WEBVTT Kind: captions; language: en-us NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (H?Y) 00:00:01.600 --> 00:00:09.300 okay everybody welcome back and as I said at the end of the first section now we're going to talk a 00:00:09.300 --> 00:00:15.500 bit about the role of anthropology in talking through some of these issues and give you alternatives 00:00:15.500 --> 00:00:21.100 to the models that might suggest the Primacy or universality of particular forms of economic 00:00:21.100 --> 00:00:26.500 rationality. Because as you would imagine anthropology is played a large role in the analysis of 00:00:26.500 --> 00:00:32.100 different non-market forms of exchange indeed perhaps more than any other academic discipline and NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (H?Y) 00:00:32.100 --> 00:00:39.000 Anthropology has made this one of its Central points and in particular historically studies from 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:43.900 different parts of the world in anthropology particularly so for example in the early part of the 20th 00:00:43.900 --> 00:00:51.100 century anthropology began to develop studies of different kinds of economic exchange and different 00:00:51.100 --> 00:00:57.700 kinds of economic practice that seemed to go against the models of Economic rationality and self 00:00:57.700 --> 00:01:02.300 maximization that you might find in mainstream Western Theory NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (H?Y) 00:01:02.300 --> 00:01:09.100 and I'll mention a few of these because they're examples that come up in the readings from this week 00:01:09.100 --> 00:01:14.500 particularly Thomas Erikson's text and in the text by Strathern and Stewart as well so some of the 00:01:14.500 --> 00:01:21.700 examples they mention for example Potlatch in Northwest America found the in what is now Alaska and 00:01:21.700 --> 00:01:28.000 parts of British Columbia which was a form of competitive Exchange in which chiefs are important men 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:32.100 competed to rather than to maximise as much as they could compete it again NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (H?Y) 00:01:32.100 --> 00:01:38.700 away as much as I could so other men to put them in their debt. Likewise you'll find in the text from 00:01:38.700 --> 00:01:45.300 this week mention of the arguments around spheres of exchange amongst Tiv people in West Africa in 00:01:45.300 --> 00:01:51.050 which different forms of goods were certain was separated from circulation from each other but 00:01:51.050 --> 00:01:56.050 certain kind of ordinary good circulating in one sphere of exchange more High Prestige Goods 00:01:56.050 --> 00:02:02.000 circulated other spheres of exchange and you couldn't easily exchanged between the different spheres NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (H?Y) 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:08.550 it is a way of exchanging but from the perspective of mainstream economics seems slightly irrational 00:02:08.550 --> 00:02:14.900 or inefficient why can't you simply exchange certain kinds of goods directly with each other that's 00:02:14.900 --> 00:02:20.300 our free market is supposed to operate, but anthropologists such as Paul Bohannan who studied this 00:02:20.300 --> 00:02:27.100 systems argued that in the context of the particular socio-cultural system that was around at the 00:02:27.100 --> 00:02:32.050 time the division of economic exchange into these different spheres had particular NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (H?Y) 00:02:32.050 --> 00:02:39.650 cultural rationality of its own and likewise we find all sorts of examples of gift exchange systems 00:02:39.650 --> 00:02:45.700 from the South Pacific Systems such as the Makkah or the Tay or the Kula NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (H?Y) 00:02:45.700 --> 00:02:48.050 and this section NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 73% (MEDIUM) 00:02:48.050 --> 00:02:57.000 we're going to spend a bit of time talking about the Kula, why are we talking about the Kula? ecause it's 00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:02.600 one of the most important examples in history of economic anthropology probably the most important 00:03:02.600 --> 00:03:10.900 example is the first big in-depth exploration of a non-market or non-economic form of economic 00:03:10.900 --> 00:03:16.300 exchange and you'll find it mentioned everywhere so it's mentioned in length in Thomas Eriksen's 00:03:16.300 --> 00:03:18.649 text it's measuring the length in the Steward NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 73% (MEDIUM) 00:03:18.649 --> 00:03:23.900 text so rather than talk about what Eriksen or Strathern and Stewart talked about with regard 00:03:23.900 --> 00:03:28.500 to the Kula and these other forms of exchange I'll give you an overview of the Kula I hope will 00:03:28.500 --> 00:03:33.000 help you to make sense of their arguments when you read them for yourselves I think it's important 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:36.800 to give you some kind of background context so that you yourself can understand and make