trade and sociability: balanced reciprocity as generosity in the New Guinea highlands

Analyses of material exchanges have concentrated on ceremonialized forms. Approaches to trade are poorly developed and are materialist and utilitarian. After presenting a distinction between prestations and trade based on actors' interpretations, this paper explores aspects of the sociable dimensions of Maring trade. While trade is indigenously defined as self‐interested and pragmatic, it actually has the capacity to express and construct social relationships through the appearance of generosity in otherwise balanced transactions. [economic anthropology, exchange, trade, generosity, New Guinea, Maring]