Examples of good discussion topics:

Rappaport's 1971 article ends with a thinly-veiled interrogation of late-capitalist industry. Although he accurately predicts the resource endgame in which we find ourselves, worldwide conservation problems such as global warming had not yet reached their pitch [when he wrote]. Rappaport does not address the potential for market-driven conservation, in which consumers (or even corporations) might curb their use of natural resources in order to maximize their own profits. Could our inherent selfishness actually stem the unbridled exploitation of resources?

I'm surprised that Bodley does not criticize Ehrlich's alternative future scenario (pg. 238), which requires that presently undeveloped countries must settle for semi-development." Assuming that the "overdeveloped" areas will not be de-developed to this state of semi-development, such a scheme seems to preserve current global inequalities. Are these nations, in their agrarian self-sufficiency, barred from trading for more developed goods, or is the current unequal system (described on pg. 232) maintained under a different guise?

In "Nature, culture, and ecological anthropology," Rappaport discusses how ecology is vital to the study of culture, not as a determinant of culture, but as a larger structure within which culture operates. More specifically, culture can be a factor in the success of a population in the ecological system. Culture may be helpful, or it may be a hindrance or "maladaptive." In his conclusion, Rappaport proposes that American industrialism and the [cultural] systems that promote industry may be such a maladaptation. What evidence might there be to verify this, or is it even verifiable?

Boone refers to potlatches as costly signals to announce a person or groups power/social position. But what I know of one of the New Guinea tribes and their 'moka' is that not only did their ritual feasts convey social power and status, but ultimately favored cooperation amongst tribes when resources were tight. One tribe gives away many resources, gaining immense social status with the covert understanding that the receivers will 'out-do' them the following season. In this sense, can conspicuous consumption also be viewed as a way of forcing cooperation?

Anderson (2001) argues that restoration or "tending of the wilderness" needs to take into account anthropogenic processes that shaped the pre-Columbian landscape. By mimicking these processes restorationists can re-create historic systems and "improve the quality and authenticity of the ecosystems they restore" (Tending the Wilderness, 155). I would like to know how restorationists are going to decide if they got it "right?" Who decides what is "authentic"? It seems as if it is going to require the efforts of a large number of "experts": ecologists, ethnoecologists, ethnoarchaeologists, ethnobotanists, anthropologists, etc.

The Johnson and Earle article gives the example of the Trobriand Islander's yearly yam surplus and how, because of their fluctuating environment, a larger than necessary surplus is desirable as a type of insurance. Why wouldn't all populations, regardless of environment, desire a larger than necessary surplus? Wouldn't the population with the larger surplus gain the upper hand on those that had "just enough?"

What is the role of the consumption patterns which drive demand for wood products, tiger skins, etc? In view of the complexity, expense and slow progress of whatever form of ecosystem management is employed, would it be more fruitful to turn efforts to eliminating demand for the products which drive flora and fauna to extinction?


Examples of not-so-good ones (requests for information, or simple statements of opinion):

Are we really either matrilineal or patrilineal any more? Have we evolved away from that? What has changed to cause us to loose such a common phenomenon?

I feel like some skills are 'hard-wired' once you learn them- baseball, swimming, bike riding. They seem to be less about detail to be remembered (playing specific songs on a guitar, conjugating French verbs) than getting the mechanics of your body to complete the task at hand.