Barn raising
From GiftEconomy
[edit] US Usage
The term "barn raising" was historically applied to raising a barn, which especially in the newly settled parts of USA up to the 19th century used to require a community effort involving all adults of a community, generally laboring unpaid. The dimensions of the lifting required meant that this would have been impossible even for an entire family to achieve, and often the need to erect a barn in time for the harvest meant that the job had to be done quickly. The term can be applied to any job in which many people work together without pay for a common purpose, often with intense effort for short time, especially to construct something. The tradition still survives in US subcultures which have resisted encroachment by monetisation such as the Amish and Mennonite communities.
[edit] Other Cultures
All cultures and societies have traditions of working together for the common good, whether routinely or on special occasions. Here are some of them, courtesy of Wikipedia, which is itself something of a barn raising, albeit a long term, ongoing one:
- Imece (Turkish)
- Bayanihan (Filipino)
- Dugnad (Norwegian)
- Gadugi (Cherokee)
- Naffir (Sudanese Arabic)
- Kaláka (Hungarian)
- Tłoka(Polish)
- Meitheal (Irish)
- Talgood (Estonian)
- Talkoot (Finnish)
- Gadugi (Cherokee)
- Gotong_royong (Indonesia & Malaysia)
