The Construction of Social Meaning and Material Value

A Note on Trade in Melanesia

Bibliographic Data

ID7936562
AuthorsJoachim Görlich (University of Cologne, corresponding author)
Year1998
Volume68
Issue4
Pages294-301
Publication date1998-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOceania (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0029-8077 • E-ISSN: 1834-4461
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/j.1834-4461.1998.tb02680.x
OpenAlexW1976270633
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited12

Marilyn Strathern has greatly refined the analysis of gift exchange, emphasizing that in gift exchange, units of value understood as metonymic extensions of their donors, are substituted for each other. However, the question still remains of how we should take into account the social meaning and material value of exchange processes usually called barter or trade; especially if we do not want simply to conceive of them as gift exchanges and nothing else. Drawing on fieldwork among the Kobon in the northern fringe of the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, this paper proposes to view barter/trade in Melanesia as a strategic and symbolic interaction that combines aspects of gift and commodity exchange

Barter · Commodity · Economic anthropology · Economics · Economy · Epistemology · Ethnology · Exchange value · Linguistics · Market economy · Meaning (existential · Metaphor · Metonymy · New guinea · Nothing · Positive economics · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Mathematics · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Philosophy · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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