Inalienable possessions (or immovable property) are things such as land or objects that are symbolically identified with the groups that own them and so cannot be permanently severed from them. Landed estates in the Middle Ages, for example, had to remain intact and even if sold, they could be reclaimed by blood kin. As a legal classification, inalienable possessions date back to Roman times. According to Barbara Mills, "Inalienable possessions are objects made to be kept (not exchanged), have symbolic and economic power that cannot be transferred, and are often used to authenticate the ritual authority of corporate groups". Marcel Mauss first described inalienable possessions in The Gift, discussing potlatches, a kind of gift-giving feast held in communities of many indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest:
It is even incorrect to speak in these cases of transfer. They are loans rather than sales or true abandonment of possessions. Among the Kwakiutl a certain number of objects, although they appear at the potlatch, cannot be disposed of. In reality these pieces of "property" are sacra that a family divests itself of only with great reluctance and sometimes never.
Annette Weiner broadened the application of the category of property outside the European context with her book Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-While-Giving, focussing on a range of Oceanic societies from Polynesia to Papua New Guinea and testing existing theories of reciprocity and marriage exchange. She also applies the concept to explain examples such as the Kula ring in the Trobriand Islands, which was made famous by Bronisław Malinowski. She explores how such possessions enable hierarchy by establishing a source of lasting social difference. She also describes practices of loaning inalienable possessions as a way of either "temporarily making kin of non-kin" or garnering status.
Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-While-Giving Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-While-Giving is a book by anthropologist Annette Weiner. Weiner was a Professor of Anthropology and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts at New York University, and served as president of the American Anthropological Association. She died in 1997. The book focuses on a range of Oceanic societies from Polynesia to Papua New Guinea to test existing theories of reciprocity (gift-giving) and marriage exchange. The book is also important for introducing a consideration of gender in the gift-giving debate by placing women at the heart of the political process. She finds inalienable possessions at the root of many Polynesian kingdoms, such as Hawaii and Samoa. She also credits the original idea of "inalienable possessions" to Mauss, who classified two categories of goods in Samoa, Oloa and le'Tonga─immovable and movable goods exchanged through marriage. Barbara Mills praised her investigation of how "inalienable possessions are simultaneously used to construct and defeat hierarchy", saying it "opens a boxful of new theoretical and methodological tools for understanding social inequality in past and present societies."
Cosmological authentication
Weiner states that certain objects become inalienable only when they have acquired "cosmological authentication"; that is,
What makes a possession inalienable is its exclusive and cumulative identity with a particular series of owners through time. Its history is authenticated by fictive or true genealogies, origin myths, sacred ancestors, and gods. In this way, inalienable possessions are transcendent treasures to be guarded against all the exigencies that might force their loss.
She gives the example of a Māori Sacred Cloak and says that when a woman wears it "she is more than herself – that she is her ancestors." Cloaks act as conduits for a person's hau or life giving spirit. The hau can bring strength or even knowledge potentially but a person may also have the risk of losing their hau. "An inalienable possession acts as a stabilizing force against change because its presence authenticates cosmological origins, kinship, and political histories." In this way, the Cloak actually stands for the person. "These possessions then are the most potent force in the effort to subvert change, while at the same time they stand as the corpus of change". Paul Sillitoe queries the supposed identification of these objects with persons. He states that these objects are "durable wealth [that] is collective property that is continually in circulation among persons who have temporary possession of it. In this view, transactable objects belong to society as a whole and are not inalienable possessions associated with certain persons. An analogy in Western culture is sporting trophies, such as championship boxing belts owned by all the clubs comprising the association that controls the competition in which constituent club members compete, and which pass for agreed periods of time into the possession of particular champions, changing hands as new champions emerge." Theuws argues that "Over time, objects acquire new meanings and what was once a humble pot may become a sacred vessel." This transformation in the object is the result of ritualization or a change in cosmology. In fact, "Ritual Knowledge is often a source of political power." However, these possessions may also become destabilizing, as elites reconstruct those sacred histories to identify themselves with the past; for example, Gandhi invoked the traditional hand spinning traditional cloth, Khadi, to contest British rule, which Nehru referred to as Gandhi's "livery of freedom".
Keeping-while-giving Inalienable possessions are nonetheless frequently drawn into exchange networks. The subtitle of Weiner's book is "The paradox of keeping-while-giving"; they are given as gifts (not sold) yet still retain a tie to their owners. These gifts are not like those given in regular gift giving in the West on birthdays for example. Rather, these gifts can't be re-sold for money by the receiver because the value and the significance of the gift cannot be alienated or disengaged from its relationship to those whose inalienable possession it is.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
