Property Relations
Renewing the Anthropological Tradition

Ten diverse ethnographic case studies renew the anthropological perspective on property.

C. M. Hann (Edited by)

9780521593892, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 March 1998

288 pages
23.6 x 15.6 x 2.3 cm, 0.59 kg

The anthropological tradition approaches property as a 'bundle of rights' and property relationships as social relationships. Rejecting both liberal and socialist approaches, which often neglect the wider social and cultural contexts of property, the contributors to this volume renew and extend the anthropological perspective. The ethnographic case studies include accounts of sharing and intelligence gathering among hunter-gatherers and herders in Africa and in Siberia, land appropriation from native Americans, and the problems associated with the disposal of property in Melanesia. However the anthropological perspective can also illuminate capitalist property relations, and there are fascinating essays on property redistribution in Cyprus and Romania, and on the history of property rights in England and Japan.

List of contributors
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction: the embeddedness of property C. M. Hann
2. 'Sharing is not a form of exchange': an analysis of property-sharing in immediate-return hunter-gatherer societies James Woodburn
3. Property as a way of knowing on Evenki lands in Arctic Siberia David G. Anderson
4. Property and social relations in Melanesian anthropology James G. Carrier
5. The mystery of property: inheritance and industrialization in England and Japan Alan MacFarlane
6. An unsettled frontier: property, blood and US federal policy Paula L. Wagoner
7. Property values: ownership, legitimacy and land markets in Northern Cyprus Julie Scott
8. Property and power in Transylvania's decollectivization Katherine Verdery
9. Property rights, regulation and environmental protection: some Anglo-Romanian contrasts William Howarth
10. Dowry and the rights of women to property Jack Goody
11. Divisions of interest and languages of ownership Marilyn Strathern
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]