TY - JOUR
T1 - A 44-y perspective on the influence of cash on Ju/‘hoansi Bushman networks of sharing and gifting
AU - Wiessner, Polly
AU - Huang, Cindy Hsin Yee
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to the many Ju/’hoansi in both Botswana and Namibia who helped us over the past 44 years, including the late Tomazho, Tshao ≠oma, Sebe Kxao, and N!hunkxa ≠oma, who taught P.W. how to ask questions and understand answers in the 1973 to 1977 work. For the more recent research, our collaborators /Aice N!aici, Tsemkxao/Ui, /Kaece Tshao, N!aici/Aice, /Kaece Tshao, and Charlie N!aici made invaluable contributions to the study. The NNC generously gave P.W. permission to carry out this work over the years.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
PY - 2022/10/11
Y1 - 2022/10/11
N2 - Money has been portrayed by major theorists as an agent of individualism, an instrument of freedom, a currency that removes personal values attached to things, and a generator of avarice. Regardless, the impact of money varies greatly with the cultural turf of the recipient societies. For traditional subsistence economies based on gifting and sharing, surplus perishable resources foraged from the environment carry low costs to the giver compared with the benefits to the receiver. With cash, costs to the giver are usually the same as benefits to the receiver, making sharing expensive and introducing new choices. Using quantitative data on possessions and expenditures collected over a 44-y period from 1974 to 2018 among the Ju/’hoansi (!Kung) in southern Africa, former hunter-gatherers, we look at how individuals spend monetary income, how a partial monetary economy alters traditional norms and institutions (egalitarianism, gifting, and sharing), and how institutions from the past steer change. Results show that gifting declines as cash is spent to increase the well-being of individual families and that gifting and sharing decrease and networks narrow. The sharing of meals and casual gifting hold fast. Substantial material inequalities develop, even between neighbors, but social, gender, and political equalities persist. A strong tradition for individual autonomy combined with monetary income allows individuals to spend their money as they choose, adapt to modern conditions, and pursue new options. However, new challenges are emerging to develop greater community cooperation and build substantial and sustainable economies in the face of such centrifugal forces.
AB - Money has been portrayed by major theorists as an agent of individualism, an instrument of freedom, a currency that removes personal values attached to things, and a generator of avarice. Regardless, the impact of money varies greatly with the cultural turf of the recipient societies. For traditional subsistence economies based on gifting and sharing, surplus perishable resources foraged from the environment carry low costs to the giver compared with the benefits to the receiver. With cash, costs to the giver are usually the same as benefits to the receiver, making sharing expensive and introducing new choices. Using quantitative data on possessions and expenditures collected over a 44-y period from 1974 to 2018 among the Ju/’hoansi (!Kung) in southern Africa, former hunter-gatherers, we look at how individuals spend monetary income, how a partial monetary economy alters traditional norms and institutions (egalitarianism, gifting, and sharing), and how institutions from the past steer change. Results show that gifting declines as cash is spent to increase the well-being of individual families and that gifting and sharing decrease and networks narrow. The sharing of meals and casual gifting hold fast. Substantial material inequalities develop, even between neighbors, but social, gender, and political equalities persist. A strong tradition for individual autonomy combined with monetary income allows individuals to spend their money as they choose, adapt to modern conditions, and pursue new options. However, new challenges are emerging to develop greater community cooperation and build substantial and sustainable economies in the face of such centrifugal forces.
KW - Kalahari hunter-gatherers
KW - egalitarianism
KW - impact of money
KW - institutional change
KW - sharing
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2213214119
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2213214119
M3 - Article
C2 - 36197998
AN - SCOPUS:85139312003
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 119
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 41
M1 - e2213214119
ER -