Indigenous economies: bridging the gap between economics and anthropology

Valentina Mazzucato

Economic studies of indigenous economies rarely include locally defined criteria for economic decision making, which means that their analyses are slanted towards 'Western' concepts of what constitutes an economic decision. Anthropological studies of economies, by contrast, focus on identifying locally relevant variables and units of analysis. However, they are largely location-specific and rarely attempt to find similarities between different systems of economic organization. This article proposes two possible methodologies to address the gap that exists between economics and anthropology.

The study of indigenous economies is at the basis of more informed development agendas. If any sort of development action--be it policy, project, or technology--is to be accepted in a given society, one must first gain an understanding of the indigenous economy. This includes the value attached to material goods, and how this affects their production distribution, and consumption. As an economist studying indigenous rural economies in an African context, I found myself somewhere between economics, which provides quantitative methods from which generalities can be drawn, and anthropology, which provides insights into relevant variables and units of analysis. While economics focuses on factors of production and the way they are allocated within the production process, the anthropological approach to the economy looks at the people using these factors and making decisions on how to allocate them, while economists measure variables and their trends, anthropologists identify the relevant variables in terms of the way people view their system of economic organization. Economists tend to generalize, anthropologists tend to focus on the particular. The study of indigenous economies can benefit greatly from both these perspectives. And yet economics and anthropology have remained quite separate. In fact, bibliographical searches on indigenous economies turn up two kinds of sources: economic studies on indigenous economic systems and techniques, and anthropological studies on indigenous economic organization. This article discusses how these two kinds of studies approach indigenous economies, and goes on to explore two ways of bringing anthropological insights to bear on economic analyses of indigenous economies. One uses ethnoscience to define variables in economic methodologies, while the other uses standard ethnographic methods to define the relevant type of economic analysis.

Economic studies of indigenous systems
The term 'indigenous economic systems' seldom appears in the economic literature. Economists are inclined to see this as a subject of study for anthropologists1. However, there are two types of economic studies, both part of farming systems research (FSR), which do take indigenous economies into account, albeit indirectly. The first encompasses the FSR research conducted during the seventies and eighties, and the second the more recent studies focusing on indigenous technologies2. The first type of study takes indigenous systems of economic organization as the starting point for its analysis (see Eicher and Baker (1982) for a compilation). Schultz (1964) was one of the first development economists to argue the need for economic studies of indigenous agriculture, and in the two decades which followed hundreds of such studies were conducted. However, their focus was not the indigenous system per se, but rather the changes that were needed to make production more economically efficient. This resulted in a tendency to compare indigenous systems with Western forms of economic organization: they were seen as the 'non-presence' of Western-style credit markets, the 'malfunctioning' of the market system, or the 'absence' of rural infrastructure. The FSR economic studies are based on a Western, market-oriented model of organization, which means that the indigenous system is seen in terms of the constraints it puts on the achievement of a more 'efficient' system of production. The more recent FSR studies have examined the effects of indigenous systems of economic organization on production or sustainability objectives. Influential economists such as Hayami and Ruttan (1985 edition) point to the need to include institutional and cultural variables in economic analyses, in order to gain an understanding of Third World development processes. The aim of these studies has shifted away from what is needed to make indigenous systems more like the Western model, and towards an understanding of the indigenous systems themselves. A case in point is the work of Matlon (1988), who analyzes the effects of indigenous land tenure arrangements on farmers' soil management activities. He finds-- contrary to the conventional wisdom based on the earlier type of studies--that land tenure arrangements in Burkina Faso do not act as a disincentive to invest in soil conservation activities. Another type of economic research examines indigenous technologies. There is now a realization that despite the advances in scientifically developed technologies, the vast majority of African farmers continue to use indigenous technologies3. These studies evaluate local technologies in terms of economic efficiency or sustainability. One such study was carried out by Kabor‚ et al. (1993), who compared zaï, an indigenous soil fertility improvement technique used in central Burkina Faso, with rock bunds and mulching, concluding that zaï is a favourable technique in terms of labour and capital investments, as well as risk minimization. While both types of economic research are useful for comparative purposes, in that the same criteria are applied to different systems in different countries, and they may also be useful in forecasting trends at a macro level, they both analyze aspects of indigenous economies on the basis of Western criteria, and thus only partially address the question 'Why do farmers do what they do?'. Their methods pre-determine the kinds of variables included in the economic analysis. Inputs and outputs are defined largely in terms of material goods and assessed in terms of money; land valuation is still dominated by the Western concept of private property; labour is often viewed in terms of money as opposed to, say, prestige or security. In general, the concept of 'the more the better' dominates economic definitions of 'rational' objectives, so that anything that impedes the attainment of these objectives is referred to as a constraint. The new institutionalist school of economics does not focus exclusively on the commodity value of goods. It brings institutional and cultural factors into its analysis by including 'transaction costs', which represent the resources required to gather information, and to negotiate, monitor and enforce rights and contracts. However, if transaction costs are seen as a strictly quantitative factor, they may become a catch-all variable; as such they cannot help to explain what and how cultural and institutional factors influence decision-making. Understanding the nature of transaction costs in a developing country requires an understanding of the cultural and institutional contexts within which these transaction costs are incurred. There are few studies in the field of applied economics which employ the transaction costs framework within the context of a developing country (examples include Ensminger 1992; and Ostrom 1993). This reflects the difficulties economists encounter when dealing with such fuzzy phenomena as institutions in non-Western societies4-- something that anthropological studies have done in greater depth.

