RETAINING REALITY - SOME PRACTICAL PROBLEMS WITH OBJECTS AS PROPERTY

This article presents a challenge to classical depictions of the opera tion and valuation of objects by Trobrianders, and to models of exchan ge which foreground material things at the expense of social relations hips. The example of a stone axe blade, and its relevance for an elite urban Trobriander and member of the lowest ranked of the Trobriand ma trilineages, is given to argue that economistic approaches to property , and monolithic notions of group identity, are not entirely applicabl e to subjects' exchange practices within a postcolonial cultural imagi nary.