Week 6 — Exchange and Economic Systems

Welcome to your Week 6 Start Here page.

Why this matters

A business student asking why customers return to one seller and a food bank volunteer sorting donations both ask this week's question: how do goods move between people?

In plain language

Every group of people moves things around: food, help, gifts, and money. Anthropologists call those movements exchange (any passing of goods or help from one person to another), and they sort them into a few kinds. This week you will learn three big forms of exchange as a model, and three kinds of reciprocity (giving back and forth between equals) that differ by how closely people keep count. You will meet two famous documented cases, the kula and the potlatch, and learn why a gift is never quite free. By the end, you will be able to sort an everyday exchange, read a market's tally of exchanges, and say what kind of tie each exchange builds.

• Already covered: Weeks 1 to 5 gave you the perspective, culture, fieldwork, language, and making a living.
• This week: three forms of exchange, three kinds of reciprocity, the kula, the gift, and the potlatch.
• How they connect: what people produce is shared, swapped, pooled, and sold.
• Where we're going next: Week 7, Political Organization, Power, and Inequality.

Focus

How do goods move between people, and what tie does each exchange leave?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• [ ] sort an exchange into reciprocity, redistribution, or market exchange
• [ ] tell generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity apart
• [ ] explain the gift's three obligations with the kula and the potlatch
• [ ] read the market's tally in percentages and percentage points

To-do

Plan your week

1. Read Chapter 6 (about 30 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
2. Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes) and the practice set (about 20 minutes).
3. Do the Ethnography Workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment.
4. Take the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: explain why a gift is never free of obligation.

You've got this

Take it in order, and ask your instructor if a step snags.

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