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tiv_spheres_of_exchange [2022/08/15 20:30] – Ryan Schram (admin)tiv_spheres_of_exchange [2022/08/15 20:42] (current) – [Tiv spheres of exchange] Ryan Schram (admin)
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 At the time Bohannan was doing his research, Tiv was part of a colonial market economy, and Tiv people often made use of the state's money in market exchanges. Money was at that time something was used widely but attracted great shame because it was believed to be a violation of the system of spheres. Bohannan notes that initially money was classed on the lowest end of the ranked scale of value, in a fourth sphere alongside foreign goods (Bohannan 1955, 66). Money could not be used to buy prestige goods. Like many of the Tiv people from whom Bohannan learned about spheres of exchange, Bohannan foresaw a time when the logic of money would overwhelm the system of spheres. The Tiv system was multicentric, but general-purpose currency would collapse all the spheres into a unicentric system in which everything had a price expressed in money, and all exchanges would be market exchange.  At the time Bohannan was doing his research, Tiv was part of a colonial market economy, and Tiv people often made use of the state's money in market exchanges. Money was at that time something was used widely but attracted great shame because it was believed to be a violation of the system of spheres. Bohannan notes that initially money was classed on the lowest end of the ranked scale of value, in a fourth sphere alongside foreign goods (Bohannan 1955, 66). Money could not be used to buy prestige goods. Like many of the Tiv people from whom Bohannan learned about spheres of exchange, Bohannan foresaw a time when the logic of money would overwhelm the system of spheres. The Tiv system was multicentric, but general-purpose currency would collapse all the spheres into a unicentric system in which everything had a price expressed in money, and all exchanges would be market exchange. 
  
-Bohannan's prediction has turned out to be both true and false. Some have argued that money did not automatically eliminate the distinctions among spheres and give everything a single value in money (Parry and Bloch 1989, 13–14). As with many encounters between capital and community, the arrival of state-backed, commodity money (i.e. cash money) has had unexpected results. While Tiv are much more integrated into a national market economy and the global economy, they still value many of their prestige goods. //Tugudu// cloth in particular has become a valued form of local craft. Bohannan's own model itself has been challenged. Janet Hoskins notes that people of Sumba in Indonesia have historically had a similar system of spheres of exchange, but that when they adopted money during Dutch colonial rule, it was only used in exchange for items in their lowest sphere (Hoskins 1997, 186–188). Many scholars, such as Jane Guyer (2004), have argued that the prestige goods which Bohannon said were restricted from the lowest, 'market' sphere, were actually themselves used as local currency in transactions with peoples outside of the community. Restricting them to their own sphere was a way for people to maintain control over them. Changes in the local system of exchange did not come, in that sense, from the power of money to establish a single quantitative measure of value, because prestige goods could already play that role in certain areas. The real change came when the colonial state excluded local and regional forms of money from the new economy. +Bohannan's prediction has turned out to be both true and false. Some have argued that money did not automatically eliminate the distinctions among spheres and give everything a single value in money (Parry and Bloch 1989, 13–14). As with many encounters between capital and community, the arrival of state-backed, commodity money (i.e. cash money) has had unexpected results. While Tiv are much more integrated into a national market economy and the global economy, they still value many of their prestige goods. //Tugudu// cloth in particular has become a valued form of local craft.  
 + 
 +Bohannan's own model itself has been challenged. Janet Hoskins notes that people of Sumba in Indonesia have historically had a similar system of spheres of exchange, but that when they adopted money during Dutch colonial rule, it was only used in exchange for items in their lowest sphere (Hoskins 1997, 186–188). Many scholars, such as Jane Guyer (2004), have argued that the prestige goods which Bohannon said were restricted from the lowest, 'market' sphere, were actually themselves used as local currency in transactions with peoples outside of the community. Restricting them to their own sphere was a way for people to maintain control over them. Changes in the local system of exchange did not come, in that sense, from the power of money to establish a single quantitative measure of value, because prestige goods could already play that role in certain areas. The real change came when the colonial state excluded local and regional forms of money from the new economy. 
  
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tiv_spheres_of_exchange.1660620612.txt.gz · Last modified: 2022/08/15 20:30 by Ryan Schram (admin)