PERMEABLE AND PARTIBLE PERSONS - A COMPARATIVE-ANALYSIS OF GENDER ANDBODY IN SOUTH-INDIA AND MELANESIA

Recent anthropology of Melanesia has elaborated an understanding of ge nder and person through an understanding of exchange, and the notion o f the partible person. This article puts into relief the concept of th e partible person through a comparison, not with the West, but with So uth India, where the person has been similarly characterized in contra distinction to the Western bounded individual. Gender in South India i s fixed and stable, based in bodily difference between women and men, and importantly focused on the capacity for procreation. In Melanesia gender is performative, shifting and contextually defined. This contra st relates to differences between the two areas in notions of the pers on and of the exchange of substances or parts of persons.