Law, Anthropology, and the Constitution of the Social: Losing (out on) intellectual resources

摘要: ‘Living men or women should not be allowed to dealt with as [a] part of compensation payment under any circumstances.’ The custom is ‘repugnant the general principles humanity’. Thus said Judge Salamo Injia in handing down his verdict on (as it caught local headlines) ‘Compo girl case’. This was at Mount Hagen National Court 1997; concerned people from Minj Wahgi region, Western Highlands Papua New Guinea. case offers an interesting comment role played by legal technique fabrication persons and things. In some respects rehearses issues which have long troubled anthropologists describing marriage arrangements. They include extent equation between wealth renders ‘thing’-like, locus classicus being bride-wealth (bride-price) payments, feeds epistemological anxiety, anthropological analysis turn treats its subjects less than subjects, where ‘the exchange women’. With these background, I note this reference human rights. That assisted persons; antithesis things never far away. instance might assist project a distinction sorts person thing onto Guinean material, although techniques will politico-ritual rather nature, does work quite Euro-Americans expect.