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Public Knowledge ~ Manchester, 28-29 June 2007

Exchanging relations and public good - 'social networking' in the bioeconomy.

David S. Leitner

University of Cambridge

Abstract:

Models of knowledge management and economic productivity which place the role of

social relationships at their core are becoming increasingly prevalent in the management and

organization of the 'knowledge bioeconomy'. Perhaps the most common metaphor used to

describe the putative operations of these social relationships is that of the network. With

respect to the economic development of the biosciences in the UK, network models of social

relations as productive resources provide the anthropologist with an opportunity to turn the

anthropological gaze on a modern phenomenon in their own backyard. This paper takes as its

object a possibly extreme example of the use of these notions of social relations as 'networks':

the phenomenon of 'networking' as expressed and practiced at networking meetings and in

management workshops geared toward knowledge transfer officers, scientists and

entrepreneurs. These activities form an increasingly important element in the phenomenon of

technology transfer, in university-industry relations, and in government policy regarding the

formation of a new 'knowledge bioeconomy'. Networking lends itself to an analysis in terms

of 'gift theory', most notably through the apparent notions of generalised reciprocity and

social cohesion which are expressed by its participants. However, the thrust of this paper is

not about what networking can tell us about 'gifts' or to identify networking as a kind of gift

economy. Rather, it is concerned with what is revealed about networking when viewed in

terms of 'gift theory'. As such this paper examines notions of 'stochastic reciprocity' in

explanations of the effectiveness and 'positive' effects of networking, and asks what kinds ofpersons and publics are imagined in these explanations. In particular, emphasis is placed on

how returns are assumed to be generated through exchanging 'opportunities' in the form of

relations and speculating on the possibilities of these exchanges proliferating and returning.

Although the assumptions of this kind of networking are not ubiquitous, I argue that these

ideas about persons and publics are not incongruous with wider assumptions about the public

good of commercializing biomedical and biotechnological research.

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David S. Leitner 86990772.doc Page 1 of 22

[email protected] Title 0 words

Public Knowledge ~ Manchester, 28-29 June 2007

Exchanging relations and public good - 'social networking' in the bioeconomy.

David S. LeitnerUniversity of Cambridge

One of the things I first encountered in the course of my fieldwork was the ubiquity of a

network imagination of social relations and about the presumed productive potential of the

people one knows. The idea that social relations produce economic as well as social effects is a

key part of the explanations given by my informants for the economic and inventive success of

the biosciences cluster located in and around Cambridge, England. Cambridge, it is held, is

blessed with a high density of skilled individuals, inventive and innovative activity driven by a

world class university, and significant financial actors in close proximity to one another. As a

result, useful relationships can be forged in otherwise quotidian spaces. As a regional biotech

network manager described it to me:

Today Im helping to close a deal between a local startup and a diagnostics company

worth several million pounds. It came about because I see the researcher who founded

the startup every week at our sons football matches and I bump into the CEO of the

diagnostics company regularly at Sainsburys. I knew that they were trying to crack a

problem with their platform and I knew that the researcher had a potentially interesting

solution, but needed funding to develop it. So I made the introductions and now

theyre moving forward!

As I will describe shortly, there are several very interesting ideas about persons and the

economic efficacy of social relations which underlie these kinds of explanations, especially in

relation to the furtherance of a notion of public good akin to Mandevilles adage, Private

Vices, Public Virtuesi. There are of course other ways that social relations are used to make

explanations. In what follows I do not wish to imply that social networking is the only way

Created 2-Jul-07 Last printed 09 July 2007 14:39:00

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that people in the bioeconomy go about their business (public or private), or even that it

constitutes the only form of socialty that the people I will describe experience or practice. Nor

do I wish to imply that everyone codifies this notion of productive social relations in exactly

this way or to this degree, let alone so unproblematically as in the examples I will give.

Instead, my contention is that social networking provides an interesting instance of a sort of

living ideal type. It is an extreme example of many assumptions about human social worlds

that appear to be shared by its supporters, skeptics and critics alike. Indeed, one might go so

far as to implicate the anthropologist in this as well. But perhaps we can leave that agonistic

frame aside for the moment. In what follows, I think we can see something of the way that

practices of social knowing and un-knowing work alongside the imagination of a collectivity of

anonymous, individual others to produce an explanation of doing public good while doing

well for oneself.

