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

肯尼亚西部的市场中心卡东戈的居民在特定的社会背景下对待不同大小的货币，就像他们拥有相同的大小一样。这种对数量的递归理解在对选举结果、投资计划和博彩策略的解释中也变得明显。在其他情况下，例如在学校的数学教学中，对量的理解是不同的。这种对量的相加理解假定不同的量彼此相继。该研究项目的主要人种学目标是分析加法和卡东戈人对数量和金钱的递归理解之间的关系，以揭示为什么在特定的社会情景中，行为者更喜欢这两种方法中的一种。通过结合人种学和实验经济学方法，该项目将隔离导致添加剂和递归理解数量之间特定背景变化的因素，以回答社会文化因素在多大程度上、如何以及哪些社会文化因素影响肯尼亚西部对数量的感知和分类的问题。纳入实验经济学方法将进一步有助于回答这些方法的跨文化使用是否具有科学有效性的问题。即使跨文化使用将被证明是有问题的，实验经济学方法也将导致更好地理解当地的数量概念，因为参与将“迫使”告密者对货币金额进行分类和分解。这些实验被理解为“强制反思性量化”，将进一步帮助理解肯尼亚西部对金钱的道德分类。

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.