Economic Anthropology - Science topic

Not only did pre-colonial trade occur but some manufacturing also took place and so traders engaged in the sale of manufactured products. Ancient Africa traded in tobacco, gold, copper, spices, ebony, ivory, and skins.

People in pre-colonial Africa were engaged in hunting and gathering, agriculture, mining and simple manufacturing. Agriculture involved most people, so the chapter looks mainly at farming activities. The chapter explains that farmers in those days faced two big challenges: a hostile environment and scarcity of labour.

(citation from: https://www.aehnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Green.Production-Systems-in-Pre-Colonial-Africa.pdf

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The very earliest evidence of African trade is described by Herodotus (c. 484-425BC) who wrote of the trade across the Sahara; a trade recorded in rock paintings dating from 10,000BC.

(Citation from: https://african.business/2021/10/trade-investment/a-short-history-of-african-trade/

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In most parts of Africa before 1500, societies had become highly developed in terms of their own histories. They often had complex systems of participatory government, or were established powerful states that covered large territories and had extensive regional and international links.

The Transatlantic Slave trade not only distorted Africa’s economic development it also distorted views of the history and importance of the African continent itself. It is only in the last fifty years that it has been possible to redress this distortion and to begin to re-establish Africa’s rightful place in world history.

The African continent is now recognised as the birthplace of humanity and the cradle of civilization. We still marvel at the great achievements of Kemet, or Ancient Egypt, for example, one of the most notable of the early African civilizations, which first developed in the Nile valley over 5000 years ago.

(Citation from:

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The main items traded were gold and salt. The gold mines of West Africa provided great wealth to West African Empires such as Ghana and Mali. Other items that were commonly traded included ivory, kola nuts, cloth, slaves, metal goods, and beads.

(Citation from: https://www.ducksters.com/history/africa/trade_routes_of_ancient_africa.php

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Simple conclusion:

Colonization brought a full disruption of Africa‘s traditional trade and routes.

Once upon a time, an old man revealed to his grandson one vital truth:

- In every person there is a struggle, very similar to the struggle of two wolves. One wolf represents evil: envy, jealousy, regret, selfishness, ambition, lies. The other wolf represents goodness: peace, love, hope, truth, kindness and loyalty.

The grandson, touched to the depths of his soul by the words of his grandfather, thought, and then asked:

Which wolf wins at the end?

The old man smiled and replied:

The wolf you feed always wins.

Plastic packaging bags are consumer friendly and easy-to-use.

Consumers only have to pope up or tear the package for accessing the content in the packet.

Plastic Packaging: Advantages & Disadvantages | ALPPM

I have co-authored a paper that discusses A&G' s findings. See: V. Daniele, A. Di Ruggiero, The Roots of Global Inequality: The Role of Biogeography and Genetic Diversity, Journal of Development Studies (downloadable in ResearchGate).

See also: Ideen A. Riahi, Why Eurasia? A probe into the origins of global inequalities, Cliometrica.

One of the solutions, citizen participation... The theory and practice of urban governance in recent years has undergone both a collaborative and participatory turn. The strong connection between collaboration and participation has meant that citizen participation in urban governance has been conceived in a very particular way: as varying levels of partnership between state actors and citizens. This over-focus on collaboration has led to: 1) a dearth of proposals in theory and practice for citizens to engage oppositionally with institutions; 2) the miscasting of agonistic opportunities for participation as forms of collaboration; 3) an inability to recognise the irruption of agonistic practices into participatory procedures. This article attempts to expand the conception of participatory urban governance by adapting Rosanvallon’s (2008) three democratic counter-powers—prevention, oversight and judgement—to consider options for institutionalising agonistic participatory practices. It argues that these counter-governance processes would more fully realise the inclusion agenda that underpins the participatory governance project... Dean, R. J. (2018). Counter-governance: Citizen participation beyond collaboration. Politics and Governance, 6(1), 180-188.

It really depends on the the scales you are using:

DV= EWB (comprises from 8 variables in dichotomous nature, based on yes and no): To address DV, you could either use the sum of all responses, in which case you need to examine the KR20 score first to establish internal consistency reliability. This slide includes how to calculate KR20 in Stata: https://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/59/2016/10/harvard-lecture-series-session-2_Reliability.pdf

Alternatively, you can use latent class analysis to identify the latent groups. In Stata, you can find instructions here: https://www.stata.com/features/overview/latent-class-analysis/

IV= Social exclusion (comprises from 6 indicators and each indicator has 5-8 statements based on categorical and continuous data): In this case, you need to create a latent variable using GSEM (assuming you use STATA) and specify the distribution of each indicator. https://www.stata.com/meeting/italy13/abstracts/materials/it13_huber.pdf

Given the feature of your IV, it might be inevitable for you to use GSEM in STATA. Alternatively, R and Mplus can also do the above. Mplus software is probably the most powerful one. But I know more about Stata, yet GSEM often encounters situations of non-convergence.

