Department of social anthropology seminar with Keir Martin

The Department of Social Anthropology has the pleasure to invite you to a seminar with Keir Martin from Manchester University. He will present the following paper:


Exchanging the future. Creative gifts in Papua New Guinea and beyond


Abstract
In this paper we seek to explore the potential importance of the ambiguity of gift exchange through a comparison of two seemingly very different exchanges in two very different places: a death ritual at the Papua New Guinean village of Matupit, and a wedding in a province in the Republic of Georgia. In both cases money acts as a short-cut to previous histories of exchange creating disputes over the validity of the gift in terms of negotiations of relations. Yet as we will argue, exactly because the exchanges are contested and based on conflicting perspectives on the past they contain a potential for change albeit on minute levels. In this article we thus suggest that the ambiguities of gift exchange means that they are not always culturally reproductive, as they often presented in the regional literature of Melanesia, but also potentially profoundly transformative.

Bionote
Keir Martin is a lecturer in Social Anthropology at Manchester University.  My main research activity has been in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where I conducted two years of fieldwork, studying the contested politics of 'custom' in the post-colonial state and in particular examining the ways in which differing evaluations of the meaning of 'custom' shed light upon developing forms of social stratification.

All interested are welcome!