Houses in the Rainforest by Roy Richard Grinker;

Author:Roy Richard Grinker; [Grinker, Roy Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520915664
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2020-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IV

The House and the Economy

“The most that one can say about the economic aspect of the relationship is that it appears to be one of mutual convenience.”

Colin Turnbull, Wayward Servants, on the Mbuti-Bila partnerships

Part 1: : The House

In a creative study of the local Colombian economy, Stephen Gudeman (1990) suggests the house as an alternative to the model of the corporation. He argues that Colombian peasants use a model of the house to organize their social and economic lives, and he defines the house primarily in opposition to the model of the corporation, which he believes coexists in dialectical tension with the house. Gudeman holds that the house economy is an institution of such long standing that it preceded historically the development of the market and its corporate organization (1990:9). He also contends that the notion of a house economy has widespread applicability and relevance and thus asks whether, in rethinking the corporation as a model for local forms of organization, we might modify the use of that model in African studies as well.

The corporate model upon which lineage theory is based is a specifically Western model that has been imposed on others at the expense of their folk models. The house, in contrast, seems to represent the way that many people conceive of and model their own economies. In fact, one of the ancestors of descent theory, Evans-Pritchard (1940), reveals that the Nuer do not conceive of their social world in terms of a lineage model. For example, in 1933, Evans-Pritchard posed the question: “What exactly is meant by lineage and clan? One thing is fairly certain, namely, that the Nuer do not think in group abstractions called clans. In fact, as far as I am aware, he has no word meaning clan and you cannot ask a man an equivalent of ‘What is your clan’ ” (1933, part 1:28). In The Nuer, Evans-Pritchard offered a definition of lineage that has little to do with corporate or descent groups: “A lineage is thok mac, the hearth, or thok dwiel, the entrance to the hut” (1940:195). For Evans-Pritchard, then, lineage was the model for the hearth and home. But might the hearth and home, rather than the descent group and lineage, be the Nuer models for political opposition? Might the lineage be an imposition of a European corporate model? Or might there be, as I argue for the Lese, two or more coexisting models—say, a descent model for one set of social processes, a house model for another set? Gudeman notes,

One can only wonder how the history of descent theory might have appeared had theorists of the 1940’s, instead of exporting their own market experience, used a model of the home and the hearth, as Evans-Pritchard’s own foundational work suggested (1940:192, 195, 204, 222, 247; 1951:6, 7, 21, 127,141), or the local imagery of kin groupings. We might never have established such trust in the existence of the corporate descent group or even, for that matter, the lineage. (1990:184)

Gudeman’s emphasis

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