Economic Anthropology
What is Economic Anthropology?
“At the most basic,
economic anthropology
is the description and
analysis of economic life,
using an anthropological
perspective” (Carrier
2005:1)
Tomato seller on African market
Ghanaian Market
Economic
Word economics comes
from Greek word
Oikonomikos
Oikos means house
Root nem, means to
regulate, administer,
and organize
A society’s economy consists of:
1. Production
2. Distribution/
Exchange
3. Consumption
Economics is the study of production, distribution,
exchange, and consumption of resources.
Economic Life the activities through which people
produce, circulate and consume things
Why did the average price for a house
in Calgary skyrocket in 2006?
Economizing and Maximization
Classic economic theory assumes
1. That the value or price of a
commodity increases as demand
goes up and decreases as supply
goes up.
2. That as prices go up sellers enter
the market and bring the price
down
3. That as prices go down sellers
leave the market to bring prices
up
4. That eventually equilibrium is
reached
5. that individuals act rationally, by
economizing to maximize their
utility (i.e. profits or satisfaction)
Comparative data show
that people frequently
respond to other
motivations than profit
The Trobrianders produce far more yams than
they can ever eat. Some they give to their
sister’s husband and others they simply allow
them to rot. Why?
 economic anthropologists tend
to situate productive activities
and forms of exchange and
consumption, in larger social and
cultural frames, in order to see
how they affect and are affected
by other areas of life.
In some societies artistic styles
are the property of certain
kinship groups.
Only members of the kin group
are allowed to produce them.
Exchange
“The act of giving or taking one thing in
return for another”
“The transfer of things between social actors”
What kinds of things are exchanged?
 the communicative exchange of language
(culture)
 the exchange of goods
 the exchange of spouses.
Exchange is a key to social life
Exchange is important for the establishment
and maintenance of social relationships
Patterns of exchange and circulation, lead us to the
heart of social and cultural organization
WHO
exchange relationships
WHAT
what is the significance and meaning of what
is exchanged
WHERE
what is the significance and meaning of
where it is exchanged
WHEN
on what occasions
WHY
social reasons
HOW
ceremony, mechanisms
WHAT IS A GIFT?
 What kinds of gifts are
there?
Who do we give gifts to?
 When do we give gifts?
 How do we give gifts?
 Why do we give gifts?
Botticelli 1486
Giovanna degli Albizzi Receiving
a Gift of Flowers from Venus
IS THERE ANY SUCH
THING AS A FREE GIFT?
What are the consequences of not reciprocating?
 Are there bonds of obligation?
 Is there some competitiveness
involved in gift giving?
 How do we feel when we haven’t
received a gift of at least equal value?
 What if the gift returned is of higher
value?
“If Friends make gifts, Gifts Make Friends”
Marcel Mauss
Marcel Mauss 1925: The Gift: The Form and Reason for
Exchange in Archaic Societies
Mauss points to three fields
of obligation: to give, to
receive and to repay
Gifts, according to Mauss,
create relationships not only
between individuals but
between groups,
relationships which take the
form of “total prestations”
1872 - 1950
The principle of Reciprocity
The notion of a pure gift is simply
ideology, in reality no one does anything
for nothing
 An equivalent return is expected
 Society is created by, and its cohesion
results from, an endless sequence of
exchanges in which everyone pursues
their own advantage, however that
advantage is conceived
The donor may gain prestige and power by transforming the
recipient into a debtor
 The creation of unequal relationship until a return gift is made
maintains the relationship
Obligations are kept because both sides benefit from giving and
receiving gifts
 the costs of reneging are too great in terms of self-interest,
ambition and vanity, and sometimes supernatural sanctions
For Mauss it is not individuals but groups or moral persons who
carry out exchanges
The persons who enter into exchanges do so as incumbents of
status positions and do not act on their own behalf
The gift also contains some part of the
spiritual essence of the donor and this
constrains the recipient to make a return
 Most commentators on Mauss (e.g.
Shalins, Firth, Levi-Strauss) see the idea
of reciprocity a form of social contract as
correct
And not the Maori notion of the Hau as a
general explanation for reciprocity
The Potlatch
A form of ceremonial exchange
of gifts employed by
indigenous groups on NW coast
of BC (Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian
and Kwakiutl
(Kwakwaka'wakw))
Described at length by Franz Boas in 1897
in The Social Organisation and the Secret
Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians
Aboriginally, The
Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl),
were very rich and their
fishing grounds supplied them
with considerable surplus
E.S. Curtis, 1915
Beginning of summer they
dispersed to go hunting,
gather roots and berries, fish
for salmon in the rivers
At the onset of winter they
concentrated in small villages
During this period social life
became extremely intense
"Interior of Habitation at Nootka Sound"
John Webber (British), April 1778
The Kwakiutl house is constructed of cedar boards on a framework
of heavy logs. The ridge extends from front to back, the roof-boards
run from ridge to eave, and the wall boards are perpendicular.
