Economic Thinking, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Ethnoeconomics

04 Cavalcanti (JG/d) 1/3/02 8:37 am Page 39
Clóvis Cavalcanti
Economic Thinking, Traditional

Ecological Knowledge and
Ethnoeconomics
Introduction
T he subject matter of this article could easily be considered part of what

economic anthropology does. In fact, as my friend the distinguished
Brazilian anthropologist Roberto DaMatta remarked in a personal com-
munication to me, everything cultural or social anthropology has ever done
since its beginnings as an academic discipline could be classified as ‘ethno-
economics’. Whoever has studied societies on the periphery of capitalism
(modern, civilized, or savage) and made an effort to understand regimes of
exchange founded on altruism, has referred to local ways of ‘economizing’
or doing economics. Certainly, the enormous contribution of anthropo-
logical work on ‘primitive’ societies has helped to illuminate the path towards
understanding alternative ways of organizing the economic life of different
peoples. At the present time, however, a new challenge has taken shape in the
form of the concept of sustainable development. No longer can the economic
problem which any group of individuals has to solve be considered simply in
terms of efficient allocation. It is now of the greatest relevance to contem-
plate the concomitant requirement of sustainability, which means finding
solutions both efficient and compatible with the limits imposed by nature
(which must be acknowledged). In other words, there are often natural limits
to the size of the economic system that can be achieved. Nature, the eco-
system and biophysical and thermodynamic rules determine what can be
attained in a given situation (see Daly, 1996). This is a problem that deter-
mines the scale of the economy that can be sustained, and only thereafter can
efficient allocation – the basic focus of traditional economic theory – be
achieved.
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40 Current Sociology Vol. 50 No. 1
In economic anthropology what moves analysis is an attempt to com-

prehend the means, in terms of universal aspects1 of human experience, by
which the ends of the economic process, however defined, are achieved. It is
also found, along the lines of Polanyi’s (1944) thesis, that ‘the lesson of econ-
omic anthropology is the inextricable fusion of economic with social organis-
ation and culture in primitive societies’ (Dalton, 1971: 16). The idea, well
expressed by both Gras (1927) and Herskovits (1965), is to provide a sense
of the variations that mark the manner in which people everywhere apply
scarce means to given ends. Economic behaviour in this perspective is under-
stood as an effort to use resources with a view to satisfying certain needs
within the constraints set up by the limited availability of those resources.
This is precisely what the economist considers as the scope of his or her
analysis. Economic anthropology borrows this interpretation, applying it to
the circumstances found in what, among many other descriptors, are alterna-
tively called primitive, inferior, tribal, band, peasant, aboriginal, small, exotic,
non-material, non-literate, non-machine, non-pecuniary, traditional, or
indigenous societies. Since this perception is much more related to the micro-
economic world of want satisfaction and the production of goods and
services, a new problem arises when the quest for sustainability in ecological
terms becomes equally prominent. Traditional economic thinking does not
offer a sound basis for reaching ecologically sustainable solutions in the long
run. It is at this point that another view of the economic process is required
so that the concept of sustainable development can be dealt with consistently.
Ecological economics (see Costanza et al., 1991) intends precisely to offer the
necessary scientific background for the management of sustainability. In this
context, I contend, a great many sound references can be found in the domain
of what I call – using a word coined by my friend Darrell Posey – ‘ethno-
economics’.2 This is the territory not only of the economic perspectives of
traditional and indigenous peoples, but also of the latter’s perceptions of a
higher order of reality in which the economy is integrated with nature, social
organization, culture and the supernatural world, as just another element of
this larger whole.
I am in favour of the idea that we should depart from traditional econ-
omics to arrive at ethnoeconomics – a long march, indeed. This is what I
intend to do here, in a very sketchy and preliminary way, by discussing the
former in the second section of this article and the latter in the fourth section.
To bridge the gap between these two conceptions of economics we seem to
need the help of traditional ecological knowledge, which is the subject of the
article’s third section. This may be so because, as Dalton (1971: 21–3) has
stressed, anthropologists seem to have an inability to perceive tribal
economies in ways different from those instilled by, say, Marshallian market
theory and Marxian analysis. At the same time, economists seem to have diffi-
culty understanding economies markedly different from our own. A fifth and

Cavalcanti: Economic Thinking and Ecological Knowledge 41
concluding section should have been added to the article. However, this
is omitted, because work on ethnoeconomics is just beginning. And if a
conclusion is to be drawn at this juncture, it concerns the fact that a lot has
to be learnt about the way people have managed to live within truly sustain-
able social groups, like for instance the Kayapó of Posey’s studies. This is a
task for ethnoeconomics, as I try to show in what follows.
Economic Thinking and Exotic Societies
When, as an economist – although of a somewhat unorthodox profile – I am

