Cutting the Network - Strathern

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Cutting the Network

Author(s): Marilyn StrathernSource: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Sep., 1996), pp. 517-535Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3034901

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CUTTING THE NETWORKMARILYNSTRATHERNUniversityf Cambridge

New technologieshavestimulated he rehearsal f old debatesaboutwhatis new and whatisold in descriptionsof social life. This articleconsiderssome of the currentuses to which theconceptsof 'hybrids' nd 'networks' rebeing put. Itcould be seen as followingLatour's all fora symmetrical nthropologyhatgathers ogethermodernandnonmodern orms of knowledge.In the process,the articlereflectson the powerof analytical arrativeso extend endlessly,andon the interesting lace hatproperty wnershipholds na worldthatsometimesappearsimitless.The owner of the Shell petrol distributionicence for West Cameroon ives forpartof the yearin London,has childrentakingcoursesin Britain,Franceandthe United States,and keeps houses in both capitaland country (Rowlands1995).The extent of his network s shown in a sumptuous ifestyle. The busi-ness on which it is based s run alonghierarchical rinciples;unmarried outhsare sent to work for him in the hopes that he will set them up on their own.Rowlandsfinds an apt description n an imagethe Bamilekepeople offeredtoWarnier:A notable[chefde famille]is a living piggybankforthewhole descentgroup:in him is containedthe plenitudeof blood received since the creation,througha chain of ancestors' translated y Rowlands 1995: 33, afterWarnier1993: 126). Blood is a metonym for transmissible ife essence, but only whenchannelled hroughthosewho takethe title of 'father',ensuring thatthe con-tents of the bankare not dissipated.An heir undergoesan 'installation itual[that]transformshis bodyinto the piggybankof the descentgroup,containingits blood and semen,which togetherwith camwood and oil, alsohis possession,forms the corporate stateof the lineage'(Rowlands1995:33). He mustguardthat container.The businessmanemphasizes he importanceof containment ohis commercialoperations, or this allowshim to refusethe claimsof close kinwhile retaining heir support,since it is from him that futureprosperitywillflow. Consider Rowlands'sdeliberatephrasing: t is the man'sbody which istransformed nto the piggybank.When Hageners,from the Highlandsof PapuaNew Guinea,remarked hatwomen were liketradestoresM. Strathern 972:99, 120),the analogywas withthe flow of money throughthe store:as the repositoryof nurture rom herkinwhich she contains,a brideis alsoa 'store'or 'bank'of the wealth due her kinin return.ElsewhereMelanesians ranslateermsfor bridewealth nto the Eng-lish idioms of buyingand selling (c? Thomas 1991: 194-6). Indeedmonetarymetaphorswould seem to flow like money itself,and like money act as con-densed symbols of power. In turn, these persons imagined as repositories.

J. Roy.anthrop.nst. N.S.) 2, 517-535


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518 MARILYN STRATHERNCameroonianbusinessmanand Highlandsbride alike, would seem both tocarry he flow andtostop t.1That is, they hold it within themselves.The monetary dioms throughwhich Melanesians peakof transactions uchas bridewealthare often taken as a sign of commodity relations,whether of anindigenouskind(Gell 1992)or as the effectof exposure o wage labourandtheworld economy (Carrier 1995: 95). It is not buying and selling as such, ofcourse,thatare at the heartof anthropological nderstandings f commoditiza-tion, but the qualityof relationships.The Hagen husband who speaks of hiswife as a purchase, ike somethingfrom a tradestore, wardshimself new free-doms. But in some formulations, he bride is also the tradestoretself If so,then she is a storeof wealthforotherswho benefitfromtheirrelations hroughher, and it seems to be the personof the bride who, like the Camerooniannotable, contains the possibilityof converting he fertile essenceor nurtureofothers into wealth. Twentieth-centuryEuro-Americans,2 y contrast,do notlike to imaginethemselvesas commoditizingpeopleanddo not, at leastin theEnglishvernacular,alkof bodies aspiggybanks.Personsmayhaveproperty, epropertied,but are not property hemselves. On the contrary, ecognizingtheagencyof the owner,3and thus keeping 'persons'separate rom what may beowned as 'property',was a hard-won projectof theirmodernism.It was untilrecently, hat is.Some of the transactionsn persoristhat characterizePapua New Guineasocietiesoffer interesting heoretical esources or thinking about recent Euro-American experiments with relationships.One issue is the incursion ofcommodities, especiallymoney,into kin relations,as in anxietiesvoiced overcommercializing surrogacy agreements (see, for instance, Wolfram 1989;Ragone 1994: 124). The reverse is also pertinent,althoughnot pursuedhere.Euro-Americandebates over transactionsn human tissue (see, for instance,Nuffield Council on Bioethics1995)offer interesting heoreticalresources orthinkingabout recentMelanesianexperimentswith commodities.In the 1960sand 1970sNew GuineaHighlanderswere forevercommentingon money Byall accounts money' (shell valuables)had been presentfor a long time, but atthat period 'money' (pounds and dollars)had also come on them as a newthing,anobjectof overtspeculationaboutsocialchange,anomen of a new era.Outsidersalso worried about the incursion of kinship into commodity rela-tions, how those tradestoreswould actually be run, since notions aboutobligations o kin supposedly nterferedwith the developmentof commerce.Parallelscannot be taken too far. The Cameroonianpiggy bank and thetradestore ridesuggestmixes of personandproperty hatEuro-Americansindunacceptable. ndeed, anthropologists avetraditionally issipatedsuch strongimages by talking of bundlesof rights,or by referring o 'bridewealth' atherthan 'brideprice', nd analysing he ownershipof personsin terms of govern-ance. Thus was the authority system of the Maasai of KenyatranslatedbyLlewelyn-Davies (1981). However, she makes it perfectlyclear that Maasaiownership lso involvedrightsof alienation,xercised verhumanand nonhumanresources alike, and that it was therefore appropriateo refer to property nwomen.Jolly (1994) reports hat on South Pentecost,Vanuatu,women have a'price'(forwhich there is an indigenousterm)just as goods in tradestores o;men nowadays prefer to pay this in cash rather than with the traditional


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valuables hey reserve or transactions mong themselves(such as the purchaseof rank).Now the benefitsandevilsof money (Bloch & Parry1989) have been supple-mented by a further subject for Euro-Americananxiety and speculation:technology.By all accounts technology' the machineage) hasbeen presentfora long time, but in the 1980s and 1990s 'technology' hitechand micro) seemsto strikepeople anew. It is ubiquitous,threatening, nabling,empowering,anomen of a new era.And if Hagen anxietieswere abouthow to controlthejlowofmoney (AJ. Strathern1979),these Euro-American nNieties re aboutwhere toput limitson technological nventionsthat promise to run awaywith all the oldcategoricaldivisions (Warnock 985). These includethe division between hu-man andnonhuman.Thatdivisionwas ordinarilyupheld(rendereddurable)bya host of others, includingdistinctionsbetween personand property, nd be-tween kinship and commerce.4Across diverse areas of life,5 they seeminglythreaten o fold in on one another,andnotionsabouthumanityand visions oftechnologicaldevelopment hreatennewly to interferewith each other.This mutualinterferences more interesting han it might seem;I shallsug-gest that it bears comparisonwith gathering,stoppingor containing flows ofwealthor fertility.Moregenerally,f increasing wareness f the roleof technol-ogy in human affairsnewly links humanand nonhumanphenomena,does itinvite us to re-think the kinds of flows of personsand things anthropologistshavedescribedelsewhere?

