Week 6 · Readings & resources

Week 6 — Readings & Resources

Cultural Anthropology Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 6 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 10 items (4 readings and 6 videos). Allow 77–95 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (15–20 min total)

① Three ways goods move, and who keeps count

Chapter 6, Section “Name the model: three forms of exchange” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Three forms of exchange” · Remember: reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange are a model, and real economies mix all three every day.

What are 'buy nothing' groups? — WXYZ-TV Detroit — a three-minute local news report on a neighborhood group whose members give goods to one another instead of selling them; as you watch, name the form of exchange and the kind of reciprocity at work, then test the report's line that the goods come with "no strings attached" against what one member says she will do with the clothes she received. This builds on Week 5's work on making a living: there you asked how people get their food, and here you ask how they pass things on. (video, 3 min) (captions: creator)
Reciprocity (cultural anthropology), Sahlins' typology — Wikipedia — an encyclopedia article; read the section on Sahlins' typology and the one after it on reciprocity and kinship distance, which line up with the chapter's point that the count gets closer as the tie gets weaker. The article cites Sahlins's later book; the course dates the three kinds to his 1965 essay. (reading, 10–15 min)
How Food Banks Work — roadrunnerfoodbank — a two-minute explainer from a regional food bank on how it sources, collects, and hands out food through partner agencies; read it as redistribution, with goods pooled at a center and given out again. Stop here before the question of who has the authority to collect and give out goods; next week takes that up. (video, 2 min) (captions: creator)
Supply and Demand: Crash Course Economics #4 — CrashCourse — an animated economics episode on how supply and demand set prices; as you watch, notice that it explains only the third form in the model, market exchange, and list one thing in your own week that moved without any price at all. Use it while completing the Week-6 module overview. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)

② The kula and the gift that is never free

Chapter 6, Section “Read the kula: exchange for prestige, not profit” · Session 1, Segment 4, “The kula” · Remember: in the 1910s, kula valuables were held and passed on for prestige and lasting partnerships rather than profit.

Kula ring — Wikipedia — an encyclopedia article on the kula; read Basic description and Items for trade for the necklaces, the armbands, and the opposite directions they travel. The article writes in the present tense with no fieldwork decade, so restate each point in the past tense with the decade the chapter gives for Malinowski's account. (reading, 8–12 min)
Adam Ruins Everything - Why Gift Giving Makes No Economic Sense — truTV — a two-minute comedy sketch that argues one side only, played for laughs: an economist on the show says a gift wastes value when the giver pays more than the gift is worth to the person who gets it. Treat it as one view of gifts, not the course's verdict, and use the gift's three obligations to say what that dollar count leaves out. (video, 2 min) (captions: creator)

③ The potlatch and Canada's ban

Chapter 6, Section “Read the potlatch: giving that validates rank” · Session 2, Segment 6, “The potlatch and the ban” · Remember: the potlatch validated names, rank, and rights before witnesses, and Canada's ban on it was a documented law dropped in 1951.

Potlatch — U'mista Cultural Society — the Kwakwaka'wakw community's own exhibit pages on the potlatch; read the sections headed Purposes of the Potlatch, Contemporary Potlatch, and Concepts of Wealth, which explain giving, witnessing, and why the community counts wealth by what is given away. (reading, 10–15 min)
Voices of the Native Northwest Coast — American Museum of Natural History — a short film by a Tahltan and Gitxsan filmmaker in which Indigenous experts discuss the histories, persistence, and present concerns of Northwest Coast peoples; as you watch, notice that these are living nations speaking for themselves, which is why the chapter keeps the 1921 events in the past tense. (video, 12 min) (captions: creator)

④ Money, and what spending says

Chapter 6, Section “Distinguish two kinds of money, and read consumption” · Session 2, Segment 7, “Money and consumption” · Remember: general-purpose money buys nearly anything, special-purpose money buys only some things, and what people buy also shows who they are.

Money & Debt: Crash Course World History 202 — CrashCourse — a fast history episode that asks what money is, what it is for, and whether it replaced barter; as you watch, sort each kind of money it describes into general-purpose or special-purpose money, and notice where debts and obligations show up before coins do. (video, 14 min) (captions: creator)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

The Start of the Potlatch Ban — U'mista Cultural Society — the Kwakwaka'wakw community's own account of the ban: how it began, what it cost families, and how it ended in 1951. The course says the ban's start in words and asks you to know only the year it ended. (reading, 6–10 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com