Previous Next

Chapter 3 discusses different cultural perceptions of economics in modern America and in Indigenous cultures. In college textbooks, economics is often defined as a study of scarcity and how people obtain and use resources in the face of that scarcity. According to Kimmerer, this creates a highly individualistic worldview in which individual survival and wealth is prioritized over common wealth. Indigenous cultures, in contrast, prioritize equity and community over individual wealth. Prosperity only happens when all prosper. Direct exchange, such as money or bartering, is replaced with a net of social relationships in which everyone cares for each other in different ways. Abundance is shared with the expectation that all will do their part to return others’ generosity and care for everyone. The currency of these gift economies is gratitude and connection, not money.

Read about Main Idea #1 of The Serviceberrry: Economies driven by individual needs, not community needs, are ultimately harmful.

Chapter 4 meditates on the natural human impulse to give gifts and share abundance. Kimmerer discusses this by using the example of gift economies arising in times of disaster and crisis in which compassion and pooling resources often becomes the default. Under an economic system that encourages hyper-individualization, Kimmerer states that we must learn to trust and rely on our neighbors in times of peace as well as times of crisis in order for any sort of gift economy to flourish. Encouragingly, there are several grassroots movements on social media and on college campuses that are embracing small gift economies.

Read an explanation of a key quote (#2) about how gifts generate and strengthen relationships.

Chapter 5 discusses how to expand a gift economy from an individual level, where it only encompasses a close network of family or friends, to a community level, in which everyone can benefit from it. She uses the example of Little Free Libraries (boxes in which people can freely leave or take books) as individual gift economies, and actual libraries and public services as community gift economies. However, any gift economy risks falling victim, as described in Garrett Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons,” by people taking too much of a communal resource and thus ruining it for everyone. Kimmerer’s daughter once ran a farm produce stand, where people could leave and take free vegetables at will. However, the entire stand was stolen at the end of one season, removing a communal resource. Kimmerer states that the way to fix this issue is to reframe commodities as gifts given by others, and view them through the lens of attached relationships that everyone depends on.

Read an explanation of a key quote (#1) about overcomsumption and recognizing “enoughness.”

Previous section Chapters 1 & 2 Next section Chapters 6 & 7 & Invitation to Gift Economy

Take a Study Break