'What Goes Around Comes Around': Informal Activities and Reciprocity Networks in Westport, New Zealand

The article reports the results of a survey into the informal activities of 47 households in the unemployment‐affected small town of Westport, New Zealand. Overall levels of household informal participation are found to be fairly high across all income groups. There is an abundance of informal resources in the surrounding area and a longstanding local culture encouraging participation. However, differentiated ‘established local’ and ‘new local’ reciprocity networks, reflecting broader scale processes of social and economic fragmentation, have emerged since a major round of state and private sector restructuring occurred in 1987.