This dissertation research project will support a student of cultural anthropology studying gift exchange in a rural community in north China. The research will examine the social ramifications of patterned exchanged of gifts and analyze the cultural rules and operative logic of gift exchange, especially with regard to the mitigation of the famine that China endured in 1959-61. Methods include participant observation and a survey of village families. The student is a native speaker of Chinese. This research is important because village systems of informal exchange between families are vitally important means of distributing goods in all societies, yet are invisible to public statistics. Understanding how the system works in one case, especially focused on behavior during a famine, will advance our understanding of the limits of reciprocity in human societies.