asked what is the main task of economics, I feel inclined to follow the main-
stream and stress its role in describing behaviour conditioned by scarcity. Life
continuously involves choices that represent the balancing of different valu-
ations. This is because in some sense all resources, including time, are scarce.
Therefore, the attainment of ends is limited. If one end is preferred, this
involves the sacrifice of others. It is for exactly this reason that one of the
better known definitions of economics stresses the fact that it ‘is the science
which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce
means which have alternative uses’ (Robbins, 1984: 16). In the words
of Alfred Marshall (1961: xv), economics or economic theory is mainly
concerned with human beings who are impelled to change and progress. His
definition of economics, which he equates with political economy, corre-
sponds to the examination of ‘that part of individual and social action which
is most closely connected with the attainment and with the use of the material
requisites of wellbeing’ (Marshall, 1961: 1). This is an interpretation of
economics as a discipline dealing with choices or the analysis of consumer
behaviour under conditions of unlimited want and limited resources. Implied
in this view is the idea that to behave economically means to make one’s
activities and one’s organization ‘efficient’ rather than wasteful (Knight, 1965:
510). In other words, it means choosing the least costly course of action, or
the one whose benefits are maximized.
In this connection, Marshall (1961: 1) points to the function of economics
as studying humankind ‘in the ordinary business of life’, in which the scarcity
of means to satisfy ends of varying importance is an almost ubiquitous
constraint. It is the economist’s role to explain the disposal of scarce means,
‘the way different degrees of scarcity of different goods give rise to different
ratios of valuation between them; and the way in which changes in conditions
of scarcity affect these ratios’ (Robbins, 1984: 16). When one activity requires
relinquishing other desired activities, its economic aspect is made apparent in
the problem of the choice which must then be confronted. This is what
defines costs in terms of opportunities lost: the way the economist measures
the value of things. Some sort of guidance is therefore needed for decisions,

be it prices, the valuations of an organizer or planner, or the command of a

patriarch or chief. As Malinowski (1921: 12) pointed out in the case of a tribal
economy, ‘the chief’s economic function is to create objects of wealth, and
accommodate provisions for tribal use, thus making big tribal enterprises
possible’.3 For Robbins (1984: 47), ‘wealth is wealth because it is scarce’, not
because of its substantial qualities. The significance of economics therefore
boils down to the fact that, when confronted with a choice between given
ends, it enables us to choose with full awareness of the implications of our
choice.
This is a different perception from that of classical thinking on political
economy. The latter’s focus is on the problem of social and economic repro-
duction which all societies confront and solve in different ways. Thus the
central focus of the early political economists was the social relations of
reproduction of particular social systems. In order to reproduce themselves
all societies must produce, consume, distribute and exchange (Gregory, 1982:
100). This problem is dealt with in conventional economics from the narrow
standpoint of economic rationality, which is understood to involve ‘deliber-
ate problem-solving, [and the] designed, or planned use of means to realise
given ends’ (Knight, 1965: 513). This represents a paradigm shift from
political economy, as it signifies a move away from the study of the social
relations of reproduction in favour of the study of individual choice. In
general, economists defend the idea that ‘the most general principles [of
economics] are not different in different culture situations – exactly as the
principles of mathematics are not different’ (Knight, 1965: 510). The same
point is put by Robbins (1984: xiii) in terms of the fact that ‘even where there
is no market, the economic aspect of decisions and activities concerning
scarce means and time can be regarded as the exchange of one state of affairs
for another’. This is tantamount to saying that in societies in which the
independent initiative of the individual is allowed, economics has a meaning.
However, it is also, and rightly, contended that much classical economic
theory was developed to explain the particular case of the European capitalist
economy. This immediately raises questions about the usefulness of this
theory for understanding non-European economies (Gregory, 1982: 6). In
turn, actual economic systems are transitory historical realities. According to
Marshall (1961: 29), the business of economics is to collect facts, to arrange
and interpret them, and to draw inferences from them. By doing this, and by
seeking to draw valid generalizations from a broad base of factual material,
the anthropologist, especially the practitioner of economic anthropology, is
honouring the first commandment of science in general. This is interpreted,
in Herskovits’s (1965: 524) words, as signifying that ‘only through con-
stant and continuing cross-reference between hypothesis and fact can any
understanding of problems and valid interpretations of data be had’. Or, in
other words, findings must be based on facts. Economists like to make

