Social Exchange and Interaction

154 Pages·7.901 MB·English

by  edited by Edwin N. Wilmsen

ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS
MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
NO. 46
SOCIAL EXCHANGE AND INTERACTION
Edited by
EDWIN N. WI LMSEN
Contributions by
ARAM A. YENGOYAN
GEORGE C. FRISON
RICHARD I. FORD
STUART STRUEVER and GAIL L. HOUART
PETER BENEDICT
HENRY T. WRIGHT
CONRAD P. KOTTAK
KENT V. FLANNERY
ANN ARBOR
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, 1972
© 1972 by the Regents of the University of Michigan
The Museum of Anthropology
All rights reserved

ISBN (print): 978-1-949098-09-9
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-951519-24-7

Browse all of our books at
sites.lsa.umich.edu/archaeology-books.

Order our books from the University of Michigan
Press at www.press.umich.edu.

For permissions, questions, or manuscript queries,
contact Museum publications by email at umma-
[email protected] or visit the Museum website at
lsa.umich.edu/ummaa.

CONTENTS
Introduction: The Study of Exchange as Social Interaction
Edwin N. Wilmsen . . . . . . . . . . .... 1
Ritual and Exchange in Aboriginal Australia: An Adaptive
Interpretation of Male Initiation Rites
A ram A. Yengoyan . . . . . . . 5
The Role of Buffalo Procurement in Post-Altithermal
Populations on the Northwestern Plains
George C. Frison • • . . . . . . • • . . . . 11
Barter, Gift, or Violence: An Analysis of Tewa Intertribal
Exchange
Richard I. Ford 21
An Analysis of the Hopewell Interaction Sphere
Stuart Struever and Gail L. Houart 47
Itinerant Marketing: An Alternative Strategy
Peter Benedict •••••.•...
81
A Consideration of Interregional Exchange in Greater
Mesopotamia: 4000-3000 B.C.
Henry T. Wright ...••....•.. 95
A Cultural Adaptive Approach to Malagasy Political Organization
Conrad P, Kottak . . . . . . • • • . . . . • . . • . • 107
Summary Comments: Evolutionary Trends in Social Exchange
and Interaction
Kent V. Flannery 129
References . . . . • . . . . . 137
iii

