Forms of Exchange

Work, Life, and Value: Economic Anthropology ANTH 2301 Forms of Exchange Remember the significance of sharing among equals in hunter-gatherer communities. The band members share the huge wildlife that hunters bring back to camp evenly. Gatherers give freely to anyone who is hungry when they return with heaps of fruit or nuts. Sharing with one another is both essential and expected of everyone. The anthropological word for sharing items without considering their value or desire for payment is called "generalised reciprocity." This type of interaction appears far more like altruism than it does like exchange at all. However, when social penalties are used to penalise indolence and frugal behaviour, generalised reciprocity eventually leads to a situation where all group members exchange products on an almost equal basis. Generalised reciprocity is also typical in many intimate interactions, including friendships and family bonds, outside of gathering-hunting communities. Do you think to give your parents money when you take a soft drink out of the refrigerator when you're visiting? Is there a price involved if a buddy wants to borrow a pair of boots? Most likely not. But when the object's worth rises and the relationship becomes less intense, the logic of trade shifts. If you needed a car, your parents may give it to you, but you wouldn't expect a buddy to do the same without payment. Individuals in gathering-hunting and horticulture communities also frequently engage in another type of reciprocal exchange. Relationships among the Dobe Ju/’hoansi and other San groups in southern Africa are built on a gift-giving custom known as hxaro (Barnard 2018). This custom starts when an individual approaches another, usually a member of a different band, and requests a specific item, like a cooking pot or a digging stick. This request might be approved or denied. If accepted, the two begin a continuing exchange relationship that might end at any time or endure indefinitely. The recipient returns the favour after an indefinite amount of time, usually with a gift that is roughly equal to or slightly more valuable. Neither the objects' worth nor the intervals between gift-giving incidents are ever mentioned. Everything is presented as organic and unplanned. We refer to this type of reciprocity as balanced reciprocity. One of the numerous benefits of these connections is that you can hunt and gather within your hxaro partner's band. Because of this, a lot of people continue to be in between ten and twelve hxaro relationships. Acquiring resources and opportunities is not the primary goal of balanced reciprocity. Instead, the goal of these repeated trades of goods is to build and strengthen interpersonal bonds. Selecting presents that gradually increase in value over time to strengthen the connection requires some level of tacit calculation on the part of the givers. Numerous other agricultural and horticultural communities also exhibit these unique bonds based on mutual gift-giving. A more aggressive and competitive type of balanced reciprocity emerged among the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest coast of both Canada and the United States, despite the fact that such gift-giving interactions appear to be guided by a feeling of reciprocal kindness (High 2018). Chiefs sponsored large feasts known as potlatches among cultures like the Kwakiutl, Tlingit, and Haida to honour births, marriages, funerals, and other significant occasions. The chief of the host village would shower the chief of an invited community with presents during these potlatch feasts. These presents included food preservers, blankets, animal pelts, and copper plaques. These objects were occasionally burnt on purpose in lavish trash displays. The host chief challenged the visiting chief to match their sumptuous feast and larger cache of presents by bestowing this profusion of goods onto them, therefore showcasing their riches and authority. Through this competitive feasting, power was formed and perpetuated among neighbouring communities—not by accumulating riches, but by giving it away. According to more contemporary interpretations of potlatch, these kinds of celebrations served as means of reciprocity as well as a means of distributing certain products that were located in one group to nearby locations where they would not have been easy to find. One example of how leaders tend to seize control of communal wealth and exploit it for both distribution and prestige is the role played by extended families in the potlatch tradition. In agrarian communities with leaders, like the precolonial Hawaiian Island peoples, this practice is very prevalent. The Hawaiian Islands were governed by a multilayer chief system that governed trade, land, and natural resources prior to European contact. Commoners were expected to provide labour, food, and other goods as tribute to their chiefs. For farmers, this meant giving the local chiefs a share of their agricultural surplus. After that, these local chiefs passed down a part of their tribute to the chiefs in their territory, and so on up the pyramid to the big chief. All facets of administration, including royal courts, political advisors, priests, military strategists, guards, and performers, were supported by this homage. Political leaders thus turned into hubs of wealth concentration, which was then utilised to give communities access to government services like social order, dispute resolution, military defence, trade coordination, and public works projects like fishponds, water channels, and temples. Under this hierarchical structure, the common people received