generalizations on the basis of completely rational conduct (or choices with

complete awareness of the alternatives rejected), arriving deductively at
relationships between ends conceived as the possible objectives of conduct,
on the one hand, and the technical and social environment, on the other. It is
proper to the method of economics to apply the idea that economics is a
science of principles, and therefore not primarily a descriptive science in the
empirical sense at all, but one based on intuitive knowledge (Knight, 1965:
510).
Following Malinowski (1921: 1), it is relevant to ask if, and how far, the
conclusions of the student of economics, in possession of a systematic theory,
can be applied to a type of society entirely different from our own. More-
over, it is also relevant to ask in what measure the conclusions of the student
of exotic societies can be useful in interpreting the problems of a modern
society vis-a-vis, for example, the challenge of sustainable development.
Herskovits (1965: 11) remarks that difficulties arise when we attempt to apply
the more refined concepts of economics to non-literate, non-machine
societies, due to the nature of the mechanisms and institutions that charac-
terize their economies. Attempting to grasp the systems of meaning and
action found in indigenous economies very different from our own is, in fact,
a huge task (Tonkinson, 1991: 16–17). For instance, according to Gregory
(1982: 210), the categories of economics proposed by Stanley Jevons and
employed by economists in general ‘fail to describe even the basic features of
a gift or commodity economy, let alone explain their interaction’. The quest
for profits is not the fundamental drive in Herskovits’s (1965: 204–5)
‘non-literate societies’, although one finds the institution of credit widely
disseminated among them. The absence of the motive of gain is also alluded
to by Polanyi (1944: 47) as an element of agreement among ethnographers,
as well as ‘the absence of any separate and distinct institution based on econ-
omic motives’. Exchange is conducted in primitive societies, as a rule, without
the intent of making a gain or a profit.
Economists are unable to establish the elementary distinction between
gifts and commodities, ‘let alone a framework for classifying the many
different types of gift and commodity economies’ (Gregory, 1982: 210). This
is a point which has to do with the fact that commodity exchange establishes
a relationship between the objects exchanged, whereas gift exchange estab-
lishes a relationship between the subjects. Whereas commodity exchange is a
price-forming process, a system of purchase and sale, gift exchange is not.
The latter, in the words of Gregory (1982: 101) ‘is an exchange of inalienable
objects between people who are in a state of reciprocal dependence that estab-
lishes a qualitative relationship between the transactors’. This system of
exchange differs from our own, although the market itself existed even before
the institution of traders, ‘and before their main invention – money proper’
(Mauss, 1990: 4). Exotic societies do not seem to be devoid of economic

markets, but in them the term ‘gift’, when applied in the context of economic
behaviour, goes much beyond the perception of the economist, who does not
understand the essence of giving. As Mary Douglas insists in the foreword,
‘No Free Gifts’, for Mauss’s The Gift, in the modern economy the gift system
gives way to the industrial system (Mauss, 1990: xiii). Where it existed or still
exists, the gift complements the market, insofar as it operates where the latter
is absent, by providing ‘each individual with personal incentives for collabo-
rating in the pattern of exchanges’ (Mauss, 1990: xiv). Regarding this,
Gregory (1982: 100) underlines the fact that in places where things, land
and labour are considered as gifts, this reflects a special form of unity of the
producer and the means of production.
A distinct type of economy thus arises – an ethnoeconomy? – ‘where
production, exchange and consumption are socially organised and regulated
by custom, and where a special system of traditional economic values governs
their activities and spurs them on to efforts’ (Malinowski, 1999: 15). While
conventional western economics deals with the theory of goods, with its
focus on the subjective relationship between consumers and objects of desire,4
other kinds of economics (those of exotic societies), refer to the ‘personal
relations between people that the exchange of things [gifts] in certain social
contexts creates’ (Gregory, 1982: 8). In this connection, it deserves to be
mentioned that so-called primitive men and women do not barter because of
the profits or gains they envisage, but ‘because [they have] a surplus of some
goods and a need for other goods’ (Einzig, 1966: 416). In the case of the
Mardu, of Australia, it is observed that whatever trade that occurs among
them takes place as either ritual activities during big meetings, gift exchange
between friendly kin when small bands meet, or ‘as part of obligations owed
to certain close kin and affines’ (Tonkinson, 1991: 53). In this case the value
of the items is of less importance than the act of reciprocity, ‘which affirms
and reinforces a continuing bond’ (Einzig, 1966: 416). Therefore, giving
freely is acclaimed as a virtue, with the result that ‘the supposed propensity
[of the savage] to barter, truck, and exchange does not appear’ (Polanyi,
1944: 49), and the economic system is, in effect, a mere function of social
organization.
A market is a place where people meet for the purpose of barter or to
buy and sell. As such, markets have always existed, even amid the Aborig-
ines of Australia, as the case of the Mardu indicates. The market economy as
an institutional structure, with the implication that it operates as a self-
regulating system, is something else entirely. According to Polanyi, history
and ethnography inform us that it ‘has been present at no time except our
own’ (Polanyi, 1944: 37), pointing out also that ‘they know of no economy
prior to our own, even approximately controlled and regulated by markets’
(Polanyi, 1944: 44).5 Within this framework, well elaborated by Polanyi, the
division of labour ‘springs from differences inherent in the facts of sex,

