Exchange Practices and Social Networks as Means of Coping with Shortages in Local Communities of Taimyr and Kamchatka

Abstract

The article investigates the social mechanisms underlying the compensation of goods, service, and infrastructure deficits in two northern villages, Syndassko in Eastern Taimyr, and Tilichiki in Northern Kamchatka. The phenomenon being analyzed represents routine, non-institutionalized, and often unconscious mechanisms that provide community members with products or services that are absent on the spot. The authors come to the conclusion that—regardless of the nature of the deficits (whether they are “traditional”—meat, fish, childcare or “market”—fresh fruits, snowmobile spare parts, taking out a loan for someone)—the practices for their compensation are similar and the elimination of shortages occurs within diverse social and geographic networks. Exchange networks connect households within the village, extend from the rural area to the city and back and, through a chain of multiple exchanges, mutually compensate the deficits typical for a particular locality. Social prescription for redistribution that is specific for northern villages guarantees provision of the extended family with resources. The described social situation represents а stable (but flexible) configuration of social relations that provides local residents with a convenient and satisfactory way of life and allows them to interpret the situation of the systematic absence of certain goods or services as unproblematic.