Mixed narrativesAt the sametime as anthropologists avemadeexplicitthe artificialor ethno-centric natureof manyof theiranalytical ivisions,they find themse!ves ivingin a culturalworld increasinglyolerantof narrativeshat displaya mixed na-ture. I referto the combinationof humanandnonhumanphenomenathat,inthe 1980sandearly1990s,produced he imageryof cyborgsandhybrids.Thisimageryhas been fed by the latetwentieth-centuryEuro-American iscoveryofscience as a sourceof culturaldiscourse(Franklin1995). Neither culture norscienceis outsidethe other.In the caseof the hybrid,combinationshavebeen pressed nto interpretativeservice to the point of surfeit.Narayan(1993: 29) was moved to identifyan'enactmentof hybridity'n anthropologicalwritings,citingnine worksappear-ing between 1987-92.What is true inside anthropology s also true outside.Culturesareeverywherenterpreted shybridamalgams,whether of an indige-nous kindor as the effectof exposureto one another: almosteverydiscussionon culturalidentity is now an evocation of the hybridstate' (Papastergiadis1995:9). The Cameroonianbusinessman'sbiography eems anotherexample.However,Rowland's ourceon the Bamilek6,Warnier, rawsattention o averyparticular ind of hybridobject, using the termhybrid n the sense given it byLatour(1993) and to which I shall return.The objectwas the heterogeneousknowledgecreatedby a research eaminvestigating company'sbusiness net-works(Warnier 995:107).The research eamcompriseda networkof differentcompetences.Their knowledge,a mix of techniquecum social relationship,


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could be used to throw light on actualbusinessoperations,althoughWarnierdoubtedits legitimacy n the eyes of experts.They were likely to be proprieto-rialover certaincomponentsof this knowledgeto whose pure form they couldlayclaimas 'puretechnicalities'.Warnier's omment takesthe tensionbetween pure and hybridforms to bepartof the constructionof claimsbetweendifferentexperts.The interpretationof cultures has led to similarcompetition;in the hands of the hybridizers,however,the very concept of the hybridsignalsa critiqueof separations,ofcategoricaldivisions,encompassinghat betweenthe pureandthe hybrid tself'Hybridity's invokedasa forcein the world. This appliesto the world createdby certain ormsof criticalnarrativen which the target s interpretations such,and the concept of the hybrida politicalmove to makesome kinds of repre-sentations impossible (Bhabha 1994). Now, imagining the impossibilityofrepresentations oftenrenderedconcretethroughthe excoriationof boundaries(artificialdivides)or the celebrationof margins deterritorialized,ecentralizedspaces).Such conceptualizations avein turnbeen criticizedas re-enacting heold inversionsof anus/themdividewhen one shouldbe attending he processesof mutualtranslationPapastergiadis995:15;Purdom1995).The huge criticalonslaughtagainsthow to think the way different 'identities'impacton oneanotherhasyieldeda multitudeof hybridizing onceptssuch as amalgamation,co-optationandconjuncture.Yet despitethe surfeitof terms, thereare constantappeals o what this or thatwriterleavesout; most regularly,ppeals o powerrelations. t is as thoughthepoliticsthat lies within the imageof hybriditydoes not do sufficientanalyticalwork - politics is re-createdas though it were also 'outside' the analysisofrepresentations.Hence, too, the frequentappeals o categories uch as raceandgenderwhich are presented,uninflected,priorto the work thatthe conceptofthe hybrid s supposed o do in undermining hem ('powermust be thoughtinthe hybridityof race and sexuality'[Bhabha1994:251]). One reasonmay bethat the languageof boundariesand culturaltranslation6 aisesinappropriateexpectationsof socialanalysis.Such expectationsare both superfluousand in-sufficient: he complexityof people's nteractions s they mightbe apprehendedsociologicallydoes not find a simple substitutein the subtlety with whichcategoricalboundariesmaybe re-thought.Fora start, he conceptof boundaryis one of the leastsubtle in the socialsciencerepertoire.It is thereforeinterestingto considera recent sociologicalapproachwhichhybridizes ts tools of socialanalysis,anddevises a new term:network.This isof coursean old termnewlyinflected. Networks'(conventionalnetworkanaly-sis) have long been present,but now we have 'networks'(in actor-networktheory)of a new kind. I deployedthe latter n referring o the mix of technicalandsocialcompetences n Wamier'sresearch eam,whilejuxtaposing he olderusage in regardto the company'srange of contacts.But what do the newnetworksconveyabouthybrids?Actor-networkheoristsset up narrationalieldsin orderto show how effectsare producedout of alliancesbetween human and nonhuman entities. Thebody,as a 'network'of materials,s one such narrativeor it gives off diversesignals,revealing kill,charisma ndpathology Law1994:183).7Thus Pasteur'sdiscoveryof the microbe for anthraxdependedon a whole seriesof statistical,


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rhetoricaland operational actorsthathad to be held togetherin order to sus-tain,within a continuous networkof effects,the cruciallydemonstrativeinksbetween bacillus,disease, aboratory,ield experimentandthe life anddeathofindividualanimals Latour1988: 84-92). The concept of networksummonsthetraceryof heterogeneouselements that constitutesuch an objector event, orstringof circumstances,held togetherby social interactions: t is, in short, ahybrid imaginedin a socially extended state. The concept of network givesanalyticalpurchaseon those interactions.Latour(1993: 10-11) is explicit:thenetworkingactivityof interpretationshat'linkin one continuous chain' repre-sentations,politics and the world of the scientific discoverycreates mixednarratives.The theorist's interpretations re as much networks as any othercombinationof elements.For Latour, he rhetoricalpower of the hybridrests on its critiqueof pureform, of which the archetype s the critiqueof the separationof technologyfrom society,culture from nature,and human from nonhuman. And this isindeedcritique: n his terms,the work of 'translation' ependson the workofpurification,andvice versa.At the sametime, the hybridized orm appeals o areality hat pureformswould conceal.Euro-Americans avealwrays ixed theircategories.It is (modernist)academic disciplines that have tried to pretendotherwise,and Latourcastigates nthropologyas condemnedto territoriesandunableto follow networks(1993:116). Now, anthropologistsreperfectlycapa-ble of following such networks,that is, of trackingbetween the AchuarandArapesh his examples)and,in the organization f knowledge,betweenscienceand technology.8 ndeed, in the spirit of his account (Euro-Americanshavealwayshadhybrids),anthropologists avealwaysdone so in their 'translations'of 'other cultures'.As students of comparative nquiry,however,they will notnecessarilyend up with a critiqueof the same pure forms thatbother Euro-Americans,such as technology and society. That is, their accountswill notnecessarily ook like anythingthat could be appliedto the social analysisofscience andtechnology. n fact,we knowthat anthropologists re often divertedby kinship,andmayattend nsteadto matterssuch as the flow of substanceorthe application f marriage ules.In anthropologizingome of these issues,however,I do not makeappeals oother culturalrealities implybecauseI wish to dismissthe powerof the Euro-Americanconceptsof hybridandnetwork.The point is, rather, o extendthemwith socialimagination.That includesseeinghow theyareput to workin theirindigenouscontext,as well as how they mightwork in an exogenousone.9 Italso includesattentionto the way they become operationalized s manipulableor usable artefacts n people's pursuit of interests and their constructionofrelationships.n the home culture,partof theirpowerwill lie in theiranalogiz-ing effect, in their resonancewith other concepts and other people's usages;outside the home culture,anthropologistsmust maketheir own interpretativedecisions as to theirutility. proposeto utilize one characteristic f the hybrid,its apparentubiquity,and to considerhow this is supplementedby the conceptof network.