geography, and institutional endowment; and the alleged propensity of man

to barter, truck, and exchange is almost entirely apocryphal’. It is not the
propensity to barter that prevails, but reciprocity in social behaviour. This
finding led Mauss (1990: 76) to the conclusion that ‘economic man’ is a
creation of western society. Primitive man, or woman, being anything but
that ‘economic man’ of economics and the market economy, is influenced in
their barter-type transactions by elements deemed entirely unreasonable by
modern societies (Einzig, 1966: 416). In the case of the Trobrianders studied
by Malinowski (1999), all the proceedings of trade are regulated by etiquette
and magic, and are dominated by reciprocity in social behaviour and not by
a supposed propensity to barter. The outcome of a model of society as an
adjunct to the market is, as Polanyi (1944: 57) so well demonstrated, that
instead of the economy being embedded in social relations, ‘social relations
are embedded in the economic system’.
The study of ethnography permits us to observe that in the primitive type
of law and economy, a subject worked on by Mauss (1990: 7), the most
important feature is the obligation of reciprocity in relation to the gift one
receives. There is no need here for a self-regulating market. It is sufficient to
have customary and legal norms and magical and mythological ideas intro-
ducing system into the economic effort, and organizing it on a social basis (the
economy embedded in social relations of Polanyi). The phenomenon of value
thus becomes part of, and can only be understood as a component of, the
wider phenomenon of culture (Herskovits, 1965: 237). The mechanisms and
institutions of the exotic society may not differ markedly from our own; the
distinctions between modern and indigenous societies may not be of kind but
rather of degree.6 However, the peculiar perceptions of tribal, exotic, or primi-
tive societies lead to a different landscape of ideas about their reproduction
from that of western-type groups. A problem such as that of autarchy, which
has haunted the market economy from the start (Polanyi, 1944: 189), will
certainly not afflict primitive man or woman. It is in this context that one can
identify in traditional ecological knowledge, for example, an orientation
towards a type of ethnoeconomics that can shed light on the problem of
sustainable development. According to Herskovits (1965: 488), the processes
and institutions of the non-literate world may be less sharply differentiated
than their counterparts in modern societies. Its science can be also more
diffuse and permeated with religion and magic, but its usefulness has been
proved – and who can guarantee that modern society is vaccinated against
magic?7 Furthermore, the ‘ancient systems of morality of the most epicurean
kind’, of Mauss’s (1990: 76) musings, where the good and the pleasurable are
sought after, rather than material utility, may offer us some very relevant direc-
tions. Therefore, it seems appropriate to follow the suggestion of Polly Hill
(1966), quoting W. W. Readway, that a new set of instinctive assumptions may
help us understand better the challenges of development.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Sustainability

Let me try to explain why I think that traditional ecological knowledge –
which I consider in the way Darrell Posey (2000: 209) accepts it, namely,
following the definition of Gadgil et al. (1993)8 – is an important bridge
linking economics to a type of ethnoeconomics. Or to ethnoecological econ-
omics, with its emphasis on the understanding and promotion of sustain-
ability, our main concern now. Tonkinson (1991: 3), speaking of the
Australian Mardu, speaks about the development among the Aborigines of a
complex social and ceremonial life as the basis for bringing about the repro-
duction of valued resources. This is a people, however, which has custom-
arily been characterized in negative terms, being disparaged because of its
lack of metal tools, agriculture, domesticated animals, the wheel, a written
language, villages, chiefs, a market economy and other features (Tonkinson,
1991: 36). Nevertheless, the Mardu have shown their enterprise and resource-
fulness in terms of a successful exploitation of a largely arid territory, even
without having those features whose absence is highlighted precisely to point
to, and lament, their primitive lifestyle. This is carefully demonstrated by
Tonkinson (1991: 19), who calls attention to the fact that the full significance
of their achievements can be grasped in terms of the ‘nature and functioning
of . . . complex non-material forms, especially kinship and social organis-
ation’, and religion. In sum, those primitive hunter-gatherers exhibit a
purposeful engagement in what they do, preserving, manipulating and
managing their natural resources in a sound way (Tonkinson, 1991: 51). This
is not different from the results of recent research which demonstrate that
hunter-gatherers are not passive collectors. On the contrary, such tribal
peoples ‘actively manage their resources, whether through strategic eco-
logical or economic courses of action via social controls and political ma-
neuver, or by virtue of the power of symbol and ritual’ (Hunn and Williams,
1982: 1).
Recent research in Brazil has also demonstrated the richness and
relevance of traditional ecological knowledge and the importance of its appli-
cation to the development of socially equitable and ecologically sound
options for the planet (Cavalcanti, 1992). Knowledge among the natives of
the Amazon of several aspects of the ecosystem such as medicinal plants,
animal behaviour, climatic seasonality and forest and savannah management,
attests to a diversity of knowledge ‘that can contribute to new strategies for
ecologically and socially sound development’ (Posey, 1990: 1). This does not
happen by accident. It is the outcome of a long learning process that involves
an accumulation of information through methods which are not necessarily
informal and random. Quite the contrary, for understanding of nature to
make sense and offer results, it is necessary that the natives classify, order and
systematize the data that daily experience gives them. Reichel-Dolmatoff

