes the expansion of a state while dependency identifies underdevelopment. More concisely, “ Marxist theories explain the reasons why imperialism occurs, while dependency theories explain the consequences of imperialism.” (Ferraro 1996). Finally, the theory of imperialism is self-liquidating while dependency relationships are self-perpetuating (Ferraro 1996).
Dependency Theory attempts to explain the underdevelopment of states by examining the relationships between different states where the inequalities of benefit are intrinsic to those relationships (Ferraro 1996). According to Frank, dependency is a result of the development of underdevelopment and is a zero sum game. Ultimately both states lose, only the dominant state loses less than the dependent state (Frank 1975:13-14).
Early in his career, Frank focused heavily on explaining underdevelopment and dependency economic systems and worked to dispel the beliefs of free market economists who argued that underdeveloped states were progressing and were on a path of full integration. Later in his career Frank worked and contributed to the formulation of the theory of the world system. He advocated for a reinterpretation of world history and believed the implications of our current economic perspective were devastating. He argued that mainstream economics was the result of five thousand years of history and not 500. He theorized that modern economics originated in Asia around the Silk Road and only later appeared in Europe after the rise of Western sea-power and the industrial revolution (dos Santos 2005). The end of his career was dedicated to understanding globalization and was framed by a 10-year battle with cancer. Up to his final breath, Frank reviewed and rejected parts of his old theories and worked to create new ones (dos Santos 2005).
Frank left an indelible mark on development economics, history and political economy. His theories were powerful and required adoption or a forceful rejoinder (Sommers 2005). Frank was a social activist, a polemic and a gentleman. During my research, I found much information about why he was admired and why his theories were criticized, however, I was unable to find critics of his personality, his effort and his dedication to the human conditions. For this reason, it seems appropriate to conclude with these two sentiments, written shortly after his death.
"What I loved above all about Frank was his unlimited sincerity and devotion. Frank was motivated only by a single desire: the desire to be of service to the working classes and subordinated peoples, to the victims of exploitation and oppression. Spontaneously, unconditionally, he was always on their side. A quality which is not necessarily always found even among the best intellectuals. "(Amin 2005).
"His death on April 23 leaves a hard-to-fill gap in contemporary social thought. But André was much more than a major social thinker. He was an intellectual who lived his ideas, a fighter for the truth and for the transformation of the world. Even though he was often wrong (like any human being), he was fertile and inspiring even in his errors. This is a quality that only geniuses possess. "(dos Santos 2005).
Works Cited:
Chossudovsky, Michael
2005 Lifelong Battle against Neoliberalism: André Gunder Frank, 1929-2005. Electronic Document,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=
20050718&articleId=703, accessed October 29th, 2007
Dos Santos, Theotonio
2005 Andre Gunder Frank (1929-2005). Electronic document,
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0505dossantos.htm, accessed October 22nd, 2007
Frank, Andre Gunder
1975 “On Capitalist Underdevelopment.” Bombay: Oxford University Press.
Frank, Andre Gunder
1984 “Critique and Anti-Critique.” New York: Praeger Publishers.
