ch. 1. Too sturdy to be mundane : a baruya garden fence -- ch. 2. Entwined by nature : eels, traps, and ritual -- ch. 3. The anthropological complexity of unremarkable drums -- ch. 4. Artefacts as images or how to relate relations -- ch. 5. Racing-cars, dinky toys, and aging boys -- ch. 6. What materiality means : objects as resonators -- ch. 7. What's new? : blurring anthropological borders but keeping "technology" in mind" -- ch. 8. The paradox of marginal changes.
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In New Guinea, money and valuables are used at the fringes of "sister exchange" marriages in order to equate the "sisters" values, as requested in equalitarian societies. By doing so, however, wealth is injected in social systems that develop into non equalitarian economic and political systems. P. Clastres' idea of "society again the State" is therefore contradicted. ; En marge des femmes La société contre le désir des hommes. Contrairement à ce qu'avançait P. Clastres, des logiques non intentionnelles inégalitaires sont à l'œuvre dans les sociétés égalitaires. En Nouvelle-Guinée, en cherchant à égaliser la "valeur" des épouses lors des mariages par échange de sœurs, on y a introduit l'usage des richesses qui, sortant de la sphère du mariage, servent à la mise en place de systèmes politiques et économiques inégalitaires.
The Guérande Marshes : An Ecosystem as a Means of Production.
Salt production used to be the primary economical activity of communities living on the border of Guérande's marshes. Land tenure formation of salt producing units and social organization of work in the marsh were factors which contributed to the establishment of the social structure of those communities. Actually the marsh is an ecosystem which, although changed to a means of production, has to be maintained if salt ponds are to be kept in good order. There is a close relationship between its reproduction and the marsh communities' production. Because of the salt production crisis on the Atlantic coast, 50 % of the salt ponds are now out of exploitation. Reduction of available work power implies the non-performance of some of the tasks that would be necessary to maintain the ecosystem in a way compatible with salt production. To get around the problem, marsh people have come to resort to a series of precarious technologies whose succession led to an increasing degradation of production set up, along with a disintegration of the traditional social structure. The process is now continuing and enlarging on its own. ment of the social structure of those communities. Actually the marsh is an ecosystem which, although changed to a means of production, has to be maintained if salt ponds are to be kept in good order. There is a close relationship between its reproduction and the marsh communities' production. Because of the salt production crisis on the Atlantic coast, 50 % of the salt ponds are now out of exploitation. Reduction of available work power implies the non-performance of some of the tasks that would be necessary to maintain the ecosystem in a way compatible with salt production. To get around the problem, marsh people have come to resort to a series of precarious technologies whose succession led to an increasing degradation of production set up, along with a disintegration of the traditional social structure. The process is now continuing and enlarging on its own.
Land and Exchanges among the Anga (Papua New Guinea)
The lineage model worked out by africanists does not account for the definition of local groups or, more generally, for the nature of social bonds in New Guinea. The ways the environment is worked and land is appropriated (bush country for hunting and fields for farming) in two Anga groups (Ankave and Baruya) are described. Questions then arise about the forms of the relationship with the land. This comparative study sheds light on the overall logic linking earth, food and exchanges. References to localities and to work are inherent in this logic, which sheds light on cooperation between affines and forms of marriage, as well as on the ceremonial use of game from hunting. The main markers of the land are the trees associated with the production of the bodily substances most valued in conceptions about the making of human beings and in masculine initiation ceremonies : blood and sperm.
