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Envy and egalitarianism in Aboriginal Australia: An integrative approach
Author(s) -
Burbank Victoria
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the australian journal of anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1757-6547
pISSN - 1035-8811
DOI - 10.1111/taja.12068
Subject(s) - sociality , egalitarianism , feeling , reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , sociocultural evolution , psychology , social psychology , perspective (graphical) , sociology , strong reciprocity , inequity aversion , epistemology , inequality , game theory , philosophy , anthropology , law , political science , politics , mathematics , artificial intelligence , ecology , mathematical analysis , computer science , biology , microeconomics , repeated game , economics
The word ‘envy’ directs attention to feelings and cognitions that are especially important sources of information in our complicated sociality. As it is delimited by philosophers, economists, psychologists and others, envy is conceptually nested within a family that includes evil eye beliefs, inequity aversion, strong reciprocity and social comparison. Although the accumulation of work in these areas is substantial, anthropological treatments of envy are rare. Given repeated assertions of envy's universality and its potential importance for understanding widespread aspects of the human condition, a comparative eye seems essential. I present an account of ‘jealous’ in Aboriginal Australia via a framework that casts emotions as emerging from the interaction of psychobiological and sociocultural processes. According to this perspective, ‘envy’ should not be regarded as an invariant human condition but rather as a Western version of what, in a more generic human form, may both defend the individual and the larger sociality.