Market Engagement and Indigenous People: Testing Hypotheses from the Western Intellectual Tradition

Autarkic indigenous societies are changing fast from increased engagement with markets. Western writers have ascribed a wide array of often contradictory effects to markets, including greater sociability, increased consumption of temptation goods, greater industriousness, and lower adherence to loca...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of anthropological research 2020-06, Vol.76 (2), p.185-208
Main Authors: Bauchet, Jonathan, Undurraga, Eduardo A., Zhang, Rebecca, Godoy, Ricardo A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age differences
Ascription
Bias
Causality
Indigenous peoples
Markets
Men
Prosocial behavior
Sociability
Temptation
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Summary:Autarkic indigenous societies are changing fast from increased engagement with markets. Western writers have ascribed a wide array of often contradictory effects to markets, including greater sociability, increased consumption of temptation goods, greater industriousness, and lower adherence to local beliefs. We test the four hypotheses using data from Tsimane’, a native Amazonian society in Bolivia. 500 participants aged ≥16y were tracked annually for nine consecutive years (2002–2010). We partially redress biases from two-way causality by estimating associations between measures of market engagement in earlier years of the study with outcomes in later years. We found support for negative and positive effects: engagement with markets was associated with a higher likelihood of consuming commercial alcohol, but also with more industriousness and a higher likelihood of exhibiting prosocial behavior. Some associations were only present for men, and some differed by age.
ISSN:0091-7710
2153-3806
DOI:10.1086/708397