Exchanges and Human Societies

Exchanges are fundamental to human societies. The authors show that the study of exchanges not only serves as a key to understanding particular societies as totalities but also helps to frame a comparative mode of analysis expressed in terms of a hierarchy of values.

Starting with a comparative analysis of the different vocabularies used when dealing with exchange, the authors go on to provide a detailed account of how each society's exchanges form a genuine value-oriented system.

Their conclusions shed light on important issues in anthropology such as the difference between subject and object; the construction of the person in the matrix of social relations; and the contrast between socio-cosmic systems and other societies which recognize a universal term of reference beyond their community.