Week 7 — Who Holds Authority? Reading the Market's Governance

Assignment 7 of the term — work four short problems from the market's governance and coded tally, read them as an anthropologist, and explain power and authority to someone who has them mixed up.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, evidence-based report. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the reasoning you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Ethnography Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together. It builds on Week 6's redistribution, goods collected at a center and given out again, and on Week 2's idea that a norm is a shared expectation for how people should behave.

The task

The running fieldwork site is an illustrative, unnamed weekly neighborhood farmers' market of 24 stalls, constructed for this course, not a real place. The market manager assigns stall locations, collects a weekly stall fee, and rings the opening bell at 8:00 a.m., and the vendors' association votes on the market's rules. From one visit (illustrative):

• 2 of the 10 field-note entries show the manager acting: entry 3, the bell at 8:00 a.m., and entry 9, loading the Pantry crate at 9:20 a.m.;
• 4 of the 50 coded exchanges were redistribution, unsold goods pooled in the Pantry crate and passed on by the manager, and 33 of the 50, or 66 percent, were market exchange;
• in the illustrative interview, a vendor says, "You sell before the bell, people talk."

A friend sees your notes and says, "The manager is the boss, so power and authority are the same thing, and the only rules that matter are the ones someone can punish you for." Your job is to answer the way an anthropologist would, starting from a few plain numbers.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic:

1. At the running fieldwork site, an illustrative farmers' market, 2 of the 10 field-note entries from one visit show the market manager acting. What percent of the field-note entries show the manager acting?
2. In the market's coded tally of 50 exchanges, 4 were redistribution through the Pantry crate. What percent of the coded exchanges was redistribution?
3. In the market's coded tally, market exchange was 66 percent of the coded exchanges and redistribution was 8 percent. What is the gap between them, in percentage points?
4. Suppose, as an illustrative case, the market manager reassigns 6 of the market's 24 stall locations before the next visit. What percent of the stalls would get new locations?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: name the manager's stall assignments as power and explain why the vendors' acceptance makes that power authority, and name the vendors' association vote on the rules as the source of the legitimacy.
• Problem 2: define redistribution in the course's words and explain why it runs through someone with the authority to collect and give out, and explain why the market is still not a chiefdom, since Service's types describe whole societies.
• Problem 3: explain why a difference between two percentages is stated in percentage points rather than percent, and name one means of informal social control at the market, such as the gossip the interviewed vendor describes, with the rule it keeps.
• Problem 4: say what would make the vendors accept the reassignment as rightful, naming legitimacy, and describe how a dispute over it could be settled by negotiation, mediation, or adjudication, naming who decides in the route you pick.

Explain it to a non-expert

Your friend thinks power and authority are the same and that only punishable rules matter. Write a 3–5 sentence message that tells power from authority, names the vendors' association vote as the source of the manager's legitimacy, names gossip as social control that works alongside law, and names one limit, such as that the notes come from one illustrative visit and one interview. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a teammate who says the captain of an illustrative intramural volleyball team "has power, which is the same as authority." Model answer: "The team voted for the captain, so when the captain sets the serving order we go along because we agreed to it; anthropologists call that authority, power that people accept as rightful. If a player grabbed the ball and refused to play until we used his serving order, he would also be making us act, but that is power without authority. One caveat: if the captain started playing favorites, the team's acceptance, its legitimacy, could wear away."

