Social Relations, Reciprocities and Network Trading (Internal and External)
Commodity Exchanges
Money and Gift
Identity: Outsiders/Foreigners (Threatening Aspect) Trade and tensions in the social economic relations
Constituting network relation requires stability of social economy; therefore trade may bring peace, as it requires generosity, hospitality, and honor of human being through contractual gifts (Mauss, 1967, Polanyi, 2001). The system of economic exchange brings people to the group of morality and collaborative working. Mauss asserts that “Societies have progressed in so far as they themselves, their subgroups, and lastly, the individuals in them, have succeeded in stabilizing relationships, giving, receiving, and finally, …show more content…
Sahlins points out that the obligation to receive of the exchanged goods leads the inexistence of over supply. People have to receive supply even though they do not have urgent demand (Sahlins, 307). However, unlike gift exchanges, Marshall Sahlins points out that trade is a negative reciprocity which bring ambiguous relations. In the trade, haggling is a common practice as trade mostly is about the interaction with strangers and the exchange is impersonal, and mostly uses money supply. Therefore, consumers do not have to be hesitating to deal in order to get the negotiated price (Sahlins, 279-98). Given that the interisland exchanges, as described by Mauss, involve kinship systems, there is no haggling over the goods. While haggling is the mark of the open market in which the to set up price, customer bid goods based on competition (Alexander, 1987). Thus, trade also brings ambiguous feeling since the exchanges also has to do with self-interest and calculating individual interests (Parry, 455, Firth, 1967, Weiner, 1976: 221). The ideology of gift and exchanges elaborated with the self-interest is must be common in the prominent group which particularly have close historical association with market trade, such as Jewish people, Ibo people in Nigeria (…) Marwaris in India….(Birla) Chinese in Indonesia (Tagliacozzo,…) and Butonese in Moluccas. My research examines the tension and