sense of 00:03:36.800 --> 00:03:38.650 the arguments that are there NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (H?Y) 00:03:38.650 --> 00:03:47.000 so let's begin this section by talking a little bit about the Kula so this study of different 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:54.000 exchange systems was pioneered by the Polish Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in the Trobriand 00:03:54.000 --> 00:04:00.800 islands off the coast of New Guinea and he examined all sorts of forms of economic exchange of goods 00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:06.900 and how they made particularly important during links between family members to different Clans 00:04:06.900 --> 00:04:08.700 that's when people who are related to each other NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (H?Y) 00:04:08.700 --> 00:04:14.100 marriage and how these ongoing forms of exchange of all different types were Central to the 00:04:14.100 --> 00:04:20.600 particular kind of reproduction social life in the Trobriand island, but even examine one form of 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:26.600 Exchange in particular they examined the Kula exchange which is the exchange system he argued that 00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:31.500 linked all the different trobriand Islands together so we'll talk a little bit about this and why it 00:04:31.500 --> 00:04:33.900 might have been important NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (H?Y) 00:04:34.600 --> 00:04:40.800 well just to give you some context here's Papua New Guinea if you don't know it just off the Northeast 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:46.500 Coast of Australia here's Queensland Australia here is Papua New Guinea this is the capital city of 00:04:46.500 --> 00:04:52.200 Port Moresby up here you'll find Eastern Britain which is where I conducted my PhD Phil work 00:04:52.200 --> 00:04:57.900 around 20 years ago and here you find the trobriand islands where Malinowski conducted his fieldwork 00:04:57.900 --> 00:05:04.049 just over a hundred years ago during the middle of World War One in 1915 and 1916 where he NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (H?Y) 00:05:04.049 --> 00:05:10.800 Studied the Kula so what is the Kula well the kula is an exchange system that links the different 00:05:10.800 --> 00:05:17.900 Islands together and it has a very fixed panel there's two kinds of valuables NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (H?Y) 00:05:18.400 --> 00:05:26.500 That's available in the Kula made of shells one set is described as necklaces the other is described 00:05:26.500 --> 00:05:32.400 as armed shells decorations you put on your arm and one set necklaces so the arms shells go 00:05:32.400 --> 00:05:34.450 around in this direction NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (H?Y) 00:05:34.450 --> 00:05:40.100 and the necklaces circular in the opposite direction of that going from island to island 00:05:40.100 --> 00:05:45.000 circulating in opposite directions around with two irons NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (H?Y) 00:05:45.200 --> 00:05:51.400 here's a picture of some Trobriand Islanders nearly a hundred years ago taking part in one of the 00:05:51.400 --> 00:05:57.000 canoe voyages between the islands, and why is this important to think about? Well look at those canoes 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:03.550 they're fragile their flimsy those are long distance Journeys there's sometimes dangerous and Men 00:06:03.550 --> 00:06:11.300 sometimes died exchanging Kula that's how important kula was to people but men would risk their 00:06:11.300 --> 00:06:15.200 lives to take part in kula exchange and many men devoted NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (H?Y) 00:06:15.200 --> 00:06:22.200 the most productive years and the most amount of time to building up their ability to conduct 00:06:22.200 --> 00:06:27.800 Kula the building canoes to getting people to help them to getting hold of these valuables so they 00:06:27.800 --> 00:06:33.500 could pass them along circulation this is not some kind of marginal heart activity or hobby or 00:06:33.500 --> 00:06:39.200 something people did on the side after they finished the real work of taking part in economic Market 00:06:39.200 --> 00:06:44.600 transactions this was something that was fundamental to people's social existence NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (H?Y) 00:06:44.600 --> 00:06:50.700 the question you ask ourselves is what was the logic behind it e 00:06:50.700 --> 00:06:52.100 NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (H?Y) 00:06:52.200 --> 00:06:59.900 one would people risk their life simply to circulate items such as this is one of the Kula arm 00:06:59.900 --> 00:07:06.900 shells from Normandy Island and it's on exhibition I think at the ethnographic museum at the 00:07:06.900 --> 00:07:12.250 University of Cambridge I think this particular example is from so NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (H?Y) 00:07:12.250 --> 00:07:17.300 what's the story with the kula why is this important NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (H?Y) 00:07:17.300 --> 00:07:23.400 well we might argue that kula is important because it potentially challenges some of the underlying 00:07:23.400 --> 00:07:28.700 principles of mainstream economic theory we might even argue it challenges the kinds of terms that 00:07:28.700 --> 00:07:35.100 we take for granted in economic theory such as the idea of trading or ownership why is this for 00:07:35.100 --> 00:07:42.000 Start people never hold onto a kula good for a long period of time, it's not like if I buy my laptop from 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:47.450 Elkj?p or from the internet I use it until it breaks down while I want to buy a new NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (H?Y) 00:07:47.450 --> 00:07:53.450 I don't pass it down to the next trade I don't hold onto it for like two weeks and pass it on I use it 00:07:53.450 --> 00:08:00.400 I hold it I own it. Kula valuables a man only takes kula valuable to have it 00:08:00.400 --> 00:08:06.350 passed through his hands as they say to pass it down the chain but they put an immense amount of 00:08:06.350 --> 00:08:11.850 effort and devote their lives to making sure that there's all the hands that these things pass 00:08:11.850 --> 00:08:17.350 so people don't hold on to the goods for a long time in other words one might argue NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (H?Y) 00:08:17.350 --> 00:08:24.700 they never really own them so to think about what a put a man's relationship to a kula item but is 00:08:24.700 --> 00:08:29.600 in his hands at that moment as one of ownership might well be to miss the point of what is really 00:08:29.600 --> 00:08:31.000 going on NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (H?Y) 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:38.299 likewise people form permanent trading relationships in a way that often in mainstream economic 00:08:38.299 --> 00:08:46.150 practice and measuring economic theory be done. If I buy my laptop on the internet 00:08:46.150 --> 00:08:52.000 today in four years time if I need to replace it and I see that Elkj?p is doing a deal I won't go I 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:56.900 must remain loyal to the internet Trader I bought it from four years ago I'll simply go and get the 00:08:56.900 --> 00:09:00.450 best deal for that that's how Market transactions are supposed to NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (H?Y) 00:09:00.450 --> 00:09:05.200 work maybe they don't always actually work exactly like that but that's the ideal of what a 00:09:05.200 --> 00:09:11.000 commodity trade is supposed to look like. The kula on the other hand involves a permanent trading 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:16.000 relationships once you establish a relationship trade with another man on a neighboring Island 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:23.050 you're tied into an ongoing relationship with him because one transaction never finishes anything 00:09:23.050 --> 00:09:29.300 although Elkj?p might try to tie me into some loyalty scheme by giving me a membership card or 00:09:29.300 --> 00:09:30.500 something like that the NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 72% (MEDIUM) 00:09:30.500 --> 00:09:33.100 reality situations they come NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (H?Y) 00:09:33.100 --> 00:09:39.000 then the I know many regards I don't want to either but don't want a particular kind of ongoing 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:44.800 relationship with me and I don't want one with them once I had bought the transaction was I bought 00:09:44.800 --> 00:09:49.800 the laptop that transaction potentially finishes my relationship with them potentially I never had 00:09:49.800 --> 00:09:55.150 to deal with our trouble we're going at the moment of exchange I give them NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (H?Y) 00:09:55.150 --> 00:10:00.600 fifteen thousand kroner they give me a MacBook Pro and that's it we walk away and we never see each 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:07.500 other again, unless we both choose to. In the kula one transaction never finishes anything once 00:10:07.500 --> 00:10:12.600 A man gives me a Shell the expectation is that I will give him the opposite kind of shell going back 00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:17.900 in the opposite direction next time around and then the next time around vice a versa every 00:10:17.900 --> 00:10:25.000 transaction sets up the expectation of a reciprocal or equivalent return transaction in some point in 00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:25.500 the future NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (H?Y) 00:10:25.500 --> 00:10:30.600 in a never-ending chain one transaction never finishes anything, and this of course looks very 00:10:30.600 --> 00:10:36.800 different one might argue from how we think about trading if I am a market Trader and I'm selling 00:10:36.800 --> 00:10:42.400 apples or oranges to you I may build up an enduring friendship if you buy don't necessarily have to 00:10:42.400 --> 