Some conspicuous high-risk foraging persists because it advertises the forager's quality rather than because it feeds the household efficiently.
Hawkes observed that big-game hunting among some foragers has poor expected returns compared with gathering, and that the meat is widely distributed rather than kept. If the hunter is not feeding his own household efficiently, the payoff may be in reputation, allies and mating opportunities. The alternative reading is that broad sharing is itself the provisioning strategy.
In practice
- An engineer who volunteers for the visible impossible project is not optimising for delivered value and may be rational.
- A firm that sponsors a prestige event it cannot justify commercially is buying something the accounts do not name.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation is signalling: if the meat is widely distributed rather than kept, the hunter's return may be status, allies and mating opportunity rather than calories.
- In its favour
- The observation that big-game hunting has poor expected returns compared with gathering, and that the catch is shared beyond the household, is documented in several forager societies.
- Against it
- It is contested against provisioning accounts, in which the same behaviour feeds kin through reciprocal sharing, and the debate turns on measurements of return rates and distribution that are hard to make.
- Standing
- Contested against provisioning accounts, which hold that the same behaviour is explained by feeding kin. The debate turns on measurement of who consumes the returns.
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- How societies hold together, sort people, and change