Networking and Networks: a brief introduction

A network is a label that can be applied to describe a group or system that works

together or are interconnected.

Networking is a process of building and maintaining relationships with people

who can help you to achieve your goals(Sear 2004)

These two quotes come from the first slide of a Power Point presentation delivered in the

morning a workshop in Newcastle entitled Making the most of your networkManaging

relationships and networking with business and industry. The workshop, aimed at knowledge

transfer professionals in higher education, was organized by the Continuing Professional

Development (CPD) arm of the Association for University Research & Industry Links

(AURIL), an organization devoted to fostering links between higher education and industry. I



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was attending this workshop as an observer to learn more about what networking is and how

people do it. Before we could begin networking, the presenters told us, it was important that we

understood the difference between networkingand a network. A network is a description for

something that exists out there, in the world. It describes a set of changing connections between

things, whether those things are computers, telephones or people. Networking, on the other

hand, is a social process. It is an activity that two or more people engage in. It is about how we

build and maintain relationships. However, networking is more than just about making

relationships. It is configuring your relationships to give you access to the opportunities you

might need to accomplish specific goals. The instructors stressed that it is also something that

we all do naturally, but as with many things that one takes for granted, if we are deliberate and

self-conscious about how we do it, then we can do it more efficiently. In short, networking is

the activity of configuring and reconfiguring networks.

The presenters at the workshop emphasized that network can describe any set of

interconnected things. These can be generically referred to as nodes. For the purposes ofsocial

networkingpeople are nodes. They might be individuals, or members of institutions, but they

represent a point in our networks to which we are connected either directly or via other nodes.

Some nodes in a network have a lot of connections to a lot of other nodes. We were told that

this kind of node is called a hub. Although every person is a potential node in a network, not

every person can be a hub. However, we were told, the next best thing is to be as close as

possible to a hub. This is because, being in contact with one person who has connections to a

lot of people makes it easier to contact all of those people you only have to go through one

person to get to know them. The reason one would want to be in contact with lots of other

people is simple. As nodes, people represent repositories of resources which one might wish to

tap into. These resources could be anything from products and services to information,

contacts, support, new ideas, or even other contacts. By networking, creating and configuring



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many connections with people, it is thus possible to increase the chances of gaining access to

these resources. To reiterate the instructors definition of networking, it gives you access to

people who can help you achieve your goals.

It was explained that networking can accomplish this in part because it is how the world

works anyway. It emphasizes personal gain through cooperation and mutual benefit based on

trust and a sense of solidarity. Networking assumes that if two people help each other

accomplish their respective goals, they will likely do it better and more efficiently than if either

had tried on their own. Transactions and interactions between people are governed by trust and

the presence of good will. Generating this trust is accomplished through little acts of giving.

Unsolicited favours, so long as theyre helpful, will make you valuable to others. That value is

returned when they pass on an interesting opportunity to you. However, time is a limited

commodity. How can you know if youre wasting it on certain people and not spending

enough on others? Simply, if one networks deliberately, one will know. To do this it is

necessary to map your connections. The process is simple.

About half way through the morning session, we were asked to participate in an exercise.

We were asked to use social network analysis to map our networks. Mapping consists of the

following steps focusing on their relevance to how we get people to contribute to the strategy

of interfacing between industry and the university. First, we were to think about who we were

involved with or might need to be involved with on a regular basis to further the goal of

interfacing with business and industry. This involved making a list of any contact who might

contribute in any way to successful interfacing, and placing them on a list. Once our list was

prepared, we looked at it and tried to identify any natural groupings of people on the list (e.g.

immediate co-workers, members of a particular company, family, contacts in funding

organizations, etc.). After grouping them on the list, we sketched out a rough map on an A4

pad of paper. Placing ourselves in the middle of the map, we placed the individuals from the



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list around us, using different symbols of our own devising to represent the different groups.