00:10:46.800 it could just be that you're strange of amount of town you buy some oranges from me and I never see 00:10:46.800 --> 00:10:54.100 you again ideally speaking it ends with a transaction each time in a market exchange. So in many 00:10:54.100 --> 00:10:55.400 regards kula NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (H?Y) 00:10:55.400 --> 00:11:01.349 is interesting to Malinowski because it challenges all of these assumptions we have about what 00:11:01.349 --> 00:11:09.700 trade or exchange are really about. To illustrate further here is a quotation from the famous Scottish 00:11:09.700 --> 00:11:14.700 anthropologists of James Fraser. Frazer was a famous of probably the most famous figure in British 00:11:14.700 --> 00:11:20.200 Anthropologist at the start of the last century he wrote a very famous book in the 1890s I think 00:11:20.200 --> 00:11:25.849 called the Golden bow and Fraser wrote the introduction or the preface for Malinowski's book NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (H?Y) 00:11:25.849 --> 00:11:31.200 about the trobriand Islanders called Argonauts of the Western Pacific when it was first published in 00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:38.400 1922, and this is Fraser explaining what he thinks is most important about Malinowski's book he's talking 00:11:38.400 --> 00:11:45.300 about the idea of economically rational man as being the universal basis of human nature the kind of 00:11:45.300 --> 00:11:51.400 thing we encountered in the work of Adam Smith in the first section of this lecture and he describes 00:11:51.400 --> 00:11:56.200 this what he calls homo economicus and what does it mean NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (H?Y) 00:11:56.200 --> 00:12:01.400 Well you think about different kinds of ways of talking about different species and we describe our 00:12:01.400 --> 00:12:07.650 own species as Homo sapiens or Homo sapiens literally mean it means wise or intelligent 00:12:07.650 --> 00:12:14.500 that's how we distinguish as a species allegedly homoeconomicus is a kind of joking insult but 00:12:14.500 --> 00:12:21.349 people are anthropologists or certain kinds of radical economists will make about free market theory 00:12:21.349 --> 00:12:26.200 what they're basically saying is these economists people who follow Adam Smith to closely NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (H?Y) 00:12:26.200 --> 00:12:34.200 they reduce the entire complexity of human cultural and economic motivation just down to this simple 00:12:34.200 --> 00:12:40.700 idea of the economic man who wants to maximise his incomings and minimises outcomings so as a joke 00:12:40.700 --> 00:12:46.800 they refer to this model but you see in economics textbooks as homo economicus economically rational 00:12:46.800 --> 00:12:53.500 man and phrases as homo economicus is out as he puts it a kind of bogey or bogeyman you don't 00:12:53.500 --> 00:12:56.150 you know the idea of the bogeyman a kind of ogre or NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (H?Y) 00:12:56.150 --> 00:13:02.500 troll a kind of bogeyman who it appears still haunts economic textbooks and even extends his 00:13:02.500 --> 00:13:09.400 blighting influence to the minds of some anthropologist this horrible Phantom is apparently actuated 00:13:09.400 --> 00:13:16.600 motivated by no other motive than that of filthy lucre dirty money which he pursued relentlessly 00:13:16.600 --> 00:13:22.300 along the line of least resistance so you can see here what Frazer is saying is that economic man as 00:13:22.300 --> 00:13:26.450 an idea is not a real reflection of what human beings are like NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (H?Y) 00:13:26.450 --> 00:13:33.500 it's a phantom it's a bogeyman it's an image it's a caricature of what we actually are but 00:13:33.500 --> 00:13:38.900 only has one motive and what you might draw from this is what anthropologists right from the start 00:13:38.900 --> 00:13:44.000 of trying to draw attention to is the ways in which yes of course human beings have these motives 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:50.700 but they exist alongside other kinds of motives as well we cannot reduce Humanity down even in 00:13:50.700 --> 00:13:55.000 economic transactions to a single kind of motivation NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (H?Y) 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:04.400 so here's Malinowski and why it's important to think about the terms that we use and this is 00:14:04.400 --> 00:14:09.100 something that comes up I think in Eriksens text and Stewards text as well why 00:14:09.100 --> 00:14:15.300 Malinowski is saying we should be careful about using words such as trade because of this he says 00:14:15.300 --> 00:14:21.500 the word trade is used in current ethnography and economic literature with so many implications there's 00:14:21.500 --> 00:14:27.100 A whole lot of misleading preconceived ideas that have to be brushed aside in order to the grasp the facts 00:14:27.100 --> 00:14:27.750 correctly NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (H?Y) 00:14:27.750 --> 00:14:34.000 thus the a priori or starting current notion