Of Relations and the Dead

Download or read book Of Relations and the Dead written by Cecile Barraud and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-09-13 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exchanges are fundamental to human societies. The authors show that the study of exchanges not only serves as a key to understanding particular societies as totalities but also helps to frame a comparative mode of analysis expressed in terms of a hierarchy of values. Starting with a comparative analysis of the different vocabularies used when dealing with exchange, the authors go on to provide a detailed account of how each society's exchanges form a genuine value-oriented system. Their conclusions shed light on important issues in anthropology such as the difference between subject and object; the construction of the person in the matrix of social relations; and the contrast between 'socio-cosmic' systems and other societies which recognize a universal term of reference beyond their community.