Mamihlapinatapai: Games people (might) play

With a focus on Melanesia, game theory is used to model the logical structu re of strategic interactions between actors who engage in exchange transact ions and to identify paradoxes, opportunities and uncertainties that confro nt those actors. It is argued that these exchanges are of three types which are named sharing, barter-trade and prestige-service. The first has the fo rm of the classic game known as Prisoner's Dilemma and the expectation of n on-cooperation inherent in this game is resolved by trust. The second has t he form of a game known as Chicken and the high risk inherent in this game is resolved by social manipulations that transform the payoff structure int o Prisoner's Dilemma. The third is always an n-person game. It has the form of a prestige game with an unconventional logical structure that is contin gent on the existence of a parallel set of service games, each having the f orm of Chicken. The paper concludes by attempting to restore some realism t o models that were over-simplified abstractions. Some reinterpretations of conventional understandings are suggested.