Inalienable possessions
Inalienable possessions (or immovable property) are things such as land or objects that are symbolically identified with the groups that own them and so cannot be permanently severed from them.
According to Barbara Mills, "Inalienable possessions are objects made to be kept (not exchanged), have symbolic and economic power that cannot be transferred, and are often used to authenticate the ritual authority of corporate groups".
[1] Marcel Mauss first described inalienable possessions in The Gift, discussing potlatches, a kind of gift-giving feast held in communities of many indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest: It is even incorrect to speak in these cases of transfer.
[2] Annette Weiner broadened the application of the category of property outside the European context with her book Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-While-Giving, focussing on a range of Oceanic societies from Polynesia to Papua New Guinea and testing existing theories of reciprocity and marriage exchange.
[3] She also applies the concept to explain examples such as the Kula ring in the Trobriand Islands, which was made famous by Bronisław Malinowski.
The book focuses on a range of Oceanic societies from Polynesia to Papua New Guinea to test existing theories of reciprocity (gift-giving) and marriage exchange.
The book is also important for introducing a consideration of gender in the gift-giving debate by placing women at the heart of the political process.
[7] Barbara Mills praised her investigation of how "inalienable possessions are simultaneously used to construct and defeat hierarchy", saying it "opens a boxful of new theoretical and methodological tools for understanding social inequality in past and present societies.
"An inalienable possession acts as a stabilizing force against change because its presence authenticates cosmological origins, kinship, and political histories.
He states that these objects are "durable wealth [that] is collective property that is continually in circulation among persons who have temporary possession of it.
An analogy in Western culture is sporting trophies, such as championship boxing belts owned by all the clubs comprising the association that controls the competition in which constituent club members compete, and which pass for agreed periods of time into the possession of particular champions, changing hands as new champions emerge.
In other words, Weiner is contending that an economy built around the moral code of gift giving provides the giver rights over what he/she has given and in turn "subsequently benefits from a series of advantages.
Kinship theory as developed by Claude Lévi-Strauss, used the "sibling incest taboo" to argue that women themselves are objects of exchange between lineage groups.
Men had to find women outside their kin groups to marry hence they "lost" their sisters in order to gain wives.
In comparing Hawaii, Samoa and the Trobriands, she argues that the more stratified a society is by ranked differences, the more important inalienable possessions produced by sisters become.
[18] A critical part of Weiner's argument is that the ability to keep inalienable possessions outside of exchange is a source of difference, and hence brings high status.
The possibilities of transmission in the face of the canon for guardianship establish for ritual leaders a domain of authority that in certain situations leads to a formalized position of rank.
[20] Weiner has used the term to categorize the many Kula valuables of the Trobriand islanders who view those objects as culturally imbued with a spiritual sense of the gift giver.
And lastly, in the hierarchical areas, Kula necklaces and bracelets are saved for external exchange only; stone axe blades are used internally.
But this prestige is fleeting and does not transform into permanent differences in rank because women's participation is minor and Kula shells lack cosmological authentication.
Third thesis: The social is not just the sum of alienable and inalienable goods, but is brought into existence by the difference and inter-dependence of these two spheres of exchange.
In addition, gift-giving plays an important role in the cultural development of how social and business relations evolve in major economies such as in the case of the Chinese.
