Paper short abstract:

This paper offers a critical reconsideration of the relationship between value and frameworks of reciprocal exchange. I argue that we need to pull apart the material, social and moral dimensions of exchange if we are to achieve a universalist theory of value as meaningful action.

Paper long abstract:

It is conceptually difficult to talk about value in the absence of reciprocal exchange relations. While the former has been the subject of a great deal of debate and theorising the latter has received comparatively little critical attention. This paper draws upon ethnographic fieldwork from northeast Arnhem Land to critically consider the relationship between anthropological notions of value and associated frameworks of reciprocal exchange. I employ Sahlins' scheme of reciprocities (1974) and Graeber's slight recasting of this scheme (2001) as a template for classic and current thinking in this regard. As the Yolngu material shows, there are significant limitations to this scheme; there is a clear evaluative mismatch between the alignment of empirically observable material criteria with the moral and political dimensions of exchange. I argue that we need to pull apart the various dimensions of exchange - material, social and moral - if we are to do justice to the way different cultural groups conceive of value as meaningful action. Doing so does a few important things. It allows us to ask if the material dimension is the ultimate determinant of value in each ethnographic case (rather than assuming). It accommodates further potential diversity as regards the alignment of these dimensions of exchange, and, in doing so affords a great deal more ethnographic and theoretical nuance. Among other things it allows us, for example, to more carefully consider the affective dimension of value and exchange.