Property and Equality, Volume 1: Ritualization, Sharing, Egalitarianism

The ethnography of egalitarian social systems was first met with sheer disbelief. Today it is still hotly debated in a number of fields and has gained sophistication as well as momentum. This collection of essays on property and equality acknowledges this diversification by presenting research results in two complementary volumes. They bring together a wide range of authoritative researchers most of whom have worked with hunter-gatherer groups. These two volumes cover existing ethnographic and theoretical ground while maintaining a clear focus on the relation between property and equality. The book consists of the most recent work of prominent members of the original group of researchers in hunter-gatherer studies among them James Woodburn and Richard Lee, and very recent ethnography on hunter-gatherers and other egalitarian systems. Thomas Widlok obtained his PhD in Social Anthropology at the LSE and has taught anthropology in the universities of London, Cologne, Kyoto, and Heidelberg. He was a member of the Max Planck Cognitive Anthropology Research Group in Nijmegen, Netherlands. Currently he is a research staff member at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany. Wolde Gossa Tadesse obtained his PhD in Social Anthropology at the LSE and published on East African pastoralist groups. Currently he is a research staff member at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany. Contents 6 List of Figures and Tables 8 Preface 10 Introduction • Thomas Widlok 12 1 Egalitarian Societies Revisited • James Woodburn 29 2 Individual Creativity and Property–Power Disjunction in an Australian Desert Society • Robert Tonkinson 43 3 Knowledge about Plant Medicine and Practice among the Ituri Forest Foragers • Hideaki Terashima 58 4 Space-Time, Ethnicity, and the Limits of Inuit and New Age Egalitarianism • David Riches 73 5 Sharing Costs: an Exploration of Personal and Individual Property, Equalities and Differentiation • Barbara Bodenhorn 88 6 Possession, Equality and Gender Relations in |Gui Discourse • Kazuyoshi Sugawara 116 7 Are Immediate-Return Strategies Adaptive? • Robert Layton 141 8 Food Sharing and Ownership among Central African Hunter-Gatherers: an Evolutionary Perspective • Mitsuo Ichikawa 162 9 Time, Memory and Property • Tim Ingold 176 10 To Share or not to Share: Notes about Authority and Anarchy among the Hamar of Southern Ethiopia • Ivo Strecker 186 11 ‘Their own oral histories’: Items of Ju/’hoan Belief and Items of Ju/’hoan Property • Megan Biesele 201 12 The Property of Sharing: Western Analytical Notions, Nayaka Contexts • Nurit Bird-David 212 Notes on Contributors 228 Index 232 v.1. Ritualisation, sharing, egalitarianism v. 2. Encapsulation, commercialisation, discrimination.