(1990: 12), the late Colombian anthropologist, stresses this point by showing
that the Amerindians are quite aware of the principle of the conscious and
planned conservation of natural resources. According to him, for instance,
shamans carefully measure out the adequate amount of fish poison (a kind of
sleeping drug) to be put in a creek to facilitate fishing. They will control the
felling of trees, the burning of clearings, house construction, canoe making,
beer brewing, the process of daily food preparation and a multitude of other
activities.
It is true, however, as Tonkinson (1991: 36) does not fail to emphasize in
the case of the Mardu, that the natives’ impact on the environment, by being
slight, conveys the impression of a conservation ethos to the observer.
Nevertheless, ‘this may be an illusion – merely a product of ecological and
demographic conditions’ (Tonkinson, 1991: 36). It is Posey’s (2000: 188)
contention, in contrast, that the concept of sustainability is embodied in
indigenous and traditional livelihood systems. He refers to existing historical
evidence, which demonstrates the sustained productivity of indigenous
systems, in some cases for thousands of years, on the same land (Posey, 2000:
188). Herskovits (1965: 68) also mentions the ability to manipulate resources
effectively as one of the most fundamental aspects of the economic systems
of exotic societies. Certainly, the natives of the Amazon have lived there for
thousands of years – while the same is true of Australia’s Aborigines. In
comparison, modern industrial society has existed for just a little over 200
years. It is obvious that the indigenous populations in Brazil, Australia and
elsewhere in the world have lived on an unequivocally sustainable basis, and
a great deal of the explanation for the existence of such sustainable societies
seems to rest on their traditional ecological knowledge. In addition to this
(see Malinowski, 1921: 6), the organization and regulation of economic life
through the social and psychological forces of the authority of the chief, the
belief in magic, the prestige of the shaman, and so on, must also be taken into
account. Ecological knowledge, as a matter of fact, does not exist as a separ-
ate entity. It is not restricted to a simple compilation of data (Posey, 2000:
188). It exists as an element of the totality of the individual’s bonds to the
land and all living things, and as a part of the logically unified order of
humankind, other beings and nature, which also has a spiritual and super-
natural dimension. This, in truth, is a feature very common in the perceptions
of exotic peoples.
Tonkinson (1991: 36) observes that the Mardu ‘postulate a harmony
among [nature, humanity and the spiritual beings of their Dreaming, the
components of their cosmic order], yet, anthropocentrically, they consider
certain human actions to be essential to its maintenance and renewal’. This
means that the Aborigines have a preoccupation with reproduction, with
sustainability. They implement it by responding to the severe constraints
imposed upon them by their difficult environment, by progressively

modifying their technology and subsistence activities. This also happens in

the Amazon, where, as Posey (2000: 189) remembers, a failure to understand
the human-modified nature of ‘wild’ landscapes, including those which are
sparsely populated at the present time, has blinded outsiders to the manage-
ment practices of indigenous peoples and local communities. He insists
(Posey, 2000: 189) on the fact that ‘Many so-called “pristine” landscapes are
in fact cultural landscapes, either created by humans or modified by human
activity (such as natural forest management, cultivation and the use of fire).
Indigenous peoples and a growing number of scientists believe that it is no
longer acceptable simply to assume that just because landscapes and species
appear to outsiders to be “natural”, they are therefore “wild”.’ This surely
lends support to Malinowski’s (1921: 1) assertion that only a very slight
acquaintance with the ethnological literature is needed to convince people
like economists that ‘little attention has been paid so far to the problems of
economics among primitive races’. More attention is no doubt required,
principally because in some cases, without having a notion of development,
growth, or progress, these societies9 amass such very large surpluses that they
can be considered a kind of ‘very rich economy’ (Mauss, 1990: 72).
The Mardu desert people, according to Tonkinson (1991: 37) have an
extensive vocabulary for cloud and rain types and other weather phenom-
ena.10 They are also experts in assessing the likelihood and possible conse-
quences of rainfall in their territory. This is another instance of an elaborate
form of knowledge, also encountered among the Kayapó, of Posey’s studies,
who classify (to illustrate) over 50 different types of diarrhoea/dysentery,
each one with its respective herbal treatment (Posey, 1987: 24). The Shuar
people of Ecuador’s Amazonian lowlands, in turn, use 800 species of plants
for medicine, food, animal fodder, fuel, construction, fishing and hunting
supplies (Posey, 2000: 188–9). Other examples are the traditional healers of
Southeast Asia who rely on as many as 6500 medicinal plants, while shifting
cultivators throughout the tropics frequently sow more than 100 crops in
their forest farms (Posey, 2000: 189). Ecological knowledge of this sort
involves an understanding of the whole environment and its economic
resources and possibilities. Among the Mardu (Tonkinson, 1991: 36–7),
children begin accumulating the relevant fund of information and skills at a
very early age, and develop ‘a great ability to correctly “read” the multitude
of signals emanating from their surroundings’. Adult males supplement this
intimate knowledge of the physical and biological world with what they
regard as an equally pragmatic and necessary ritual ‘technology’. The final
outcome of this process is admirable, in the sense that ‘their hunting and
harvesting seldom entail any real sense of urgency or battle against time
and the elements’ (Tonkinson, 1991: 40). It is interesting to note that food-
collecting activities for them rarely occupy more than half the day – much
less if there is an abundance of easily harvested fruit, tubers or grass seeds