Ferraro, Vincent
1996 Dependency Theory: An Introduction. Electronic document,
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/depend.htm, accessed October 22nd, 2007
Guang, Lei
2002 Re-Orient: Andre Gunder Frank and a Globalist Perspective on the World Economy. Electronic Document,
http://www.oycf.org/Perspectives/16_033102/re_orient.htm, accessed October 29th, 2007
Rojas, Robinson, and Andre Gunder Frank
2005 Andre Gunder Frank Official Website, Electronic documents,
http://www.rrojasdatabank.org/agfrank/, accessed October 22nd, 2007
Amin, Samir
2005 A Note on the Death of André Gunder Frank (1929-2005), Electronic Document,
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0405amin.htm, Accessed October 22nd, 2007
Sanchez, Omar
2003 The Rise and Fall of the Dependency Movement: Does It Inform Underdevelopment Today? Electronic Document,
http://www.tau.ac.il/eial/XIV_2/scarzane.html, accessed October 22nd, 2007
Sommers, Jeffrey
2005 The Contradictions of a Contrarian: Andre Gunder Frank. Electronic document,
http://worldhistoryconnected.press.uiuc.edu/2.2/sommers.html, accessed October 22nd, 2007
Andre Gunder Frank was born in Germany in 1929. His family fled the country when Hitler was elected Chancellor, first to Switzerland and eventually to the United States where he received his undergraduate schooling at Swarthmore. After a circuitous tour of the United States doing odd jobs, he enrolled at the University Chicago where he earned a Ph.D. in Economics in 1957. His dissertation focused on Soviet agriculture. He considered “general productivity” by looking at output of agriculture over time compared to agricultural changes in measurable and immeasurable changes in input (Rojas 2005). This dissertation foreshadowed some of the concepts Frank would focus on throughout his productive career as an intellectual, educator and social activist. After completing his degrees he held lecturer and assistant professorships at Michigan, Iowa and Wayne State. He left the US for a long stint (by his standards) in Latin America in 1962, first working as an Associate Professor in anthropology at the University of Brasilia, then as an Extraordinary Professor in Economics at the University of Mexico. In 1968 he became a professor of Economics at the University of Chile in Santiago where he worked on reforms for the Salvador Allende administration until he was exiled from Chile when General Pinochet successfully toppled the socialist government and instituted a military dictatorship on September 11, 1973. From 1973 until his mandatory retirement from professorship at the University of Amsterdam in 1994, he held various positions at universities in Germany, the US, the Netherlands, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Belgium, and France. From 1994 until his death in 2005, he held other positions at five different universities in the US (Rojas 2005).
In all, Andre Gunder Frank has taught or done research in departments of anthropology, economics, geography, history, international relations, political science, and sociology, among others, in nine universities in North America, three in Latin America, and five in countries in Europe. He has also given many lectures and seminars at dozens of universities and other institutions around the world in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German and Dutch (Rojas 2005).
Frank has written extensively on economics, social and political history, contemporary development of the world system, industrially developed countries and the Third World and Latin America. His level of production is best illustrated by the following stats: he has produced over 1000 publications, including 43 books, 169 chapters in 145 books and 400 articles in over 600 issues of academic journals and newspapers (Rojas 2005). Frank’s output was for the most part, unparalleled.
Andre Gunder Frank’s influences as an economist and social activist can be traced to his studies at Chicago where he ultimately honed his approach to economics. His training in neoclassical economics under Milton Friedman resulted in the rejection of the neoliberal and late 19th Century mathematical approach to economy and society. Frank pursued a self-directed path to his degree that focused on the role political elements play in the development of economic theory, contrary to the Chicago school of neoclassical economics (Sommers 2005). Frank rejected the mainstream "stages of economic growth" and argued that poor countries were not on a path of sequential growth stages but were actually circling the drain of dependence. His analysis of serial poverty in his groundbreaking essay, “The Development of Underdevelopment,” was the first step of contributions to come in the area of dependency theory and underdevelopment (Guang 2002).
Frank has been credited as the architect of Dependency Theory. The theory, developed in the 1950s and popularized in the 1960s, seeks to explain the relationship between developed and developing countries as a dynamic interplay where exchange of goods, services and resources between countries ultimately benefits developed countries at the detriment of developing countries. Raul Prebisch, one of the fathers of the theory, put it simply:
"Poor countries exported primary commodities to the rich countries who then manufactured products out of those commodities and sold them back to the poorer countries. The "Value Added" by manufacturing a usable product always cost more than the primary products used to create those products. Therefore, poorer countries would never be earning enough from their export earnings to pay for their imports." (Ferraro 1996).
The difference between undeveloped and underdeveloped states, to which Frank has analyzed extensively, is critical to understanding the historical context and severity of the cycle of dependence. Frank defined undeveloped states as those in which resources are not being used. Underdeveloped states actively harvest their resources, however, are in a situation where the dominant state benefits from the their resources. In effect, the dependent states are dependent because they were integrated into the economic system only as “producers of raw materials or to serve as repositories of cheap labor, and were denied the opportunity to market their resources in any way that competed with dominant states.” (Ferraro 1996).
