The Quality of Quantity: An Ethnographic and Experimental-Economic Analysis of the Cultural Influence on the Cognitive Perception and Classification of Quantities and Money in Western Kenya

肯尼亚西部市场中心Kadongo的居民在特定的社会环境中对待不同大小的货币，就好像它们拥有相同的大小一样。这种对数量的递归理解也体现在对选举结果、投资计划和投注策略的解释中。在其他情况下，比如在学校的数学教学中，教授的是对数量的不同理解。这种对数量的加性理解假定不同的数量是一个接一个的。该研究项目的主要民族志目标是分析Kadongo中对数量和金钱的加法和递归理解之间的关系，以便阐明为什么行为者在特定的社会情境中更喜欢两种方法中的一种。通过结合民族志和实验经济学方法，该项目将分离出在数量的加法理解和递归理解之间造成具体情况变化的因素，以回答社会文化因素在多大程度上、如何以及哪些因素影响肯尼亚西部数量的感知和分类的问题。实验经济方法的纳入将进一步帮助回答这些方法的跨文化使用是否在科学上有效的问题。即使跨文化使用将被证明是有问题的，实验经济学方法将导致更好地理解当地的数量概念，因为参与“迫使”举报人对货币数额进行分类和分解。这些实验被理解为“强制反思量化”，将进一步帮助理解肯尼亚西部货币的道德分类。

The inhabitants of Kadongo, a market center in Western Kenya, treat differently sized monetary amounts in specific social context as if they possess the same size. This recursive understanding of quantity also becomes manifest in the interpretation of electoral results, investment plans and betting strategies. In other situations such as the mathematics instruction in school a different understanding of quantities is taught. This additive understanding of quantity assumes that different quantities follow one another. The main ethnographic goal of the research project is to analyze the relations between an additive and a recursive understanding of quantities and money in Kadongo in order to shed light upon the question why actors prefer one of the two approaches to quantity in specific social situations. By combining ethnographic and experimental-economic methods, the project will isolate the factors that are responsible for context-specific shifts between an additive and a recursive understanding of quantities in order to answer the question to what extent, how and which socio-cultural factors influence the perception and classification of quantities in Western Kenya. The inclusion of experimental-economic methods will further help answer the question if the cross-cultural use of these methods is scientifically valid. Even if the cross-cultural use will prove to be problematic, the experimental-economic methods will lead to a better understanding of local conceptions of quantity, because the participations "Forces" informants to classify and disaggregate monetary amounts. The experiments, understood as such "enforced reflective quantifications", will furthermore help to understand the moral classification of money in Western Kenya.