government goods and services while the elites received tribute. As we'll see in the upcoming chapter, redistribution is the term for this two-way movement that is typical of chiefdoms. Leaders utilised tribute to pay for the construction of monuments, battles, commerce, ceremonial feasts, and the extravagant clothing and enormous entourage of attendants, officials, and servants that accompanied the chief. Every state society engages in redistribution. Think about how taxes, a type of state-conducted redistribution, support the roads in your community, the postal service, public schools, libraries, government-funded scientific research, courts, jails, and law enforcement. Taxes are necessary for social order, the economy, and the welfare of state residents, despite the view held by some that they are a predatory levy collected by idle elites. It's critical to understand that redistribution is a mechanism of allocating resources for the benefit of society as a whole rather than a means for people to purchase goods and services from the government. Read about Jennifer Hasty's personal experience, the author of this chapter. Let's say you realise you're out of soap when you go to take a shower. How can this issue be resolved? exchange of gifts? An initiative of the government? Without a doubt. Forms of redistribution and reciprocity have been marginalised in modern Western civilization as markets have taken centre stage as the primary means of economic transaction. An establishment that facilitates the meeting of buyers and sellers of products for the purpose of exchange is called a market. A market is, in the most literal sense, a physical location. You go to the store and get a bar of soap (or shampoo, or towel, or bathtub) if you need one. To be honest, I never bring soap with me when I travel to Ghana since my first course of action is to visit the closest market. The marketplaces in West Africa are lively and raucous, inhabited by astute women vendors who arrange their colourful merchandise in orderly rows and in random piles. enormous appliances, clothing, school supplies, fresh spices, food, and practically anything else you could possibly need may be found at enormous markets like Makola and Kaneshie. The scents of fried plantain, "stinky" fish, and freshly baked bofrot—a type of Ghanaian doughnut— permeate the air. Radios stationed at several kiosks blare music. With their wares neatly slung over their bodies or piled over their heads, wandering merchants navigate the congested walkways. Consumers from various walks of life peruse the endless rows of seated merchants, engaging in friendly banter as they negotiate prices for items with one another. I discovered early on that a product's worth is not constant but rather dependent on a variety of circumstances, including the time of day, supply levels, and the buyer's perceived identity. Purchasing a few bars of soap can involve intricate social dynamics and a whole range of senses. In Ghana, supermarket stores with a Western aesthetic have just lately emerged. These stores are quiet and, to be honest, a little disappointing compared to the vibrant sensory experience of marketplaces. A few customers move their trolleys discreetly up and down the aisles, not making eye contact with one another. A disinterested cashier rings up your purchases and tells you the sum at the checkout. Regardless of one's financial status, the sum remains the same. This is an expected, routine encounter. Automatic checkout is growing more and more prevalent in US retailers, which removes the possibility that you may interact with a real person throughout your market transaction. Online shopping completely eliminates the potential of face-to-face interaction, turning the market into a virtual site on a computer screen rather than a physical one. Customers have embraced the extremely expressive and engaging world of customer evaluations in response to the desocialization of online market connections. Even in physical stores, individuals defy the dull, antisocial routine of contemporary shopping by chatting on their phones, indulging in free samples, and seeking love partners. These trading methods are all present in modern capitalist countries. Very close friends and family members engage in generalised reciprocity. The implicit rationale behind the majority of interactions between friends and acquaintances is balanced reciprocity. You can anticipate your neighbour asking you for a similar favour down the road if you ask them to pick up your mail while you're away from home. I recently asked the parents of my daughter's school buddy if they could pick her up and drop her off at school while I was gone for a week. They did so with great kindness. I had to spend a week out of town once more a month later. I had been unable to repay those same parents for their kindness of driving my child about over the preceding month, so I was hesitant to ask them to do it again. Rather, I employed an individual who was unfamiliar to me but a buddy of a friend. Market exchange is the most typical mode of interaction between strangers. Market trade is the standard in capitalist nations; if it doesn't work, pay for it. The market players leave mostly free of future obligations after short and simple transactions. If there is a benefit of market trade, there may also be a significant drawback. The need to get more than one gives drives market trade participants in the absence of the mutuality and trust that are fostered by reciprocity. Hence, rather than collaboration and social well-being, the logic of self-interest and greed rules a society centred upon market transaction.