We were to keep the groups together as best we could. Then we were to draw lines from

ourselves to our contacts. Some of these lines were direct; others passed through other people

first. We could also draw lines between contacts that did not intersect with ourselves. Finally,

we were to evaluate the lines. Each line was to be given a brief label describing the nature of

the connection, and was to be assigned a value of '+', '-', or '?' depending on whether we were

getting more from the relationship than we were putting in, giving more to the relationship than

we were getting out of it, or whether the relationship was neutral. Finally, we were to draw the

maps out neatly on a sheet of A1 size paper using larger marker pens.

We were asked to share our networks with the other people at the table and then to share

our observations with the larger group. The speaker listed these points on a large piece of

paper and, after all of the observations had been compiled, proceeded to mark out which he

considered the most important. 1) Most people seemed to have more positive links than

negative ones. That is, most people tended to have more relationships in which they feel they

give more than they receive. 2) Almost everyone noticed that there were only a few key people

in their networks who acted as gatekeepers, connecting them to a large number of people. 3)

Not every map contained the same networks. Some maps neglected networks that others felt

should be there, such as our families. One woman, for instance, felt very strongly that we

should ask how support we receive from family contributes to our successful networking.

However, the point was also made that there might be other networks we were missing because

we do not recognize our entry points into them. The instructors reminded us that we should be

aware that there is always a potential entry point to new networks, and this mapping exercise is

key to revealing them.

We were told that by looking at our network maps we could begin to ask several important

questions. By examining the shape of the connections we had drawn we could tell certain



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things about how the pattern of our network was affecting the behaviour of others and

ourselves. We could, for instance, ask how closely connected we are to the hubs in our

network. The map will tell us how many steps it will take us to reach any other given person in

the network. If we are close to the hubs (within one step or maybe two), we have a better

chance of contacting more people in fewer steps, saving us time and effort.

Likewise, we were told that we could ask how diverse our contacts are. Diversity gives us

access to knowledge we do not already have. This is bound up in the notion of the strength of

weak ties, which the first instructor informed us was from Mark Granovetters research on

networks (see Granovetter 1983). Strong ties, according to this concept, are those held between

close friends, family or other groups in which a high degree of mutual trust or obligation ties

people together. Groups built of strong ties tend to be densely connected to each other, but

tend to be difficult to penetrate from outside of the group. Unfortunately, these groups do not

tend to be very flexible and can only accommodate change slowly. Groups with a lot of weak

ties such as acquaintances, mutual benefit relationships and low-density networks, tend to be

very flexible, highly innovative, and capable of handling change. This is because weak ties

expose individuals in the network to new ideas, experiences and resources to which other parts

of the network do not necessarily have access. Weak ties thus drive creativity and innovation

and are the key to finding points of entry into new networks.

In the afternoon session, techniques for maintaining weak ties were discussed. They were

largely centered around many small, unsolicited favours (sending an email with an article that

you thought the person would find interesting, passing on a contact, etc.) and focused on

getting people to remember you or keeping you on their mind in case they came across an

opportunity that was good for you. During a question and answer period one of the participants

commented that all of the activities we had done and the advice that the presenters had given



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that day (mapping our social networks, rating our relationships with people based on how

much we think we give and receive with the people in them, figuring out how to play on what

motivates people in order to get them to feel more willing to interact or transact with us later)

seemed to amount to simply manipulating people, and that most people are turned off rather

than incentivisediiby someone who is trying to ingratiate themselves. The speakers response

was direct:

This might seem Machiavellian, like were telling you to just manipulate people,

but its not. The relationship always has to be two-way and voluntary if its to work

best. The goal is to incentivise people into your network, to make them want to

know you, and the only way to do this is to make sure people think you are as

useful to them as you think they are to you. You have to give in order to get.

She stressed the need to realize that ones networking activities must be genuinely motivated

by mutual benefit, and by the balance of the relationships one creates and maintains. However,

she also stressed that networking is not Machiavellian in the sense that, although it is a means

to an end, that end is not only for personal gain. Rather, the more that people feed and grow

their networks (producing new connections) the more likely everyone in the network is to

benefit. You might have nothing to give a person now but in the long run they will benefit from

knowing you. Because network connections are always changing, and opportunities are always

flowing through them, you can never say that the benefit of networking is entirely one sided.

In this way, you are doing someone a favour by simply getting to know them, and vice versa,

because the more connections you have, the more likely you and others in your network are to

reap some benefit from those connections.

