The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World

“Ethnobotanists know that the more names a plant has, the greater its cultural importance.”

Kimmerer speaks from her experience as a botanist and a member of Indigenous communities, underscoring her credibility. Her expertise allows her to transcend cultural expectations, linking the etymology of the serviceberry to its function in the gift economy of the natural world. Kimmerer suggests that the need to name something is as fundamentally human as generosity, foreshadowing the text’s thematic interest in Optimism as a Tool for Building a Better World.

“This pail of Juneberries represents hundreds of gift exchanges that led up to my blue-stained fingers.”

Kimmerer explicitly frames the berries as a symbol of gift economies, highlighting her thematic engagement with The Natural World as Inspiration for Economic Reform. The bucket of berries “represents” participation in a gift economy, a level of symbolic abstraction that is contrasted with the very real, very explicit description of the blue-stained fingers. The symbolism of the berries and the berries themselves are both real, which alludes to Kimmerer’s description of how gift economies function on a practical and an abstract level.

“Recognizing ‘enoughness’ is a radical act in an economy that is always urging us to consume more.”

Kimmerer does not shy away from the sense that her ideas might be considered radical in the modern era. Rather than deny this, however, she seeks to demonstrate that her ideas are far older and more natural than the capitalist systems that have replaced gift economies. A simple gesture, she suggests, can be seen as a radical act in the same way that the criticism of something as cold and abstract as capitalism may also seem radical. Here, Kimmerer slowly deconstructs the idea of radicalism as a critique of gift economies.

“When an economic system actively destroys what we love, isn’t it time for a different system?”

Kimmerer uses rhetorical questions to establish her case against capitalism. The descriptions of berries and spring water emphasize them as elements of the natural world, encouraging the readers to question any system that commodifies or corrodes our own natural ecosystem. This subtle use of rhetorical questions allows Kimmerer to lead her readers toward a criticism of capitalist economies, prompting them to draw their own conclusions.

“There is no making of community, only a trading of commodities.”

Kimmerer explicitly draws a distinction between a capitalist market economy and gift economies by emphasizing the human element as the key difference. She notes that gift economies inherently create a sense of community that is alien to the trading of a commodity. As such, Kimmerer presents the gift economy as a solution for modern alienation. By trading gifts rather than exchanging commodities, she suggests, the participation in the economy contributes to the building of community, underscoring her larger thematic exploration of The Tension Between Cutthroat Capitalism and Communal Reciprocity.

“I’d feel as dirty as the water.”

Here, Kimmerer equates commodification with environmental pollution, framing the commodification of natural resources like water as akin to contaminating them. She extends the concept of pollution beyond the scientific into the moral—to destroy such a fundamental human need, she suggests, is an inherently immoral act.

“And yet I am harnessed to this economy, in ways large and small, yoked to pervasive extraction.”

Kimmerer acknowledges the inherent tension of needing to live within a system of power that she is actively working to dismantle. She criticizes the capitalist economies that commodify everything, yet she feels harnessed to these economies for survival within the system. She criticizes them from within, but—as an individual—she cannot overthrow them on her own. Simply by existing in such an economy, she feels culpable for the pervasive extraction. In this way, Kimmerer creates a sense of empathy in her readers. They may feel as harnessed as her, so, by acknowledging this, Kimmerer can offer guidance on how to develop gift economies without the feeling of moral compromise.

“What is economics for anyway?”

Kimmerer encourages her readers to recognize gift economies as a viable alternative to capitalist systems by asking them to question self-evident truths about the world around them. The field of economics governs so much of modern existence, for example, but Kimmerer encourages the readers to ask why. The purpose of economics, she believes, should be as closely scrutinized as her own ideas, which are often framed as radical.

“A gift economy nurtures the community bonds that enhance mutual well-being; the economic unit is ‘we’ rather than ‘I,’ as all flourishing is mutual.”

Using an example from the English language, Kimmerer describes the fundamental difference between current economic systems and her own proposals—a distinction analogous to the shift of a pronoun, swapping “I” for “we.” This example allows Kimmerer to distill the specter of economic reform into small, intentional acts of resistance.

“This ritualized redistribution of wealth was banned by colonial governments, under the influence of missionaries in the 1800s.”

Kimmerer provides historical background to emphasize the erasure of gift economies by the colonial systems of the past. Framing such practices as new and radical, she argues, reifies a post-hoc justification for the erasure of even older systems. In doing so, she demonstrates that the apparatus of colonial extraction born from capitalism is also responsible for the erasure of alternative economic models.

“Is this an economy? I think it is.”

Kimmerer’s advocacy for gift economies aims to fundamentally alter the way that readers understand the word economy. An economy can take on many different forms, she notes, so it should not be thought of only as a monolithic, unchangeable, and abstract force that cannot be changed, improved, and made more sustainable. Instead, people can recognize economies of every scale in the world around them. Once they recognize these alternative economies, Kimmerer hopes, they can see the ways in which they might challenge the current economic orthodoxy.

