Ch. 6 Production and Exchange Terms

Question 1

agriculture

Answer 1

a subsistence system that requires constant and intensive use of permanent fields for plant cultivation

Question 2

articulation

Answer 2

the strategic use of several modes of subsistence at the same time

Question 3

balanced reciprocity

Answer 3

a form of exchange in which roughly equivalent good or services are exchanged immediately, or within a relatively short amount of time, with or without the use of money

Question 4

biomass

Answer 4

all living things, plants and animals, contained in and supported by a particular area of land

Question 5

economic anthropology

Answer 5

the study of how people meet needs through production, exchange, and consumption

Question 6

ethnocide

Answer 6

the death of a culture when its members shift to a different way of life, even as the people group survives

Question 7

exchange systems

Answer 7

social processes by which people give and receive goods and services

Question 8

extensive farming

Answer 8

farming practices that involve putting relatively little energy into the land for the calories extracted

Question 9

fissioning

Answer 9

• splitting a group into numerous smaller groups

- a practice used by foragers to maintain group size and reduce interpersonal conflict

Question 10

foraging (hunting and gathering)

Answer 10

a subsistence strategy based on gathering plants that grow wild in the environment and hunting available animals

Question 11

formalist theory

Answer 11

an economic theory that teaches that the logic people use to pursue economic goals is culturally universal and can be explained by universal economic models

Question 12

generalized reciprocity

Answer 12

a form of exchange involving gift exchanges with no precise accounting of value and no precise expectation for type or time of return

Question 13

genocide

Answer 13

the systematic killing of most members of a culture

Question 14

horticulture

Answer 14

a subsistence strategy in which people cultivate varieties of wild or domesticated crops, primarily for their own use, using relatively little technology

Question 15

intensive farming

Answer 15

agricultural or horticultural techniques that directly replenish the nutrients in the soil, producing marginally higher crop yields

Question 16

leveling mechanism

Answer 16

a redistribution process that reduces social inequality

Question 17

market economy

Answer 17

a system of exchange in which people exchange their labor (physical, mental, creative, etc) for money, which is exchanged for goods and services

Question 18

monocropping

Answer 18

growing one species of plant in a garden or field

Question 19

multicropping

Answer 19

growing several species of plants in a single garden

Question 20

negative reciprocity

Answer 20

a form of exchange in which one or both parties seek to receive more than they give

Question 21

nomadic pastoralism

Answer 21

a form of pastoralism that involves moving animals in response to food and water supply

Question 22

pastoralism

Answer 22

a subsistence strategy based on the use of domesticated herd animals

Question 23

potlatch

Answer 23

a form of redistribution and exchange traditionally practiced by Pacific Northwest Native American groups

Question 24

production

Answer 24

any human action intended to convert resources in the environment into food

Question 25

property rights

Answer 25

the cultural understanding that some family or person has a right to the land and crops into which labor has been invested

Question 26

redistribution

Answer 26

a system of exchange in which a centralized authority collects goods and services from a group of people and redistributes them

Question 27

subsistence farming

Answer 27

growing food exclusively, or at least primarily, for consumption by one’s own family or group

Question 28

subsistence strategy (mode of subsistence)

Answer 28

a culturally created means of securing food

Question 29

substantivist theory

Answer 29

an economic theory that teaches that economic behavior and motivations vary by culture

Question 30

swidden farming (shifting cultivation or slash-and-burn)

Answer 30

a form of horticulture involving the clearing and burning of a section of forest for cultivation, and after some time, moving on to a new forest space

Question 31

transhumant pastoralism

Answer 31

the practice of moving herds seasonally between high meadows in the summer and human settlements in the winter

Question 32

usufruct rights

Answer 32

• an understanding of property rights in which a plot of land “belongs” to the person or family using it
• when they are done using it, their rights to the land end