Giving and getting: the gift and its return



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You have to give in order to get. For the anthropologist, there should be an echo in the

instructors maxim. A resonance with long standing debates about the pure gift, the free

gift or the ideal of generalized reciprocity. In particular, I am referring to arguments over the

possibility or the verity of a gift without strings attached. Malinowski originally laid out the

notion of the pure gift in Argonauts of the western Pacific (Malinowski 1922: 177-180) as

part of a continuum of gift categories reflecting the psychological attitudes toward give and

take exchanges that he had observed among the Trobriand Islanders. At the time Malinowski

held that, although rare, certain gift exchanges did not seem to be made with a clear expectation

of return, especially those between husbands and wives and those between a father and his son

(although he admitted that his informants used terms for these, such as mapula, that might

indicate otherwise). Later, apparently in response to Mauss comments, Malinowski retracted

his contention that pure gifts existed in reality without the expectation of return. This notion,

the idea that, theres no such thing as a free gift became the substrate for many

anthropological discussions of the gift for much of the 20th century. From then on, the

assumption that theres no such thing as a free gift, was an anthropological truism for many in

Anglophone anthropology.

However, it has been suggested that Malinowskis about face, as well as subsequent

interpretations of this idea of the free gift, are actually the result of Malinowskis and others

misreadingof Mauss seminal essay. Recently, for instance, Sigaud has described how, in

much of 20th century Anglophone anthropology, Mausss central thesis in The Gift, (namely,

that the evolution of the modern contract involved the development of non-alienable exchange

forms that can in fact still be seen in modern capitalist economies, though attenuated) had been

replaced by the notion of reciprocity and became synonymous with his treatment of the Maori

hau despite his considerable discussion of other gift forms in Roman law, in the potlatch of the

Pacific Northwest. (Hart 2007; Sigaud 2003). The muddling of his argument goes further.



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These authors argue that, in addition to the notion of no free gift, it has been falsely presumed

that Mauss was arguing for a strict division between those primitive societies organized

around the logics of gifts and reciprocity, and our modern societies organized around the

logics and rationalities of commodity exchange.

In his 1986 Malinowski lecture (1986) Jonathan Parry describes how particular ideologies of

reciprocity and persons, already present in Malinowskis earlier writing, were subsequently

read into MaussEssai sur le don (and, in the case of Cunnisons (1969) translation ofThe Gift,

written into it)iii. Parry takes particular notice of the kinds of persons described by Malinowski

in his psychology of gift exchange and draws our attention to the assumption, already present,

that the exchange of gifts is conducted by persons acting as self-interested individuals. As Parry

describes, MaussEssai was in part a response to Malinowskis already present contention that

every gift carries with it the obligation of a calculatedand equivalentreturn at some point in

the future. According to Parry, Mauss stressed that gifts are always based on a combination of

interest and disinterest, of freedom and constraint and that this interest is not a matter of the

self-interest of individuals because

the persons who enter into the exchanges which centrally concern Mauss do so as

incumbents of status positions and do not act on their own behalf (Parry 1986: 456).

Parry goes on to argue that, whereas the Malinowskian project holds that the self-interests of

individuals pervade all aspects of primitive exchange, thus making the pure gift impossible,

for the Maussian project, the very idea of the individual self which makes Malinowskis

analysis possible, is itself part of the evolution of the modern societies in which the modern

contract has evolved from archaic exchange forms. In each successive form, the role of the

persons involved becomes increasingly individualized (from total prestations, through gift



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exchanges, to modern market exchanges between individuals). Parry concludes that an

elaborated ideology of the pure gift is only made possible in state societies with advanced

division of labour and a prominent commercial market economy, through the disconnection of

the material nature of the gift from the material needs of individuals via a developed market

sector, and through the development of historical religions in which spiritual reward is

deferred to the afterlife.

Although these critiques are variously aimed at clarifying the scope within which an

anthropologist can rightly talk of pure gifts or reclaiming the authentic Maussian gift, I dont

take Parrys critique of anthropologists to mean the end of the self-interested pure gift as an

analytical category. Rather, I take it as an ethnographic observation. As Parry describes, if the

societies which gave birth to anthropology also gave anthropologists their notions of

reciprocity (as mutually beneficial, dyadic exchange relationships between individuals) then

recognizing such an ideology of reciprocity as an ethnographic object in other aspects of such

societies should not surprise us. However, it is an ethnographic observation which we should

take some care with before extending it to the present case.