“They quickly cite access to open-source software and the existence of Wikipedia as manifestations of a gift economy, where knowledge is freely shared on digital platforms in an information commons.”

Kimmerer uses her own intellectual evolution to urge readers to recognize the existence of smaller-scale gift economies in the modern world. By aligning her own journey with that of the readers, Kimmerer adopts a posture of humility, encouraging others to take the same journey she has taken.

“We live in the tension between what is and what is possible.”

For Kimmerer, the tension between what exists and what may exist becomes the fuel for change. A fundamental part of Kimmerer’s message is encouraging the readers to view the world differently. The world is full of manufactured ideas, she suggests, which are taken as fundamental and unchangeable aspects of human existence. Just as the modern capitalist economy was created, something else can be created in its place.

“And all you need is a library card, which is a kind of agreement to respect and take care of the common good.”

Kimmerer’s advocacy for gift economies centers the idea that gift economies already exist and thrive in many forms. She uses the familiar example of a library to make clear that gift economies are not alien to most readers. By highlighting the familiarity and social integration of many gift economies, she strips away the sense of radical newness, making the concept more accessible.

“Dr. Ostrom’s research grew from her careful observation of systems of land management among communities that colonizing capitalists dismissed as primitive since they did not seem to value or practice accumulation of private property.”

Kimmerer reinforces the long history of gift economies by citing the research of Dr. Ostrom. Ostrom’s research emphasizes the elimination of gift economies as part of a process of cultural erasure that has taken place over the course of many centuries in the name of protecting capital and capitalist systems of power.

“And so, we find ourselves in a time of ecological and spiritual depletion.”

Kimmerer aligns herself with her readers, positioning them as peers on a journey of discovery together. She empathizes with a sense of social alienation, using the word “we” rather than “you” or “I,” and urges her readers to take her message onboard. She emphasizes the ecological and spiritual depletion that preoccupies her and suggests that readers who pick up a copy of The Serviceberry feel it as well.

“Share.”

The guidelines of the Honorable Harvest resemble a list of religious commandments. Kimmerer lists them in her book, but many of the entries can be distilled into a single, easily digestible word. The simple invocation of the term “share” speaks to the spirit of community and altruism on which the entire idea of the gift economy is predicated. The word is a call to action and a reinforcement of social bonds, as well as a mantra for ecological relations.

“Our petty thief deserves a name, so let’s call him Darren, after the CEO of ExxonMobil.”

ExxonMobil is a multinational oil and gas corporation engaged in the exploration, production, refining, and distribution of petroleum and chemical products. Kimmerer uses ExxonMobil as a shorthand for capitalist commodification, particularly with regard to the environment. To Kimmerer, the oil company represents the spiritual antagonist of everything she stands for. Kimmerer uses the first name of the CEO of ExxonMobil as a stand-in for all of humanity’s basest instincts, exemplified by the pollution and corruption of the natural world in the name of profit.

“Let’s remember that the ‘System’ is led by individuals, by a relatively small number of people, who have names, with more money than God and certainly less compassion.”

Kimmerer emphasizes to the readers that the people who corrode the environment in the name of capitalism represent a surprisingly small majority, underscoring her sense of optimism as a tool for building a better world. The system itself may be powerful, but it serves to benefit only a select few. Kimmerer reminds her readers that they are very much in the majority against the forces of capitalist extraction.

“What if scarcity is just a cultural construct, a fiction that fences us off from a better way of life?”

Throughout the text, one of Kimmerer’s strongest critiques of capitalist systems is the way in which they manufacture scarcity of natural resources. The pervasive nature of capitalism in the Western world frames this manufactured scarcity as inevitable and natural. Kimmerer’s work aims to prove such an assumption false, encouraging her readers to fight for real change and reform. By dismantling false notions of scarcity, she hopes to re-center a clear understanding of abundance in her readers’ minds.

“In fact, the ‘monster’ in Potawatomi culture is Windigo, who suffers from the illness of taking too much and sharing too little. It is a cannibal, whose hunger is never sated, eating through the world.”

Kimmerer positions the Windigo, a figure from Indigenous folklore, as a symbolic counterpart to the serviceberry. The Windigo embodies the cannibalistic corrosiveness of selfishness inherent in capitalist systems, while the serviceberry represents a model for sustainable economic reform.

“You might rightly observe that we no longer live in small, close-knit societies, where generosity and mutual esteem structure our relations. But we could.”

Kimmerer preempts criticisms of her advocacy for gift economies by acknowledging that the structure of human society in the modern era does not resemble the Indigenous communities of the past and advocating for a return to Indigenous ways of being. Kimmerer gets ahead of criticism by urging her readers to reject preconceived ideas of the way the world is structured and imagine different possibilities for the world as it could be.

“In these urgent times, we need to become the storm that topples the senescent, destructive economies so the new can emerge.”

In the book’s conclusion, Kimmerer’s advocacy takes on a more urgent tone. The threat of climate change, she suggests, means that the old economic models cannot ward off imminent destruction. Her call to action has a time limit, in which humanity must find a new way to think of the world or the world be lost to the coming storm.