According to chapter 39 “Using Anthropology,” what are some of the professional applications of anthropology (beyond the academy)? For example, how do anthropological concepts and methods help the new manager improve the performance of the large corporation where she works? How could anthropologists do a better job applying their skills to contemporary problems?
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FIFTEENTH EDITION Conformity and Conflict Readings in Cultural Anthropology DAVID W. McCURDY Macalester College DIANNA SHANDY Macalester College JAMES SPRADLEY PEARSON Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Amsterdam Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montreal Toronto Delhi Mexico City Sao Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore Taipei Tokyo Editorial Director: Dickson Musslewhite Publisher: Charlvce Jones Owen Program Manager: Rob DeGeorge Editorial Assistant: Maureen Diana Project Manager: Richard DeLorenzo Operations Supervisor: Mary Fischer Operations Specialist: Mary Ann Gloriande Cover Designer: Maria Lange Cover Images: (top) Dominic Byrne / Alamy; (bottom) Hosam Salem/ZUMA Press/Newscom Full-Service Project Management: Anju Joshi/ Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Printer/Binder: Edwards Brothers Malloy Cover Printer: Phoenix Color/Hagerstown Text Font: New Aster 10/12 Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on page 391. Copyright © 2016, 2012, 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is provided by copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise. For information regarding permissions, request forms and the appropriate contacts within the Pearson Education Global Rights & Permissions department, please visit www .pearsoned.com/permissions. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Conformity and conflict: readings in cultural anthropology / [edited by] David W. McCurdy, Macalester College, Dianna Shandy, Macalester College, James Spradley.—Fifteenth edition, pages cm Includes index. ISBN 978-0-205-99079-5—ISBN 0-205-99079-7 1. Ethnology. 2. Anthropology. I. McCurdy, David W. II. Shandy, Dianna. GN325.C69 2015 306—dc23 2014027156 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 P E A R S O N ISBN 10: 0-205-99079-7 ISBN 13: 978-0-205-99079-5 P A R T S E V E N LAW AND POLITICS READINGS IN THIS SECTION Cross-Cultural Law: The Case of an American Gypsy 218 Anne Sutherland Law and Order 226 James P. Spradley and David W. McCurdy Navigating Nigerian Bureaucracies 237 Elizabeth A. Eames Illegal Economies and the Untold Story of the Amputees 245 Carolyn Nordstrom 216 P A R T S E V E N Law and Politics Ideally, culture provides the blueprint for a smoothly oiled social machine whose parts work together under all circumstances. But human society is not like a rigidly constructed machine. It is made of individuals who have their own special needs and desires. Personal interest, competition for scarce resources, and simple accident can cause nonconformity and disputes, resulting in serious disorganization. One way we manage social disruption is through the socialization of children. As we acquire our culture, we learn the appropriate ways to look at experience, to de fine our existence, and to feel about life. Each system of cultural knowledge contains implicit values of what is desirable, and we come to share these values with other people. Slowly, with the acquisition of culture, most people find they want to do what they must do; the requirements of an orderly social life become personal goals. Enculturation, however, is rarely enough. Disputes among individuals regularly occur in all societies, and how such disagreements are handled defines what anthro pologists mean by the legal system. Some disputes are infralegal; they never reach a point where they are settled by individuals with special authority. Neighbors, for example, would engage in an infralegal dispute if they argued over who should pay for the damage caused by water that runs off one's land into the others basement. So long as they don't take the matter to court or resort to violence, the dispute will remain infralegal. This dispute may become extralegal, however, if it occurs outside the law and escalates into violence. Had the neighbors come to blows over the waterlogged basement, the dispute would have become extralegal. Feuds and wars are the best examples of this kind of dispute. Legal disputes, on the other hand, involve socially approved mechanisms for their settlement. Law is the cultural knowledge that people use to settle disputes by means of agents who have the recognized authority to do so. Thus if the argument be tween neighbors cited previously ended up in court before a judge or referee, it would have become legal. Although Americans often think of courts as synonymous with the legal system, societies have evolved a variety of structures for settling disputes. For example, some disputes may be settled by self-redress, meaning that wronged individuals are given the right to settle matters themselves. Contests requiring physical or mental com bat between disputants may also be used to settle disputes. A trusted third party, or go-between, may be asked to negotiate with each side until a settlement is achieved. In some societies, supernatural power or beings may be used. In parts of India, for example, disputants are asked to take an oath in the name of a powerful deity or (at least in the past) to submit to a supernaturally controlled, painful, or physically dangerous test called an ordeal. Disputes may also be taken to a moot, an informal community meeting where conflict may be aired. At the moot, talk continues until a settlement is reached. Finally, disputes are often taken to courts, which are formally organized and include officials with authority to make and enforce decisions. Political systems are closely related to legal ones and often involve some of the same offices and actors. The political system contains the process for making and earning out public policy according to cultural categories and rules; policy refers to guidelines for action. The public are the people affected bv the policy. Every society must make decisions that affect all or most of its members. The Mbuti Pygmies of the Ituri Forest described by anthropologist Colin Turnbull, for example, occasionally decide to conduct a communal hunt. Hunters set their nets together and wait for the appearance of forest game. Men, women, and children must work together as beaters to drive the animals toward the nets. When the Mbuti decide to hold a hunt, they make a political decision. P A R T S E V E N Law and Politics 217 The political process requires that people make and abide by a particular policy, often in the face of competing plans. To do so a policy must have support, which is anything that contributes to its adoption and enforcement. Anthropologists recognize two main kinds of support: legitimacy and coercion. Legitimacy refers to people's positive evaluation of public officials and public policy. A college faculty, for example, may decide to institute the quarter system because a majority feel that quarters rather than semesters represent the "right length" for courses. Theirs is a positive evaluation of the policy. Some faculty members will oppose the change but will abide by the de cision because they value the authority of faculty governance. For them the decision, although unfortunate, is legitimate. Coercion, on the other hand, is support derived from the threat or use of force or the promise of short-term gain. Had the faculty members adopted the quarter sys tem because they had been threatened with termination by the administration, they would have acted under coercion. There are also other important aspects of the political process. Some members of a society may be given authority, the right to make and enforce public policy. In our country, elected officials are given authority to make certain decisions and exer cise particular powers. However, formal political offices with authority do not occur in every society. Most hunting and gathering societies lack such positions, as do many horticultural societies. Leadership, which is the ability to influence others to act, must be exercised informally in these societies. In the first article, Anne Sutherland describes what happens when the substan tive laws of two culturally different groups collide in court. A young Gypsy man is convicted of using another family members social security number although he had no intention of defrauding anyone. The second article, by James Spradley and David McCurdy, uses Zapotec cases collected by anthropologist Laura Nader to illustrate basic anthropological legal concepts, such as substantive and procedural law, legal levels, and legal principles. They show that, for the Zapotec, social harmony is more important than punishment. Elizabeth Eames, in the third selection, looks at the po litical institution of bureaucracy. Drawing on the theory of Max Weber, she notes that bureaucracy, which is designed to be impersonal and even-handed in Europe and North America, is a personal institution in Nigeria. She introduces Weber's notion of patrimonial authority as it pertains to the form of government organized as a more or less direct extension of the noble household, where officials originate as household servants and remain personal dependents of the ruler. The final selection by Carolyn Nordstrom discusses the informal—thus untaxed, unregulated, and illegal—economy among war amputees in Angola as the backbone of the economy. Key