Abstract

Indonesian traditional villagers have a tradition for the sake of their own social and economic security named “nyumbang”. There are wide variations of the traditions across the archipelago, and we revisit an observation to one in Subang, West Java, Indonesia. The paper discusses and employs the evolutionary game theoretic insights to see the process of “gantangan”, of the intertwining social cohesion and economic expectation of the participation within the traditional activities. The current development of the “gantangan” tradition is approached and generalized to propose a view between the economic and social sphere surrounding modern people. The interaction between social and economic sphere might be seen as a kind of Lokta-Volterra’s predator-prey-like interaction, where both are conflicting yet in a great necessity one another for the sustainability of the social life. While some explanations due to the current development of “gantangan” is drawn, some aspects related to traditional views complying the modern life with social and economic expectations is outlined