Anthropological
Worldbuilding

Perturbation · Exchange · Perturb

Exchange in Perturbation

What happens when exchange is disturbed, exposed or put under pressure?

Why this lens matters

Exchange includes money, gifts, favours, knowledge, attention, trust, stories and obligations—what moves through society and why.

Follow-ups

  1. Who gives, receives, owes or profits?
  2. Is exchange commercial, ritual, informal or forbidden?
  3. What cannot be bought?
  4. What debts or obligations remain?
  5. What black markets or gift economies emerge?

Perspective shift

How would someone new to this society misunderstand the exchange?

Perturbation

Push this further: What changes when exchange breaks down, accelerates or becomes unequal? How does the civilization adapt without simply becoming our world?

Example

Use this while working on the a disturbance, crisis or change: choose one concrete detail and ask how exchange changes what it means.