primitive trade would be that I've liked that one 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:39.900 exchange of indispensable or useful articles done without much ceremonial regulation, under stress of 00:14:39.900 --> 00:14:46.000 Or need in spasmodic irrregular intervals and this done either by direct barter everyone 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:52.000 looking at sharp not to be done out of his do we have to realize that the Kula contradict in 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:57.650 almost every point the above definition of quote-unquote savage trade Malinowski here NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 74% (MEDIUM) 00:14:57.650 --> 00:15:05.100 using the language of the time it shows us primitive Exchange in an entirely different line. What's 00:15:05.100 --> 00:15:11.800 he mean here he says well the idea of trade itself carries implicitly the assumptions of market economics 00:15:11.800 --> 00:15:16.300 When we talk about trading we're assuming the kind of rationality I talked about with people on the 00:15:16.300 --> 00:15:21.300 London Stock Exchange or me going and buying a laptop from our shop rather than online because it's 00:15:21.300 --> 00:15:22.400 cheaper NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 73% (MEDIUM) 00:15:22.400 --> 00:15:26.349 and he says the example is giving is equally so NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (H?Y) 00:15:26.349 --> 00:15:32.400 we just showed up on the beach and we saw two trobriand Islanders conducting Kula one of gives the 00:15:32.400 --> 00:15:38.400 other one as an arm shell the other one gives a necklace. We might assume from a starting 00:15:38.400 --> 00:15:43.500 cultural perspective that they're trading they're engaging they're haggling that the guy with the arm shells is 00:15:43.500 --> 00:15:47.200 looking to get the most necklaces and the guy in the necklace is looking to trade to get them as much 00:15:47.200 --> 00:15:54.000 Arm shells but they're engaged in the same kind of economic logic that we often encounter in our daily 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:56.700 lives and is the fundamental starting point of NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (H?Y) 00:15:56.700 --> 00:16:03.400 much economic theory but if we were just to show up on the beach and assumed that we would be mis- 00:16:03.400 --> 00:16:09.200 recognizing the situation and once we conduct long-term fieldwork once we live alongside these 00:16:09.200 --> 00:16:15.200 people and see what actually motivates them as Malinowski did we begin to see that what on the 00:16:15.200 --> 00:16:20.000 surface looks like it might be a market exchange is actually an exchange that has an entirely 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:26.550 different logic because in every fundamental aspect and element it cuts against these NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (H?Y) 00:16:26.550 --> 00:16:33.500 assumptions they are not exchanging indispensable or useful items in any sense other than the 00:16:33.500 --> 00:16:40.849 exchange these shell necklaces and the shell armbands are most of the time useless even as jewellery 00:16:40.849 --> 00:16:46.200 the necklaces are too heavy to be worn and the armbands never or hardly ever actually fit anyone's 00:16:46.200 --> 00:16:52.900 arms you can't even use them as decoration they had no use outside of being exchanged with each 00:16:52.900 --> 00:16:56.300 other so we have to look for their value somewhere else NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (H?Y) 00:16:56.300 --> 00:17:02.800 likewise if I go to Elkj?p to buy a laptop they don't insist I do a series of rituals first they 00:17:02.800 --> 00:17:08.400 don't make me kneel down and pray to the Virgin Mary for 20 minutes or light a candle or do something 00:17:08.400 --> 00:17:16.099 like that, they just want the money there's no ritual it's a very pragmatic exchange one 00:17:16.099 --> 00:17:22.700 might argue with kula it is surrounded by all sorts of rituals and tradition and custom 00:17:22.700 --> 00:17:24.599 symbolization NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (H?Y) 00:17:24.599 --> 00:17:31.800 likewise it is not done by direct barter 00:17:31.800 --> 00:17:37.900 Malinowski says quite the opposite when a man does kula he deliberately tries to go out of his 00:17:37.900 --> 00:17:43.100 way to demonstrate that he doesn't care how much he gets back the whole point is you're supposed to 00:17:43.100 --> 00:17:47.900 demonstrate how powerful and important you are that you can afford to give these things to the 00:17:47.900 --> 00:17:53.000 the man you're trading with without caring about what you get directly in turn you 00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:54.800 don't need to bother about that NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (H?Y) 00:17:54.800 --> 00:18:01.300 so that's the sense in which Malinowski is saying that if that is what people imagine what quote unquote 00:18:01.300 --> 00:18:06.500 primitive trade looks like but you know we have the London Stock Exchange where we kind of you know 00:18:06.500 --> 