Demand Sharing: Reciprocity and the Pressure for Generosity among Foragers

1993/12/01 by Nicolas Peterson · 599 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Anthropological Studies and Insights #Culinary Culture and Tourism #Economics #Generosity #Geographies of human-animal interactions #Law #Law and economics #Matching (statistics) #Negotiation #Norm of reciprocity #Political science #Positive economics #Psychology #Reciprocity (cultural anthropology) #Social capital #Social psychology #Social science #Sociobiology #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1525/aa.1993.95.4.02a00050

published in American Anthropologist 95(4), 860-874 (Wiley)

openalex publication_date 1993/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of an ethic of generosity among foragers, much sharing is by demand rather than by unsolicited giving. Although a behavioristic model of demand sharing can be seen as matching sociobiological expectations, the emphasis here is on the social and symbolic significance of the practice. It is argued that demand sharing involves testing, assertive, and/or substantiating behavior and is important in the constitution of social relations in egalitarian societies.

Cited by

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• Reciprocity on Demand : Sharing and Exchanging Food in Northwestern Namibia. [europepmc]
• Camp stability predicts patterns of hunter-gatherer cooperation. [europepmc]
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• Household water sharing: A review of water gifts, exchanges, and transfers across cultures. [europepmc]
• Where innovations flourish: an ethnographic and archaeological overview of hunter-gatherer learning contexts. [europepmc]
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Related

• The Norm of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement
• Sharing: Table 1
• Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence
• Extending Social Resource Exchange to Events of Abundance and Sufficiency
• Social Behavior as Exchange