Today’s Class

• Modern World System

• Human Rights & Cultural Relativism

– Case Study #1: Death Penalty

– Case Study #2: Female Circumcision

*Removal of P&B Chapter 46 (MacDonald)

*P&B Chapter 52 author is Kratz, not Gruenbaum

• Three positions:

– Core, Semi-Periphery, Periphery

• Core:

– Most dominant; controls world finance

– Technology; Mechanized

– Produces capital-intensive, high tech goods

• Mostly to other core areas

– US, UK, France

• Semi-Periphery:

– Industrialized

– Industrial Goods and Commodities

– Lacks Power and Dominance of Core

– Brazil (& most of Latin America), Saudi Arabia, Russia

• Periphery

– Least power, wealth, and influence

– Less mechanized—mostly rely on human labor

– Produce raw materials and agricultural commodities

– Export to core & semi-periphery

– Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, SE Asia, Siberia

• Peripheral regions may occur within a core nation

– e.g., parts of Tennessee

• Players have changed since emergence of modern world system

– US (Periphery to Semi-Periphery to Core)

– Spain (Core to Semi-Periphery)

• Relationship between core & periphery exploitative

– Trade & economic interactions benefit core

– Core wages & living standard high

– Periphery wages & living standard low

• Increased poverty & food shortages

Bangladesh

• Example: Bangladesh

– Favorable environment for agriculture

• Cotton

– British encouraged cash-crop farming for export

• Land becomes commodity

– Stratification increases

• Small group owns most land

• Peasantry gradually lost land (1/3-no land)

• Food shortages

Question of Progress

• Integration of Indigenous People into WS

• Chosen for Them

• How to measure progress/economic development?

– Standard of living

• Standard of Living

– GNP

– Per Capita Income

– Literacy

– Formal Education

– Employment Rate

– Consumption of Manufactured Goods

• Ethnocentric

• Traditional Indicators May Be Irrelevant

• Instead:

– “Does progress or economic development increase or decrease a given culture’s ability to satisfy the physical and psychological needs of its population, or its stability?”

-Bodley p. 375

• Alternative Indicators:

– Nutritional Status

– Physical Health

– Mental Health

– Crime

– Family Stability

– Natural Resource Base

• Using these indicators, integration of indigenous people into WS has lowered SOL dramatically

• Increased poverty

• Longer work hours

• Health decline

• Increased Social Disorder

• Increased Discontent

• Overpopulation

• Environmental Deterioration

Role of Multinational Corporations

• Usually based in core countries

– e.g., McDonalds, Enron, Halliburton

• Privatization

– Wealth differential

Map of world from Kottak (Note: colors of periphery & semiperiphery switched)

World Systems

• Critical Points:

– Interdependency beyond individual nations

– Unequal power & wealth relationships

– Three roles/positions

– All human populations have some role in world system

Anthropology and the World System

• Anthropology: Early focus on small, isolated groups

– True isolation probably never existed

– Thousands of years of contact

– Local societies in larger systems

Yanomamö

• Brazil & Venezuela

• Contact with Catholic Missionaries since at least 1915

• Anthropologists must examine historical context of local and global interactions

• Framework of inequality in access to wealth and power

Human Rights & Cultural Relativism

Cultural Relativism

• Principle that values and standards of cultures differ and deserve respect; must be understood on own terms

• Cultural diversity

• Ethnocentrism

• Are there limits to cultural relativism?

• Certain practices challenge nonjudgmental tolerance that cultural relativism implies

• Raise questions about how to define human rights and who defines

Human Rights

• Doctrine that invokes a realm of justice and morality beyond and superior to particular countries, cultures, and religions

• Vested in individuals

• Post-World War II movement

– 1948 International Declaration of Human Rights

Some examples

• Equality before law

• Protection against arbitrary arrest

• Freedom of speech

• Freedom of religion without persecution

• How to define human rights?

• Who decides?

Case Study #1: Death Penalty

• Does this violate individual human rights?

• How should we understand use of death penalty?

• What are the issues involved?

Death Penalty Worldwide

• China, Iran, & US used death penalty most often in 2002

• When do individual human rights supercede rights to self-determination?

• Fair trial?

• Only heinous crimes?

• Type of punishment?

• Targeted groups?

– Race or ethnicity?

– Age?

– Mentally disabled?

Europe & US

• Why such different views?

– US: DP in 38 states, as well as in military and federal courts

– Europe: Abolished DP in 1983; Can’t join EU with DP; Must actively campaign against; Seeks global eradication

• Difference in murder rates?

– US murder rate ~4 times higher than Europe

• Must be understood within sociocultural context

• Most common reasons given in US for DP:

– Deterrence*

– Cost*

– Benefits family & friends of victim of crime

– Moral proportion

• First two don’t stand up to evidence