Fijians

Location

▸ Fiji

Anthropologist

▸ Matt Gervais

Yasawa Island, Fiji, is home to roughly 1200 people who depend largely on marine foraging and horticulture in an environment prone to cyclones, seasonal droughts, and floods. A system of ad hoc need-based requests (kerekere) operates at all levels of Yasawan society. Any social unit can kerekere any other for virtually anything – food, labor, money, land – on the condition that the initiator is in need and the potential donor has enough to share. Although kerekere targets are obliged to share, a transfer requires no short-term reciprocity, and often the flow of goods carries a net imbalance. Human Generosity
Project team member Matthew Gervais is investigating the dynamics of the kerekere system across Yasawan villages and social networks.