was primarily organised on a household basis, with household decisions apparently
determined by the head of the household in a P/C manner. But in addition there were
important elements of cooperation among households which included redistribution of output
to households in need; and cooperative work arrangements. Among the latter, one was strictly
reciprocal with a short-time horizon as households worked in rotation on others’ fields; a
second type of work cooperation took the form of ‘festive work groups’, when one household
requested work assistance and provided food and drink, while others sent younger members
of their household to work for the household. In these activities, there was no exact
reciprocity, and no accounting of labour allocation, but ‘a long-term, global relationship of
mutual social assistance’ (Donham, p 534).
Anthropologists and economists have found it difficult to classify the mode of behaviour in
many cases because they do not fit into a single mode, but cover a range of motives and
behaviour. Thus what appear as ‘gifts’ may in fact involve reciprocity, while exchange is
firmly embedded in social relationships. While COOP and P/C best represents the behaviour -
and short-term utilitarian exchange is rare - longer-term interests are often clearly served by
the behaviour. This ambiguity in fact is equally true of current ‘COOP’ relationships, as is
apparent from other studies in this project. But one aspect which differentiates relationships
in small communities from those of the modern market economy is the recurrent social
relationship between those conducting the transactions. ‘A material transaction is usually a
momentary episode in a continuous social relation’ (Sahlins, p 186). In contrast, the opposite
could be said in many late-twentieth century market transactions - i.e. many social relations
are a momentary episode resulting from material transactions. This is a key difference in
terms of the conditions favourable for different modes of behaviour; recurrent social
relations tend to support COOP, while M may be a more natural method of transaction
between strangers in the night.
The environment for group behaviour:
From the perspective of group behaviour, Colonial society and early post-Colonial Latin
America can broadly be divided into three categories: the Settler community, local people
who were affected by colonial policy as labourers or through colonial rule in other areas, and
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