A new typology of food-sharing practices among hunter-gatherers, with a special focus on inuit examples

This article first examines several anthropological studies to illustrate some substantial limitations of the concepts of "reciprocity" and "exchange " as applied to food sharing among hunter-gatherer societies. I then propose a new typology of food sharing for identification, classification, description, and comparison. The new typology includes nine types of sharing: giving based on rules, voluntary giving, demand giving, exchange based on rules, voluntary exchange, demand exchange, redistribution based on rules, voluntary redistribution, and demand redistribution. Finally, I demonstrate the utility of the new typology by using it to analyze food sharing among two Inuit groups in the Canadian Arctic.