Inalienable Possessions: The Forgotten Dimension

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Abstract
This chapter traces the problems the author inherited in her own Trobriand fieldwork from Malinowski's projection of the norm of reciprocity as the underlying principle in all “primitive” social relations. It shows how the norm of reciprocity developed as a Western cultural construction and how its use was transformed to fit different Western and “primitive” economic situations, whereas the most ancient and powerful economic classification—inalienable and alienable possessions—was ignored.

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