00:18:12.600 exchange shares in companies to try and get the most money and if we see these people exchanging 00:18:12.600 --> 00:18:17.900 different kinds of shells on the beach we might assume that they're just doing a more simple or 00:18:17.900 --> 00:18:23.100 quote unquote primitive version of the same thing we're doing but actually Malinowski is saying no 00:18:23.100 --> 00:18:24.550 not giving them credit NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (H?Y) 00:18:24.550 --> 00:18:30.100 they're actually doing something with an entirely different cultural value to it so we need to 00:18:30.100 --> 00:18:39.400 understand what actually are the cultural values that underpin their exchange systems now to 00:18:39.400 --> 00:18:42.700 reiterate the point this is not to say NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (H?Y) 00:18:42.700 --> 00:18:51.200 That people in the Trobriands or other parts of the world do not engage in economic 00:18:51.200 --> 00:18:56.700 behavior that looks like market exchange or looks like the kinds of forms of Economics that we might 00:18:56.700 --> 00:18:58.550 be more familiar with NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (H?Y) 00:18:58.550 --> 00:19:05.500 Malinowski claims that every detail the Kula is fixed by tradition but Kula is always conducted 00:19:05.500 --> 00:19:12.300 side by side with things that look more like economic bartering such as gimwali so 00:19:12.300 --> 00:19:16.700 first thing they do is they take their Kula valuables and they very 00:19:16.700 --> 00:19:22.500 ostentatiously and performers and throw the valuables down the beach so if I don't care what I get 00:19:22.500 --> 00:19:26.800 in return for them the other guy would come pick them up and follow the stuff down and so and you are 00:19:26.800 --> 00:19:29.300 not supposed to look as if you care about what you get back NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (H?Y) 00:19:29.300 --> 00:19:36.600 you're too poor to care about that but then side by side at the same time on the same Beach people are also 00:19:36.600 --> 00:19:43.300 conducting another form of exchange called gimwali and gimwali does look like homo 00:19:43.300 --> 00:19:48.200 economicus he does look like economically rationality, people are bartering and 00:19:48.200 --> 00:19:54.700 exchanging certain kinds of so called useful good food such as yams or cooking pots and here they are 00:19:54.700 --> 00:19:59.100 haggling and bartering and they're trying to get the best deal NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (H?Y) 00:19:59.100 --> 00:20:01.950 so it's not the case that NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (H?Y) 00:20:01.950 --> 00:20:09.900 people didn't have forms of market exchange or self-interest of this particular kind and indeed 00:20:09.900 --> 00:20:16.400 these forms of exchange went on side by side with the kula at the same time but people understood 00:20:16.400 --> 00:20:21.800 that they had to be kept separate at least as ideas or concepts but this is one form of exchange 00:20:21.800 --> 00:20:26.700 with its own logic here's another form of exchange with a different logic and indeed people would 00:20:26.700 --> 00:20:31.450 dispute about whether or not other men are actually conducting kula or gimwali NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (H?Y) 00:20:31.450 --> 00:20:37.150 Malinowski describes how the biggest insult you can give there it's that 00:20:37.150 --> 00:20:43.000 he does Kula as if he were doing gimwali. In other words he cares too much about what he might 00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:50.300 get in return he's using the wrong kind of economic rationality in the wrong kind of sphere NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (H?Y) 00:20:51.800 --> 00:21:01.100 so what is the value of the Kula? Malinowski argues that the value of Kula object lies in 00:21:01.100 --> 00:21:08.200 the history of social relationships that he embodies just as men gain prestige from holding on to 00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:15.300 them , what does he mean by this? he means well look the longer history the particular shell valuable 00:21:15.300 --> 00:21:18.300 has and the more NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (H?Y) 00:21:18.300 --> 00:21:24.800 important men's hands it has passed through with it goes round round circle the more value in the 00:21:24.800 --> 00:21:30.100 more power is seem too attached to that particular shell object and it becomes more and more 00:21:30.100 --> 00:21:36.100 powerful across the generations there's a long history of important men who have had passed it from 00:21:36.100 --> 00:21:37.150 the chain NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (H?Y) 00:21:37.150 --> 00:21:44.300 and similarly it goes the other way the more powerful an object is the more I desire to have it 00:21:44.300 --> 00:21:50.300 passed from my hands as that power then transfers itself to me and I become more famous and more 00:21:50.300 --> 00:21:55.500 renowned across the islands that guys held all those powerful shells in this time so it's a two-way 00:21:55.500 --> 00:22:00.600 process the