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Can networks ave engths?Latour efers o the modem proliferation f hybridsas anoutomeof purificatorypractice.The more hybridsaresuppressed the more categoricaldivisionsaremade- the more they secretlybreed.Their present visibilityis just that:theoutcome of presentawarenessof this process.Yet the capacityof hybrids toproliferate s also containedwithin them. For the very concept of the hybridlends itself to endless narratives f (about,containing)mixture,includingtheconstant splicingof cultural datain what a geneticistmight call recombinantculturology.In fact, the concept can conjoin anything, a ubiquityconsonantwith the perceivedubiquityof cultureitself I see the apprehensionof surfeit,then, as a moment of interpretative ause.Interpretationmust hold objectsofreflectionstable ong enoughto be of use. Thatholdingstablemaybe imaginedas stoppinga flow or cuttinginto an expanse,and perhapssome of the Euro-Americans'voiced concem over limits re-runs Derrida'squestion of how to'stop'interpretation.How are we to bringto restexpandablenarratives, ot tospeakof the culturalanthropologist'sndlessproductionof culturalmeanings(Munroin press)? Cutting' s used as a metaphorby Derridahimself (1992,ascited by Fitzpatrickn press.)for the way one phenomenonstops the flow ofothers.Thus the force of 'law'cuts into a limitlessexpanseof 'justice',reducingit and rendering t expressible,creating n the legaljudgment a manipulableobjectof use;justice is operationalizedo asto producesocialeffects.If I see in the network of some actor-networkheorists a sociallyexpandedhybrid,it is becausethey have captureda concept with similarpropertiesofauto-limitlessness;hat is, a conceptwhich works indigenouslyas a metaphorfor the endlessextension andintermeshingof phenomena.A network is an apt imagefor describing he way one can link or enumeratedisparate ntitieswithout makingassumptionsaboutlevel or hierarchy.Pointsin a narrative an be of any materialor form, and networkseems a neutralphrase or interconnectedness.Latour's wn symmetrical isionbringstogethernot only humanandnonhumanin the orderingof sociallife, but also insightsfrom both modern and premodem societies.And that is the purpose of hisdemocratizingnegative,Wehavenever eenmodern1993).Modems dividesoci-ety from technology, ulturefrom nature,humanfrom nonhuman,exceptthattheydo not - Euro-Americanmodernsarelikeanyoneelse in the hybrids heymake,even though theyarerarelyasexplicit.Beforehe castigates nthropologyfor not going far enough, he praisesthe disciplineboth for creatinghybridaccounts(miNingnaturaland supernaturaln their ethnographies,politicsandeconomics,demonsandecology)andfor uncovering he thinkingof thosewhomakesuch hybridsexplicit (in dwellingon them, he says,such people in factkeep them in check). The dividesof modernpeople'sthinkingdo not corre-spond to the methods they actuallydeploy,and this is what people such asPapuaNew Guineanscan tell them. There aresimilarities,he implies, in theway everyoneputs hybridstogether: IsBoyle'sairpump any less strange hanthe Arapesh pirithouses?'(1993:115).For Euro-Americans,echnologicaldevelopmentoffers a vision of the mixedformsimplied by technique (nonhumanmaterialsmodifiedby humaningenu-ity,or humandispositionmouldedby tools). Network imageryoffers a visionof a socialanalysis hatwill treatsocialandtechnological temsalike;any entity


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or material anqualify orattention.Thus insteadof askingquestions about therelationshipof 'science' and 'society' in Pasteur'sdevelopment of the anthraxvaccine, Latour (1988: 91) suggestswe follow what Pasteurdid andwhat hisinvention dependedon. However, the power of such analyticalnetworks s alsotheirproblem:10heoretically,hey arewithoutlimit. Ifdiverselements make upa description, hey seem as extensibleor involuted as the analysis s extensibleor involuted. Analysis appearsable to take into account, and thus create, anynumberof new forms. And one can alwaysdiscovernetworkswithin networks;this is the fractal ogic that rendersany length a multipleof other lengths,or alink in a chain a chain of furtherlinks.Yet analysis, ike interpretation,musthave a point; it must be enactedasa stoppingplace.Now if networkshadlengthstheywould stopthemselves.One kind of lengthis imagined by Latour:networksin action are longer the more powerful the'allies'or technologicalmediatorsthat can be drawn in. (Technologyhas alengtheningeffectand,in hisview, premoderns end to havelimitednetworks.)We may also say that a network is as long as its different elements can beenumerated.This presupposesa summation;that is, enumerationcoming torest in an identifiableobject (the sum). In coming to rest, the network wouldbe 'cut'at a point, 'stopped' rom furtherextension.How might that be done?It is worth consultingsome of the actorswho put such imagesto use in theirdealingswith one another.CuttingnetworksActor-network heorists,andtheir allies andcritics,are interested n the diverseprops,to use Law's 1994) phrasing, hat sustainpeople'sactionsand in the waythe propsareheld in place long enough to do so. Networks renderedcontin-gent on people's nteractions urn out to have a fragile emporality. hey do notlast for ever;on the contrary,he question becomes how they are sustainedandmade durable.They mayseem to dependon continuitiesof identity (that s, onhomogeneity).But heterogeneousnetworksalsohavetheirlimits. I shallarguethatif we take certainkinds of networksas sociallyexpandedhybridsthen wecan take hybridsas condensednetworks.That condensationworks asa summa-tion or stop.The Euro-American ybrid,as an imageof dissolvedboundaries,indeed displaces he imageof boundarywhen it takesboundary'splace.I give two very brief illustrations, he first an instancein which the actorsinvolved might well have recognizedthemselves as a networkin the conven-tional social sense, and the second a case in which the social scientistmightthink of the chain of elements as a 'network' in Latour's sense and of theresultant rtefact sa hybrid.The perceivableetworkn thefirst,andtheanalyticalhybridin the second, both bring potentialextensionsto a halt. In both casesthese imagesof networkor hybridserve the furtherance f claimsto ownership.In 1987 a Californiancorporationdiscoveredthe hepatitisC virus.11Thevirus was a discovery n the sense of an unearthingof fresh knowledgeaboutthe world. But the means of detectingthe virusled to the invention of a bloodtestforwhich the corporation pplied or,andwasgranted,a patent.Patentsareclaims to inventions;thatis, to applications f someone's inventivenesswhichothers technically could, but are forbidden to, utilize without acknow-ledgement. This test met all the modern criteriafor a patent. It was novel,


