Rethinking saving: Indian ceremonial gifts as relational and reproductive saving

Abstract

Economic anthropology has long advocated a broader vision of savings than the vision proposed by economists. This article extends this redefinitional effort by examining ceremonial gifts in India and arguing that they are a specific form of savings. Rural households, including those at the bottom of the pyramid, do save, in the sense of storing, accumulating and circulating value. But this takes place via particular forms of mediation that allow savers to forge or maintain social and emotional relations, to keep control over value-what matters in people's livesand over spaces and their own future. We propose terming these practices relational and reproductive saving, insofar as their main objective is to sustain life across generations. By contrast, trying to encourage saving via bank mediation may dispossess populations of control over their wealth, their socialization, their territories and their time. In an increasingly financialised world of evermore aggressive policies to push people into financial inclusion, the social, symbolic, cultural and political aspects of diverse forms of financial mediation deserve our full attention.

COVID‐19 and the Unequalizing Infrastructures of Financial Inclusion in Tamil Nadu

“…: 145) and require huge amounts of time, labour and resources to be maintained. In rural Tamil Nadu, ceremonial exchanges represent the main form of accumulated and circulated wealth, while savings bank accounts remain empty (Guérin et al., 2019). This arguably more flexible and malleable relational infrastructure is much more attractive than the rigidity of formal financial infrastructure.…”

“…Gifts made to others constitute savings while gifts that are received represent debts that have to be repaid in the future. Depending on their position in the ceremonial cycle and their number of daughters (the dowry represents an important part of ceremonial expenses), households are either creditors or debtors within these chains of reciprocity (Guérin et al., 2019). As Elyachar (2005) argues, such social systems constitute key relational infrastructures which are reliant upon extensive and continued maintenance.…”

“…The crisis further exposed the extent to which both the position in the life cycle and the quality of the social network constituted crucial factors determining participants’ ability to navigate financial challenges (see also Guérin et al., 2019). In the context of a breakdown of access to formal finance, the social ties ingrained in ceremonial credit represented an undergirding infrastructure to remain part of, at all costs.…”

Rethinking markets to rethink economics

“…They more often invest surplus cash in the form of 'investment in people' 15 (such as ceremonial expenses), or multipurpose money (gold in India, while elsewhere it could be livestock, seeds, precious fabrics, and so forth). 16 However, such protection comes at a price. Let us take the example of caste.…”

Randomized Control Trials in the Field of Development

“…Moreover, what is considered by economists as an expense is sometimes conceived as an entitlement or as savings, since it will give rise to a future counter-gift. Also in India, accounting for all debts and entitlements generated over time by ceremonial spending, which families are well aware of because they calculate in these terms, shows that families' net financial wealth is radically different from that suggested by an analysis in terms of "spending" (Guérin, Venkatasubramanian and Kumar 2019). This contra dicts the short-term bias that randomistas often attribute to the poor (Banerjee and Duflo 2011: 183-204).…”