Thank you,!

Dear Kashif,

This is certainly an interesting question.

Marxism can provide a solid theoretical critique of today's 'development studies'. At its core, 'development studies' was created as a post-colonial interdisciplinary field of studies--one which aimed aimed to examine and address the developmental gap between Global North and Global South.

For the most part, development studies is bifurcated. On the one hand, there are those who advocate for state-led development. On the other, we have the stern believers in market-led development. The Marxian contribution here is that it brings to the fore the fact that, despite their core ideological discrepancies, both economic models are grounded on surplus value as a means for capital accumulation. That is, despite their methodological and theoretical differences, state-led and market-led development is exploitative at its core. Workers under both economic models are subordinated to the needs and desired of the capitalist/bourgeois class.

In this sense, I think Marxism is particularly useful not only in helping us understand the ways in which global capitalism perpetuates uneven development in the Global North and South but, most importantly, draw attention to the inherent flaws of capitalism, helping us, as scholars, to move forward in re-thinking new global political scenarios.

In terms of literature, I would recommend the following:

1. Murat Arsel & Anirban Dasgupta, "Critique, Rediscovery and Revival in Development Studies" Development and Change. 2015. Vol 46(4).

2. Benjamin Selwyn, "Karl Marx, Class Struggle and the Labour-Centred Development" Global Labour Journal. 2014. Vol 4(1)

I hope you find it useful.

Regards,

Barry,

I think that the July 1, 1918 U.S. population number is unreliable. Prior to 1940 the U.S. Census Bureau did not count U.S. citizens that were stationed overseas in the military. Since over 4 million U.S. soldiers were mobilized between August of 1917 and the summer of 1918 the U.S. Census Bureau had to estimate how many were overseas versus living but not counted in the States. I'd say that the margin of error probably covers that supposed decrease.

There also could have been a decrease in births in due to an immediate anticipation of U.S. involvement in the war. While 1917 looks like a negative growth, there was a substantial decrease in population growth during the Great Depression. It was only after the economy crossed the threshold of where it was at the time of the start of the depression in 1929 that the population continued its more regular trend. Interestingly, from an historic perspective, there was an increase in the U.S. birth rate in 1940 that continued through World War II. This increase in U.S. population growth probably consisted of wartime babies in families that were recovering from the Great Depression and had elected not to have children due to the economic conditions at the time.

JAG

Thanks anyway. I'll send you my proposal in a few weeks.

Interesting discussion do economists make markets. Provide few links if available.

My idea is a little tricky, maybe? The Australian aborigines are not supposed to have had horticulture, but formerly fishing in the paleolakes and hunted. On the other hand the Yam (Dioscorea alata) originating from Papua Newguinee  must have been planted in Australia as otherwise it could not have come and spread there in the middle or late holocene?

What about Susan Wright (ed) The Anthropology of Organisations?

Cochrane and pubmed as well as journal of nursing administration have several articles that may help you in your literature review.. regards

Hi Jovana,

My recently published thesis may be of use to you, see here:

My thesis focused on community collaboration to develop a walking tourism product in a rural peninsula in South West Ireland. My results section (chapter 5 onward) highlights the perceived benefits that the community list as a result of the walkway.

Dear Tudor, Ciumara,

I think you will find that fiscal policies vary with political ideologies. In the United States the Democrats are in favor of fiscal stimulus (government spending) as they have done in the current recession. The Republicans, on the other side, will hold on to some supply-side policies, where lower taxes will increase supply to the extent that tax revenue will increase (Laffer curve). The current textbook position is that a cut in the tax rate will affect both aggregate demand (AD) and aggregate supply (AS). Lower tax increases the incentive to work, creating more output, but some say that such incentive is small relative to the shift in demand that will occur.

For a recent article, I recommend the entry on fiscal policy in Thomas Cate edited, “An Encyclopedia of Keynesian Economics, second edition, Edward Elgar, 2013, pp. 190-194.

Dear Shun,

in order to answer to your interesting question, you should firstly clarify what do you mean by "development", as this is very ambiguous and polysemic concept. Furthermore, according to its creators, the HDI is an indicator that is not suitable for any situation and context: it should be used only for international comparisons. When possible you should use indicators that are more relevant for the specific case. Last, but not least, wherever is feasible, you should choose indicators using participatory methods, in order that the selected indicators reflect as much as possible the values (priorities, aspirations, needs, ...) of the local community.