From: maven@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Jim Baltaxe)
Subject: Re: communities
Organization: Victoria University of Wellington
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 21:46:57 GMT

In article <BvB129.Dy0@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>In article <717479955snx@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au> gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au writes:
>>(nelson_p@apollo <---> claird@Neosoft exchange deleted for space)
>
>>It is also highly problematic to insist on references, when the academic
>>record is at best limited and a reasonable ethnographic approach would
>>be to go and visit communities yourself. With your access to diaries
>>and journals an extremely valuable comparative study could be made.
>
>  Except that I'm a software engineer, not a trained anthropologist.

That shouldn't be much of a hindrence (speaking from the perspective
of a trained anthrop. meself ;-) - any field research will have to
involve a great deal of library work anyway, so you have a fair chance
of covering enough of the literature / theory to make you field
contribution worthwhile. Getting time off from you _job_ might be a
different story however.


>
>  Why is it so unreasonable to expect references, anway?   Isn't
>  the dynamics of communities, what makes them work, what holds
>  them together, etc, a pretty major subject in cultural anthro-
>  pology?

Of course. And the references are there - in bulk - but often
discussions of such things as mutual obligation and "social credits"
are phrased in terms of their local organising principles, i.e.
kinship. The enormous literature on reciprocity and gifts is an
example. I am a little bit shy about saying much more since I have
been "out of practice" for over ten years, although I still yearn for
my previous incarnation occasionally.

[personal flame deleted]

>
>>Your notion of a "Goodwill Bank", is germane and relevant since it is
>>present in almost all non-industrial societies. I am hard-pressed to
>>think of anywhere it is not central to the practicalities of people
>>meeting their obligations to one another, although my own terminology
>>refers to "Social Credits" since the "depository" is rarely central.

Yup.

>
>   Right, this is the kind of dynamic I'm curious about.  Has there been
>   much research into what features of a society or culture make these
>   work or how widespread these are among different cultures?  And of course,
>   ultimately I'm curious whether industrial or postindustrial cultures
>   have, for lack of a better word, the social or cultural "infastructure"
>   to support these things.   
>
>
>---peter
>
>


Virtually all of classical social anthro. is just this, but the idiom
used in the description may be specific to the society however. I
think you may be asking for information about societies which are
fairly similar to the small-town U.S. society for which you have
diaries (if I remember your earlier postings properly). Try the
extensive literature on Russian peasant villages, particularly the
SHTETL, traditional Russian Jewish communities. Sorry I can't give you
exact references at the moment, although I think one authors name was
Jablonsky. (blush, :-() Also, look at the sociology literature as
well. The discipline boundaries are real thin at this point.

Good luck - you have some exciting material here if you wish to follow
it through.

-- 
Jim Baltaxe - jim.baltaxe@vuw.ac.nz
Computing Services Centre - Victoria University of Wellington - New Zealand
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Time is such a valuable commodity because they're not making it any more.
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology