Marilyn Strathern's Relational Approach to Exchange
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Marilyn Strathern carried out work in Melanesia. She argues that Melanesians do not conceive of objects and persons as independent entites involved in exchange.

She argues that the person who gives does not exist before they give and the relationship that occurs with this giving. This person only has an identity as part of and as a result of the giving relationship.

Thus, she concludes, people only acquire their identities from the relationships in which they participate.

Other Notes in this Category

1. Malinowski and the Kula
2. Marcel Mauss - The Gift
3. Marilyn Strathern's Relational Approach to Exchange
4. Some Key Terms

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