Use that pattern for your friend, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four answers, the four brief interpretations, and your message to the friend before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Answer in your own words. Show calculations when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one calculation or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introductory cultural anthropology course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about political organization and social control: power, authority, and legitimacy; band, tribe, chiefdom, and state as Service's model, never a ladder; social control, informal and formal; negotiation, mediation, and adjudication; and redistribution read in percentages and percentage points. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, a date, a study, a quotation, or a custom of any real people, and never call any people or society "primitive", simpler, earlier, or more advanced.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The data: the running fieldwork site is an illustrative, unnamed weekly neighborhood farmers' market of 24 stalls, constructed for this course, not a real place. The market manager assigns stall locations, collects a weekly stall fee, and rings the opening bell at 8:00 a.m.; the vendors' association votes on the market's rules. From one visit, 2 of the 10 field-note entries show the manager acting, and 4 of the 50 coded exchanges were redistribution through the Pantry crate, while 33 of the 50, or 66 percent, were market exchange. A vendor in an illustrative interview says, "You sell before the bell, people talk." Course terms: power is the ability to make others act, even against their will, whether or not they accept it as rightful; authority is power that people accept as rightful; legitimacy is people's acceptance that a use of power is rightful; a chiefdom is a hereditary office that holds authority over several communities, often with redistribution through the chief; a state has a central government with the power to tax, make law, and enforce it; social control is gossip, ridicule, shunning, the threat of supernatural sanction, and formal law; in negotiation the parties settle a disagreement themselves, in mediation a third party helps them agree but does not decide, and in adjudication a third party hears the sides and decides; redistribution is exchange in which goods are collected by a central person or office and then given out again.
PROBLEM P1: At the running fieldwork site, an illustrative farmers' market, 2 of the 10 field-note entries from one visit show the market manager acting. What percent of the field-note entries show the manager acting?
PROBLEM P2: In the market's coded tally of 50 exchanges, 4 were redistribution through the Pantry crate. What percent of the coded exchanges was redistribution?
PROBLEM P3: In the market's coded tally, market exchange was 66 percent of the coded exchanges and redistribution was 8 percent. What is the gap between them, in percentage points?
PROBLEM P4: Suppose, as an illustrative case, the market manager reassigns 6 of the market's 24 stall locations before the next visit. What percent of the stalls would get new locations?
After the four answers, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, the manager's stall assignments as power made authority by the vendors' acceptance, plus the association's vote as the source of legitimacy; for P2, redistribution in the course's words tied to someone with the authority to collect and give out, plus why the market is not a chiefdom; for P3, why the gap is in percentage points and not percent, plus one means of informal social control at the market and the rule it keeps; for P4, what would make the reassignment rightful, named as legitimacy, plus one dispute route and who decides in it. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a friend who thinks power and authority are the same and that only punishable rules matter, telling power from authority, naming the vote as the source of legitimacy, naming gossip as social control alongside law, and naming one limit. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: correct computations (40 points), anthropological reasoning (32 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (16 points), and showing work so it can be checked (12 points). For each of P1-P4, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 5 computation points, 4 reasoning points, 2 clarity points, or 1.5 showing-work points. Sum all four problems within each criterion. Count my message to the friend only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
COMPUTATION UNITS: A correct manager share, redistribution percent, gap in percentage points, or reassignment percent = 2; the right numbers and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing figure or the wrong numbers or operation = 0. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
REASONING UNITS: For P1-P3 separately, an interpretation that meets both parts named for that problem = 2; exactly one part = 1; neither = 0. For P4, BOTH a legitimacy test of the reassignment with one dispute route and who settles it AND a message to the friend that tells power from authority, names the vote as the source of legitimacy, names gossip alongside law, and names a limit = 2. If full P4 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate reasoning = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, and power and authority treated as one thing, law named as the only social control, mediation described as a third party's ruling, or the market called a chiefdom is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reasoning error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labeled evidence understandable to someone new to anthropology, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the message to the friend with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SHOWING-WORK UNITS: For each problem, checkable counts, percentages, and steps = 2; a relevant but incomplete number or step = 1; a bare final number or no method = 0. A visible method stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my answer. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word answer is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied all four answers and their brief interpretations AND written my message to the friend AND revised at least one calculation or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned score; it may end in .5 and must not be rounded to a whole number. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the score for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my calculations and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with all four answers, their brief interpretations, and your message to the friend — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled sketch of who does what at the market with a short explanation; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 7 skills — telling power from authority and naming the legitimacy between them, reading redistribution as an exchange that needs someone with authority, explaining why the market is not a chiefdom, naming informal social control, choosing a route of dispute resolution, and computing the shares and the gap in percentage points — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same four problems, the four brief interpretations, and the message to the friend. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and write a second draft. Add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one calculation or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have about the market's governance. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The calculations, reasoning, revision, and final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and do not let it treat power and authority as the same thing, call the market manager a chief, rank a band below a state, or invent a custom for any real people. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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