Week 15 — One Market, Many Ties: A Global Reading

Assignment 14 of the term — work four short problems from the UN's 2024 migration figures, the course's dated cases, and the market's coded tally, read them as an anthropologist, choose the lenses that best explain one global tie at the market, and explain the week's ideas to a relative who doubts them.

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 the whole course together. It builds on Week 6's forms of exchange, the market's coded tally, and the potlatch, on Week 2's acculturation, and on Week 1's holism, the habit of seeing how the parts of a way of life fit together.

The task

The week's shared material is Dataset G (real; the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs), Dataset H (real; the course's dated cases), and Dataset A, the illustrative market constructed for this course. From them:

• the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs counted about 304 million international migrants in 2024, 3.7 percent of the world's population, and an estimated 154 million in 1990, 2.9 percent of the world's population;
• the World Bank estimated that remittances to low- and middle-income countries would reach about 685 billion dollars in 2024; the course teaches that estimate in words, and you do no arithmetic on it;
• Canada banned the potlatch under the Indian Act from 1885 until 1951; the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was signed in 1990; and UNESCO's Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was adopted in 2003;
• on Visit 1 to the market, 50 exchanges were coded: 33 market exchange, 8 generalized reciprocity, 5 balanced reciprocity, 4 redistribution, and 0 negative reciprocity; two vendors mention sending money to relatives in another country every month.

A relative at a family dinner says, "Globalization means every place is turning into the same strip mall, and museums that give objects back are only being nice." Your job is to reply the way an anthropologist would, starting from a few plain numbers.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic:

1. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs counted about 304 million international migrants in 2024 and an estimated 154 million in 1990. How many million more international migrants were there in 2024 than in 1990?
2. Canada's potlatch ban was dropped in 1951, and UNESCO's Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was adopted in 2003. How many years passed between the two?
3. On Visit 1 to the illustrative market, 33 of the 50 coded exchanges were market exchange. What percent of the coded exchanges was market exchange?
4. International migrants were 3.7 percent of the world's population in 2024 and 2.9 percent in 1990. By how many percentage points did the share change?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: explain migration and transnational ties, and read the market's two vendors who send money home every month as an illustrative case of remittances; keep the World Bank's estimate in words.
• Problem 2: state the potlatch ban plainly as a documented colonial law, then explain repatriation as law for covered institutions in the United States, with the return of the 1921 potlatch regalia as a case.
• Problem 3: name the forms of exchange the tally recorded and explain why the vendors' monthly transfers sit outside it, then set unequal exchange in the world-system model apart from reciprocity between equals.
• Problem 4 (synthesis): explain why the change is written in percentage points. Then choose the two or three course lenses that best explain the two vendors' monthly transfers, justify the choice from the case, and say why one plausible alternative lens, such as redistribution or a rite of passage, fits less well.

Explain it to a non-expert

Your relative thinks globalization makes every place the same and that returning objects is only kindness. Write a 3–5 sentence message that explains globalization in everyday words; keeps it apart from homogenization with one example of a global good remade locally; explains that, for covered institutions in the United States, repatriation is required by law; and names one limit, such as that the market in this task is illustrative. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good reply is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a teammate who says that "the captain's armband is only a strip of cloth." Model reply: "The armband is a sign everyone on the team has agreed marks the person who speaks for us to the referee. Nothing about the cloth itself gives that role; the meaning comes from the team's shared rules. That is why the same strip of cloth in a locker means nothing at all. One caveat: one team does not show how every league treats its captains."