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producedby human interventionand, in the interestsof simultaneouslypro-tecting and promotingcompetition, capableof industrialapplication.12As aresult,the BritishNationalHealthServicewill reportedlybe payingmore than?2 for everyhepatitisC test it administers some 3 million a year.Apparently,the technologyfor the blood test is standard.Whatthe inventorsaddedwas thegeneticsequenceof the virus,maldng dentification f the DNA an integralpartof the test.HepatitisC had been under nvestigationortwelveyearsbeforetheviruswasisolated.The patentcounsel for the companythatdevelopedthe test was re-ported as saying:'We don't claim we did all the research,but we did theresearchhatsolvedthe problem' The ndependent,ec 1 1994).Anyone inven-tion is only madepossibleby the field of knowledgewhich definesa scientificcommunity.The social networkshere arelong; patenting runcates hem. So itmatters very much over whichsegment or fragmentof a network rights ofownershipcan be exercised.In anothercase,fortynamesto a scientificarticlebecame six names to a patentapplication; he rest did not join in. The longnetwork of scientists that was formerlysuch an aid to knowledge becomeshastilycut. Ownershiptherebycurtailsrelationsbetween persons;owners ex-cludethose who do not belong.Scientistsworkingwith reference o one anotherwould no doubt recognizethemselvesas a social network,alongthe lines of conventionalsocialanalysis('networkanalysis'). n this sense, the interests inkingthe several nvestigatorsof the viruswere comparable: t the outset, any one of them was a potentialclaimant.The networkas stringof obligations,a chainof colleagues,a historyof co-operation,would be sustainedby continuitiesof identity.However di-verse their roles, participantsreplicatedone another in the fact of theirparticipation.13he patent ntroduced he questionoverwhatarea he networkspread;who participatedn the finalspurt.The extent of a homogeneous network, such as this one, appearsto beboundedby the definitionof who belongsto it. However,the divide,createdfor the purposesof the patent,betweenthose who did and thosewho did notbelong,was establishednot by some cessationof the flow of continuitybut bya quite extraneous actor:the commercialpotentialof the work that turnedadiscovery nto a patentablenvention.Wecould saythat the prospectof owner-shipcut into the network.The claim to havedone the research hat solved 'theproblem'ustifieda deliberate ctof hybridization:o-operativeor competitive,the scientists'priorwork could now be evaluatedby criteria rom a differentworldaltogether:hatof commerce.

Now, while we might expectour (not quitehypothetical) cientiststo talkofnetworks,we would be surprised f they talkedof hybrids.However,an actor-networktheoristmight well observethat the act of hybridizationwas doublyaccomplished n this instance,for it also involveda classicform of Latourianhybrid: he invention.An inventionimpliesby definitionthatculturehasbeenaddedto nature.The ingenuityof the inventor s held to changethe characterof anentity; ntellectualactivityconferspropertyn it, as does the application fskill or labourwhich gives people (the possibilityof) property n products.14Hence a personfrom whom the original issuecomes finds it difficultto claimownershipof cell lines subsequentlyproduced n the laboratory.roperty ights


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cannotbe claimed over an unalterednature; hey applyonly to an alteredone.The inventor'sclaimis that humantissuehas been demonstrablymodified byingenuity,ncluding ngenuityembodied n technologicalprocess.An Americancommentaryon immortalcell lines, that is, cells infinitelyreproduciblen thelaboratory,s explicit.'Manyhumancells have alreadybeen grantedpatents nthe US on the basisthat they would not exist but for the interventionof the"inventor",ho extractedndmanipulatedhem'(NewScinist,January 2, 1991).In the famousMoore litigation,15he man who triedto claimpropertyrightsin cells developedfrom tissueremovedfrom his body duringan operation ostthe case.It was the claim to the heterogeneoushybrid,the fact thatthese cellshad been immortalizedthrough human ingenuity,that was upheld. In factMoore was castigatedby one judge (see Rabinow 1992) for his commercialmotives,unseemlyin relation o one's bodybut appropriateor those develop-ing technologywith commercialapplicationn mind. Between Moore and hisopponents,the claims could be constructedas of differentorders;one claimeda bodypartas partof his person,the other an intellectualproductas a resultofcertainactivities.The hybridobject,then, the modifiedcell, gathereda networkinto itself; that is, it condensedinto a single item diverseelementsfrom tech-nology,science and society,enumerated ogetheras an inventionand availablefor ownershipas property. n fact there is a good casefor seeing propertyas ahybridizingartefactn itself,althoughI do not developthe point here.

Ownershipcuts both kinds of network,homogeneousand heterogeneous.First, t can truncatea chainof severalclaimants,otherwise dentifiable hroughtheir social relationshipswith one another, dividingthose who belong fromthose who do not. Belongingis thus given a boundary.Second, it can bringtogethera networkof disparate lementssummated n an artefact such as theinvention) that holds or contains them all. If it is the perceivedadditionofhumanenterprise hatbestowsproperty ights, he humanelement added o thenonhuman one, then the proof of thathybriditycurtailsother interests.As atonce the thing that has become the objectof a right, and the rightof a personin it, propertys, so to speak,a network n manipulableorm.The structureof theseentailmentsand curtailmentsholdsan interestbeyondthe specificapplications otedhere.It is thus necessary o spellout the fact thatthere is a culturalpredisposition mongEuro-Americanso imaginethat socialrelationships oncern commonalitiesof identitybefore theyconcern difference,and thatheterogeneitys inevitablen combining hehumanwith the nonhuman.I turn now to networksthat arehomogeneousin so far as they presupposeacontinuityof identitiesbetweenhumanandnonhuman orms,andheterogeneousin so fir as personsaredistinguishedromone anotherbytheirsocialrelationships.

