Property and Equality: Ritualisation, sharing, egalitarianism

Download or read book Property and Equality: Ritualisation, sharing, egalitarianism written by Thomas Widlok and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ethnography of egalitarian social systems was first met with sheer disbelief. Today it is still hotly debated in a number of fields and has gained sophistication as well as momentum. This collection of essays on "property and equality" acknowledges this diversification by presenting research results in two complementary volumes. They bring together a wide range of authoritative researchers most of whom have worked with hunter-gatherer groups. These two volumes cover existing ethnographic and theoretical ground while maintaining a clear focus on the relation between property and equality. The book consists of the most recent work of prominent members of the original group of researchers in hunter-gatherer studies among them James Woodburn and Richard Lee, and very recent ethnography on hunter-gatherers and other egalitarian systems.