Property Relations

The anthropological tradition approaches property as a "bundle of rights" and property relationships as social relationships. Rejecting both liberal and socialist approaches, which often neglect the wider social and cultural contexts of property, the contributors to this volume renew and extend the anthropological perspective. The ethnographic case studies include accounts of sharing among hunter-gatherers and herders in Africa and "intelligence gathering" among Siberian herders, land appropriation from Native Americans, and problems of ownership and disposal in Melanesia. Other essays cover contemporary property issues in Northern Cyprus, Romania, Britain and Japan.