Anthropology and the economy of sharing
In: Critical topics in contemporary anthropology
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In: Critical topics in contemporary anthropology
In: Oxford studies in social and cultural anthropology
In: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Working Papers No. 37
In: Working Papers 12
World Affairs Online
In: EthnoScripts: Zeitschrift für aktuelle ethnologische Studien, Volume 25, Issue 1, p. 80-101
Hiding and sharing things can go together. Haiǁom and other San hunter-gatherers in southern Africa are considered to be a group in which there is a lot of sharing. At the same time, hiding what could be shared is not rare. The ethnographic situation that I explore in this contribution is that of hiding tobacco and other consumables. What happens when Haiǁom divide their tobacco into two pouches, one for sharing with others and one that is kept hidden? I argue that creating presence but also maintaining a degree of distance characterise Haiǁom sharing practices and their way of dealing with numerous sharing demands in everyday interaction. At a comparative theoretical level, I argue that safeguarding minimal interpersonal distance is part of habitualising a performative ethical sense of how to share. In this context, trying to store things is not necessarily considered unethical as long as those who do still continue to be appropriately responsive to the demands made. What is at stake is the learnt judgement of when demands need to be fulfilled and when other responses are in order.
In: Ethnos: journal of anthropology, Volume 88, Issue 4, p. 819-836
ISSN: 1469-588X
In: Journal of contemporary African studies, Volume 34, Issue 1, p. 97-110
ISSN: 1469-9397
Cognitive Scientists interested in causal cognition increasingly search for evidence from non-Western Educational Industrial Rich Democratic people but find only very few cross-cultural studies that specifically target causal cognition. This article suggests how information about causality can be retrieved from ethnographic monographs, specifically from ethnographies that discuss agency and concepts of time. Many apparent cultural differences with regard to causal cognition dissolve when cultural extensions of agency and personhood to non-humans are taken into account. At the same time considerable variability remains when we include notions of time, linearity and sequence. The article focuses on ethnographic case studies from Africa but provides a more general perspective on the role of ethnography in research on the diversity and universality of causal cognition.
BASE
In: Widlok, Thomas orcid:0000-0002-4427-413X (2014). Agency, time, and causality. Frontiers in Psychology, 5. Lausanne: Frontiers Research Foundation. ISSN 1664-1078
Cognitive Scientists interested in causal cognition increasingly search for evidence from non-Western Educational Industrial Rich Democratic people but find only very few cross-cultural studies that specifically target causal cognition. This article suggests how information about causality can be retrieved from ethnographic monographs, specifically from ethnographies that discuss agency and concepts of time. Many apparent cultural differences with regard to causal cognition dissolve when cultural extensions of agency and personhood to non-humans are taken into account. At the same time considerable variability remains when we include notions of time, linearity and sequence. The article focuses on ethnographic case studies from Africa but provides a more general perspective on the role of ethnography in research on the diversity and universality of causal cognition.
BASE
In: Anthropos: internationale Zeitschrift für Völker- und Sprachenkunde : international review of anthropology and linguistics : revue internationale d'ethnologie et de linguistique, Volume 100, Issue 2, p. 640-640
ISSN: 2942-3139
In: How Institutions Change, p. 205-228
In: Cultural Survival quarterly: world report on the rights of indigenous people and ethnic minorities, Volume 26, Issue 1, p. 20
ISSN: 0740-3291
In: Current anthropology, Volume 40, Issue 3, p. 392-400
ISSN: 1537-5382