II

StoppingpflowCoppet'saccountof 'Are'are f the Solomon Islandsshows the powerof mak-ing objectswhich canbe manipulated.Are'are ivideliving creaturesnto threekinds. Cultivated plants have body, domesticatedpigs have both body andbreath,while human beings also hold a name or 'image'.At death, the onceliving personis disaggregatedr decomposed nto thesedifferentelements:the


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526 MARILYN STRATHERNbody, a productof nurturereceivedfrom others,is eatenas taro andvegetablefood; breathis takenawayin the breathof slaughteredpigs, while the imagebecomesan ancestor(Coppet 1994: 42, 53, referring,t would seem, primarilyto men). This ancestralmageis revealedas an enduringentity,as the personisstrippedof body,breathand relationswith all otherpersonsbar ancestorsanddescendants.Interpersonaldebts are settled (Coppett 1994: 53), as elsewherethe memoryof the deceased s 'finished' Battaglia 992).The livinghumanbeing thus appears o be a hybrid.But we would be mis-taken to see this in the 'addition'of breathto bodyor in the 'modification'ofbreathingbody by ancestralmage.Eachof the threecomponentshas its ownmanifestation, ndif the amalgamated uman being is a person,so too we maythink of each component as a person (a person is made up of persons), incontinuitiesfacilitatedby flows of money. I use the term 'person'since thehuman being is also conceivedas an aggregation f relations; t can take theformof anobjectavailableorconsumptionbythose otherswho composeit. Inthese acts of consumption,the person is, so to speak,hybridized,dispersedamonga networkof others.Nonhuman substitutesexist, then, for each of the forms (body, breathandimage) that the human person takes.Through body and breathpersons areinterchangeablewith taroand pigs,both of which arelivingbeings like them-selves; in the case of their distinctive image, however, they becomeinterchangeable ith non-livingthings.Ancestral mage appearsn the form ofmoney;that is, stringsof shellbeadsof varying engths.The imageis composedof strandspresentedat earlier uneralfeastsand destinedfor future ones. Shellmoney travels romone funeralplatform o another,gatheringanddispersingasone mightimaginea shadowy hrongof ancestorsdoing; the fragmentation ndrecombinationof differentstrandsin the dealingsof everydaylife, Coppetnotes, anticipatehe money'sappearances an entiretyat death.Everytransac-tion assiststhe circulationof fragmentsor segmentsof an image.This imageisthe deceasedmade present as an ancestor;for shell money is, in effect, an'ancestor-image'1994:42), one of a person'spersons,so to speak, n nonhumanform.Whatis this money?Money is divisibleinto standarized ortions,measuredby the fathomcontainingtwenty-fourunits of fifty shells. It thus 'servesas ameasuringrod, situatingon a singlescaleevents as differentas the purchaseoften tarosor of a canoe,a marriage r a murder, he amountof a funeralpresta-tion, the payment or a ritualserviceor for an ensembleof musicians' Coppet1994: 40). Markingan event in monetary ermsgives it an officialseal. It alsobuilds up the personas a compositeof past transactionswith diverseothers.There is a furtherdimensionto money.This stimulatorof flows canstop flow.Shell money has circulatorypowerpreciselybecause otherentities,eventsandproductscan be converted nto it:pastencountersandrelationships irculate ncondensedformin its 'body' (mymetaphor).Now, at death thereis a finalizingsequenceof exchanges n which the livingbeing'stwo other componentsbe-come money; in one sequencetaro is convertedinto money, in anotherpigs(Copet 1994:53-4). The ancestor-imagencompassesboth, andthe sequencesstop at that point. Money thus becomes the repositoryor containerof priorinterchanges. t is as an anticipationof the final cessationof flow at deaththat


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money at other points in life canstop other flows, most significantlyn homi-cide payments(Coppet 1994:10-11).Where there has been a seriesof deaths,money alone stemsthe flow of revenge.'Are'are re explicitabout this finalizingsequence:they referto it as a 'stop'or 'break',maginedas a fall, as at sunset, or as the sinkingof a stone.Suchstopscan only be effectedby meansof shell money.In other typesof exchange,bycontrast,money is merelya contributory lement;these includetied exchanges('linkedsuccession')which connect events leading nexorably rom one to an-other so that the giver's repaymentof a debt constitutesa new debt for therecipient.Any one prestation s also composed of 'returns', he smallest se-quence in a cycle of exchanges;exchangesare thus made up of exchanges.Together, hese activitiesbring about networksof different lengths: 'Are'aremeasure he lengthof debtin an enlarging eriesof acts,from'return' o 'linkedsuccession'to 'stop', the last gatheringup all precedingflows into one mo-ment.16Like strandsof shell money itself, these flows are simultaneouslydivisible and indivisible.In short,networksare composedof both humanandnonhumanentities;they differin how they areabsorbedor consumed.The mortuary ceremony that makes the deceased'snetworks visible alsoblocks their futureeffect. Old networksarecut by beinggatheredup at a point(in the deceased),whose sociallyhybridform is dispersedand therebybringsnew networks into play. The relationships hat once sustainedthe deceasedbecomerecombined n the personsof others.Bringingfw backIf the 'Are'are ersonemergesfromsuch transactionss hybrid, hen its hetero-geneity comes from the way differencesare sustained between the socialrelationsthat sustainit; the hybrid is an amalgamof social relations.In thisMelanesiancase, it is madevisible as a network via funerary,bridewealthandsimilarprestations, ransactionshat lay out the personin termsof the claimsdiverseothers have.Andvice versa: he sametransactionsondenseclaimsintosociallymanipulable bjectsof consumption(things).Whatare,in a mannerofspeaking,homogeneous,implyingcontinuitiesof identity,are the forms- hu-man and nonhuman- thatthese objectsof consumptiontake(the body is thetaro).With reference o similartransactions n Tanga,Foster(1995: 166 sqq.)remindsus that it is an illusion to imaginethatdifferencesof value lie in theintrinsicnatureof things:values are the outcome of relationalpractices.Thus'identical'productsmayhave'different' alues(cf Piot 1991).Coppet analysesexchanges n terms of a hierarchyof encompassment:romthe tiniest interchangethat carriesan expectationof a return, to the ritualcompulsionby which people are linked throughmaldng paymentsrequiringfurtherpayments,to the capacity o gathersuch exchangesup in a mortuaryprestation hat caps them all.Here theyare condensed nto money.Money can,in turn,be spreadout anddisaggregated.Whatis true of a man'sdeathis alsotrue of a woman's marriage.Bride-giversbestow on the husband'skin thepotentialfor growth in their sisterwhom they have grown, and they receiveback,and thus consume,evidenceof growthalreadyaccomplishedn the formof valuables.Here are objects with different values: reproductivewealth (afuture wife) in return for a non-reproductive ister.Now a non-returnable


