Household Ethnicity, Household Consumption: Commodities and the Guaraní

Abstract

I. Introduction The power of commodities to disrupt indigenous cultures has attracted great attention from anthropologists. Studies document how subsistence producers, desiring manufactured goods, abandon their gardens and become totally dependent on the destructive market system. Others suggest that the symbolic power of fetishized commodities can redefine relations within even the most stable noncapitalized society.) The simple arrival of commercial goods often seems to destroy the object of anthropological interest. Like the soda bottle dropped into a !Kung village in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, commodities cause dissent and confusion and ultimately devastate small-scale societies. As manufactured goods from industrialized societies flow into the most isolated groups, they cause inevitable change. But as indigenous societies struggle to contend with expanding commercial economies, it is becoming clear that this transformation is not uniform or necessarily as extensive as previous models suggest. Many indigenous populations of lowland South America have sold goods and purchased commodities for centuries without abandoning their gardens, communities, or ethnic identity. In the following case, the Guarani of eastern Paraguay have used market goods since the sixteenth century without being assimilated into the national society. This study points out that buying commodities does not render the Guarani powerless in the larger economy and, in fact, that these goods often enter indigenous exchange systems and reinforce Guarani communities. Therefore, despite the potential for damage, these indigenous people have defended their social institutions against the divisive power of the larger economy. Guarani differentiate themselves from other Paraguayans not on the basis of market involvement but with regard to their differing com