Reciprocity and Networking

It is no fluke then that the people I have described also describe what they do in terms of

reciprocity. But it is not enough to leave it there. That members of a society which both

produced these anthropological narratives, and which routinely seeks meaning in academic

work, should adopt or share the ideological underpinnings of this anthropological tale should

come as no surprise. However, we should be careful for the story that reciprocity tells is not

just about individuals, nor is it precisely the same story that anthropologists tell. Here I would

like to proceed by taking the fiction of reciprocity seriously as a way of opening up some of



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the assumptions of social networkers, particularly about persons and flows of something that

can be called public good. To answer this, let me begin by asking what kind of relation a

networking relationship is? What is exchanged and who is said to be exchanging it?

What is exchanged?

At the workshop in Newcastle we were told that its not enough simply to meet a lot of

people. Networking is a two way process: the seeking out and interacting with others in order

to establish a relationship to achieve common goals; the active process of developing and

managing productive relationships (Sear 2004, emphasis and formatting mine). As mentioned

before, in order to develop and manage those relationships, one has to give something in order

to get something back. Giving, in this sense, takes many forms. Although just about anything

can constitute the basis for forming a connection with another person, the most commonly

described tokens of exchange are information, expertise, and contacts. These can be anything

from advice on how to handle a tricky problem fabricating a molecule in the lab, passing on a

useful or relevant news article, feedback on a given issue, pointers to a good lawyer or

accountant, or even introductions to interesting people. So, by and large, the exchange

objects that are given are immaterial, or, if they do take material forms, that is downplayed and

considered secondary or instrumental to the actual exchange of information and contacts. A

business card, for example, while useful, is not entirely necessary to passing on contact

information. I often saw people jot the same information on a scrap of paper or the back of a

conference packet instead. But of course the exchange of business cards is not in and of itself

an exchange of gifts. It is a dyadic and discrete exchange, a one-off between two individualsiv.

But this is only partly true, for what is exchanged and what is expected to return are two

different things. From the perspective of networking, the exchange of contact information is

only the initial step. It sets in motion the possibilities for future returns. It is deemed poor



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networking etiquette to just take contact information and leave it at that. It would be a useless

action, because the point of the exchange is not the information, but the creation of a

relationship which might prove advantageous to either or both of the parties at a later date. To

increase the likelihood of that happening, the relationship must be cultivated and this is done

through more acts of giving. Making introductions and forwarding further useful contacts,

news articles or research relevant to the persons interests are all examples of the kind of giving

that cements a relationship. Each tiny act, each little favour, costs the giver time and at least

some effort and there is no promise of a return in kind. There is, however, a hope that such acts

will engender goodwill, trust, or some feeling of solidarity in the person and that this will in

turn make them more likely to pass on equally useful favours later. The motivation for giving

and the hoped for outcome of an act like trading business cards are the same the explicit

creation of a kind of social relationship, one which entails the obligation to return a favour at a

later date.

Unlike the hau as Mauss describes it (1990: 11-13), the obligation is not conceived of

as being carried in the thing given itself, but in the effect that the act of giving has upon the

recipient. As one technology consultant advised me about how to network:

Make sure you get someones details when you meet them. Then, as soon as

possible the next day, maybe even as soon as you get home send them a quick

email saying how nice it was to meet them, and remind them who you are and what

you both talked about or something you found interesting about the conversation. If

you have a website or something else to send them that will help them remember

you, this helps too. This puts you in their mind so they are more likely to think

about you if something relevant to your business comes along, and they might pass



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it along. It also helps them remember you again later if you come to them for help

or if they are in a position where you can help them.

Creating obligations through networking is thus seen as an activity of inducing psychological

states or mental attitudes of goodwill, and trust. Giving (your time, your contacts, and your

knowledge) and making yourself seem useful in the process creates the sense of goodwill

which can lead to a return of that favour in the future. It is not the gift but the act of giving

which is assumed to do this. However, this is not considered manipulation or coercion.