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portion of money ('money to stop the woman') is said to stop the woman'simage;her kinsmen's dentitywill no longerflow throughher.In addition,herkin receive furthermoneywhich they returnto the husband's ide in separatelots asmoney,taroand pigs.Her kin therebyre-create,as separate omponents,the body,breathandimageof the woman from the singlegift of money.'Are'areancestor-money s thus a condensed objectificationof the personwho can be disaggregatednto variousmanifestations f relationswith others.The (homogeneous)networkof elements that makeup the person- humanand nonhuman- is also a (heterogeneous)networkof social relationships. nturn,the personactsasboth containerand channel,blockingflow andbodyingit forth.Kinshipsystems,as anthropologistsmodel them, have long providedanalo-gies to this kind of process.Considerthose curtailmentsof claimsthat comewith exogamy,sister-exchange r cross-cousinmarriage. f we imaginetheseprotocolsas creatingnetworksof varying engths,then they have differentca-pacities for sustainingflow or stopping it. Many kinship systems certainlypresupposemeasurements or tracing he extentof substance.Indeedwe maytakethis as diagnosticof 'lineal'modes of kinshipreckoning.Extensivenessofclaimsmay be reckoned n termsof continuityof identity,as when a descentgroup whose members share common substancetruncatesclaims over itsmembers at the exogamicboundary;makingnew relationsthrough marriagestops the flow.Or old relationsmayhaveto be cancelledbeforenew ones areproduced.Or, again,the kind of marriage ule that invitespersonsto think ofthemselvesas marrying ousinsor exchanging iblingsinvitesthem to thinkofsubstanceasturningbackon itself Herenetworksare stopped n the personsofrelativeswho becomethe turningpointfor directing he flow of fertilityback.17On South Pentecost,shortlyafterthe birth of a child, Sa-speakersmake apaymentto the mother'skin for the loss of blood (jolly 1994: 146). This isamong those called lo sal, 'inside the road,or path' (1994: 109). Perhaps hisparticular aymentcan be read as given both for the blood spilt at intercourseandbirth (the reasonSapeoplegive) andfor the blood dammedup, no longerflowingwith their ertility; ather'ssemen blocksmother'sflow of blood (jolly1994:143). The child embodies maternalblood but cannotpassit on; instead,lifelong paymentsare due to the maternalkin. When the mother's brotherreceivesa boar in recognitionof the blood which, while contributingto thechild,has no forwardeffect,he is forbidden romtying it up. Instead hatroleis performedby the mother'smother'sbrother,who in turn is forbiddenfromeating it. The latterhas alreadyeaten pigs given him earlierby the mother'sbrother(jolly 1994:111-12);he is thus madepresentbut cannotbenefit fromthe flow of fertilitybeyond one generation.A sister'ssubstance,then, is notpassedon to her grandchildren ut is stoppedin her children.The grandchil-drenof cross-sexsiblings,preferredmarriage artners, ubsequently emake he'road'(Sa for 'marriage'): man marries nto the placefromwhich his father'smothercame.While these Melanesianchains - of persons,and of the wealth that flowsalongwith them - are followed outwards o a certainextent, some mayturnaroundatkeypointsand return.This maybe accomplishedover time:previousgenerationsare reborn,personsmakingup other persons. In terms of social


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process,alternatingocialitiescome to be effectedby, among other means, thesustaineddifferencebetweenflow that spreadsandgrowththat gathersor stopsthe flow.18.To energizeprocreativeubstance ithero disperseorreturn, t mustbe made differentin the way its networkis spreadout. 'Are'arebridewealthmoneyfixes thewoman's ancestral dentity,while taroandpig effectthe transferof her body andbreathbetweenkin groups.Each side retains,so to speak,itsversionof her.Whetheror not accompanied y marriageules,suchprocreative elationshipstend to share one generalcharacteristic:ransactions onstructnetworksof re-stricted ength.Networksbecome measurable.They are measuredby people'sindebtednesso one another hrough he flow of objects,humanandnonhuman;those who give or receivewealth,or the peoplethey standfor,become links ina specifiablechain. Claims can be conceptualizedas simultaneouslyresultingfrom ties of bodily substanceand from previous transactions.So brides orancestorsact as objectsthat mayflow either with or against he flow of otherobjects(Wagner1977). Linksappear n the chainwhen it becomespossibletoexchange different'objectsfor socialconsumption.By the sametoken,chainscome to rest in these objects,humanor nonhuman,at the pointwhen actionscan be takenwith them. Bridewealthaysout who shall receive at a woman'smarriage,and anticipatesthe next generationof transactionsat her futuredaughter'smarriage.J. Weiner(1993a:292) remarks hat in a relationallybased world 'the taskconfrontinghumansis not to sustainhumanrelationships .. [but] to placealimit on relationship'.Givingand receivingshell valuablesat marriage ontrolsthe flow of relationshipbetween affinal groups. So does the movement ofpersons.The paternalnheritanceof the Hagenbride terminateswith her; sheis like the Vanuatumotherwhose blood is blockedat pregnancy, r the 'Are'areancestorin whom all reciprocitiesare finished.At the point at which claimscease or turn back, they become truncatedby their intersectionwith otherclaims, signified by a hybrid figure (human being or wealth item or ritualsubstance)who gathers hemwithin, so that they are seen to stop in his or herperson.

IIIOne classof kinship systemsin the anthropologicalepertoire s notorious forhavingno internalstops.Bilateral r cognatic(nonunilineal)kinshipreckoningallowsthat substance lows, andevinces itself in individualpersonsbut it doesnot stop in them or turnback.Indeed, indigenesmaytell themselvesthat theyare all related- trace far enough back and everyone shares substance witheveryoneelse.19As a responseto such systems,there was, in the 1950s and1960s, much anthropologicaldebate about cutting networks.These debatesaddressed he problemof potentiallyendless networksof relations hat seem-inglydidnot cut themselves.One could trace oreveroutwards.Fromthis camethe presumption hat therewasno measurebeyondthe dictatesof contingency:bilateralkinship appeared o have no inbuilt boundariesof its own. It wasargued hatin orderto creategroups,for example,ramifyingkin ties had to becut throughotherprinciplesof socialorganization.


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I would arguethatwhat was appliedto analysinggroup formationin suchsocietieswere the verymechanisms hatdo in factgivebilateralkinnetworksofthe Englishkind a self-limitingcharacterEdwards& Strathernn.d.). One kindof reckoningnever operatesalone;it always peratesn conjunctionith factorsofa differentorder.From the anthropologist's omparative iewpoint, 'kinship'has to lie in the combination.Here we have the Euro-Americanhybrid:not just an expanse'cut into' byother phenomenabut a specific abridgement f natureand culture.Socialrela-tions depend on multitudinous factors that truncate the potential offorever-ramifyingiologicalrelations.Biologicalrelatedness 'bloodties'- canthus be cut by failureto accordsocialrecognition(someone is forgotten), ustas social relationshipscan be cut by appealto biologicalprinciples(dividing'real'kin from others).So in practiceone does not traceconnexionsfor ever;converselythe most intimategroup is also open to discoveringcontactstheynever knew existed.Factors rom diversedomainscan affect the reachof anotherwisehomogeneousnetworkbasedon 'blood'or 'family'.What is interestingaboutEnglishbilateralism,hen, is that the basison whicheveryonemight saythey arerelated(biologicaland geneticconnexion)can bereckonedseparatelyromthe trafficof socialrelations.This givesus both con-tinuitiesand discontinuitiesof identity. n so farasbiologyandsocietyaretakenas distinctdomains,we can see why the users of Englishculturepresumeanidentityof interests n socialrelationsandwhy they presumeheterogeneity nmixesof humanandnonhuman.In Melanesian ermsI mightwant to saythatthese Euro-Americansmaginea boundaryto the person that makes internalflowsof substance adically ifferentrom external nes (interactions ith others).Thatalsogivesa tenacity o theirideasaboutraceand sexuality: ontinuitiesaresomehowwithin anddiscontinuities omehowoutside.While my argumentshave been pitchedvery generally, would assertthatsuch generalizationsie 'within'the specificitiesof sociallife aswell as 'outside'them. ConsiderSteve,in Simpson'saccountof the 'unclear amily'constitutedthrough parentaldivorce.20

