Transaction of Food, Beverage and Ranking of Space

Introduction

Humans exist and act in space; there cannot be any human existence or action in a void that has no dimension. Whenever and wherever humans survive and perform, they add some cultural context and assign certain meanings and values to the space of occurrence. Thus, a given space bears both tangible and intangible qualities and sometimes is presented as an extension of the social webs.

It has been noted, in recent years, that anthropological discourses consider space as an integral part of culture, this is a departure from the earlier works where it used to be mere backdrop for human society and culture; location of a study used to be described in a few opening paragraphs. Though Low and Zuniga identified six thematic categories in the study of space (2003, 1–47), the present study has been confined to a narrower arena; it deals with one specific category of public space.

A private space is often built physically as well as a cognitive construct to represent characters of individuals or collectives occupying and using it, but imprint of all persons active in that space is not evenly [Page 91]distributed. While some of the occupiers exert principal influence on the nature of the space, others may leave lesser impact. A public space can be as complex as the society itself. Despite it being public in nature, it should not be taken for granted that all members of a country or of a community will have free access to occupy and use it. Even those who can enter such a space and utilize it, their access can be very different on the basis of their ascribed and achieved attributes. All citizens of a country cannot walk into high offices of that land; there are religious places which are exclusively accessible for followers of a single faith.

This chapter has discussed the space of a marketplace; such places have their own set of norms and rules related to the use of space. Those usually involve people who use the space as sellers or buyers, different categories of commodities and services that they transact, and the ways and methods of transaction between them. In a stratified society, all members cannot have equal access either to status or to space; they operate from locations that are not equal with one another while performing their roles. This observation can be extended to the commodities and services that are exchanged, sold and bought in a marketplace; those are almost always ranked in relation to the status of the producer, service provider and consumer. This chapter has tried to understand how food and beverage items sold and bought in a weekly rural market are ranked and how that scheme of ranking is expressed spatially.

Majority of Indian population inhabit villages, which are known for their complex caste-based organizations. Since ages, people have practised traditional caste-specific occupations for their livelihood. They sell the commodities produced or goods purchased from other producers, while a few sell their services too following their age-old traditional occupations. The haat or weekly market is an ancient institution; it has remained to be the major channel for redistribution of goods in local areas through barter, ceremonial exchange, or in terms of money and credit. Earlier, such markets were usually situated on the riverbank to make use of water transport as well as to ensure availability of sufficient water for people and animals present at the market. Weekly markets are found in almost all corners of India, but their characters differ from one region to another due to diverse environmental factors and socio-economic and cultural variation among the local people. Weekly village markets are not only venues for trading activities, but are also the meeting place for people of the area where they exchange information and opinion. Different agencies like government tax collectors and private moneylenders have used rural markets for their [Page 92]respective business. Thus, haat remained an integral part of village life and associated with economic, social, cultural, and political life of the society; it reflects the range of local culture and spectrum of economic pursuits of the area within a limited space.

...