Anthropological studies of indigenous economies
There is a fundamental difference in the way anthropologists and economists analyze indigenous economies. Anthropologists see the indigenous economy as part of a wider meaning system. It is this meaning system that gives value to transacted goods, a value that may encompass religious, social and political spheres. Thus while the economy can be defined in terms of the production, distribution and consumption of material goods, anthropologists do not limit their analysis to the material sphere, but rather analyze non-material aspects that give material goods, transactions and networks their meaning. Anthropologists study indigenous economies by analyzing people's economic reasoning, their notions of wealth, labour, and capital, and their view of how these can best be managed, invested and preserved, in other words, their processes of decision making. Using the ethnographic approach, they formulate the cultural logic behind decisions, identifying the factors most relevant to decision making for the people under study. While historically, anthropological research has been largely descriptive in nature, some of the more recent studies have quantified certain aspects of these indigenous economies. These include Hill (1972), Barlett (1980), Plattner (1984), Gudeman (1986), and Toulmin (1991). The search for generalizations is also characteristic of certain Marxian scholars such as Clammer (1978), Godelier (1975), and Wolf (1981); however, they are in the minority. Thus most attempts to bridge the gap between anthropology and economics have been made by anthropologists. Despite these efforts, economics is still the most influential discipline when it comes to setting development agendas, and there is a need for more inductive anthropological studies, which can help inform policy makers. I believe there is still a gap between economic anthropology and economics that can be addressed by economists. Research should take the form of anthropological economic studies, that is, studies that maintain the generalizability of economic methodologies while incorporating insights from anthropology which will ground them more firmly in the reality of the system being studied.

