Cultural Research paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Cultural - Research Paper Example Political organization beyond the Chief V. Summary The Basseri is a native pastoralist tribe located in Iran. The tribe is pastoralist because they have pastures to graze cattle, sheep and goats and they depend on the animals for food. Everything that the Basseri do is central to the animals that they own. The following pages will discuss the Basseri and their culture and living arrangements, the kinship system, economy, and the pastoral chiefdom that is their leader. In a pastoral culture, all things evolve around the ability to successfully execute economic transactions with the animals that are owned. This goes for marriage as well; however, in the Basseri culture women are controlled and they are forced to cover their faces in public. More about the control of women will be discussed later in this paper. First, the pastoral culture of the Basseri needs to be explained to understand how rest of the culture works fits. a. Culture of Basseri Culture can be defined as everything arou nd us, everything we do, make, think or say. Culture is constantly changing and is influenced by many things. The Basseri are nomadic pastoralist tribe from the Fars region of present-day Iran. They descended from the Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Gypsy ancestors and are involved in rearing sheep, donkeys, horses, camels, dogs and goats. The donkeys are used to carry women and children while men ride in horses. The camels on the other hand, are used to carry heavy loads especially during migration (Salzman et al. 1995). The "tent† or family group is the basic unit of social organization among the Basseri. All tents have a recognized head that deals with the formal officers of the tribe, villagers, and other strangers (Nowak & Laird, 2010). They speak the Farsi dialect. b. Where they live Khanam (2005) gives details of where the Basseri live. The Basseri live in the Iranian province of Fars and migrate along the steppes and mountains near the town of Shiraz. Their population was 16, 000 in the 1950s but more recent estimates have not been widely published. Unlike other tribes, they are defined by political rather than ethnic or geographic criteria due to their livelihood. The area they inhabit of 18, 000 to 21, 000 square kilometers spans a large ecological range. There are deserts in the south, mountains in the North. The mountain precipitation provides support for vegetation while the southern lowland runoff and summer droughts limit vegetation to hardy desert scrubs. In the rainy season of winter, there is temporary grass cover (p. 121). c. How they Live The subsistence mode influences the way people live. As such, the Basseri migrate from place to place in search of pasture during winter and settle during summer. According to Nowak and Laird (2010), they move every three to four days with their animals and during this time, tents become their dwellings. Small tents are established for nuclear family at this time but while they settle for a longer time during summer, larger tents are utilized. During the summer period, the Basseri are involved in some farming especially the growing of wheat. This involvement in agriculture can be seen as abandoning their culture of pastoralism. However, it is only carried out during summer along the tribal route before the Basseri migrate to other areas (Marx, 1977).The reason why Basseri migrate is due to depletion of natural resources for the animals to eat. They therefore, have to move to other places to look for food for the animals. Culture also

Business economics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Business economics - Essay Example rgy resources, cause inundations, heat-related deaths and the fast spread of infectious diseases, as well as create serious damage to all industry sectors. Therefore, climate change is regarded nowadays as the negative outcome of the modern economic system, along with the process behind its making. It is a problem that addresses all the major players in both local and global economies: the operational factors, such as businesses, the regulatory factors, such as governments, the intellectual factors, such as foundations and universities (Echegaray, et al., 2008), as well as the citizens or the consumers, which, at their turn, establish the connections between the factors mentioned above. All of these entities have at least something to say about climate change, and while some of the discussions are focused on finding the guilty parties, on throwing the blame on someone for what has been already done, others are trying to find the appropriate solutions. I believe that businesses should understand that environmental awareness is crucial for their long-term sustainability. Companies should recognize climate change as a risk and establish special risk-assessment teams to indentify its impact on the company’s costs, supply chains, work practices and outputs. For example, if the winters will become warmer, energy costs will be lowered; however, at the same time, the summers will become hotter, which will increase the demand for air-conditioning. This way, a company’s costs distribution is changed based on environmental issues. Still, businesses should see climate change as an opportunity and a challenge to find new markets, develop new technologies as well as improve their image among average consumers. Studies have demonstrated that customers are most likely to absolve their guilt about their environmental footprint by buying products from a â€Å"greener† company. In other words, consuming trends will shift accord ing to which companies take the lead in using green