Anthropology and Inequality: Everyday Lives in a Global System
Name: Simoné Vermeulen
Student Number: 18461034
Module Code: APY3705
Date of Submission: 24 October 2025
Email Address:
, Introduction
Ordinary people struggle with challenges such as poverty and inequality daily. Modern
Capitalism has further worsened these struggles instead of solving them as it only
benefits the few, while others are barely surviving. To truly understand these struggles
that humans face, anthropology is a useful tool as it focuses on how ordinary people
experience these difficulties and overcome them. What makes anthropology unique is
that it looks closely at how people respond to and resist these pressures, what their
realities are and how they adapt and survive, it aims to understand the struggles that
ordinary people face by engaging on a personal level and listening to the voices of
these people.
Modern capitalism brings with it most of the problems humanity face today, such as
food scarcity and poverty. Major decisions are made by a small group and leaves most
people to survive and adjust under the circumstances it creates. Anthropology reveals
that inequality is not only about one person having more money and resources than
the next, but also about emotions, how people respond to what is happening and how
people’s lives are influenced. In this essay we will look at the studies conducted by:
Scott (1985), Jacka (2001), Moodie, Ndatshe and Sibuyi (1988), and Campbell (2001)
to better understand the usefulness of anthropology, to recognize the impact of
inequality on ordinary people, and how it changed them and their lives.
The essay begins with Scott’s Weapons of the Weak, which reveals that inequality can
be resisted in small hidden acts of rebellion. It will then move on to Jacka’s work in
Papua New Guinea that focused on how the introduction of global products changed
people’s idea of progress and value. Lastly it discusses the studies of Moodie et al.
and Campbell who studied inequality within the mining industry and how it changed
the way the miners viewed their masculinity and impacted the miner’s health. The
essay will finally look at the future of anthropology and how it remains a valuable tool
to understand the effects of inequality.
Scott (1985): Everyday Resistance in a Malaysian Village
In the rural village of Sedaka in Malaysia, Scott studied the effects of inequality on a
community that was divided between the landowners that gained land through
capitalist farming methods and the poor who lost their farms and was forced by
Name: Simoné Vermeulen
Student Number: 18461034
Module Code: APY3705
Date of Submission: 24 October 2025
Email Address:
, Introduction
Ordinary people struggle with challenges such as poverty and inequality daily. Modern
Capitalism has further worsened these struggles instead of solving them as it only
benefits the few, while others are barely surviving. To truly understand these struggles
that humans face, anthropology is a useful tool as it focuses on how ordinary people
experience these difficulties and overcome them. What makes anthropology unique is
that it looks closely at how people respond to and resist these pressures, what their
realities are and how they adapt and survive, it aims to understand the struggles that
ordinary people face by engaging on a personal level and listening to the voices of
these people.
Modern capitalism brings with it most of the problems humanity face today, such as
food scarcity and poverty. Major decisions are made by a small group and leaves most
people to survive and adjust under the circumstances it creates. Anthropology reveals
that inequality is not only about one person having more money and resources than
the next, but also about emotions, how people respond to what is happening and how
people’s lives are influenced. In this essay we will look at the studies conducted by:
Scott (1985), Jacka (2001), Moodie, Ndatshe and Sibuyi (1988), and Campbell (2001)
to better understand the usefulness of anthropology, to recognize the impact of
inequality on ordinary people, and how it changed them and their lives.
The essay begins with Scott’s Weapons of the Weak, which reveals that inequality can
be resisted in small hidden acts of rebellion. It will then move on to Jacka’s work in
Papua New Guinea that focused on how the introduction of global products changed
people’s idea of progress and value. Lastly it discusses the studies of Moodie et al.
and Campbell who studied inequality within the mining industry and how it changed
the way the miners viewed their masculinity and impacted the miner’s health. The
essay will finally look at the future of anthropology and how it remains a valuable tool
to understand the effects of inequality.
Scott (1985): Everyday Resistance in a Malaysian Village
In the rural village of Sedaka in Malaysia, Scott studied the effects of inequality on a
community that was divided between the landowners that gained land through
capitalist farming methods and the poor who lost their farms and was forced by