nearby, or if the men are successful in spearing large game close to the camp
(Tonkinson, 1991: 42). The suggestion that that may be a kind of wealth is
contained once again in Tonkinson’s (1991: 42–3) account that ‘Whatever the
reason, there is normally ample leisure time for sleeping, playing with small
children, chatting idly, or for the discussion, planning, or enacting of ritual
activity, which for the men, especially, is a consuming passion.’ Besides that,
it is worth stressing that several medical studies have concluded that the
Mardu seem adequately nourished, their diet being well balanced, with no
detectable vitamin or protein deficiency (Tonkinson, 1991: 54). The corre-
sponding situation in modern societies is a dismal one, with the current
persistence of large numbers of people in appalling poverty. This corresponds
to a reality described by Marshall (1961: 2) at the end of the 19th century as
one that tends ‘to deaden the higher faculties’.11
According to Posey (2000: 189–90), there are numerous categories of
traditional knowledge among indigenous peoples ‘which clearly have great
potential for application in a wide range of sustainability strategies’. Tribal
peoples conserve biological diversity, and in some cases provide other
environmental benefits through, for example, soil and water conservation,
soil fertility enhancement, the management of game and fisheries and forest
management. By planting ‘forest gardens’ and managing the regeneration of
bush fallows in ways which take advantage of natural processes and mimic
the biodiversity of natural forests, the natives of the Amazon offer a valuable
route for using resources within the land’s carrying capacity. The same can
be said of much of the world’s crop diversity, which is in the custody of
farmers who follow age-old farming and land use practices that conserve
biodiversity and provide other local benefits (Posey, 2000: 189). Benefits such
as the promotion of indigenous diet diversity, income generation, production
stability, minimization of risk, reduced insect and disease incidence, efficient
use of labour, intensification of production with limited resources and maxi-
mization of returns with low levels of technology are equally associated with
traditional ecological knowledge (Posey, 2000: 188–9).
Referring to the study of primitive money, Einzig (1966: xiv) comments
that the only way in which someone could acquire reliable knowledge about
the economic behaviour of indigenous people would be to sift all the evidence
flowing in from the various possible sources. The task would be completed
by trying to ascertain from the multiple, sometimes conflicting, sources of
information the common denominator that may exist between them. This is
more or less what the effort to build a science of ethnoeconomics is now
confronting. An effort of this breadth is justified, paraphrasing Einzig
(1966: 3), on the grounds that it would add to human knowledge on a relevant
subject. It would also provide material which could be used by other
branches of learning, and contribute to a new approach to the issue of
sustainability. The justification for such assertions can be interpreted from

Tonkinson’s (1991: 20) evaluation of the Mardu Aborigines, whose society

has wisely maintained ‘a long-term ecological and social status quo’. In their
case, having mastered the necessary subsistence skills, they impose their will
intellectually rather than physically on a rash environment and an irregular
rhythm of life (Tonkinson, 1991: 55). The abandonment of interest in the
cultures of such ‘uncivilized’ humans cannot be accepted if we are to under-
stand the problems of modern society (see Polanyi, 1944: 45).
Towards an Understanding of Ethnoeconomics
The first time I heard the word ‘ethnoeconomics’ was 26 April 1994 in Recife,
Brazil, at the close of a conference I had convened on sustainable development
policies. It was Darrell Posey who pronounced it. On that occasion, he pro-
posed that we should organize a working group on the subject. He then kindly
suggested, to my satisfaction, that what I was doing was in fact ethno-
economics (I was doing it unknowingly, somehow like Molière’s bourgeois
gentilhomme . . .). In fact, I was trying at that time, and since more or less 1990,
to understand sustainable development both within the scope of ecological
economics and from the perspective of the Amerindians’ lifestyle. I wrote a
paper in 1991 on the notion of ethno/eco-development (Cavalcanti, 1992),
which was presented at a conference on human ecology in June of that year
in Gothenburg, Sweden. Later, I elaborated another text trying to compare the
lifestyles of the US and Amazon Indians (Cavalcanti, 1997). My perception,
after reading a great deal of what anthropologists have written on primitive
societies, was that if sustainability is to be grasped in terms of a social group’s
duration, a great deal can be learnt from indigenous peoples – as these are the
groups which today demonstrate the greatest societal longevity. Industrial
society is too young to be considered sustainable, and there are signs every-
where of its social and ecological unsustainability (see Goulet, 1997).
Although Roberto DaMatta, as mentioned earlier, considers that everything
that cultural or social anthropology has always done, since its beginnings as
an academic discipline, could be classified as ethnoeconomics, the fact is that
I have never seen this expression used in the literature (although I must confess
that I am not as familiar with this as I am with the literature on economics). I
did, however, find the word ‘ethno-economist’ in the article of an economist
(Hill, 1966: 16), who speaks of the ‘conventional economist’ looking at ‘the
obsessional interest of the “ethno-economist” ’. In the article she talks about
‘indigenous economics’ and ‘the need in underdeveloped regions . . . to pursue
a subject which, for want of a better term, [she calls] “indigenous economics”
’ (Hill, 1966: 10). This kind of economics would be concerned with the basic
fabric of existing economic life. Hill (1966: 11) insists ‘on the narrow scope of
economics’, affirming: ‘I am not exaggerating. We are far more ignorant than