Networkers stress the importance of thesincerity of the act. The following advice, for instance,

appears on the website of a weekly course on entrepreneurship geared to students and

researchers at the University of Cambridge:

Networking is based on theperceivedbalance of give and take.

The more successful networkers engender trust in others by:

Being open minded to other people

Demonstrating a willingness to learn about and from others

Being willing to makegenuine gestures of good will

Being willing to invest time in networking activities

(Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning 2006)

If it seems too impersonal, too instrumental, it is a bad thing. Not only will people likely not

react well to you if you are insincere, but you are not likely to enjoy it yourself. Networking

should happen deliberately, but naturally. It is not opposed to how humans act and socialize

normally, but it is an enhancement of those things a more effective way to do what (it is

assumed) one would do anyway.



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Networking is not just a tool or a non-economic framework for producing economic effects.

Networking produces and reproduces a moral order. To understand this better we need to know

how returns are expected to return in networks. The possibility of direct exchanges and

immediate returns is not out of the question, however, the emphasis on growing and feeding

ones network suggests that this is never enough. There is uncertainty in every act of giving. It

might be a waste of time because the person receiving the gift might not return anything to you

ever. The beneficial action might never be made mutual. I posed this problem to one of the

presenters at the workshop. I had met a technology transfer officer at a networking event in

London the week before. I had asked this man how effective he thought such events were in

terms of his work. He expressed a great deal of scepticism. He had been going to similar

events for several years and they were usually the same a few presentations as a pretext for

food, wine, and mingling. Thinking back on it, he told me, I can trace a number of jobs Ive

had directly back to connections I made at these meetings, but Ive never had a business deal

develop that way. While networking had been personally beneficial, he did not see the benefit

to industry. However, the presenters response was unequivocal he probably had developed

business deals from all of those meetings, even if he couldnt see it.

If he had been applying the science of networks and mapping his

connections, he probably would have realized just how much business had come

his way indirectly. He may have given a card to someone at one of those

meetings who passed his information on to someone else who could benefit more

directly from his services. If this person then came to him, but didnt mention the

connection, how would he know if it hadnt been because of the networking he

did. These kinds of chains happen all of the time and can be several steps long.



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As he had described it earlier in the day, when a person gives something to the network

they are making a measure of the intangible, that is, they make a calculation of the benefits of

making their resources available to others. That measure is the likelihood that, at some future

date, someone will also make his or her resources available to him. Access and resources are

transferred across the network connections. It is this transfer that constitutes the social relation

between individuals in the network. These relationships are in turn valuable objects of

exchange. They become resources which may have value to others. In other words, the

exchange is the relationship, and the relationship is both the object and objective of the

exchange. The need to access different resources shifts these connections constantly, as does

the addition of new connections and new individuals in the network. As ones goals shift, so too

does the pattern of the network relevant to that goal.

The reason for exchanging these relations and expanding the networks that they connect

is to exchange and circulate opportunities. The gift of a relation is not merely the exchange

of an immediate favour, but the belief that, in that immediate exchange, past and future

exchanges with others, known or anonymous, are being evoked, elicited, and cemented.

Through little favours and large, the goodwill that one works to cultivate pays off in a future

exchange. What returns does not necessarily return in the same form as what is given a

contact for a contact, an article for an article but is an equivalent kind (an opportunity for an

opportunity). Thus the act of networking is a form of speculation on the future. One cultivates

many relations now in the hopes that those relations will produce opportunities in the future.

Thus one is encouraged to feed the network, to grow it, to constantly expand the number of

new connections. Of course these agricultural metaphors can be extended further. For

although networking is described as something that is naturally human, a basic part of being

social beings, scientific networking is a way of making it more efficient. Just as a farmer

can increase yields by selectively breeding certain varieties and weeding out both unwanted



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species and less productive specimens from the field, so can the networker improve the yields

of opportunity by selectively pruning and weeding his or her connections. The exercise in

mapping and evaluating connections and calculating their value in terms of time as a limited

resource is precisely how deliberate networking is deemed to be make more productive or

fruitful network. Combined with growing more connections, it increases the chances of a

chain of opportunities started by one act of giving to return, or rather to reticulate and intersect

with the giver again at some point later.