However, there are different schools of dependency theory that approach or see the concept from a different angle. Prebisch, a liberal reformer, Frank a Marxist, and Wallerstein a World Systemists, would agree to disagree on a centralized definition. There are three common features to which most theorists agree. First, the developed or dominant states (center) is advanced and industrialized, and the dependent states (periphery) are those with low per capita GNPs and rely heavily on a single export. Second, external forces are the drivers of economic activity within the dependent states, and include corporations, markets or foreign assistance from the dominant state. Finally, these relations are dynamic and over time are reinforced and intensified. In essence, a cycle is created where the dominant state continues to prosper while the dependent state become just that, dependent (Ferraro 1996).
Frank has been called a Marxist, however, it is important to look at where Frank and Dependency Theory deviated from Marx’s theory of imperialism. First, The theory of imperialism describes the expansion of a state while dependency identifies underdevelopment. More concisely, “ Marxist theories explain the reasons why imperialism occurs, while dependency theories explain the consequences of imperialism.” (Ferraro 1996). Finally, the theory of imperialism is self-liquidating while dependency relationships are self-perpetuating (Ferraro 1996).
Dependency Theory attempts to explain the underdevelopment of states by examining the relationships between different states where the inequalities of benefit are intrinsic to those relationships (Ferraro 1996). According to Frank, dependency is a result of the development of underdevelopment and is a zero sum game. Ultimately both states lose, only the dominant state loses less than the dependent state (Frank 1975:13-14).
Early in his career, Frank focused heavily on explaining underdevelopment and dependency economic systems and worked to dispel the beliefs of free market economists who argued that underdeveloped states were progressing and were on a path of full integration. Later in his career Frank worked and contributed to the formulation of the theory of the world system. He advocated for a reinterpretation of world history and believed the implications of our current economic perspective were devastating. He argued that mainstream economics was the result of five thousand years of history and not 500. He theorized that modern economics originated in Asia around the Silk Road and only later appeared in Europe after the rise of Western sea-power and the industrial revolution (dos Santos 2005). The end of his career was dedicated to understanding globalization and was framed by a 10-year battle with cancer. Up to his final breath, Frank reviewed and rejected parts of his old theories and worked to create new ones (dos Santos 2005).
Frank left an indelible mark on development economics, history and political economy. His theories were powerful and required adoption or a forceful rejoinder (Sommers 2005). Frank was a social activist, a polemic and a gentleman. During my research, I found much information about why he was admired and why his theories were criticized, however, I was unable to find critics of his personality, his effort and his dedication to the human conditions. For this reason, it seems appropriate to conclude with these two sentiments, written shortly after his death.
"What I loved above all about Frank was his unlimited sincerity and devotion. Frank was motivated only by a single desire: the desire to be of service to the working classes and subordinated peoples, to the victims of exploitation and oppression. Spontaneously, unconditionally, he was always on their side. A quality which is not necessarily always found even among the best intellectuals. "(Amin 2005).
"His death on April 23 leaves a hard-to-fill gap in contemporary social thought. But André was much more than a major social thinker. He was an intellectual who lived his ideas, a fighter for the truth and for the transformation of the world. Even though he was often wrong (like any human being), he was fertile and inspiring even in his errors. This is a quality that only geniuses possess. "(dos Santos 2005).
Works Cited:
Chossudovsky, Michael
2005 Lifelong Battle against Neoliberalism: André Gunder Frank, 1929-2005. Electronic Document,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=
20050718&articleId=703, accessed October 29th, 2007
Dos Santos, Theotonio
2005 Andre Gunder Frank (1929-2005). Electronic document,
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0505dossantos.htm, accessed October 22nd, 2007
Frank, Andre Gunder
1975 “On Capitalist Underdevelopment.” Bombay: Oxford University Press.
Frank, Andre Gunder
1984 “Critique and Anti-Critique.” New York: Praeger Publishers.