Ethnoeconomics and ethnography
One way anthropologists elicit indigenous criteria is through cognitive anthropology, or ethnoscience, which was developed during the 1960s. Cognitive anthropology is the study of people's perceptions of their surroundings as reflected in their use of language. The taxonomies resulting from such analyses reveal categories based on locally relevant criteria. Harold Conklin (1954), the founding father of ethnoscience, argued against the commonly held view that swidden agriculture was irrational, economically unproductive, and an example of 'backward' agriculture. Using ethnoscience to understand farmers' attitudes towards their environment, Conklin was able to explain the rationale behind swidden systems and demonstrate that they were in fact quite rational systems. Ethnoscience has been used by many different disciplines; thus there are studies in ethnobotany, ethnopedology, ethnoforestry, ethnoveterinary medicine, and ethnoecology. (Furbee 1989; Mathias-Mundy and McCorkle 1992; Inglis 1993; Mathias-Mundy et al. 1992). However, there are few if any studies that make use ethnoeconomics. I would argue that one way to incorporate anthropological insights into economic models is through the use of ethnoeconomics to define economic variables and units of analysis in economic methodologies. One of the few examples of the use of local taxonomic categories in economic models is an article by Bellon and Taylor (1993), who analyze the effects of different types of soil on the adoption of new maize seed varieties. They asked farmers about the various soil types on their land, what characteristics they attributed to each type, and how they ranked those soils in terms of their suitability for maize production. Their hypothesis was that farmers' perceptions of the soil qualities on their farms significantly affects their decision on whether to adopt new technology. They used a traditional economic tool, i.e., econometrics, but included in their equation an 'untraditional' independent variable, i.e., folk taxonomy categories of soils. Their results showed that the perceptions of land qualities did indeed affect the adoption of new seed varieties. This type of analysis can be taken one step further by examining local classifications of such economic terms as benefits, costs, insurance, interest, security, and risk, in order to determine whether these are locally meaningful concepts. However, this method suffers from the general drawback of ethnoscience: It is ill-equipped to produce historical information, which is necessary to an understanding of any social system. Another criticism of ethnoscience is that it assumes that language is the most important representation of values, an assumption that has been questioned by various scholars (see, for example, Atran 1993). Finally, in-depth work takes time; otherwise it may produce only local interpretations of categories which are then incorporated into the investigator's largely 'Western' perspective. Nonetheless, if carefully done, this could be a useful component within a wider analysis. A second method consists in incorporating ethnographic instruments into economic studies, as a means of determining the most relevant type of economic analysis. One such study (Vel 1994) structured survey questionnaires on the basis of locally relevant concepts, using observation, key informant interviewing, extended stays in a village, and close contacts with villagers. For example, Vel collected production data which were based on the way farmers calculated how much they produced, i.e., by counting the number of days that they could eat from their harvest. Vel also took pains to avoid molding the society into units of analysis that were not relevant for economic activities. This meant that she focused her analysis on networks rather than household units. A collaborative project between the universities in Wageningen and Ouagadougou, also makes use of ethnographic methods of collecting and analyzing quantitative economic data. For example, our market surveys are not limited to price and quantity data, but also take into account the social distance between buyer and seller. This reflects the tendency of local people to associate markets with network-building5, a finding which was the result of ethnographic methods of research. In contrast to ethnoscience, this approach is capable of incorporating historical analyses, while taking into account non-linguistic ways of representing values. However, it requires in-depth work, which means that it is not appropriate for short-term studies.

Conclusion
Just as philosophers of science stress the social moorings of science (Kuhn 1962; Latour and Woolgar 1979; Bourdieu 1990; Pickering 1992; Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993), one can maintain that economies are social constructions (Polanyi 1944; Gudeman 1986). Orthodox economic methods commonly employed to analyze economies are rooted in our Western experience. This article argues that if we are to understand the forms of economic organization in other societies, we must employ methods which are more socially relevant to those societies. What we economists have always done is to apply our culturally specific definitions to our models. It is now time to look at indigenous economies through indigenously defined criteria.

Valentina Mazzucato
Agricultural Economist
Department of Irrigation and Soil and Water Conservation
Wageningen Agricultural University
Nieuwe Kanaal 11
6709 PA Wageningen
The Netherlands
E-mail: vmazzucato@rcl.wau.nl

Highlights
- An understanding of the indigenous economy is crucial to successful development policies and activities.
- Despite efforts on the part of anthropologists to conduct more generalizable analyses, economics remains the most influential discipline when it comes to setting development agendas.
- One method for bridging the gap between economics and anthropology is ethnoeconomics, which uses local economic terms to gain insight into the way people perceive economic phenomena.
- A second method uses ethnographic methods of inquiry to establish which type of economic analysis is relevant.