Thus the agency for producing and continuing the flows of opportunity is not conceived

of as lying in the network itself, but in the actions of individuals, some known, but mostly

anonymous, who, in following their own projects within a network, cause opportunities to

travel, transform and multiply until at some point they might return to the individual. One

might say, The network never fails, it is people who fail to network (and indeed, one hears

this expressed in different ways). Persons in a network are individuals of a liberal kind,

freely choosing, calculating, and self-interested selves. When ego makes a connection, the

thing given (that is, the opportunity in the guise of relations) travels its own trajectory from the

connection made. It makes possible other returns, but does not likely return itself. What

returns is opportunity in another guise, as another relation. Relations do not so much flow as

create the possibilities of flows of future opportunities through chains of anonymous other

individuals. Individuals connected by opportunity, and who freely make connections with

others to further their own projects. Thus, a network is imagined to be full of individuals

engaged in an entrepreneurial project of stochastic reciprocity: Each accruing the benefits of

opportunity by, as the networking instructor put it making a measure of the intangible:

calculating the values of relations, investing in new connections, and speculating on future

returns.



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The Receiving Person

Thus Ego is not imagined to be the only individual in the network, and, for every gift ego

makes to one of those other individuals, he or she is equally the potential recipient of another

individuals gift. The individual from whom ego might receive is likely to know ego, but the

chains of individuals that preceded that opportunity are difficult, if not impossible to discern if

the chain spans more than a few individuals. Although in theory, as we have seen, one should

be able to track these connections, in practice, mapping as a retrospective exercise isnt done so

intensively, except as a demonstration of how networking works (and proofthat it does). Most

often these chains are anonymous, and left so. Its not important to know how a past

opportunity came about, except to evoke the effectiveness of the network.

In The Fame of Gawa (Munn 1992), Nancy Munn constructs an etic framework to

understand the interplay of multiple levels of exchange and the creation of value that constitute

Gawan Kula exchanges. Munn introduces the notion of a Gawan intersubjective spacetime in

which individual exchanges are not just the focus of immediate exchange but the setting up of

potential future exchanges. Regarding Gawan hospitality practices, she describes, [I]t is of

considerable importance to them that the connection being created goes beyond Gawa and that,

through the transaction of food on Gawa at one particular time, one can produce for oneself the

possibility of gaining something beyond that time and from beyond Gawa itself. [] Gawans

are concerned with the relative capacity of certain acts or practices to create potentialities for

constructing a present that is experienced as pointing forward to later desired acts or material

returns.(Munn 1992: 11). Elsewhere Munn (Munn 1990), comments on how, in the interplay

of witchcraft beliefs and expectations of Kula exchanges, the direction of experience is not

merely pointing forward, but is actively drawing possible pasts (in the form of stories about

illness, attributions of witchcraft, and unexpected Kula events) and potential futures (in the



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form of expected Kula exchanges several cycles forward) into the same moment, eliciting the

past and the present as real in shifting event histories.

It is not difficult to see similarities in the speculative outlook of networkers. Identifying an

opportunitys origins in the network of relations is always a selectively retrospective act.

Hidden connections cannot be identified as actually relevantto producing an opportunity until

after the opportunity has arisen. Even then, only certain connections can be identified. There

is always an uncertain narrative element. Certain putative connections are evoked to give

meaning to the opportunity and to give meaning to the network which revealed it. Similarly,

when a networker is calculating how to manage their connections, they take in these past

accounts (and accountings) of the effectiveness of connections and simultaneously elicit certain

possible futures, both desirable and undesirable, around which they seek to align their present

activities.

In her study of egg donation in the UK (Konrad 2005), Monica Konrad takes up Munns

notion of intersubjective spacetime and deploys it to understand the ways that women who

donate ova come to understand the act as a gift. The key problem for Konrad, a problem that

issues from Titmuss classic book on blood donation (Titmuss et al. 1997), is that the targets

for egg donation, the recipients, are anonymous. The identities of recipients and donors are

kept secret and not divulged, bound up in a complex arrangement of legal, practical,

technical, and ethical assemblages. Titmuss suggested that a system of anonymous blood

donation, (versus a free market in blood), would shape the meaning of the act of giving. He

held that, because gifts forge relationships between persons, the absence of a knowable

individual to identify with the gift would mean that giving would be done on behalf of or for

the sake of society itself. Konrad demonstrates that anonymity in donation produces far more

complicated effects. She finds that, in many cases, women conceive of their donation not

simply as transference of their 'tissue, but as the donation of chances or the gift of life. In a