Ferraro, Vincent
1996 Dependency Theory: An Introduction. Electronic document,
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/depend.htm, accessed October 22nd, 2007
Guang, Lei
2002 Re-Orient: Andre Gunder Frank and a Globalist Perspective on the World Economy. Electronic Document,
http://www.oycf.org/Perspectives/16_033102/re_orient.htm, accessed October 29th, 2007
Rojas, Robinson, and Andre Gunder Frank
2005 Andre Gunder Frank Official Website, Electronic documents,
http://www.rrojasdatabank.org/agfrank/, accessed October 22nd, 2007
Amin, Samir
2005 A Note on the Death of André Gunder Frank (1929-2005), Electronic Document,
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0405amin.htm, Accessed October 22nd, 2007
Sanchez, Omar
2003 The Rise and Fall of the Dependency Movement: Does It Inform Underdevelopment Today? Electronic Document,
http://www.tau.ac.il/eial/XIV_2/scarzane.html, accessed October 22nd, 2007
Sommers, Jeffrey
2005 The Contradictions of a Contrarian: Andre Gunder Frank. Electronic document,
http://worldhistoryconnected.press.uiuc.edu/2.2/sommers.html, accessed October 22nd, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Paper #1 - The Nuer by EE Evans-Pritchard
Work
Evans-Pritchard, Edward Evan
1940 The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard was a highly influential British Anthropologist whose contributions directly impacted the development of social anthropology in England. Evans-Pritchard’s early works focused primary on tribes of the Sudan. His seminal works about the Nuer Tribe of southern Sudan are the result of exhaustive field research that culminated in his trilogy: The Nuer, Nuer Religion, and Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer.
The Nuer, the first of this trilogy, is a self-confessed topical account that focused principally on the social structure of the greater Nuer tribe. This was achieved by outlining the interaction of the people and the physical environment, the political system, the lineage system and the age set system. The latter two works of this trilogy dive more deeply into religion and ceremony, and the lineage system.
The Nuer are a group of tribes that inhabit the swamps and open savannah that stretch across the Nile at the southern confluence of the Sobat and Bahr el Ghazal tributaries. They are one of the largest ethnic groups in East Africa. They are predominantly pastoralists who engage in limited horticulture. Cattle are the cultural core of the Nuer and are the center of economic, religious and symbolic systems. At the time of writing, it was noted that they had found perfect balance within their ecosystem even though the extremes of the rainy and dry seasons weighed heavily on everyday life. The Nuer are noted for their ferocity and are one of the few tribes in East Africa to resist British Colonization. The political structure is heterarchical; there is no single leader or leadership body, there is no governance and no established law.
Evans-Pritchard’s ethnographic data was represented in a structural functionalist framework. He was careful to incorporate the tenants of this approach; he viewed the Nuer society from a holistic perspective, he addressed the relationships between lineage, political and age-set systems and incorporated how these various institutions contribute to the stability and perpetuation of the entire structure. Among the Nuer, each institution is inextricably linked. For example, the political system is dependent on residential relationships that are dependent on social relationships. According to Evens-Pritchard,
"The political system of the Nuer can only be understood in relation to the whole structure of which other people form part and, likewise, the character of all Nuer communities must be defined by their relations with other communities of the same order within the whole political system (p.190)."
The intersection of Nuer institutions is also evident in the ritual of “blood feud.” The Nuer, a feisty lot according to the researcher, frequently engage in feuds over the mistreatment of cattle, adultery, water rights, pasturage rights among others. If a given feud results in homicide, the family of the slain is to receive as reparation, a certain number or cattle from the slayer. This sanction and the chance of settlement are dependent on the structural interrelations of slain and slayer – blood feud within a village (the smallest Nuer group) is recompensed immediately, and conversely blood feud within the tribe (the largest Nuer group) is rarely recompensed. In effect, feuds are settled swiftly when the structural distance between participants is narrow, but they are often left unsettled as that distance expands.
Evans-Pritchard’s The Nuer is an effective descriptive work. True to form, he did not offer an explicit hypothesis at the outset of the work. While he did outline the structure of the account and related, briefly, the chief themes of his observations, these were simple sketches of what followed. His theories, based principally on observations and interactions, were infused throughout the text and were most often conveyed through examples. This approach made his theories and conclusions digestible - a description, a theory and an immediate concrete example were provided in small bites.
