SOC 230 Social Stratification - Nielsen - Class 5 - 9 Feb 2001

Discussion questions on the evolutionary approaches (Gerhard Lenski; Rae Blumberg; Joseph Lopreato & Timothy Crippen)

• What is the key factor affecting the degree of inequality in a society, according to Lenski?  (Note: One can answer this at several levels.)
• What role do Lenski's "constants" (assumptions about human nature and society) play in the general theory?  Are these assumptions necessary?
• What is Lenski's definition of "class"?  Does Lenski's idea of competing class systems add to our understanding of inequality?  How does this compare with Weber?
• What relationship does Lenski establish between "status inconsistency" and the leadership of revolutionary movements?
• What role does social mobility play in Lenski's theory?
• How does Lenski describe the evolution of social inequality with technological development?  In what sense does the reversal of the historical trend of greater inequality with higher levels of technology that took place in mature industrial societies constitute a "paradox" relative to Lenski's general argument?
• What are the causes given by Lenski for the inequality decline in industrial societies?
• What role does the notion of a "ruling class" play in Lenski's analysis of industrial societies?
• If one had to decide which of the stratification theorists discussed so far (such as Marx, Weber, Davis & Moore, the elite theorists) has/have the greatest affinity with Lenski's approach, who would that be?
• How satisfying is Lenski's synthesis of conflict and consensus approaches?
• Overall, what are the benefits (and costs) of taking a broad comparative approach such as Lenski's?

Rae Lesser Blumberg (1984)

NOTES:
1. There has been a controversy concerning the existence of the Tasaday people of the Philippines, whom Blumberg mentions on pp. 6, 7, 11.  They were believed at some point to be a fraud contrived by a minister in the Marcos government.  See the Appendix to this document for additional information.
2. The Ethnographic Atlas that Blumberg (and Lenski) use to make comparisons of societies of different types is publicly available for analysis.  Replicating and/or extending the analyses of Blumberg and Lenski using this data set would constitute interesting paper projects for this class.  You might consider this possibility, especially if you have some familiarity with data analysis on the computer, or can acquire it in a pinch.
 

• How does Blumberg chracterize the "biological" approach to explaining sexual inequality?  What type of arguments does she use to criticize this approach?
• According to Blumberg, what is the main determinant of the relative equality of the sexes in a given group?
• What are the reasons given (or implied) by Blumberg for such practices of horticulturalists as raiding other groups to steal women (p. 22), or agrarian practices of female seclusion, veiling, foot-binding, purdah, and suttee (p. 52; one could add genital mutilations to this list).  Is her general strategy of explanation of such practices convincing?
• What are the three characteristics of activities that make them compatible with child care?  And to what extent do these considerations explain the different roles of women in the production system of hunting and gathering, horticultural, and agrarian societies?
• How does Blumberg define, and implement, the notion of "life options" in measuring the status of women?  How useful is this approach?
• What are the four characteristics of the family that Blumberg finds "peaking" in horticultural societies (as compared with both less technologically advanced hunting and gathering societies, and more technologically advanced agrarian societies), and what are the reasons she gives for this pattern?
• What is Blumberg's account of the high degree of subjugation of women in agrarian societies?  How does the distinction between "dry" versus "wet" (irrigation-based) type of agriculture qualify this account?
• Overall, how does Blumberg's approach differ from Lenski's?

Questions TBA.

The following is a message from Bruce Winterhalder of the Anthropology Department at UNC, in response to my message asking him whether the Tasaday are real or fake:

Date: Thu, 22 Sep 94 10:02:00 -0400
From: BPW12 <bpw12.ecology@mhs.unc.edu>
To: nielsen@gibbs.oit.unc.edu
Subject: Re: Tasaday: real or fake?

Francois:
The awkward answer: a little of both.
The sensational reports (beginning in 1971) -- pristine, unaware of the
modern world, utterly limited to a few simple stone-age implements, etc.,
-- were surely exaggerated; the subsequent revelation (about 1986) that it
was all a "fraud" were was likewise blown all out of proportion in the
media (by the same journalists who had launched the 1971 stories).
My most recent contact with the dispute is a review (AmAnthropologist
95(4): 1044-1046. 1993) of a new book titled _The Tasaday Controversy:
Assessing the Evidence_ (T.N. Headland, ed. Spec Publ No 28, Scholarly
Series, AmAnthro Assoc, Washington DC. 1992), that says this: "Beyond
affirming the fact that the Tasaday do, indeed, exist as an independent
indigenous people, much room is left for arguments about their origins, the
degree of their isolation and "primitiveness," and the manipulations
perpetrated on them by outsiders -- primarily journalists and politicians
-- since 1971." There are a few reliable ethnographic observers (most
based on _very_ short visits, sometimes only days); if your material comes
from one of them, I'd trust it.
A point doesn't turn on the Tasaday evidence alone: ethnographic study
of hunter-gatherers in general confirms that male female relations, if not
precisely equal, are much more egalitarian than in most other forms of
society. The !Kung San, of S.Africa, are a well studied example (see the
works of Richard Lee); I could come up with a few references if you are
interested (or your students are interested) in pursuing the point.
I hope that this helps. . .and I'll look for the AnnRev article.

Bruce

note new e-mail address: winterhalder@unc.edu