Steve's narrationof his 'family life' places him at the centre of a network of relationshipswhich carryvarying oads in termsof affectand commitment.For example,he sees himselfas a 'father' o six children.However,the way in which fatherhood s expressedand experi-enced by Stevein relation o eachof his children s variable.The label 'father'condensesandconceals varying evels of financialandemotionalcommitment,differentresidentialarrange-ments andvariablequantitiesof contact(1994:834).Steveis atonce a (singular) atherand containswithin his fatherhooda rangeofelements. They compriseconnexionswith persons,differentsocial practices,resourcesand materials,heterogeneouselements from which, in this passage,Simpsonhas selecteda few.Disaggregatednto its components, t would seemthat the figureof the fatherexpands o bringin a rangeof referencepoints;yet it alsocontracts n so far asonly a small set of componentsis singledout: what Steve meansby 'father' slikelyto encompassmore thancan ever be specified.21When the specificationis reduced to distinguishableelements, as in commitments defined as bothfinancialand emotional,thenwe canreferto the resultant onstruct, he fatherwho shows both, as a hybrid.As a kinsperson, hen, this figureconstitutesa


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condensed image whose dispersed, network version is distributedbetweenseparable rdersof fact(money,emotion).Englishand other Euro-Americanbilateral ystemsof kinship oin togetherdisparate easons or relatedness.They are premissedon conservingontologicaldifferencebetween domains:on imagining hat the affectiverelationsof kinshipare materially ifferent romthe flux of economic life, or that the transmissionof substanceoperatesunderlaws of biologyseparate rom social laws, or thatindividual ersonsarenatural eingsmodifiedbysociety.Here the earlier xamplesof inventionhavea particular oint in my narrative.The inventoris a kind ofenhancedagent.All humanagentsareinventors (creators)n a modern,Euro-Americansense: the personis substanceplus the animatingself-inventivenessof agency,a combinationof distinctelements.The elementsmaybe regarded s'added' ogether, modifying'one another n the sameway as culturemodifiesnature. If, in Melanesian erms,Euro-Americansometimesseek to sustainadifferencebetween internaland external lows (bodyand intellect versus biol-ogy and culture,andso forth),it is becauseeach canbe presentedas havingitsown impetus or logic. For they can be turnedto use separatelyas well as inconjunction,as I have indicated n respectof conceptsof ownership.Belongingmarksrelationsbasedon continuitiesof identity,andthusthe separation f pureforms,while propertypresupposesdiscontinuity, ndthe conjunctionof humanenterprisewith nonhuman resources.I havewilfullymixed old and new- the old networksof networkanalysisandkinshiptheory,andthe new ones of actornetworktheory. t hasled me to thinkabout an indigenous, Euro-Americanmechanism for cutting: 'ownership'.Ownershipis powerfulbecauseof its double effect, as simultaneouslya matterof belongingand of property.Euro-Americanswill not have to look far n orderto determinenetworklength;they have alwaysknown that belongingdividesand propertydisowns. So where technology might enlargenetworks,proprie-torship canbe guaranteedo cut them down to size.Perhaps, n this, the 'Are'arenotion of 'stop'as a prestation hat is a resting

place, repositoryor turningpointbearscomparisonwith, thoughby no meansassimilation o, the notionsof ownershipI have sketchedhere. These notionschallenge the interpretivepossibilityof limitlessness:the kinds of interests,social or personal, hatinviteextensionalso truncate t, andhybrids hatappearableto mix anvthingcan serve as boundaries o claims.

NOTESThis articleis in memory of JeffreyClark,and his account (1991) of pearlshells hat flowand pearlshells hat grow. Alan Macfarlanehas contributed nvaluablecomments on ideas ofproperty,and I am furthergrateful o the severalcommentsof the ESRC seminaron Technol-ogy as Skilled Practice convened by Penny Harvey at the University of Manchesterwhichheard a version of this article.Commentsfrom Annelise Riles, Simon Harrisonand the Jour-nal's anonymousreadershave been much to its improvement.Thanks to those who have givenme permissionto cite as yet unpublishedworks: PeterFitzpatrick,risJean-Klein,ChristopherTaylor, Nicholas Thomas.1 Taylor (n.d.) focuses on 'flow' and 'blockage'n certainCentraland East African under-standingsof channels of potency.A. Weiner (1992) and Godelier (1995) have commented onsimilar ssuesto differenttheoretical nds, as hasJ. Weiner (1995a;1995b).2 I personifya discourse or expositional onvenience.


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532 MARILYN STRATHERN3 One of the Journal'sreaderscommentedon the role of legal thinkingin such separations.Indeed, one might take the developmentof the law as historicallycrucial to that modernistcommonplace,the distinctionbetween subjectand object. If the eighteenth-centurydevelop-

ment of copyright aw, for instance,turnedon claimingauthors'paternity n relationto prod-ucts, throughthe conceptof commercialprofit it also renderedauthors'works separable romtheir persons.4 The distinctionsdo not precludebut make more powerful the attachmentof persons totheir property.Property s of course integral o family life, not to speakof inheritanceandfam-ily businesses.5 There are innumerable uch pairsof termsin English(humanand nonhuman,cultureandnature, aw and society, personand propertyand so forth).These merographic onnexionsarea source of flexibility n Euro-American onceptualizations,iving a particular nflectionto the'layersof redundancy' ne expects n cultural ife (Battaglia 993: 439). As similarbut not iden-tical constructs,such pairssustainone another.Indeed, that none of them is identicalto an-other is partof their rhetoricalpower, since similarcontrastsappear o hold acrossseveraldis-crete (all slightlydifferent)fields.Thus one can talkof an embryoas humanbut not a person,while makingmoraldiscriminations etweenhumanand nonhuman,personand property.6 Papastergiadis1995: 14-15) gives the exampleof Lotman's(1991) 'semiosphere'.ForLot-man, the semiosphere s in a constantstate of hybridity.It alwaysoscillatesbetween identityand alterity,and this tension is most evident at its boundaries'.Boundariesare containedinthose first-personforms that differentiateself from other. In Lotman's (1991: 131) phrase,'Everyculture begins by dividingthe world into "its own" internalspaceand "their"externalspace'. This is the dangerousnonsense of which Europeanxenophobia is formed (Stolcke1995). It will be clear that I do no more than brushthe tip of recentculturalcritiques; or ananthropologicalommentary, ee the essays editedby Fardon1995.

