Rationality as a Social Construction: What Does Individual Behavior Have To Say About Development in an Amazon Community?

Resource type

Author/contributor

Gramajo, Andrés Marroquín (Author)

Title

Abstract

This article argues that two different manifestations of rational behavior can coexist and collide in a relatively homogeneous society. In the Ticuna community of Arara in the Colombian Amazon; on the one hand, the majority of villagers tend to reach relatively lower levels of material wealth, following Polanyi's idea of the pre-modern man (1968a; 1968b; 1968c), and also Sahlins' (1972) idea of the original affluent man. On the other hand, community leaders and schoolteachers tend to accumulate material wealth, following Polanyi's idea of modern-man (1968a; 1968b). These behavioral frameworks help explain the limited success of certain types of development programs in the Ticuna community.

Publication

Journal of Economic Issues (Association for Evolutionary Economics)

Date

March 2008

Volume

42

Issue

1

Pages

115-132

Journal Abbr

Journal of Economic Issues (Association for Evolutionary Economics)

URL

https://ideas.repec.org/a/mes/jeciss/v42y2008i1p115-132.html

Accessed

2017-07-26, 6:04 p.m.

ISSN

00213624

Short Title

Rationality as a Social Construction

Language

English

Library Catalog

EBSCOhost

Citation

Gramajo, Andrés Marroquín. 2008. “Rationality as a Social Construction: What Does Individual Behavior Have To Say About Development in an Amazon Community?” Journal of Economic Issues (Association for Evolutionary Economics) 42 (1): 115–32.

Discipline