References Atran, S. (1993) 'Whither 'ethnoscience'?' pp. 48-70 in P. Boyer (ed) Cognitive aspects of religious symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Barlett, P. (1980) 'Adaptive strategies in peasant agricultural production', Annual Review of Anthropology 9: 545-573.
Bellon, M. and E. Taylor (1993) 'Folk soil taxonomy and the partial adoption of new seed varieties', Economic Development and Cultural Change 41(4): 763-785.
Bourdieu, P. (1990) The logic of practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Clammer, J. (ed.) (1978) The new economic anthropology. London: Macmillan Press.
Conklin, H. C. (1954) 'An ethnoecological approach to shifting agriculture', Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences 17(2): 133-142.
Eicher, C. and D. Baker (1982) Research on agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa: A critical survey. (MSU International Development Paper No. 1), Michigan State University.
Ensminger, J. (1992) Making a market: The institutional transformation of an African society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Frankel, F. (1971) India's green revolution: Economic gains and political costs. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Funtowicz, S. O. and J. R. Ravetz (1993) 'Science for the post-normal age', Futures 25: 735-755.
Furbee, L. (1989) 'A folk expert system: Soil classification in the Colca Valley, Peru', Anthropological Quarterly 62(2): 83-102.
Gladwin, C. (1979) 'Production functions and decision models: Complementary models', American Ethnologist 6(4): 653-674.
Godelier, M. (1975) 'Modes of production, kinship, and demographic structures' in M. Bloch (ed.) Marxist analyses and social anthropology. London: Malaby Press.
Gudeman, S. (1986) Economics as culture: Models and metaphors of livelihood. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Hayami, Y. and V. Ruttan (1985 edition) Agricultural development: An international perspective. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Inglis, J. (ed.) (1993) Traditional ecological knowledge: Concepts and cases. Ottawa: International Program on Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Canadian Museum of Nature.
Jahnke, H., D. Kirschke and J. Lagemann (1987) The impact of agricultural research in tropical Africa. A study of the collaboration between the international and national research systems. (CGIAR Study Paper No. 21), CGIAR Secretariat, The World Bank.
Kabor‚ D., F. Kambou, J. Dickey and J. Lowenberg De Boer (1993) Economics of rock bunds, mulching and zaï in the Northern Central Plateau of Burkina Faso, a preliminary perspective. (mimeo).
Kuhn, T. (1962) The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Latour, B. and S. Woolgar (1979) Laboratory life: The social construction of scientific facts. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Mathias-Mundy, E. and C. McCorkle (1992) Ethnoveterinary medicine: An annotated bibliography. (Bibliographies in Technology and Social Change No. 6). Iowa State University.
Mathias-Mundy, E., O. Muchena, G. McKiernan and P. Mundy (1992) Indigenous technical knowledge of private tree management: A bibliographic report. (Bibliographies in Technical and Social Change). Iowa State University.
Matlon, P. (1988) 'Patterns of land use, indigenous land tenure systems, and investments in soil fertility: Results from three agroclimatic zones in Burkina Faso' in World Bank (ed.) (to be published) Rural land tenure, credit markets and agricultural investment in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington DC: World Bank.
Ostrom, E. (1993) 'Bargaining over the rules: How self-organized farmer organizations constitute their own rule-ordered situations', paper presented at the Hierarchies, Markets, Power in the Economy: Theories and Lessons from History, Castellanza (Varese), Italy, December 15-17.
Pickering, A. (1992) Science as practice and culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Plattner, S. (1984) 'Economic decision making of marketplace merchants: An ethnographic model', Human Organization 43(3): 252-264.
Polanyi, K. (1944) The great transformation: The political and economic origins of our time. Boston: Beacon Press.
Schultz, T. (1964) Transforming traditional agriculture. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Toulmin, C. (1991) 'Staying together: Household responses to risk and market malfunction in Mali', pp. 115-140 in M. Haswell and D. Hunt (ed.) Rural households in emerging societies. Oxford: Berg Publishers.
Vel, J. (1994) 'The Uma Economy', PhD, Wageningen Agricultural University.
Wolf, E. (1981) 'The mills of inequality' in G. Berreman (ed.) Social inequality: Comparative and developmental approaches, New York: Academic Press.

Acknowledgement I gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of Luca Bertolini, Polly Hill, David Niemeijer, Ruerd Ruben and an anonymous reviewer on earlier drafts of this article.

Endnotes
1 It is indicative of the general lack of attention given to indigenous economies that since the first issue of Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor in 1993 there has never been an article focusing on the topic.
2 Indigenous technology is a technique or practice that has been developed locally or adopted or adapted from elsewhere, and is used by local inhabitants.
3 Indigenous technologies may have been adapted following exposure to scientific technologies, but the latter are seldomly adopted in their original form. Examples of studies on the non-adoption of scientific technologies include Frankel (1971), Gladwin (1979), and Jahnke et al. (1987).
4 Similar criticisms of economics have also been made with respect to 'Western' institutions.
5 As this research is still in progress, it is too early to present results. The author, however, is interested in exchanging views and experiences with other people focusing on indigenous economies.

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