Property effects. Social networks and compensation claims in Melanesia

This paper compares the social networks that are mobilised through claims of ownership in property regimes and transaction regimes.1 I use the categories of ‘property’ and ‘transaction’ to denote the differences between exchange practices that emphasise relationships between persons and things (property) in contrast to relationships created between persons through the circulation of things (transactions). This distinction attends to the social networks that are formed as a consequence of exchange, providing an alternative to the opposition between gifts and commodities (e.g. Gregory 1982). Critics of this dichotomy have objected to its application to entire societies, citing the complementarity of the two modes of exchange within societies (Carrier 1995: viii). Other critics have examined the processes through which gifts can be converted into commodities and vice-versa, resulting in arguments about the ‘commodity potential’ of all things (Appadurai 1988: 13). In contrast, I am interested in the social consequences of different modes of exchange. Not all exchange practices, for example, contribute to the ‘reproduction of the social and cosmic order’, as Bloch and Parry (1991: 2; see also Weiner 1980) have argued. The distinction between property and transaction regimes emphasises the social networks associated with different strategies of ownership, rather than the status of particular objects as gifts or commodities. I examine these differences in relation to compensation claims for damage and destruction to property that have been levied against the Lihir gold mine in Papua