PLOS ONE · 4 authors, 4 centres
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Drawing on over three years of interview and observational data from a Sama marine foraging community in the Philippines, this cross-sectional study quantified all inter-household material goods transfers and found that reciprocity overwhelmingly drives sharing, outweighing kinship and relative need.
Over three years of interview and observational data were collected from a community of primarily ethnic Sama people in a marine foraging economy in the Philippines. The study tabulated transfers of all material goods between all households in the village and built 26 statistical models of giving and receiving. Daily resource transfers represented a value equal to about two-thirds of the daily income of most households, with food transfers constituting the most valuable category. High income predicted both increased outflow and increased inflow, and levels of daily outflow and inflow were significantly correlated in all models, indicating reciprocity as the major driver of transfers. Household age was a significant but non-linear predictor. The interaction between income differences and relatedness showed that households were particularly likely to give to needy kin. However, standardized coefficients from dyadic models suggest reciprocity was more important than income differences or kinship in determining flows.