7 When Law (1994: 18-19) defines network,he remarks hat it does not have much to dowith standard ociologicalusageas in the traditionof kinshipstudies.I suggestto the contrarythat English kinship offers an interestingmodel of networksthat concern links not just be-tween personsbut between human and nonhuman entities. This is touched on at the end ofthe article.8 The tools of their disciplineinclude methodsof classification nd comparison hat are, ar-guably,an effect of the same Euro-American cientific imaginationwith which they battle ineveryethnographicdescription.9 Whereas he briefreferences o Melanesia hat follow distil extensiveethnographic nquiry,the references o Euro-Americanncidentsareethnographicallynecdotal; hat is, no more thanexamplesof the culturallypossible.Their value lies in their distillationof reflectionon analyti-cal modelswithin the discipline.10And they arenot innocent(Riles 1994).The observer'sor writer'scounter-rhetorical rac-tice in deconstructingnarratives f unity carries ts own politics (Jean-Kleinn.d.), as does theeasyassimilation f conjuncture o the conceptof hybridity Thomasin press).11I have used the exampleelsewhere (Strathernn.d.) from the point of view of the element'added'by humanenterprise.The detailsareas The Independent eported hem on December 1st1994,followinga High Court rulingenforcing he patent n this country.12Criticshave pointedout that there is only one set of DNA sequencesto be identifiedinthe humangenome, and no claimsto identification ould be challengedby furtherinventions;the patent s protecting he company rom competition,not promotingcompetition.13Hill and Turpin (1995:145) quote the Vice-President or Scienceand Technologyat IBMwho observedin 1991: 'Most largecompanies n the world are extensivelycross-licensedwitheach other. Exclusive icencesare almost non-existent.The key is not ownership,it is access'.Of course the key is ownership,but ownershipof a networkor segments of it along which'access', ike money, flows.14 No skill or labourhas been exercisedon it; and there has been no changein its charac-ter': a dissenting udge refutingclaimsmadeto property n a corpse,quoted in Nuffield Coun-cil on Bioethics 1995: 80. Such principlesare of course open to contestation n the way theyareapplied n specificcases;I do not haveto addthatwhichpersonsclaimpropertywill dependon the relationsof production.15Moore v Regentsof the Universityof California,1990, is takenas a locus classicusfor debateconcerninghuman tissue developedas the basis for a commercialproduct (Nuffield Council


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MARILYN STRATHERN 533on Bioethics 1995:72). The phrasing n this paragraphs mine. The court was tryinga prelimi-nary point of law as to whether a person had propertyrights in tissue taken from the body(Nuffield Council on Bioethics 1995 includes a summaryof thejudgment). Rabinow1992 of-fers a full andfascinating nthropologicalomment.16A distinction between those killed by other persons (deathby homicide) and those killedby ancestors death by illness)alters the sequenceshere. I should add both that I have put myown interpretation n Coppet's analysisand that my extractsdo not do justice to his fine, ho-listic account.17The exegesesof severalMelanesianists re relevanthere, but I truncate hat chainof col-laborativework in referring o one:J. Weiner(1993b) nvokes a delightfulsuccession of restingplacesin his descriptionof the winged Foi pearlshellcapturing n hardened orm the life-givingforce of birds in flight,while certainshells set aside in houses immobilizethe life-givingforceof shells in constantcirculation.18In a positive mode; negative modes would include uncontrolledflow or unproductiveblockageor obstruction Taylorn.d).19However, in contrastto universesof kin where affines are alreadyconsanguines see, forinstance,Kapadia 1994] on South India),for Euro-Americanshe possibility s either rhetoricalor belongs to the class of bizarre ruths.20Networks (in Latour's ense) arise as a resultof 'translation',hat is, the mobilizationofclaims and interestsby which people traverseor assemblecomponents of their lives. WhileSteve and his presentwife try to 'treat'all the childrenequally,his mother-in-lawcuts thenetwork: she ignores Steve's childrenfrom his earliermarriagesand gives treatsonly to herdaughter's hildren(Simpson1994:835).21This observationderives fromWagner's 1986) descriptionof contractionand expansion nperceptualprocess.The figure of the father servesas a single 'iconic' image,while containingspecifiable, symbolic',possibilitieswithin itself. These act as codes or referencepoints for theimage, but they alwaysadd up to less than the whole. I should note that in this work Wagneris concerned with the 'flow' of imagerywhich is 'stopped'by the specifyingpracticeof sym-bolic reference.My focus here is with anotherside of thatprocess: he endless ability to createmore and more referencepoints, as in a narrative, r bring more and more elements into play,which is 'stopped'by the singularityof the image as a particular, sable bject. Law (n.d.) ob-serves that actor networktheory creates links in the very process of creatingobjects of study.The 'objectof study' thus cuts potentialnetworks,by drawing hingsto a particular ncompass-ing point or image.

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west ed.) J. Carrier.Oxford:ClarendonPress.Clark, . 1991. Pearlshellymbolism n HighlandsPapuaNew Guinea,with particulareference othe Wirupeopleof SouthernHighlandsProvince.Oceania 1, 309-39.Coppet,D. de 1994. 'Are'are. n Of relationsnd the dead:oursocietiesiewedfromheangleof theirexchangeseds)C. Barraud,D. de Coppet,A. Iteanu& R. Jamous(trans.)S. Suffern.Oxford:Berg.Derrida,J. 1992. Force of law: 'the mysticalfoundationsof authority'.In Deconstructionnd thepossibilityfjusticeeds)C. Drucillaet al. New York:Routledge.Edwards,J.& M. Strathern .d. Including ur own. Paper orconference,Boundaries ndIdentities,Edinburgh,1996.Fardon,R. (ed.) 1995.CountenvorkJs:anaginghediversityfknowledge.ASAdec. Con? Ser). London:Routledge.


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R6sundLes nouvelles technologies ont rouvert un vieux d6batconcernantles descriptionsde la viesociale et les approches consid6reesnovatricesou surann6es.RWpondant l'appellance parLatour, qui pr6ne une anthropologiesymrtriquer6unissant es formes de savoir moderneset non-modernes, l'article considere les concepts d'hybride et de reseau tels qu'ils sontutilises aujourd'hui.Ce faisant, il pr6sente une r6flexionsur le pouvoir d'extension infiniede la narrationanalytique, t sur la place tout a fait nt6ressantequ'occupe le droitde propri6t6dans un monde apparemmentsans limites.

DepartmentfSocialAnthropology,niversity f Cambridge,reeSchoolLane, Cambridge, B2 3Rf,U.K

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Cutting the Network - Strathern