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Kishigami, Nobuhiro. 2021. Food Sharing in Human Societies: Anthropological Perspectives, 
Springer Nature Singapore, ISBN: 9789811678103 
 
In this relatively slim volume, Nobuhiro Kishigami provides a deep examination of an aspect of 
hunter-gatherer economic systems that is as critical to these systems as is the hunting and 
harvesting that provide the “stuff” that peoples like Inuit, Ache and Aka rely on for cultural and 
nutritional sustenance. This volume is a product of solid scholarship and is an important 
contribution to a growing literature focused on food sharing. However, before taking an in-depth 
look at the volume’s substance, I should note that the books primary title, Food Sharing in 
Human Societies, suggests a breadth that encompasses food sharing under a range of societal and 
economic types. More accurately, however, Food Sharing is an expansive work focused on food 
practices by hunter-gatherer cultures.  
 
Kishigami opens with a comprehensive overview of the theories and thinking about what sharing 
is and the how’s and why’s of the practice. It is followed by three chapters of detailed case 
studies (Chapters Two, Three, and Four). Chapter Five offers a broader and more comparative 
discussion about food sharing in terms of bio-physical and socio-cultural factors that are relevant 
to the theoretical approaches that have been applied in the case societies. It should be noted that 
two of the presented cases (from Nunavik/Northern Québec and North Alaska) are ones to which 
Kishigami has directly contributed through his extensive field studies among the Québec 
Nunavimmiut and Alaskan Inupiat whalers, while those from Greenland, the Central African 
Republic and Paraguay rely on the theoretical approaches to food sharing taken in the original 
investigations.   
 
Food Sharing’s introductory chapter very usefully presents theoretical approaches to sharing as 
developed through two main theoretical lenses, behavioral ecology and what I term (to borrow 
from economic anthropology) as a substantivist approach, and how these have been analytically 
applied to explain why hunter-gatherers share. Here, Kishigami very usefully provides 
definitions of the terminology of sharing (importantly of such concepts as gifting and generalized 
reciprocity) and then presents the different explanations developed within these two theoretical 
approaches on what is essentially a generalized feature in hunter-gatherers economies. Because 
interpretations of food sharing are frequently derived in specific research situations already 
framed by a particular theoretical approach, comparison between cases can be difficult and so 
this first chapter will be useful to some readers. 
 
This overview is followed by three chapters (Two, Three, Four) of case studies, the focus of 
which is sharing as practiced by five societies living in very different ecological, political and 
economic environments. This approach allows the reader to comparatively evaluate the cases in 
terms of the specific environments that surround and influence each society. He then analyzes 



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each in terms of one or more of the modes of thought presented in the volume’s introductory 
chapter and that was analytically employed in the original studies from which the cases are 
drawn. Kishigami concludes Food Sharing with a discussion of how particular hypotheses (such 
as resource abundance, camp population size, kinship relations and/or co-residential proximity, 
display and status, and tolerated theft to name a few) explain food sharing (or not) in the context 
of the various analytical approaches in which they are discussed. 
 
While this book is an excellent addition to a growing literature on food sharing, there are a few 
things that to me are somewhat problematic. One is the scope as suggested by the book’s title. 
Food Sharing, as already noted, focuses, except for what amounts to a few brief mentions, on 
hunter-gatherer societies; indeed, the preponderance of anthropological research on food sharing 
is especially focused on so-called subsistence economy cultures. A second is that there is some 
“repetitive-redundancy” as Dr. Kishigami returns in several places to the issue of reciprocity 
with regards to sharing. The conceptual and practical problem with the term, despite its long use 
in the literature, is already well-explained in his first chapter.  
 
Last, and seminal to understanding what divides the two main theoretical approaches (behavioral 
ecology and societal substantivist) is an explanation of the unit of analysis which underlie and 
are seen as separating them. What is not discussed with clarity is that the behavioral ecology, 
rooted as it is in evolutionary theory, focuses on the actions and behaviors of individuals, while 
the substantivist lens centers on, if you will, the cultural ethos that makes food sharing a broader, 
normative socioeconomic feature of hunter-gatherers. 
 
These “complaints” aside, there are many more “likes” than can be accommodated in this 
review. An important one is that the case studies that are included in the substantive and the 
concluding chapters are not presented through a single theoretical lens. Rather the cases are 
exposed to a range of hypotheses, allowing readers to weigh the explanatory power of one or 
more without necessarily having to refer to the original research (but that never hurts).  
 
Another is the depth of the Inupiat and Nunavimmiut case studies. This is not surprising because, 
as noted above, the author has directly contributed to our knowledge of sharing in both these 
Inuit situations. These examples underscore how sharing can be affected by a variety of 
situational factors – from the size of a package of energy to the structural relations within a 
group. For me, this depth brings out a complexity about sharing, namely that it is both a “grand” 
and a nuanced concept. (An important note: the rich Akulivik example of Nunavimmiut sharing 
is based almost exclusively on Kishigami’s own research which to the best of my knowledge has 
to date only appeared in Japanese.)    
  
This comparative style of presentation carries with it the possibility of discerning overlap 
between research approaches that mutes the split between a purely behavioral and an equally 
strict substantivist explanation. Essentially what is seen through one lens as tolerated theft or 
status signaling is in the other a manifestation that those in need have a right to food (or other 
critical resource – for instance water). Thus, an individual’s signaling or demand for a share can 
be accepted – at least until they are carried beyond the normative limits of cultural tolerance. 
Kishigami does not always present the cases in this light, but the possibility of overlap between 



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demand by a needy person and the obligation of a food-holder may relate more to whether the 
analytical lens has a micro (on the individual) or macro (on the group) focus. 
 
In closing, Kishigami does an admirable job in providing a very comprehensive and useful 
bibliography. For all the reasons noted above, plus more that I have not mentioned, Food 
Sharing in Human Societies: Anthropological Perspectives is an important volume and solid 
contribution to the literature on sharing that is useful to specialists and accessible to students. 
 
 
 
George W. Wenzel 
Department of Geography 
McGill University 
Montréal, Québec, Canada  H3A0B9 
<george.wenzel@mcgill.ca> 
        
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

© 2023 George W. Wenzel 

 
 
 


