Global Challenges, Local Responses, and the Role of Anthropology

1
Chapter 16

• Global Challenges,Local Responses, andthe Role
  of Anthropology

2
What Can Anthropologists Tell Us of the Future?

• Anthropologists can identify certain patterns and
  trends and foresee some of the consequences these
  might have if they continue.
• The ability to consider cultural facts and their
  underlying structures in a wider context and from
  a comparative perspective is a recognized
  anthropological specialty.

3
What Are the Cultural Trends in Our Globalizing
World?

1. Globalization is a major cultural trend,
   including adoption of the products, technologies,
   ideas, and cultural practices of powerful Western
   countries.
2. The move toward a global culture is countered by
   a trend of ethnic and religious groups
   reasserting their cultural identities.
3. The growing concern that rising populations,
   spiraling energy use, and expanding consumption
   are devastating our natural resources.

4
What Problems Must Be Solved for Humans to Have a
Viable Future?

• Solutions need to be found to deal with problems
  posed by
• Demographic shifts
• Unequal distribution of wealth
• Vanishing natural resources
• Environmental destruction
• More powerful technologies
• Explosive population growth.

5
Anthropologists Contribution to the Study of the
Future of Humanity

• Anthropologists see things in context.
• They have a long-term historical perspective and
  recognize culture bound biases.
• Anthropologists are concerned with the tendency
  to treat traditional societies as obsolete when
  they appear to stand in the way of development.

6
World Migrations

• Migration continues to have a significant effect
  on world social geography, contributing to
  culture change, to the diffusion of ideas and
  innovations, and to the complex mixture of
  cultures in the world today.
• Internal migration occurs within the boundaries
  of a country.
• External migration is movement from one country
  or region to another.

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World Migrations

• Prior to the mid-20th century, three types of
  external migration were most important
• Voluntary - in search of better opportunities
• Forced - people who have been driven from their
  homelands by war, environmental disasters, or
  transported as slaves
• Imposed - not entirely forced but made advisable
  by the circumstances.

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World Migrations
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Refugees

• Almost fifty years ago, when the Chinese
  communist government in Beijing annexed Tibet and
  imposed its rule over the Buddhist people in this
  Himalayan region, tens of thousands of Tibetans
  were forced to flee to neighboring Nepal and
  India.
• Among the refugees is the Dalai Lama, Tibets
  spiritual leader .

10
Traditionalism and Fundamentalism

• Often resistance to modernization takes the form
  of cultural traditionalism and religious
  fundamentalism, as in Afghanistan during recent
  decades.
• This reactionary practice is evident in this
  familys clothing, the mothers veil, and the
  fathers beard.

11
Multiculturalism

• An policy of mutual respect and tolerance for
  cultural differences.
• Ethnic tension, common in pluralistic societies,
  sometimes turns violent, leading to formal
  separation.
• To manage cultural diversity within such
  societies, some countries have adopted
  multiculturalism as an official public policy.

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Multinational Corporations
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Global Corporations

• Their power and wealth, often exceeding that of
  national governments, has increased dramatically
  through media expansion.
• Megacorporations have enormous influence on the
  ideas and behavior of hundreds of millions of
  people worldwide.
• States and corporations compete for scarce
  natural resources, cheap labor, new commercial
  markets, and ever-larger profits in a political
  arena that spans the entire globe.

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Structural power

• The global forces that direct economic and
  political institutions and shape public ideas and
  values.
• Hard power is backed up by economic and military
  force.
• Soft power is ideological persuasion.

15
Soft Power and Mass Media

• Global mass media corporations like Cable News
  Network (CNN) possess enormous soft power.
• With bureaus in over thirty countries, its
  24-hour news coverage is available to 1.5 billion
  people all over the world.

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Structural Violence

• Physical and/or psychological harm (including
  repression, environmental destruction, poverty,
  hunger, illness, and premature death) caused by
  impersonal, exploitative, and unjust social,
  political, and economic systems.

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Overpopulation

• In 1750, 1 billion people lived on earth.
• Over the next two centuries our numbers climbed
  to nearly 2.5 billion.
• Between 1950 and 2000 the world population soared
  above 6 billion.
• Today, India and China have more than 1 billion
  inhabitants each.
• Population projections suggest that global
  population will peak around 2050 at about 9.37
  billion people.

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Pollution and Over Population

• A direct threat to humanity.
• Western societies have protected their
  environment only when a crisis warranted.
• Many of the worlds developing countries have
  policies for population growth that conflict with
  other policies.
• Even with replacement reproduction, the
  population would continue to grow for 50 years.

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Replacement Reproduction

• When birth rates and death rates are in
  equilibrium.
• People produce only enough offspring to replace
  themselves when they die.

20
Hunger

• Hunger is caused not only by drought and pests,
  but also by violent ethnic, religious, or
  political conflicts that uproot families and by
  global food production and a distribution system
  geared to the needs and demands of the worlds
  most powerful countries.

21
Global pollution

• Air pollution is potentially one of the most
  dangerous human modifications in environmental
  systems.
• Pollutants such as various oxides of nitrogen or
  sulfur cause the development of acid
  precipitation, which damages soil, vegetation,
  and wildlife.
• Most atmospheric scientists believe that the
  greenhouse effect is being enhanced by increased
  carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases produced
  by industrial and agricultural activities.

22
Global Pollution
23
The Culture of Discontent

• For the past several decades, the worlds poor
  countries have have been sold on the idea they
  should and actually can enjoy a standard of
  living comparable to that of the rich countries.
• The resources necessary to maintain such a
  luxurious standard of living are limited.
• This growing gap between expectations and
  realizations has led to the creation of a culture
  of discontent.

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Global Energy Consumption
25
Global Energy Consumption

• Most of the worlds highest energy consumers are
  in North America and western Europe where at
  least 100 gigajoules of commercial energy per
  year are consumed by each person.
• In the United States and Canada, the consumption
  rates are in the 300 gigajoule range.
• The consumption rate for low-income countries is
  often less than 1 of those in the United States.

26
Globalization

• These Nambikwara children in southern Brazil are
  among the worlds 300 million indigenous people
  to whom this book is dedicated.
• With globalization reaching the most remote
  corners of the world, these Amazonian Indians are
  severely threatened, as are other small
  indigenous nations and ethnic minority groups.

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Globalization

• During the past five centuries, millions of
  indigenous peoples have perished due to foreign
  diseases, habitat destruction, warfare, and
  genocide.
• Some 4,000 languages have disappeared due to
  acculturation, assimilation, or the physical
  extinction of their speakers.
• 6,000 languages remain, along with a still vast
  array of distinct peoples with unique cultures.