Exploring the Transformation of Capitalism from Perspectives of Waya: Economic Changes in a Sediq Community

This paper investigates the transformation of capitalism from the Sediq
viewpoints of production. Economic anthropology is concerned with how the
different mechanisms of exchange, production and consumption work to
integrate different aspects of society. In regard to the issue of production, this
research deals with the capitalist mode of production, domestic mode of
production, peasant economy, and the articulation of different modes of
production. The meaning of production in local contexts should be considered
firstly; especially, how production connects and transforms the relationships
among different levels. Further questions follow, including how the locals
perceive the process of production and measure the value of objects, and
whether the images of work, land and money synthesize several meanings and
embody history itself in Sediq society.
The Sediq began to grow cash crops and were incorporated into the
capitalist market system in 1960s. In deciding whether to become involved in
growing new crops, they were not solely influenced by questions of market
price and stability, but also had to take into account how new crops fit into their
traditional understanding of work and the values they placed on it. In addition,
traditional social relationships continued to influence the planting of commercial
crops, for example, in the exchange of labour and the lending of land. The use
of money, like the choice of new crops and exchange of labour, reflects the fact
that the Sediq have not been alienated from each other and from their products
by these changes.
This research, further, reveals how cultural production and transformation
involve each other. On the one hand, the Sediq’s key cultural concept –waya,
which is thought to constitute a person’s identity – still influences their
acceptance of new crops and the transfer of new agricultural technology. On
the other hand, a person’s identity and social relationships changed when the
community was drawn into the capitalist system and cash crop production.
Objective social structure and subjective individual consciousness then
become related dialectically.