Evans-Pritchard’s descriptive approach was disciplined; he did not attempt to define the general characteristics of Nilotic culture and social structure by comparing the Nuer with the Dinka, Shilluk and other Nilotic cultures that have been studied by contemporaries or predecessors. Rather, the book was specific to the intricacies of the Nuer and intentionally bypassed Nilotic cultural themes and hackneyed assumptions about acephalous tribes of the region.
The Nuer is the result of pioneering fieldwork and is heralded as one of the most elegant and classical analyses of social structure. The work is almost entirely based on direct observation and is therefore, in the author’s eyes, both more challenging and more accurate. According to Evans-Pritchard working with an intractable and intentionally guileful group, and without informants or a translator, forced him to improve his techniques in ethnography. His previous work with the Azande tribe shaped his view of the role of ethnographer. With the Azande, he was an outsider forced to live on the margins of the community. He was also regarded with esteem and treated as a superior. Working with the Nuer improved his perspective. The Nuer required Evan-Pritchard to live among them, to participate in community affairs and to live as an equal. This subtle shift had a profound impact in the quality of his research.
Due to the historical context of this work, Evans-Pritchard’s intentions have been called into question. It has been argued that Evans-Pritchard was recruited by the British colonial authorities to provide vital information about a theretofore unconquered tribe. Indeed his employer was the government of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and indirectly the British government. He was charged with documenting Nuer institutions and handing that information over to controlling powers that established policy and evoked war. It is impossible to know Evans-Pritchard’s true intentions and whether he was acting in the interests of the Nuer or the government that sought to suppress them.
The Nuer is one of the most famous ethnographies of the 20th century. Evans-Pritchard was able to glean intricately detailed information in the field. Despite this and his breakthrough in the quality of his ethnography, he was not totally satisfied with the result. Evans-Pritchard argued that an ethnographer had two formidable hurdles to clear. The first hurtle is entering the mental space of an unfamiliar world with an unfamiliar culture. Second, the researcher is then charged with describing that culture to others in a framework that is relevant to an external worldview. Evans-Pritchard’s pursuit of solutions to these challenges created a holistic and integrated view of the Nuer social system. This ethnography, among others by Malinowski, Cushing and Mead, established participant observation as the primary research method in anthropology.
Evans-Pritchard, Edward Evan
1940 The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard was a highly influential British Anthropologist whose contributions directly impacted the development of social anthropology in England. Evans-Pritchard’s early works focused primary on tribes of the Sudan. His seminal works about the Nuer Tribe of southern Sudan are the result of exhaustive field research that culminated in his trilogy: The Nuer, Nuer Religion, and Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer.
The Nuer, the first of this trilogy, is a self-confessed topical account that focused principally on the social structure of the greater Nuer tribe. This was achieved by outlining the interaction of the people and the physical environment, the political system, the lineage system and the age set system. The latter two works of this trilogy dive more deeply into religion and ceremony, and the lineage system.
The Nuer are a group of tribes that inhabit the swamps and open savannah that stretch across the Nile at the southern confluence of the Sobat and Bahr el Ghazal tributaries. They are one of the largest ethnic groups in East Africa. They are predominantly pastoralists who engage in limited horticulture. Cattle are the cultural core of the Nuer and are the center of economic, religious and symbolic systems. At the time of writing, it was noted that they had found perfect balance within their ecosystem even though the extremes of the rainy and dry seasons weighed heavily on everyday life. The Nuer are noted for their ferocity and are one of the few tribes in East Africa to resist British Colonization. The political structure is heterarchical; there is no single leader or leadership body, there is no governance and no established law.
