@article{oai:minpaku.repo.nii.ac.jp:00004325,
 author = {足立, 明 and Adachi, Akira},
 issue = {3},
 journal = {国立民族学博物館研究報告, Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology},
 month = {Jan},
 note = {This article analyzes reciprocal labor exchange in Sinhalese
agrarian settlements in Matale District of Sri Lanka. Labor
exchange is defined here as the exchange of labor in which
assistance has to be more or less precisely reciprocated by that of
the same kind and quantity in a short time period, e.g., one day
of plowing assistance for one day of plowing assistance during a
cultivation season.
Labor exchange in peasant agriculture is usually organized
by individual households to achieve an optimal mobilization of
labor for certain agricultural operations. This mobilization
results both in minimizing the costs (drudgery and wages) of
peasant production and in maximizing the exploitation of household
labor. Except in a few cases, any symbolic expression of
particular socio-cultural messages between the host and the
helper is of secondary importance. Labor exchange is thus a
kind of economic exchange in a neoclassical sense. However,
since the rate of exchange is institutionally fixed at one for the
precise reciprocity, it is of course not governed by market
mechanisms. In other words, although exchange labor is a
scarce resource, particularly during the times of peak demand
for labor in peasant agricultural production, the difference
between demand and supply of exchange labor is not mediated
with varying rates of exchange. As a consequence, the following
two questions must be examined to understand labor exchange
behavior. The first is how the difference between demand
and supply of exchange labor is mediated at the individual
household level. The second is how the flow of exchange labor
is determined in a locality. However, few studies in anthro-
pology and mainstream economics have examined these questions,
because their models and concepts have not been developed to
analyze reciprocal economic behavior, such as the labor exchange
discussed here. It is in this context that labor exchange in
Sinhalese agrarian settlements is examined in this article.
I attempt to analyze labor exchange behavior as a maximization
(or economization) process in peasant agricultural
production within the wider political-economic setting of Sri
Lanka. The empirical focus is on the decision making process
regarding labor exchange and complementary labor mobilization,
in order to understand the causes and consequences of the choices
that the peasant households make to meet the demand for labor
mobilization. For this purpose, the natural decision making
approach is employed here, together with ethnographic observation.
The bulk of empirical analyses on various phases of
labor exchange shows that at the individual household level
the difference between demand and supply of exchange labor
is largely mediated through exploration for exchange labor,
in which each household forms a relatively fixed network of
labor exchange and (often competitively) organizes it within
the network. It further shows that the relative degree of
tolerance of imbalance in labor exchange affects both the mediation
between demand and supply of exchange labor at the
individual household level and the flow of exchange labor in
the locality. Based on the above analyses and findings, this
article finally argues that labor exchange, rooted in history and
custom as a pre-capitalist mode of labor organization, cannot
be regarded simply as a cultural lag or hangover from a precapitalist
economy; labor exchange is rather an adaptive response
made by peasant households to their current ecological, economic
and social conditions. This further suggests that the model
presented here, although an empirical model of labor exchange
in Sinhalese peasant agriculture, will guide research endeavor
on various kinds of reciprocal economic exchange yet to be
examined.},
 pages = {517--581},
 title = {シンハラ農村の労働交換体系},
 volume = {13},
 year = {1989},
 yomi = {アダチ, アキラ}
}