Exchange in Buriatia: mutual support, indebtedness, and kinship

Abstract

Post-socialist exchange in the Tunka valley of the Buriat Republic, Russia, has a range of economic transactions ambiguously referred to as mutual support. These transactions reproduce social connections and are a form of investment in one's future. Residents of Tunka represent these activities in moral terms, in which kinship is used as a metaphor for the trusted and close social ties that make up social exchange networks.