Unrequited Reciprocity

[apropos]

"My own internalization of these ideas [of unrequited reciprocity] took the form of a recurring dream during fieldwork, in which I discovered that most of my personal belongings were missing. The unusual aspect of the dream was the feeling of calm that accompanied this recognition, because my possessions no longer differentiated me from the other people living in the village, rather than the sense of loss or concern that might have been expected. I later enacted a version of the dream when I distributed my household goods and spare clothes to my friends and neighbors at the conclusion of my initial fieldwork in 1989. On the morning of my departure, people came out of their houses onto the village paths where they held up the objects that I had given them--a towel, a spoon, an empty coffee mug--indicating our relationships. Like the events in my dream, the distribution of these objects to the people in the village eliminated the material differences between us."

-- Stuart Kirsch, Reverse Anthropology: Indigenous Analysis of Social and Environmental Relations in New Guinea. Pp. 104-105