Spheres of exchange is a heuristic tool for analyzing trading restrictions within societies that are communally governed and where resources are communally available.[1] Goods and services of specific types are relegated to distinct value categories, and moral sanctions are invoked to prevent exchange between spheres. It is a classic topic in economic anthropology.[1]
Paul Bohannan developed the concept in relation to the Tiv of Nigeria, who he argued had three spheres of exchange. He argued that only certain kinds of goods could be exchanged in each sphere; each sphere had its own different form of money.[2] The term is also used in reference to gift economies. Similarly, Clifford Geertz's model of "dual economy" in Indonesia[3] and James C. Scott's model of "moral economy"[4] hypothesized different exchange spheres emerging in societies newly integrated into the market; both hypothesized a continuing culturally ordered "traditional" exchange sphere resistant to the market. Geertz used the sphere to explain peasant complacency in the face of exploitation, and Scott to explain peasant rebellion. This idea was taken up lastly by Jonathan Parry and Maurice Bloch, who argued in "Money and the Morality of Exchange" (1989), that the "transactional order" through which long-term social reproduction of the family takes place has to be preserved as separate from short-term market relations.[5]
The introduction of money into communal societies where these sphere-of-exchange restrictions exist can disrupt resource allocation, by creating a pathway for exchange that is not accounted for in the existing restrictions.[6] However, in some societies money has been more or less successfully integrated into spheres of exchange.[7]
The concept of spheres of exchange was introduced by Paul Bohannan and Laura Bohannan in analyzing their field work with the Tiv in Nigeria.[8] The Bohannan's discuss three types of ranked exchange objects, each restricted to its own separate exchange sphere; ideally, objects do not flow between spheres. The subsistence sphere included food such as yams, grains, vegetables, and small livestock, as well as eating utensils, farming tools and tools for food-preparation. The second sphere of wealth included brass rods, cattle, white cloth, and slaves. A third and most prestigious sphere was marriageable female relatives.[9] "In calling these different areas of exchange spheres, we imply that each includes commodities that are not regarded as equivalent to those commodities in other spheres and hence in ordinary situations are not exchangeable. Each sphere is a different universe of objects. A different set of moral values and different behavior are to be found in each sphere."[9] As a result, it is considered immoral to use prestige objects to purchase goods from a lower sphere.
Similar examples of exchange spheres have been noted by Frederik Barth among the Fur of Sudan; by Raymond Firth among the Tikopia in the south Pacific; by Bronisław Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands off New Guinea amongst others.[10]
Why spheres of exchange?
A number of writers have emphasized that spheres of exchange are set up in order to protect subsistence goods from being monopolized by a few group members who have control of wealth objects.[11] Bloch and Parry alternately phrase this for market based societies; where universal money has been introduced, moral injunctions are introduced to prevent its use within the family. The family, which is responsible for long term social reproduction of individuals and the group, has to be preserved from the short-term morality of market exchange.[5]
Bohannan and Dalton argue that these societal restrictions exist in traditional egalitarian societies in order to inhibit the accumulation of wealth by a few individuals, to the detriment of the community. Trading restrictions that prevent the exchange of wealth objects in the hands of only a few for other kinds of goods ensures the availability of subsistence goods for all of the group's members.[12] Sillitoe adds that the highly valued "wealth" items (such as the brass rods in the Tiv example) are not locally produced, hence politically ambitious leaders cannot step up their production of these goods thereby maintaining an egalitarian social order.[6]
David Graeber provides a historical explanation for the development of Tiv exchange spheres which places less emphasis on the preservation of a communal subsistence sphere and more on the development of west African slavery by Dutch and Portuguese merchants. In the same vein, Jane Guyer argues that the refusal to convert items between spheres of exchange in the local area makes sense in terms of the regional economy of trade between ethnic groups. For example, the Tiv refused to convert brass rods for subsistence goods in the local area because they were saving up their supply for conversion upwards to rights in people with groups to the North. Viewed this way, the Tiv did not refuse to convert between spheres, but simply engaged in long term trade where the conversion would bring the most profit.[13]
The effect of money on spheres of exchange
The Bohannans note that, within some spheres, particular kinds of objects (such as brass rods) may serve one of the classical functions of money, a standard of value for the objects within that sphere of exchange. The introduction of (colonially produced) general-purpose money resulted, they argued, in a universal standard of value across all exchange spheres that broke down the barriers between them. Most subsequent debate has focused on the impact of money on distinct spheres of exchange.
While money did serve to break down Tiv exchange spheres, other cases have been cited where money has been socialized; that is, where money's characteristic as a universal unit of exchange has been subverted and prevented from allowing exchanges across spheres.