POTLATCH: The word means ‘to give’
held in connection with
events in the life cycle,
initiations, marriages,
house building,
funerals, assumption of
certain dance privileges.
extravagant and lavish
preparations including
much food preparation
and the creation of
masks and art work are
made by the host as
gifts for the guests
Announcing a
Potlatch,
On a ceremonial
dugout canoe, made
from a single cedar
log, costumed bird
and animal dancers
announce a potlatch
(Lazare and Parker/National Wildlife
Federation).
Whole clans and
villages were
invited to the
potlatch
Potlatch Guests Arriving at Sitka, Winter 1803
Bill Holm © 1997
“Indian visitors arriving at
Potlatch at Kok-woi-too Village
Chilkat River, Alaska” 1895
 Potlatches
included speeches,
singing, dancing,
feasting, and giftgiving.
Serving food and
Kwakwaka'wakw Winter Dance
This dance is being performed at a southern
Kwakwaka'wakw village on Quatsino Sound.
Elaborate theatrical performances were an
important part of Northwest Coast native life
(watercolour by Gordon J. Miller)
distributing gifts
allowed the host to
demonstrate his
generosity and
wealth and to assert
his ancestral
privileges to the
guests.
Masks and headdresses worn during dances depicted the
supernatural being who had "given" the dance to the host or one of his
ancestors.
Button blankets were worn during dances and given as gifts.
19th Century Kwakiutl Button Blanket
Kwakiutl Potlatch Mask
Before contact, gifts might have included canoes, slaves, goat hair
blankets, and food
The variety and quantities of gifts increased with European trade.
Every article used in ceremony and as
well many utilitarian objects such as
storage boxes were carved and decorated.
ceremonial objects included masks,
headdresses, shawls, rattles, aprons,
copper shields and painted boards.
Each of these embodied the crests of the
owner and proclaimed clan associations,
ownership, family history, rights, and
privileges.
Their beauty, the painstaking effort taken
in their manufacture, and the high cost of
the materials used, determined only a small
part of their value
the true value of these objects lies in their
symbolism
The most central symbol of wealth, power and prestige was the copper
a shield-shaped plate of beaten copper that usually with a painted or
engraved representation of a crest animal of their original owners on its
surface.
During Potlatch ceremonies, the host would sometimes break the
copper and distribute it to high status guests.
Copper gifting sometimes would involve rivalry. If a chief offered a
broken piece of his copper to a rival, the rival had to return the favour
with a piece of copper or equal or greater value or suffer humiliation.
Broken copper
Tsimshian: Gitsan,
British Columbia
Collected by G.T.
Emmons, prior to 1914
Chilkat Blanket" 1890-1900, Tlingit
The Kwakiutl chief Tulthidi
prepares to give away his
valuable copper in honor of
his son
It was the Chief's responsibility to ensure that all members of his
lineage were adequately provided for.
Within the lineage, rank was judged in descending order
according to one's relationship to the Chief
Potlatches became very competitive
 aspiring leaders used competitive
potlatching to move up the system.
 The potlatch is a system of gift exchange-- material goods are exchanged for social
recognition and power
Tlingit Chiefs,
dressed in full
regalia,
gathered at a
Potlatch
ceremony in
Sitka in 1904.
Because of all the gifts, a traditional potlatch took years to
prepare
A large potlatch
held in 1921 was
said to take 17
years of
preparation
 A modern day
potlatch may
take about a
year to prepare
and cost
$10,000.
C. 1900
Today potlatch gifts include coffee mugs,
socks, hand knit blankets and clothes, as
well as carved masks and murals
Potlatches commemorate a significant
event in an extended family's or clan's
collective life. They are held today for baby Twined grass basket
showers, namings, weddings,
Nootka/Makah, British
Columbia/Washington
anniversaries, special birthdays,
graduations, and as memorials for the dead
Cedar carrying basket with
handles
Why would they spend years
accumulating wealth only to give it away
- or even throw the objects into the sea?
Potlatch at Fort Rupert, British Columbia, 1898
Social Significance
 potlatch celebrations are a
significant representation of
the host's status and the
display of rank and title
In return for giving away
food and wealth they get
recognition of their status
and that of their lineage.
 Marriages for one’s
children and places in
the brotherhoods are
only won during the
potlatch
Potlatches become very
competitive
 aspiring leaders use
competitive potlatching to
move up the system.
