Subsistence Exercise

Use your knowledge of subsistence strategies as well as other material we’ve covered this semester to create a culture and consider its way of life and its response to crises.

Your group is part of a culture that lives in New Jersey. You need to develop a food production strategy that will allow your group to survive in New Jersey year-round.

You may choose to live anywhere in NJ (in a city, a house, the woods, on a river), and you should tell us where you’ve decided to settle.
You may not time travel, however.

Your subsistence system will be determined by the first letter of your last name:
If your last name begins with
A-G, you’ll be a Forager
H-L, you’ll be a Pastoralist
M-R, you’ll be a Horticulturalist
S-Z, you’ll be an Agriculturalist

Describe a day in the life of the culture you develop. Your culture may use mixed food production strategies, but it primarily relies on the one you’ve been assigned.

Consider at least the following questions:
Define your subsistence strategy.
Describe how and where it will work in your location.
What is the division of labor like?
What kinds of technology (tools and knowledge) are used?
Explore a crisis that threatens your production system. NOTE: WINTER DOES NOT COUNT AS A CRISIS–IT HAPPENS EVERY YEAR. Think natural disasters, zombie apocalypse, etc.
Describe the crisis and how your group will adapt to it.
Your adaptation may be successful or unsuccessful–tell us why.

Create an interesting way to present this information (a skit, poem, interview, rap, musical, letter, etc.). If you do a paper, you must work alone. If you do a video, you’re welcome to reach out to others in the course in your same group and work together, or rope in any friends/family members you can to help.