we are knowledgeable.’ In her view, it is only by assuming that indigenous

economics and conventional western economics are identical that the former
becomes worthy of study (Hill, 1966: 13). But she believes that this is not the
right path to follow. Instead, for her, the question is whether indigenous econ-
omics is too simple for the economist (or rather, I would ask, is it too
complex?). Its concern with the basic fabric of economic life implies the need
to study the quality of economic life, or in other words, to identify rather than
quantify the important variables.
This brings us back to what should be considered as the basic pre-
occupations of ethnoeconomics. Certainly, it will not be interested in measur-
ing, with a spurious precision, the content of the basic fabric of economic life.
This has to do with values (but not with money values), and almost certainly
with ‘natural values’, which are independent of use and exchange (Branco,
1989: 93).12 Marshall (1961: xiv) asserts that what he calls the ‘Mecca of the
economist’ lies in economic biology rather than in economic dynamics,
although biological conceptions are more complex than those of mechanics.
It is precisely here that we must seek a new understanding of the economic
facts, because nature has its own will, expressed in the notion of homeostasis
(Branco, 1989: 125), and as such the economy cannot be considered inde-
pendently of the fabric of biological life. Nature is an organic whole, while
the economic process is presented, in conventional formulations of econ-
omics, within the framework of classical mechanics as if it were a mechan-
ism, and therefore not amenable to qualitative change. This means that, for
the economist, it does not contain the fundamental biophysical notion of a
measure of qualitative change: entropy (Georgescu-Roegen, 1971). As a
consequence, it is necessary for ethnoeconomics to adopt a distinct, organic
and holistic worldview much more along the lines of the reasoning of
ecological economics (see Costanza et al., 1991) than those of conventional
economics. In the same way, instead of concentrating its focus on equilibrium
situations, ethnoeconomics has to adopt a dynamic, non-equilibrium
perspective that also takes into account a long-run, multi-scale approach.
Furthermore, as it is concerned with sustainable development it has to discuss
progress in terms of its ecological limitations, with special regard to resilience
and scale (Begossi, 2000). Finally, being concerned with cultural diversity and
the worldviews of indigenous peoples, it must pay due attention to traditional
ecological knowledge.
There have been many attempts to reconceptualize and restructure
thinking on economic models that incorporate cultural and ecological diver-
sity. At the same time, the ongoing forces of globalization are undermining
the cultural and ecological diversity upon which political stability, food
security and the general wellbeing of society depend. An attempt to inter-
nalize environmental externalities has led to the branch of pure economics
called environmental economics. In addition, a new approach to analysing the

functioning of the economic process from the perspective of nature or the

ecosystem has emerged under the aegis of ecological economics. Parallel to
this, and with a longer history, has been the strengthening of economic
anthropology and its efforts to better understand how indigenous, traditional
and local peoples adapt to and manage the external forces that threaten their
livelihoods and existence. At the same time, ethnoecology has expanded to
describe how traditional ecological knowledge is used to create, manage and
conserve cultural landscapes. There is, however, a woeful dearth of dialogue
and collaboration between these strands of alternative thinking and research.
Although Malinowski (1999: 167) first called attention to this problem in
1922, it still persists today. Herskovits (1965: 516) refers to the need for better
mutual understanding between economists and anthropologists, suggesting
the latter’s need to have ‘some grasp of the categorical differences . . . between
economics as an exposition of principles . . . and as a descriptive exposition
of facts’. He stresses the important point that it is only through discussion of
the subject by the many specialists concerned with the problem of the
primitive societies that we can achieve a truly cross-disciplinary attack in the
search for knowledge. In fact, the various disciplines and approaches are, in
general, complementary, only requiring effective cooperation and dialogue to
produce effective results.
The time seems to have come for the development of an ethnoeconom-
ics that looks at how local, traditional and indigenous peoples conceptualize
the many economic relationships that have built, characterized and main-
tained their societies; a discipline or a field of endeavour that examines the
idea of progress among exotic peoples; that considers their notions of wealth,
justice and equity; that interprets the manifold manifestations of markets,
trade, gift and exchange; and that tries to understand the way individual inter-
ests combine to produce a durable social system and sustainable economic
processes – or development for that matter. There is certainly considerable
scattered information on the cognitive or ‘emic’ categories utilized by non-
western societies to describe the types of ‘economic’ relationships that estab-
lish their webs of societal relations. There are fewer studies that investigate
or integrate indigenous concepts of ‘nature’ or ‘environment’ as factors in the
maintenance of healthy, long-lasting economies. The effort to be undertaken
under the umbrella of ethnoeconomics must go beyond ecological and
conventional economics, economic anthropology and ethnoecology and
ethnoscience. It must address the concepts, categories and practices that
societies use to evaluate, assess, monitor and manage human, natural and
heritage (including spiritual and aesthetic) ‘resources’. The proposal is to find
a ‘new’ perspective that can promote dialogue between the existing disci-
plines and be driven and guided by the myriad notions and experiences of
local peoples. This is a challenge which demands a lot of collaboration and
the conviction that one, comparatively rich,13 section of humanity can offer

