1 / 28

Understanding Reciprocity and Gift Exchange Across Cultures

Explore the nuances of reciprocity and gift exchange in various cultural contexts, from generalized reciprocity to redistribution and market economy. Learn about the Kula Ring, Potlatch ceremonies, and the impact of globalization on traditional exchange practices. Delve into the questions posed by researchers and discover the significance of gift-giving in conflict resolution and social hierarchy. Gain insights from the practices of the Maisin people and their relationship with outsiders. Uncover how traditional symbols and rituals shape social dynamics and adaptation to contemporary challenges.

burnsk
Download Presentation

Understanding Reciprocity and Gift Exchange Across Cultures

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Reciprocity, Gift Exchange, and the Market Questions by Casimir Jean Francois and Zachary Valentino

  2. Kinds of Exchanges:Who Owes What to Whom?

  3. Generalized Reciprocity • Studies of hunter-gatherers: • Sharing enforced and boasting severely punished, example of Ju/’hoansi “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari”

  4. Expected Reciprocity:Kula Ring in Trobriand Islands, by Malinowski • Each trading partner is linked to two others: one to whom he gives a cowry shell necklace (soulava) in exchange for an armband (mwali) and the other to whom he gives an armband in exchange for a necklace • The path of the gifts are remembered • “To possess is great, but to possess is to give” = the value of the object is in its circulation

  5. Kula Ring • The necklaces and armbands are not functional as objects • However, this kind of exchange allowed for trust between strangers: it was accompanied by the trading of items that are useful, such as canoes, axe blades, pottery, pigs, and other items • The Kula trade allows for friendly relations to be established and for the inter-island exchange of goods that are not locally available

  6. Kinds of Exchanges

  7. Redistribution • Goods are collected from all members of the group and then redistributed in a different way • The center where the goods are collected and redistributed reveals political power • Example in our society: taxation

  8. Potlatch of the Northwest Coast • A feast and gift-giving ceremony in a chief distributed many kinds of wealth (blankets, cooking pots, wooden boxes, boats, fish oil, flour) to his people and those of other villages as a sign of prestige and wealth • The more elaborate the gift giving, the more status and rank the chief gained • Note: wealth did not create status, but one’s capacity for generosity • Linked local groups into a regional alliance • Allowed key community resources of food and clothing to be broadly distributed Items lined up for a potlatch British Columbia, 1865

  9. Potlatch of the Northwest Coast • The boasting became inflated when Native Americans began to participate in the cash economy of the Canadians (trading fur for blankets, for instance), after 1849 • Population declined substantially because of diseases Europeans brought so many of the traditional sponsors (chiefs and their families) were dead • Everyone could now give a potlatch • Very intense competition for prestige • Wealth converted into prestige through the destruction of wealth items like blankets, pieces of copper, houses, sewing machines (burned or buried at sea) Kwakiutl copper shield

  10. Kinds of Exchanges

  11. The Market Economy • Goods and services are bought and sold at a determined price • Impersonal exchange; no social bonding • Occurs without regard to the social position of participants • Participants are assumed to be interested in maximizing material gain • At the same time, the market economy never fully dominates • Forms of reciprocity continue to underlie the market economy

  12. Kinds of Exchanges

  13. What kinds of exchanges exist among the Maisin? Examples?

  14. Question by Annie Huynh

  15. How does reciprocity affect conflict and its resolution, (pp. 145ff)?

  16. How does reciprocity affect who and how one becomes a big man (p. 154)?

  17. How does reciprocity affect the figure of the sorcerer (p. 128)? • Question by Violeta Daninska

  18. How does reciprocity affect relations with outsiders (p. 200)?

  19. Gifts instead of War • To make friends with strangers • To resolve interpersonal conflicts (gifts to suspected sorcerers, p. 128) • But lack of gifting can create enemies, or at least suspicion

  20. Tapa as the central symbol of the Maisin and of gifts among the Maisin • used in the significant rituals of marriage and death • Is there a central symbol in the US?

  21. “Kuo Hina E Hiapo: The Mulberry is White and Ready for Harvest” (2001) Note: Tonga, not PNG

  22. What happens when tapa cloth, an object of gift exchange, becomes sold in a global market?

  23. Forms of globalization in Ancestral Lines

  24. Is this an example of: • Clash of civilizations? • McDonaldization? • Localization? • Hybridization?

  25. Survival of the Maisin?

  26. An Update • Many questions about today • Question by Anon https://ramumine.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/collingwood-bay-communities-take-on-threat-of-mining-after-sabl-land-grab-victory/

  27. What can the Maisin teach us (if anything)?

More Related