shells getting power from being passed from the hands of particular powerful men but like 00:22:00.600 --> 00:22:05.800 wise men become powerful by holding those shells in their hands before passing through it's a 00:22:05.800 --> 00:22:06.900 competition of value NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 73% (MEDIUM) 00:22:06.900 --> 00:22:08.699 and prestige NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (H?Y) 00:22:08.699 --> 00:22:16.200 power and that power one might argue is ultimately because those shells embody or contain a history 00:22:16.200 --> 00:22:23.150 of social relationships if I'm trying to maximise anything in the gift exchange cycle of the kula 00:22:23.150 --> 00:22:26.950 it's not I'm trying to maximize the objects NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 71% (MEDIUM) 00:22:26.950 --> 00:22:33.600 the wealth items themselves are not necessarily that important there are means to an end what I'm 00:22:33.600 --> 00:22:39.800 trying to maximize is the scope of my social relationships with other powerful men both living and 00:22:39.800 --> 00:22:47.500 dead who I can now claim to be connected to by virtue of the power bus pass from my hands as 00:22:47.500 --> 00:22:53.400 embodying the most shells so the objects themselves seem to have little or no use value outside of 00:22:53.400 --> 00:22:54.850 Exchange NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (H?Y) 00:22:54.850 --> 00:23:01.800 there use is simply in the exchange there are means by which I can maximize the scope of my social 00:23:01.800 --> 00:23:05.100 relatedness to other powerful men NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (H?Y) 00:23:05.100 --> 00:23:11.300 so one might argue that kula doesn't simply challenge the assumptions and mainstream economics but 00:23:11.300 --> 00:23:15.500 also some of the radical critics are mentioned in economic such as Karl Marx or Marxist 00:23:15.500 --> 00:23:21.300 economics we can see I hope by now how Kula challenge the assumptions there's no 00:23:21.300 --> 00:23:27.199 maximization of objects there's no ownership as a different kind of economic motivation going on NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (H?Y) 00:23:27.199 --> 00:23:35.000 now in many regards critical economists such as Marxist Economist share some common points of 00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:41.500 criticism one might argue with many economic anthropologists Marxist economics also agree with 00:23:41.500 --> 00:23:48.100 economic anthropology that the kinds of motivations we see on the market are not Universal but we 00:23:48.100 --> 00:23:55.100 shouldn't assume that the ways in which people exchange goods in a capitalist Society is an 00:23:55.100 --> 00:23:56.850 expression of something NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (H?Y) 00:23:56.850 --> 00:23:58.949 Universal in human nature NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (H?Y) 00:23:58.949 --> 00:24:05.800 but one could also argue that Marxist economics in many regards relies upon the idea that 00:24:05.800 --> 00:24:09.250 Commodities that circulate in a capitalist economy NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (H?Y) 00:24:09.250 --> 00:24:15.400 circulate because they have a use value they have a use value and an exchange value The Exchange 00:24:15.400 --> 00:24:20.500 value is roughly measured by the price how much I'm willing to pay for them but I 00:24:20.500 --> 00:24:26.300 only buy things because ultimately they're useful so my laptop has an exchange value of 15,000 00:24:26.300 --> 00:24:33.000 Kroner I pay elkj?p it has to use value since I am able to record this lecture on it if you 00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:37.000 think that's particularly useful and you'll be the judges of that NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (H?Y) 00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:44.700 but the kula is items that are exchanged but they don't seem to have any use value any utility 00:24:44.700 --> 00:24:49.900 Outside The Exchange so one might argue that he goes in further than this critique called into 00:24:49.900 --> 00:24:55.100 question what even is the purpose of exchange at all and Malinowski and other anthropologists would 00:24:55.100 --> 00:25:01.800 argue that the purpose of the exchange in this context of this is not the object itself but the way 00:25:01.800 --> 00:25:06.300 that the object helps to build certain forms of social connectivity NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 75% (MEDIUM) 00:25:06.300 --> 00:25:11.200 this is a theory that becomes developed following Malinowski's work in other theories such as the 00:25:11.200 --> 00:25:16.900 theory of the gift and we'll come on to this in the third section of the lecture where I talked 00:25:16.900 --> 00:25:22.600 about how Malinowski's theories of generalized into a bigger Theory and how this might help us 00:25:22.600 --> 00:25:28.900 understand some contemporary economic problems from a new and different light so I'll leave that 00:25:28.900 --> 00:25:36.400 there and I will see you in the third section whenever you are ready to listen to it