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

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four answers, the four brief interpretations, and your message to the relative 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. Reply 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 globalization, colonialism, and the course synthesis: migration, transnational ties, and remittances, colonialism stated plainly as documented history, repatriation as law, the forms of exchange and the world-system as models, and a synthesis that reads one fieldwork site through several lenses, with every person described by role, never by name. 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, a custom, or a detail of any real people, never do arithmetic on the World Bank's remittance estimate, never argue any current immigration policy, never stage a documented colonial harm as a debate, and never call any people "primitive", simpler, or earlier.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The data: the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs counted about 304 million international migrants in 2024, 3.7 percent of the world's population, and an estimated 154 million in 1990, 2.9 percent. The World Bank estimated that remittances to low- and middle-income countries would reach about 685 billion dollars in 2024; that estimate is taught in words only. Canada banned the potlatch under the Indian Act from 1885 until 1951; the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was signed in 1990; UNESCO's Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was adopted in 2003; after the 1921 potlatch, seized regalia later began returning to two community cultural centres. On Visit 1 to the illustrative market, 50 exchanges were coded: 33 market exchange, 8 generalized reciprocity, 5 balanced reciprocity, 4 redistribution, and 0 negative reciprocity; two vendors mention sending money to relatives in another country every month. Course terms: globalization is the intensifying flow of goods, people, money, and ideas across the world, and it does not make every culture the same; homogenization is the idea that it does; colonialism is one society's rule over another and the use of its land, labor, and resources; the world-system is a model in which core regions draw on peripheral regions through unequal exchange; migration is the movement of people to live in another place, including across borders; transnational ties are the links migrants keep across borders; remittances are money migrants send to family and communities at home; repatriation is the return of human remains and cultural objects to the communities they came from, and the 1990 law requires it of federal agencies and federally funded institutions; a share of a total is a percent, and a gap between two shares is in percentage points.
PROBLEM P1: The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs counted about 304 million international migrants in 2024 and an estimated 154 million in 1990. How many million more international migrants were there in 2024 than in 1990?
PROBLEM P2: Canada's potlatch ban was dropped in 1951, and UNESCO's Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was adopted in 2003. How many years passed between the two?
PROBLEM P3: On Visit 1 to the illustrative market, 33 of the 50 coded exchanges were market exchange. What percent of the coded exchanges was market exchange?
PROBLEM P4: International migrants were 3.7 percent of the world's population in 2024 and 2.9 percent in 1990. By how many percentage points did the share change?
After the four answers, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, explain migration and transnational ties and read the market's two vendors as an illustrative case of remittances, keeping the World Bank estimate in words; for P2, state the potlatch ban plainly as a documented colonial law and explain repatriation as law, with the regalia's return as a case; for P3, name the forms of exchange the tally recorded, explain why the monthly transfers sit outside it, and set unequal exchange apart from reciprocity as a model; for P4, explain why the change is in percentage points, then choose two or three course lenses that best explain the monthly transfers and say why a plausible alternative lens fits less well. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a relative who thinks globalization makes every place the same and that returning objects is only kindness, keeping globalization apart from homogenization with one example, explaining repatriation as 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 relative only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
COMPUTATION UNITS: A correct increase in international migrants, count of years between the two dated cases, market-exchange percent, or change in the migrant share = 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 percentage points explained and a lens choice for the monthly transfers with a reason a plausible alternative fits less well, AND a message to the relative that keeps globalization apart from homogenization, explains repatriation as 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 a gap between shares written as percent, globalization read as homogenization, repatriation called optional goodwill, or a documented colonial harm staged as a debate 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 relative with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SHOWING-WORK UNITS: For each problem, checkable counts, years, percents, 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 reply. 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 reply 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 relative 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, your lens choice, and your message to the relative — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled map of the market's lenses described in words 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 15 skills — analyzing migration, transnational ties, and remittances, stating colonial history plainly and explaining repatriation as law, reading global flows with the forms of exchange and the world-system, and synthesizing the course's lenses on one site — 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, the lens choice, and the message to the relative. 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 global ties. 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 stage the potlatch ban as a debate, call repatriation optional goodwill, write a gap between shares as percent, do arithmetic on the World Bank's estimate, read globalization as homogenization, or add a detail about any real community. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

After this assignment

This is the last assignment of the course. Week 16 holds the cumulative final. Its study guide, the Final Practice Exam, and the exam-prep tutorial help you review, and the synthesis move you practise here, choosing the lens that fits a case and saying why another fits less well, is the move to bring to every week's material as you prepare.

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