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variety of narratives, these women transform the donation from tissue to an ethical and moral

act done for the good of others. Konrads contention is that the transilience that the fact of

anonymity sets up (a shifting of registers between idioms of ownership and altruistic giving) is

brought about by the inventive play of related non-relations. Anonymity opens a space

between knowing and not-knowing in which meaning can be creatively evoked.

There are of course differences between this kind of anonymity and the anonymity of ova

donation and the networking gifts Ive described. However, in the spaces opened by the

impossibility of knowing ones entire network, one is able to constantly evoke the collective

anonymous individual others extending the benefits of networking. My helping you is both an

act of self-benefit and an act of altruism because I cannot receive an opportunity unless I pass

one on. The same happens when you pass on opportunities to others, and whether I know them

or not they are benefiting, possibly from a favour I initiated. Making a relation not only links

the individuals immediately involved, but it sets up the potential for the benefit, the good that

opportunities cause, to travel to others. Conceived anonymously and as an aggregate of

individuals, this networking is always imagined to be a trickle out effect. Public good, in the

network imagination, is a consequence of private gain: Mandeville redux.



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i [XXX note on the grumbling hive?]ii This neologism was used several times that day to describe any activity of persuading, convincing or otherwise

playing on peoples interests in order to increase the likelihood that they will cooperate with you.

iii Parry only mentions Cunnisons translation as the Halls translation had not yet been published. A systematic

comparison of both of these translations and the original along the lines of Parrys argument would be interesting,however, a brief review of Halls treatment of the specific problematic passage in Cunnissons translation that Parry

cites would seem to suggest that, at least in this one passage, Halls choices in translation do not entirely unwrite the

assumptions Parry accuses Cunnison of writing into the text:

Mauss:

le caractre volontaire, pour ainsi dire, apparemmentlibre etgratuit, et cependantcontraintetintressde ces

prestations. Elles ont revtu presque toujours la forme du prsent, du cadeau offert gnreusement mmequand, dans ce geste qui accompagne la transaction, il n'y a que fiction, formalisme et mensonge social, et

quand il y a, au fond, obligation et intrtconomique. (Mauss 1973: 147, as cited in:Parry 1986: 469, myemphasis)

Cunnison:

prestations which are in theory voluntary, disinterested and spontaneous , but are in factobligatory and

interested. The form usually taken is that of the gift generously offered; but the accompanying behaviour isformal pretence and social deception, while the transaction itself is based on obligation and economic self-

interest (Mauss 1961, as cited in: Parry 1986: 469, my emphasis. It should be noted that in the citation Parrylists the Cunnison translation as 1961, however, in the bibliography it is listed as 1966.)

Halls:

the so to speak voluntary character of these total services, apparentlyfree anddisinterestedbut nevertheless

constrained and self-interested. Almost always such services have taken the form of the gift, the presentgenerously given even when, in the gesture accompanying the transaction, there is only a polite fiction,

formalism, and social deceit, and when really there is obligation andeconomicself-interest. (Mauss 2002: 4,

my emphasis)

Halls removes the adamant tones of Cunnisons translation, particlarly by reintroducing the qualifying adverbapparently (forapparemment) which Cunnisson left out completely. Likewise, Halls interpretation of mme quand

impresses the circumstantial nature of the conditions that follow. [XXX quand (mme) implies even if, even though,

although Harraps New Shorter XXX reference!] The condition of generosity is not dependent on the condition ofpolite fiction, formalism, and social deceit, but can include such conditions. However, while Halls translationappears to address some of Parrys criticisms, others remain. This seems chiefly to centre around the difficulty of

interpreting and translating the three french words: libre, gratuit, and intress / intrt. In french libre andgratuitdenote [XXXconnote?] distinctly different sets of meaning. [XXX finish!]

iv [XXX- include note on how the exchange of the cards is not always an exchange immediately. Sometimes one-

sided]

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exchanging relations and public good-draft-20070702

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