Evans-Pritchard’s ethnographic data was represented in a structural functionalist framework. He was careful to incorporate the tenants of this approach; he viewed the Nuer society from a holistic perspective, he addressed the relationships between lineage, political and age-set systems and incorporated how these various institutions contribute to the stability and perpetuation of the entire structure. Among the Nuer, each institution is inextricably linked. For example, the political system is dependent on residential relationships that are dependent on social relationships. According to Evens-Pritchard,
"The political system of the Nuer can only be understood in relation to the whole structure of which other people form part and, likewise, the character of all Nuer communities must be defined by their relations with other communities of the same order within the whole political system (p.190)."
The intersection of Nuer institutions is also evident in the ritual of “blood feud.” The Nuer, a feisty lot according to the researcher, frequently engage in feuds over the mistreatment of cattle, adultery, water rights, pasturage rights among others. If a given feud results in homicide, the family of the slain is to receive as reparation, a certain number or cattle from the slayer. This sanction and the chance of settlement are dependent on the structural interrelations of slain and slayer – blood feud within a village (the smallest Nuer group) is recompensed immediately, and conversely blood feud within the tribe (the largest Nuer group) is rarely recompensed. In effect, feuds are settled swiftly when the structural distance between participants is narrow, but they are often left unsettled as that distance expands.
Evans-Pritchard’s The Nuer is an effective descriptive work. True to form, he did not offer an explicit hypothesis at the outset of the work. While he did outline the structure of the account and related, briefly, the chief themes of his observations, these were simple sketches of what followed. His theories, based principally on observations and interactions, were infused throughout the text and were most often conveyed through examples. This approach made his theories and conclusions digestible - a description, a theory and an immediate concrete example were provided in small bites.
Evans-Pritchard’s descriptive approach was disciplined; he did not attempt to define the general characteristics of Nilotic culture and social structure by comparing the Nuer with the Dinka, Shilluk and other Nilotic cultures that have been studied by contemporaries or predecessors. Rather, the book was specific to the intricacies of the Nuer and intentionally bypassed Nilotic cultural themes and hackneyed assumptions about acephalous tribes of the region.
The Nuer is the result of pioneering fieldwork and is heralded as one of the most elegant and classical analyses of social structure. The work is almost entirely based on direct observation and is therefore, in the author’s eyes, both more challenging and more accurate. According to Evans-Pritchard working with an intractable and intentionally guileful group, and without informants or a translator, forced him to improve his techniques in ethnography. His previous work with the Azande tribe shaped his view of the role of ethnographer. With the Azande, he was an outsider forced to live on the margins of the community. He was also regarded with esteem and treated as a superior. Working with the Nuer improved his perspective. The Nuer required Evan-Pritchard to live among them, to participate in community affairs and to live as an equal. This subtle shift had a profound impact in the quality of his research.
Due to the historical context of this work, Evans-Pritchard’s intentions have been called into question. It has been argued that Evans-Pritchard was recruited by the British colonial authorities to provide vital information about a theretofore unconquered tribe. Indeed his employer was the government of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and indirectly the British government. He was charged with documenting Nuer institutions and handing that information over to controlling powers that established policy and evoked war. It is impossible to know Evans-Pritchard’s true intentions and whether he was acting in the interests of the Nuer or the government that sought to suppress them.
The Nuer is one of the most famous ethnographies of the 20th century. Evans-Pritchard was able to glean intricately detailed information in the field. Despite this and his breakthrough in the quality of his ethnography, he was not totally satisfied with the result. Evans-Pritchard argued that an ethnographer had two formidable hurdles to clear. The first hurtle is entering the mental space of an unfamiliar world with an unfamiliar culture. Second, the researcher is then charged with describing that culture to others in a framework that is relevant to an external worldview. Evans-Pritchard’s pursuit of solutions to these challenges created a holistic and integrated view of the Nuer social system. This ethnography, among others by Malinowski, Cushing and Mead, established participant observation as the primary research method in anthropology.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Anth Classes for Fall 07
First course: History of Anthropology. Can't wait!
Second course: Quantitative Principles in Anthopology. Sweet.
Note to reader: I will not be blogging like this in the future. I am just testing "labels." I am talking to you Glenna.
Second course: Quantitative Principles in Anthopology. Sweet.
Note to reader: I will not be blogging like this in the future. I am just testing "labels." I am talking to you Glenna.