Traders and Marginality in a Complex Social System

Meneses, Eloise

doi:10.2307/3773589

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 6 publications

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“…This differentiation along both professional and ethnic lines makes them easy targets in cases of popular or political unrest and hence they find strength in their networks (Kiem 1993). In addition, trade networks go beyond cultural, national, and geographic boundaries and are usually long-lived (Cohen 1971;Dhar 1985;Isaac 1974;Lewicki 1964;Lisle-Williams 1984;Martin 1969); traders take risks and trade in areas that others will not (Meneses 1987;Northrup 1972); trading communities keep their distance from politics and react to rather than anticipate political or social change (Clark 1992;Meneses 1987); long-term sustainability is usually desired (Steensgard 1987), but in untenable situations short-term profits are not overlooked, including hoarding and price gouging (Allouche and Al Maqrîsî 1994).…”

Section: Archaeology Of Trade: Traders As Agentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Archaeology of Trading Systems, Part 1: Towards a New Trade Synthesis

2008

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After almost three centuries of investigations into the question of what it means to be human and the historical processes of becoming human, archaeologists have amassed a huge volume of data on prehistoric human interactions. One of the largest data sets available is on the global distribution and exchange of materials and commodities. What still remains insufficiently understood is the precise nature of these interactions and their role in shaping the diverse cultures that make up the human family as we know it. A plethora of theoretical models combined with a multitude of methodological approaches exist to explain one important aspect of human interaction-trade-and its role and place in shaping humanity. We argue that trade parallels political, religious, and social processes as one of the most significant factors to have affected our evolution. Here we review published literature on archaeological approaches to trade, including the primitivist-modernist and substantivist-formalist-Marxist debates. We also discuss economic, historical, and ethnographic research that directly addresses the role of traders and trade in both past and contemporary societies. In keeping with the complexities of interaction between trade and other aspects of human behavior, we suggest moving away from the either/or perspective or strong identification with any particular paradigm and suggest a return to the middle through a combinational approach to the study of trade in past societies.

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Section: Archaeology Of Trade: Traders As Agentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Archaeology of Trading Systems, Part 1: Towards a New Trade Synthesis

2008

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The “host” as uninvited “guest”

McNaughton

2006

Annals of Tourism Research

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Peter Hartwig, 1804-1808: Sociological Perspectives in Marginality and Alienation

Mouser

2004

Hist. Afr.

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All social groups make rules and attempt, at some times and under some circumstances, to enforce them. Social rules define situations and the kinds of behavior appropriate to them, specifying some actions as “right” and forbidding others as “wrong.” When a rule is enforced, the person who is supposed to have broken it may be seen as a special kind of person, one who cannot be trusted to live by the rules agreed on by the group. He is regarded as an outsider.But the person who is thus labeled an outsider may have a different view of the matter. He may not accept the rule by which he is being judged and may not regard those who judge him as either competent or legitimately entitled to do so. Hence, a second meaning of the term emerges: the rule-breaker may feel his judges are outsiders.Peter Hartwig was a German seminarian recruited by the Church Missionary Society in 1803 to serve as one of its first two missionaries in Africa. He was sent to Freetown, a settlement established for Africans and people of African descent who had returned to Africa from Britain and the Americas. Hartwig was to reside at Freetown temporarily and to be supervised while there by a locally-based Corresponding Committee composed of Sierra Leone Company officials. The Society directed that, after a year's residence in Sierra Leone, Hartwig and his fellow recruit Melchior Renner would establish a mission among Susu peoples north of Freetown, where they were to convert indigenous Africans to Christianity. Hartwig, however, failed to meet the Society's expectations, violated the norms of the Corresponding Committee that the Society had established at Freetown to guide mission progress, and left the Society's service within three years of reaching the coast. He seemingly had become unable to adjust to changing realities, a wrongdoer and a moral example to other missionaries of what to avoid becoming.3 How are we to interpret his failure from a sociological perspective?

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Traders and Marginality in a Complex Social System

Cited by 4 publications

References 6 publications

The Archaeology of Trading Systems, Part 1: Towards a New Trade Synthesis

The Archaeology of Trading Systems, Part 1: Towards a New Trade Synthesis

The “host” as uninvited “guest”

Peter Hartwig, 1804-1808: Sociological Perspectives in Marginality and Alienation

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