SERICUL TURE AND THE PROCESS OF CHANGE - Institute for ...

standards and improved quality of life. Ultimately, one's SOClOeconomic
status is translated into social recognition and esteem.
Changing Values: Socio-economic mobility brings along with it
a changed way of life. The change could basically be discerned in the
attitudes of people towards certain values in life, like education,
hygienic practices, human relations, etc. It can also be seen in the extent
of rationalisation or traditionalisation of some of the beliefs.
Social and Network Relations: The social relations are basically
all interaction linkages at the individual and familial levels, including all
intra-village and extra village relations. Writing about the network
relations, Barnes (1972:26-7) identifies three main types of relations in
the network interactions. They include the symmetric, asymmetric and
non-symmetric relations. It is, however, not very clear how he
distinguishes the non-symmetric relations from the asymmetric relations
though he gives the example of labour assistance and credit-debtor
relations respectively. What is understood from an analysis of
interaction networks is that most relations are based on reciprocity with
a few exceptions. The content of reciprocity may differ in some
relations. This is clearly the case in buyer-seller and creditor-debtor
relations. ill some cases, along with the difference in the content of
reciprocity, there could also be an element of exploitation involving a
dominant-subordinate relation. This is the case with most of the barter
system and the patron-client relations. There could be a few relations
that are devoid of reciprocity. This can happen in the context of
friendship or even among certain kin relations.
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