INTRODUCTION:
THE STUDY OF EXCHANGE AS SOCIAL INTERACTION
Edwin N. Wilmsen
ANTHROPOLOGISTS have long been aware of the interrelations
between processes of exchange and the organization of social
relations in human societies. At least since the publication of
Malinowski's classic, Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922),
the exchange of goods and services between independent social
groups has been viewed as but one component of a system for
regulating interactions between groups. That exchange takes
place in the context of social interactions is clear, and the study
of the mechanisms through which a balance is maintained be
tween the requirements of the one and of the other has led to an
extensive literature, most of which has focused on purely eco
nomic issues or upon the forms of economic systems.
The papers in this volume are not concerned with economies
as such. Nor are they directly concerned with theoretical issues
prevalent in dichotomies such as those represented by the sub
stantive-formalist argument in economic anthropology (see Dalton,
1967, and LeClair and Schneider, 1968, for convenient guides to
the literature on this argument) although a substantivist bias is
exhibited by all the authors. Rather, the emphasis is on the role
of exchange in maintaining and modifying other parts of social
systems and on methods by which this role may be examined.
Mauss (1954) has stated as a general principle, and Sahlins
(1965) has specified for primitive societies the functional role of
exchange in making tangible social ties. Exchange spans the
distance between interacting parties; the form of the transaction
clarifies the meaning of that distance. Thus, exchange may be
looked upon as a form of social communication. All human
societies-in common with other animal societies-maintain spe
cific signaling sy~tems through which information about inter
personal and intergroup relational positions is communicated.
To the verbal and visual means of conveying the kind and degree
of social partitioning between individuals and groups in contact,
man has added exchange as a dimension for establishing and
1
2 SOCIAL EXCHANGE AND INTERACTION
maintaining social distance. Exchange introduces an element into
the system that is otherwise unavailable; it makes concrete in
the present and, more importantly, in the future a relation that
signaling systems alone can only announce. A good transferred,
a service performed, an agreement to meet again serve to mea
sure the constancy of social distance between reciprocating units
when the physical distance between these units varies.
Underlying all transactions are implications of social dis
tance and, as well, spatial components which together specify the
nature of exchange interactions. The form of interaction varies
as the organizational principles binding participants vary (in
simplest terms, as the organizations of hunting bands through
national market systems vary). But these forms are united by
exchange procedures, which convey information to the participants
about their social and spatial positions while reaffirming par
ticipant statuses. The context and meaning of exchange are
socially specified; similarly, the spatial parameters depend upon
more than the situational requirements of the exchange proceed
ing itself. Goods and services, agreements and obligations, the
participating individuals themselves are brought to the point of
transaction from different locations within the space allocated to
interacting social entities. Exchange distance is, consequently,
a variable function of social and physical distance. It is true
that participants in an exchange are in some sort of contact-
and thus, for the moment, close-but what they exchange and how
they carry out the transactions are indicators of their relative
positions outside of the transactional situations. Individuals and
groups who engage in exchange today may be far apart tomorrow.
How and why they move into exchange positions are more inter
esting questions.
Individuals and societies have variable access to resources,
which are themselves unevenly distributed in the environment.
Social resources -access to labor, skills and products -are as
critical as are natural resources. Exchange networks forge a
link between social and natural resources and thus help maintain
a balance between social space and environmental space. The
study of exchange is but one approach to the larger system of
interaction.
The notion that nonsituational information about the organi
zation of social space is contained in exchange procedures is
crucial to archaeologists who wish to study the structure of
prehistoric social systems. For spatial relations, as corollaries
to social relations, provide a means for comprehending their
social counterparts when the opportunity for direct observation of
INTRODUCTION 3
social interactions is absent. Descriptive questions-who par
ticipates in a situational exchange, to what larger aggregate does
he belong, what are the locales of these aggregates, what is
exchanged, how far is it carried to the point of transaction and
from where-and interpretive questions about the role of exchange
in the social fabric are common to the study of exchange systems
whether based upon contemporary or prehistoric data. The papers
in this volume were brought together to illustrate that common
approaches can be found to these common questions.
The spatial and o.rganizational functions of exchange are ex
pressed in almost identical terms by several authors in this
volume. Yengoyen argues that the adaptive significance of ex
change among Australian bands is that it binds scattered groups
into a collective unit that is better able to insure the survival of
these local groups than can any one group alone. Exchange under
writes intergroup solidarity in an uncertain environment which can
only support small, dispersed population aggregates and creates a
larger sphere of social awareness than any single group can
maintain. Frison presents a case for direct functional relations
between subsistance requirements, group aggregation and exchange
mechanisms. He suggests that as an optimum balance between
these components is approached, it becomes more economical to
form new groups rather than to expand old ones. Near the other
end of the organizational scale, Benedict concludes that exchange
processes reach beyond specific arenas of transaction and that a
major function of exchange systems is to forge a closure be
tween spatially separated activities.
Ford, using ethnographic data, and Struever, using archaeo
logical data, conclude that a significant function of exchange
activity is to sustain ritual activities which, in turn, provide the
ideological rationale upon which social groups justify themselves.
Exchange is thereby seen to play a critical supportive role in
maintaining the form of social systems. On the other hand,
Wright's work suggests that exchange plays, at best, an ancillary
role in modifying social systems, at least at the level of state
formation. His data support the conclusion that changes in the
political geography of Mesopotamia preceeded changes in exchange
volume and trade networks and that population increases stimu
lated demand for increased traffic in goods and services. Kottak
draws similar conclusions from his data.
As is often the case in collections of papers such as this,
as many interesting questions are posed as are answered. This
is because provocative conclusions stimulate the formulation of
even more provocative problems. These papers attempt to study