us sound alternatives, worthy of consideration at the intellectual level, on

how to live healthily, happily and sustainably.
Notes
I would like to thank Darrell Posey, my dear late friend Roberto DaMatta and Laura
Rival for helpful suggestions during the earliest stages of the preparation of this article,
which was written during my stay (Michaelmas Term) as a visiting fellow at the
Oxford Centre for Brazilian Studies, Oxford, UK.
1 Marcel Mauss (1990: 79), writing in the 1940s, affirms that ‘The idea of value,
utility, self-interest, luxury, wealth, the acquisition and accumulation of goods –
all these on one hand – and on the other, that of consumption, even that of delib-
erate spending for its own sake, purely sumptuary: all these phenomena are
present everywhere, although we understand them differently today.’
2 As Lionel Robbins (1984: 2) remarks, citing John Stuart Mill, ‘the definition of a
science has almost invariably not preceded, but followed, the creation of the
science itself’. This is not to say that ethnoeconomics is a new science, but rather
that it is suggested as a new field of endeavour to be developed (and correctly
defined). Definition is used to ‘lay bare the meaning of the terms employed, to
clear up the ideas for which they stand and thus to get rid of all ambiguities’
(J. Shield Nicholson, as quoted by Einzig, 1966: 13).
3 And ‘in doing so, [the chief] enhances his prestige and influence, which he also
exercises through economic means’ (Malinowski, 1921: 12), a point of no mean
significance in the study of the economics of tribal societies.
4 Political economy is concerned with relations between commodities (not goods,
which are a creation of economics), whose exchange gives rise to objective relations
inasmuch as a commodity is defined as a socially desirable thing with both a use-
value and an exchange-value (see Gregory, 1982: 8).
5 As Polanyi (1944: 44) states, the paradigm of the bartering savage is false.
6 As Sir James G. Frazer, quoted by Einzig (1966) in his book’s epigraph, writes,
‘when all is said and done, our resemblances to the savage are still far more
numerous than our differences from him; what we have in common with him and
deliberately retain as true and useful, we owe to our savage forefathers who slowly
acquired by experience and transmitted to us by inheritance those seemingly
fundamental ideas which we are apt to regard as original and intuitive’.
7 See, for example, the illuminating book by Hans Christoph Binswanger (1994).
8 ‘A cumulative body of knowledge and beliefs handed down through generations
by cultural transmission about the relationship of living beings (including humans)
with one another and with their environment’ (Gadgil et al., 1993: 151).
9 ‘[S]uffused with rituals and myths’ (Mauss, 1990: 72).
10 How they are coping with present-day weather turbulence is another matter.
11 ‘Overworked and undertaught, weary and careworn, without quiet and without
leisure, they [the poor] have no chance of making the best of their mental faculties’
(Marshall, 1961: 3).

12 Alluding to the archaic societies of Polynesia, Mauss (1990: 73) observes that there
exists neither the free, purely gratuitous rendering of services, nor production and
exchange purely interested in what is useful. ‘It is a sort of hybrid that flourished.’
13 Mauss (1990: 34) provides an important testimony about the wealth of primitive
peoples in which he stresses how, in various kinds of rituals, ‘everything stored up
with great industry . . . is lavishly expended’.
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04 Cavalcanti (JG/d) 1/3/02 8:37 am Page 39

Economic Thinking, Traditional

T he subject matter of this article could easily be considered part of what

Current Sociology, January 2002, Vol. 50(1): 39–55 SAGE Publications

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40 Current Sociology Vol. 50 No. 1

In economic anthropology what moves analysis is an attempt to com-

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Cavalcanti: Economic Thinking and Ecological Knowledge 41

Economic Thinking and Exotic Societies

When, as an economist – although of a somewhat unorthodox profile – I am

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42 Current Sociology Vol. 50 No. 1

be it prices, the valuations of an organizer or planner, or the command of a

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Cavalcanti: Economic Thinking and Ecological Knowledge 43

generalizations on the basis of completely rational conduct (or choices with

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44 Current Sociology Vol. 50 No. 1

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Cavalcanti: Economic Thinking and Ecological Knowledge 45

geography, and institutional endowment; and the alleged propensity of man

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46 Current Sociology Vol. 50 No. 1

Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Sustainability

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Cavalcanti: Economic Thinking and Ecological Knowledge 47

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48 Current Sociology Vol. 50 No. 1

modifying their technology and subsistence activities. This also happens in

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Cavalcanti: Economic Thinking and Ecological Knowledge 49

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50 Current Sociology Vol. 50 No. 1

Tonkinson’s (1991: 20) evaluation of the Mardu Aborigines, whose society

Towards an Understanding of Ethnoeconomics

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Cavalcanti: Economic Thinking and Ecological Knowledge 51

we are knowledgeable.’ In her view, it is only by assuming that indigenous

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52 Current Sociology Vol. 50 No. 1

functioning of the economic process from the perspective of nature or the

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Cavalcanti: Economic Thinking and Ecological Knowledge 53

us sound alternatives, worthy of consideration at the intellectual level, on

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54 Current Sociology Vol. 50 No. 1

BEGOSSI, A. (2000) ‘Scale, Ecological Economics and the Conservation of Bio-

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Cavalcanti: Economic Thinking and Ecological Knowledge 55

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