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Hunter-gatherers in a Changing World pp 127–147Cite as

Sharing in a Context of Rural Development. A Study Among a Contemporary Hunter-Gatherer Society in Indonesia

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Abstract

This chapter looks into the practice of sharing among a contemporary hunter-gatherer society, the Punan Tubu from North Kalimantan, Indonesia, to explore whether sharing changes with increasing participation in the market economy and national development programs. As the Punan Tubu are experiencing rapid social changes partially driven by government cash-transfer programs, our study offers a unique opportunity to examine how sharing varies along varying levels of involvement in such process. During 18 months of fieldwork in two villages, we recorded observations of giving (n = 543) and receiving (n = 544) amongst 118 adults. Our results suggest that sharing prevails among contemporary Punan Tubu. However, we found that there are variations in the products being shared. This variation seems to be related to the product’s visibility and cultural meaning, and also to the way it was produced. Although sharing behaviour is not directly related to individual levels of integration in the market economy, nor to participation in national development programs, changes in practices of sharing may occur as market food products are shared differently from non-market products, including meat, wild edibles, and/or cultivated food.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement n° FP7-261971-LEK to V. Reyes-García. We express our profound gratitude to all of informants, for their willingness to share their time and knowledge. We thank the WWF Indonesia-Malinau, Department of Economics, University of Indonesia, and CIFOR Bogor for assistance in the research. We also thank our research assistants S. Hadiwijaya and D. Suan for field assistance.

This work contributes to the “Maria de Maeztu Unit of Excellence” (MDM-2015-0552).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Lucentezza Napitupulu, Maximilien Guèze & Victoria Reyes-García

  2. Department of Economics, Universitas Indonesia (UI), Depok, Indonesia

    Lucentezza Napitupulu

  3. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain

    Victoria Reyes-García

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  1. Lucentezza Napitupulu
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  2. Maximilien Guèze
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  3. Victoria Reyes-García
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Correspondence to Lucentezza Napitupulu .

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  1. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain

    Victoria Reyes-García

  2. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Aili Pyhälä

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Napitupulu, L., Guèze, M., Reyes-García, V. (2017). Sharing in a Context of Rural Development. A Study Among a Contemporary Hunter-Gatherer Society in Indonesia. In: Reyes-García, V., Pyhälä, A. (eds) Hunter-gatherers in a Changing World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42271-8_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42271-8_8

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