Philip Carl Salzman

Is Inequality Universal

Ethnographic characterizations of pastoralists as egalitarian have recently been contested on the grounds that new studies have demonstrated a widespread inequality in livestock ownership, thus proving that the notion of pastoral egalitarianism is a myth. This revisionist rejection of the egalitarianism of pastoralists appears difficult to sustain after examination of the literature. Ethnographic accounts show a wide range of pastoral societies, some more hierarchical and some quite egalitarian, and this variation was well recognized by at least 1940. “Egalitarian” is used in the literature to characterize pastoral tribesmen primarily in a political rather than an economic sense. Differences in livestock ownership were recognized by ethnographers characterizing the peoples they studied as “egalitarian”, but these differences were known not to cause either social stratification or economic class differentiation. To suggest as the revisionists do that all societies and cultures are characterized by inequality removes the power from the conceptual continuum “equality ⟷ inequality” and obscures the real differences from society to society and time to time.

Pastoral Nomads: Some General Observations Based on Research in Iran

A review of research on pastoral nomads in Iran leads to a number of general observations about pastoral nomadism. Nomadic movement is highly purposeful and is oriented toward achieving specific production or other goals. Commonly nomadic mobility is used to advance production goals in a number of diverse sectors. However, nomadism is not tied to one type of economic system; some nomads have generalized, consumption-oriented production, while others are specialized and market-oriented. Nor is nomadism limited to one type of land tenure; some nomads migrate within a territory that they control, while others have no political or legal claim over the land they use. Furthermore, some pastoral nomads live in isolated regions far from other populations, while others live close to peasant and urban populations. Pastoral nomads vary in political structure from state-controlled peasants, to centralized chiefdoms, to weak chiefdoms, to segmentary lineages systems.

Multi-Resource Nomadism in Iranian Baluchistan

MANI’ PASTORAL TRIBES of the Iranian plateau region migrate seasonally up to and down from the plateau or the mountains that make up its rim. The Khamseh and Qashqai confederacies of Fars province spend the winter on the plains between the southern Zagros and the Persian Gulf and make a major migration to the north past Shiraz to the upper valleys of the Zagros for their summer camping ground. As winter approaches, the migration out of the mountains and back to the plains takes place (F. Barth, 1964). The winter camp of the Bakhtiari is in Khuzistan; as summer approaches the arduous journey to the east across the central Zagros to the summer camping area in the vicinity of Isfahan begins. Migration back to Khuzistan takes place before the snowfalls block the route through the mountains (C. Coon, 1964; D. Brooks, personal communication). In Azerbaijan, the Shahsavan migrate from southern summer grazing areas in the Savalan and Buzgush mountain ranges to winter camping grounds in the Moghan plains to the north (R. Tapper, unpublished manuscript). These are pastoral migrations. That is, the goals which the tribesmen aim to further by the migration are primarily those having to do with the welfare

The Study of ‘Complex Society’ in the Middle East: A Review Essay

Anthropologists have devoted a good deal of attention recently to what they call ‘complex society’. This rather vague concept developed in contrast with ‘primitive’ or ‘simple’ society, the small-scale, isolated, local-oriented, non- literate grouping of like social parts which anthropologists made, or fancied, their primary object of study. This is Tonnies’ gemeinschaft, held together by Durkheims ‘mechanical solidarity.’ ‘Complex society’ on the other hand, is more similar to Tonnies’ gesellschaft, bases to some degree upon Durkheims ‘organic solidarity’; it has many differentiated parts, ingeniously interwoven into elaborate structures, with specializations and rankings and overlappings and other imaginative complications. More and more anthropologists found themselves, whatever their original intentions, involved in studies that were manifestly of ‘complex society.’ This was the result of two developments: One was the encapsulation of most ‘simple’ societies by colonial or national societies, and the concomitant engagement with government, economic markets, and development (or under development). This encapsulation was not something completely new that happened during the course of anthropological investigation, but something which had been going on and which anthropologists ‘discovered’ and began to devote attention to. The other development was the carrying of anthropological research to the areas of the ‘great civilizations’ in East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East. In these areas, long-recorded histories, literate traditions, great states and empires, and sophisticated technologies belied the notion of ‘simple’ society, and raised embarrassing questions about classical anthropological methodology, ‘participant observation’ in a constricted area for one or two years.

Tribes Today: In Anthropology and in the World

At a fall 2012 conference on the culture of Baluchistan, a Nigerian academic remarked on the offensiveness of the term “tribe,” so considered because of the demeaning way it was used by the British to refer to peoples such as the Hausa and Yoruba, whose long-established kingdoms and elaborate cultures were thus linguistically relegated to a lower level of cultural development and evolutionary status. He said he regarded such linguistic usage as racism. Even if we leave aside my colleague’s cavalier use of the term “racism” for a label with no biological content, we can understand his point that the term “tribe” was used to indicate a lower level of social evolution and development and thus could be considered a pejorative conception of the subaltern in an imperial setting of imposed power. As anthropology has moved from a general evolutionary model, dominant in the nineteenth century and influential thereafter, to full-blown cultural relativism, dominant from at least the second half of the twentieth century to today, we have jettisoned much terminology that appears in the great classics of ethnography—“savage,” “primitive,” “simple,” “undeveloped”— because they appear to us to be invidious, to designate those so identified as unequal to us, as inferior in some respects. Cultural relativism was originally advocated by Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict as a method of research

The Iron Law of Politics

Abstract Political philosophers have doubted the compatibility of various major values, such as equality and freedom. Ethnographic and historical evidence has indicated the presence of (1) economic equality and individual freedom in the absence of civil peace in segmentary societies based on self-help; (2) economic equality and civil peace in the absence of individual freedom in corporate societies; and (3) individual freedom and civil peace in the absence of economic equality in mercantile and capitalist societies. However, little if any evidence has documented all three — economic equality, individual freedom, civil peace — in stable coexistence. By way of delineating the relations between and among the values in question, I offer “The Iron Law of Politics,” which asserts that economic equality, individual freedom, and civil peace cannot all exist simultaneously in any society, although any two of the three can.

Minorities in Iran: Nationalism and Ethnicity after Khomeini by Rasmus Christian Elling

The Iranians I know best are the Baluch. During the years 1968–1976 I lived among Baluch for some twenty-seven months. More specifically, I lived primarily among the Dadolzai brasrend, or Dadolzai lineage of brothers, of the Shah Nawazi tribe, previously known as the Yarahmadzai, of the Sarhad region. This stay was under the regime of Mohammed Reza Shah. Since the Islamic Revolution, I have not visited Iran. However, I have been fortunate to have sensitive and observant informants in Baluchistan who have offered me their perceptions of developments since the establishment of the Islamic Republic. The Baluch can be considered a minority in Iran in several senses. First, their language, Baluchi, although an Iranian language, is mutually unintelligible with Farsi (Persian), the official and majority language of Iran. Vocabulary differs—for example, “camel” in Persian is shotur, while in Baluchi it is hushtair; “tent” in Persian is chadur, while in Baluchi it is gedom. To ask where someone is from in Persian, you say “Az kuja ahmadeed?” while in Baluchi you say “Sha guja yaghtee?” Even greetings are quite distinct: Persians say, “Salam alekum” then “Hal-e shoma khoobe?” while Baluch say “Jure?, hub jure?, salam-at be, mantag nabe, eman darbe.” While I was in Baluchistan, some Baluch were bilingual, speaking also Persian, and no doubt recent developments have led to many more learning and using Persian. The second way in which Baluch are a minority in Iran is that most Baluch are Sunni, rather than Shia, the established religion in Iran. As Shiism is the raison d’être of the Islamic Republic and the religion of the majority of Iranians, anyone not a Shiite is in a marked minority position. Baluchi Sunnis do not look to Iran for religious inspiration, but to Sunni Pakistan,

When They Proclaim “Islam is the Answer,” What is the Question?: The Return to Political Islam

The Arab sense of self is influenced by the belief that Arabic is the language of God, and that God chose the Arabs to convey to all of humanity the true religion of Islam. The Arab sense of self is also influenced by the historical facts that the ancestors of todays Arabs conquered much of the known world and dominated it for the better part of a thousand years. However, the last centuries have seen serious setbacks to the Arabs, who have answered with efforts to respond in terms of Arab nationalism, Arab socialism, and Arab modernization. These efforts failed in the arenas of warfare, the economy, and human development. Arabs continue to trail other regions, often by great distances. Over the last decades, the frustration and humiliation in the Arab world have been palpable. What remains for the Arabs is what has been present from the beginning: Islam, which has the virtue of not being refutable in military, economic, or statistical tests. As a result, it is to Islam that Arabs are increasingly turning, making Islamism a powerful movement.

PAUL RABINOW. Symbolic Domination: Cultural Form and Historical Change in Morocco. Pp. xv, 107. Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press, 1975.

analysis to the non-economic benefits in spite of the fact that there is little hard evidence available. Does the training provide important supportive services such as health care and child care? Apparently operating under a cultureof-poverty hypothesis, the authors are curious whether programs improve &dquo;personal attitudes&dquo; and remedy &dquo;incomplete societal acculturation.&dquo; Nothing is said about the possible negative non-economic benefits such as heightened discouragement and lowered self esteem when, after having completed the training program, the individual is still unable to obtain a good job. In doing the study, the authors are forced to deal with the existing data. These data, as the authors note, are either inadequate, especially in terms of good control groups, or virtually nonexistent, as in the case of non-economic

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unwittingly touches upon one of our own crucial problems of today. He quotes from bishop Nlackenzie’s letter to a friend in November 1861 when the bishop justified his interference in the internal affairs of the strife between the Manganja who were the proteges of his mission and the Ajawa who raided the Manganja for slaves. The mission fought off the Ajawa and established peace but Mackenzie questioned the wisdom of imposing a settlement as an outsider. Should the