 The potlatch is a system
of gift exchange--- material
goods are exchanged for
social recognition and
power
the aim is to crush the
opponent chief with
excessive obligations
that cannot be repaid
Potlatch Regalia
Dance regalia given up by Kwakiutl who attended Dan
Cranmer's potlatch in 1921 at the village of Alert Bay,
NWT (Royal British Columbia Museum).
The federal government outlawed potlatches in 1884 but the
ceremony continued in many communities
 in 1951 the law was deleted from the revised Indian Act
The obligation to give
The obligation to receive
The obligation to reciprocate
Prestation
 Also includes reciprocity and the various
obligations
 ‘total social phenomenon’
 It is not individuals but collectives that impose
obligations of exchange and contract upon each
other
 What is exchanged is not solely property and
wealth
What rule of legality and self-interest,
in societies of a backward or archaic
type, compels the gift that has been
received to be obligatorily
reciprocated? What power resides in
the object given that causes its
recipient to pay it back?” (Mauss 1925)
 To Mauss the gift was animated with the spiritual essence
of its original donor (Mauri hau) to whom it strives to return.
 This constrains the recipient to make a return
 When one gives something away one is also giving part of
oneself -- an object imbued with one’s own personality/spirit
and which therefore puts one literally in the hands of one’s
creditor
 To receive something is to receive
part of the essence of the giver
 Because of this the indebted is
constrained to make a return
Failure to return a gift can result in serious
trouble including the death of the recipient
The bonds created by gifts are thus
mutually dependent ties between persons
Kwakiutl Potlatch Mask
Thomas and Jane Carlyle’s Christmas Presents
 Renowned 19th century English historian and essayist
 Spent Christmas in the 1850s with Lord and Lady Ashburton (wealthy
Scottish banker)
Thomas and Jane Carlyle
Lord and Lady Ashburton
•In 1851 The Ashburton’s gave Christmas presents to the Carlyles
• Mrs Carlyle got a scarf and a bracelet
• Thomas got a jigsaw puzzle
• both were well received
In 1855 Mrs Carlyle
received a black silk
dress - A novelty
because it was only
recently that they were
produced by machine
Mrs Carlyle claimed
that she was being
insulted.
What do we have to know to be able to understand those meanings
attributed to these gifts?
 class
 social mobility
 matrimony
 patronage
 employment
 manufacturing processes
 issues of style
 conventions of gift-giving
Gift Exchange operates not according to market laws, but the social
rules of power, symbol, convention, etiquette, ritual, role and status.
Exchange (at least gift giving) is embedded in social life
Raffia Cloth among the Lele (Zaire)
The movement of raffia cloth among the Lele is
another example of the mediation of status by
goods.
Younger men need raffia (as bridewealth) to
marry. But raffia is made and controlled by
older men. In order to have access to raffia and
hence marriage, younger men need the social
approval of older men.
Since more raffia is required to marry than any
one man can produce, it takes community
approval to marry.
In modern economy, men can gain access to
raffia through wage labor. This undercuts
authority of elders and leads to charges of the
selling of brides.
Economic Anthropology:
Substantivist
Formalists
-economic affairs are embedded in social
institutions and cannot be studied
separately from other social institutions
social structures
•kinship system
•political structure
•religious ideologies
-people in nonindustrial economies
function with different logic than
capitalist economies. Exchanges occur
for reasons other than economic benefit
• culturally unique values
• group benefits
• “rational” culturally relative
• prestige
• maximize personal gain
•supply-demand relationships
• “rational” decision-making
• individual self interest
•economy can be analyzed
independent of other social
structures and institutions
•research tools of western
economics applicable
Karl Polanyi
Divided economies into three types
according to the dominant mode of
distribution
 reciprocity-- The return of a
gift or prestation
 redistribution
-- collection from members
of a group and then
redistribution within this
group. E.g. tribute, taxes
 market --involves money and
profit
1886-1964
Marshal Sahlins Stone Age Economics (1972)
 A material transaction is usually a
momentary episode in a continuous
social relation.

The social relation governs the
nature of the immediate exchange
and the flow of goods

Sahlins suggests that there are 3
types of reciprocity that form a
continuum that correlates with
kinship and social distance.
1930-
Reciprocity: exchange between
social equals
1. Generalized
2. Balanced
3. Negative
Generalized reciprocity
 e.g. gifts, or sharing, helping, generosity.
 between close kin and friends
 highly moral – no expectation of return
 In some societies e.g. Ju/’hoansi, it ensures survival, an equitable
sharing of food, and maintains social bonds between families
 Generalized reciprocity is correlated with
Rank
relative wealth and need
food
Geographic distance
Balanced reciprocity
 return expected
 delayed exchange
 maintains ties with
more distant people
 A precise balance
between the things
exchanged
 Important in e.g. peace
making death payments
and marriage alliances.
Kula Ring – Balanced Reciprocity
Kula Ring: vast inter-island
system of exchange of certain
classes of ritual objects —
men’s armbands and
bracelets
 not a system of
“commercial trade” in
utilitarian objects (most
islands self-sufficient in
staple foods & goods)
 objects acquired,
displayed, and then passed
on
mwali
soulava
Like the crown
jewels, their value
is symbolic
There is no
practical utility
Each valuable
has its own name
and history
Owning them
provides the owner
with prestige and
pride
Vaygu’a – Kula Valuables
assessed for their value based on size, colour, and how well they
are polished or finished
shells increase in value with age and both men and shells gain
prestige in their association with one another
man may gain
fame and
notoriety for
having possessed a
particularly fine
armband
similarly, a necklace may be highly regarded
for having been owned by a great man
Temporary ownership allowed men
to draw a great deal of renown, to
exhibit the article to tell how it is
obtained and to plan on whom he is
going to give it
This history and renown was the
main source of their value
Main principle underlying regulations
of exchange is that of bestowing a
ceremonial gift, which has to be repaid
by an equivalent counter-gift after a
lapse of time, be it a few hours or
years
A form of credit. – implies a high
degree of trust and commercial
honour
 One transaction does not finish the kula relationship
 Once in the Kula always in the Kula
 Lifetime partnerships
 Once in the Kula always in the Kula also applies to valuables
Some of the
named kula
valuables
mentioned by
Malinowski are
still circulating
 at each meeting, “visiting” partner bestows gift on
home partner
 the same object that he received from his other
partner a few months or years earlier
 over time, value (rarity) of objects exchanged
increases, as does renown of the partners
necklaces
A
B
C
D
A
B
C
D
armbands
Kula Ring had been cited as an example of the economic irrationality
of “savages”…
–took great risks for “fanciful” ends
–not survival or commerce, but to obtain “baubles”
–pursued out of “sheer habit”
the Kula Ring is a vital institution which contributes to the security
and continuity of Massim cultures
–needs to be seen within the total context of Massim society
–ripped out of context, it appears irrational, “savage”
How does the kula differ from classic economic ideas?
Exchange is not done freely – hereditary partners
Only two items
Not based on need since the aim is to exchange articles that
serve no utilitarian purpose
No price mechanism
Value not determined by supply and demand
Never ends
Highly ritualized
Based on obligations
Delayed exchange
Surrounded by mythology
what makes the Kula an economic exchange?
Negative Reciprocity
 less common
 impersonal, distrustful
 not based on ongoing
social relations
 exchange without
money
 taking items by force
Haggling at the market of
Riobamba, Ecuador
Reciprocity:
Generalized
Balanced
 value unspecified
 return not immediate
 long term view
 no gratitude expected
 Equal value
 Expectation of
 immediate return
 Similar to trade or
 barter
Creating AND satisfying
 obligations
 Common in more
 distant kin
relationships
Negative
 Personal gain
 is primary
motivator
 something for
 nothing
 - haggling
 - bargaining
 - theft /seizure
 - cheating
Self Interest
Prevalence in band societies
intertribal
tribe
village
lineage
family
social distance determines the nature of the exchange
Compare exchanges with children and parents versus aunts and
uncles with nieces and nephews
Other relatives versus strangers
Redistribution
Exchange among social unequals
centralized accumulation and
reallocation of wealth (taxes,
tributes, tithes, spoils)
–maintain power, superior
status (internally)
–keep constituents happy,
maintain standard of living
–use wealth to leverage
power (externally)
–leveling mechanisms
typical mode of exchange in
chiefdoms and some nonindustrial states
These workers in Yunnan
Province, China, strive for an
equal distribution of meat.
Redistribution in Western Society
Taxes
Food Bank
Collected taxes redistributed in services and welfare to those in need
Redistribution based on moral norms and cultural values about social
justice and equal opportunity
Modern market exchange
refers to vice-versa movements between hands in a market
system
requires a system of price making markets in order for
integration
the dominant mode of integration in modern industrial
societies
Kumasi's Central Market, Kumasi, Ghana
Market exchange
 value preset by
impersonal
“market forces”
 exchange occurs
presumably
independent of
and uninfluenced
by social relations
 usually involves money, a widely agreed on
abstract symbol used to measure value
Kawelka Moka
1. What motivates someone like Ongka to work so hard?
2. What functions does a moka serve?
3. What are the gender roles involved in putting on a moka
4. Is the moka outdated?