Cutting the Network

Author(s): Marilyn Strathern

Source: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Sep., 1996), pp. 517-
535
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3034901
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 CUTTING THE NETWORK

MARILYNSTRATHERN

Universityof Cambridge

New technologieshavestimulatedthe rehearsalof old debatesaboutwhat is new andwhat is

old in descriptionsof social life. This articleconsiderssome of the currentuses to which the
conceptsof 'hybrids'and 'networks'arebeing put. It could be seen as followingLatour'scall for
a symmetricalanthropologythatgatherstogethermodernand nonmodernforms of knowledge.
In the process,the articlereflectson the power of analyticalnarrativesto extend endlessly,and
on the interestingplacethatpropertyownershipholdsin a worldthatsometimesappearslimitless.

The owner of the Shell petrol distributionlicence for WestCameroonlives for

part of the year in London, has childrentakingcourses in Britain,Franceand
the United States, and keeps houses in both capitaland country (Rowlands
1995). The extent of his networkis shown in a sumptuouslifestyle.The busi-
ness on which it is basedis run along hierarchicalprinciples;unmarriedyouths
are sent to work for him in the hopes that he will set them up on their own.
Rowlandsfinds an apt descriptionin an image the Bamilekepeople offered to
Warnier:A notable[chef de famille]is a livingpiggybankfor the whole descent
group: in him is containedthe plenitudeof blood receivedsince the creation,
through a chain of ancestors'(translatedby Rowlands1995: 33, afterWarnier
1993: 126). Blood is a metonym for transmissiblelife essence, but only when
channelledthrough those who take the title of 'father',ensuring that the con-
tents of the bank are not dissipated.An heir undergoesan 'installationritual
[that] transformshis body into the piggybankof the descent group, containing
its blood and semen, which togetherwith camwoodand oil, also his possession,
forms the corporateestateof the lineage'(Rowlands1995: 33). He must guard
that container.The businessmanemphasizesthe importanceof containmentto
his commercialoperations,for this allows him to refuse the claims of close kin
while retainingtheir support,since it is from him that future prosperitywill
flow. Consider Rowlands'sdeliberatephrasing:it is the man's body which is
transformedinto the piggy bank.
When Hageners,from the Highlandsof PapuaNew Guinea, remarkedthat
women were like tradestores(M. Strathern1972:99, 120), the analogywas with
the flow of money throughthe store:as the repositoryof nurturefrom her kin
which she contains,a bride is also a 'store'or 'bank'of the wealth due her kin
in return.ElsewhereMelanesianstranslateterms for bridewealthinto the Eng-
lish idioms of buying and selling (c? Thomas 1991: 194-6). Indeed monetary
metaphorswould 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.
Inst.(N.S.) 2, 517-535
518 MARILYN STRATHERN

Cameroonianbusinessmanand Highlands bride alike, would seem both to

carrythe flow andtostopit.1That is, they hold it within themselves.
The monetaryidioms throughwhich Melanesiansspeakof transactionssuch
as bridewealthare often takenas a sign of commodity relations,whether of an
indigenouskind (Gell 1992) or as the effect of exposureto wage labourand the
world economy (Carrier1995: 95). It is not buying and selling as such, of
course, that are at the heartof anthropologicalunderstandingsof commoditiza-
tion, but the quality of relationships.The Hagen husbandwho speaksof his
wife as a purchase,like somethingfrom a tradestore,awardshimself new free-
doms. But in some formulations,the bride is also the tradestoreitself If so,
then she is a store of wealth for otherswho benefitfrom their relationsthrough
her, and it seems to be the personof the bride who, like the Cameroonian
notable, containsthe possibilityof convertingthe fertile essence or nurtureof
others into wealth. Twentieth-centuryEuro-Americans,2by contrast, do not
like to imaginethemselvesas commoditizingpeople and do not, at least in the
Englishvernacular,talkof bodies as piggybanks.Personsmay have property,be
propertied,but are not propertythemselves.On the contrary,recognizingthe
agency of the owner,3and thus keeping 'persons'separatefrom what may be
owned as 'property',was a hard-won projectof their modernism. It was until
recently,that is.
Some of the transactionsin persoristhat characterizePapua New Guinea
societies offer interestingtheoreticalresourcesfor thinkingabout recent Euro-
American experiments with relationships. One issue is the incursion of
commodities, especiallymoney, into kin relations,as in anxietiesvoiced over
commercializing surrogacy agreements (see, for instance, Wolfram 1989;
Ragone 1994: 124). The reverseis also pertinent,although not pursued here.
Euro-Americandebates over transactionsin human tissue (see, for instance,
Nuffield Council on Bioethics 1995) offer interestingtheoreticalresourcesfor
thinkingabout recentMelanesianexperimentswith commodities.In the 1960s
and 1970s New Guinea Highlanderswere forevercommenting on money By
all accounts'money' (shell valuables)had been presentfor a long time, but at
that period 'money' (pounds and dollars) had also come on them as a new
thing, an objectof overt speculationaboutsocialchange,an omen of a new era.
Outsiders also worried about the incursion of kinship into commodity rela-
tions, how those tradestoreswould actually be run, since notions about
obligationsto kin supposedlyinterferedwith the developmentof commerce.
Parallelscannot be taken too far. The Cameroonianpiggy bank and the
tradestorebridesuggestmixes of personand propertythatEuro-Americansfind
unacceptable.Indeed, anthropologistshave traditionallydissipatedsuch strong
images by talkingof bundles of rights, or by referringto 'bridewealth'rather
than 'brideprice',and analysingthe ownershipof persons in terms of govern-
ance. Thus was the authoritysystem of the Maasai of Kenya translatedby
Llewelyn-Davies (1981). However, she makes it perfectly clear that Maasai
ownershipalso involvedrightsof alienation,exercisedoverhumanandnonhuman
resources alike, and that it was therefore appropriateto refer to propertyin
women. Jolly (1994) reportsthat on South Pentecost,Vanuatu,women have a
'price'(for which there is an indigenousterm)just as goods in tradestoresdo;
men nowadays prefer to pay this in cash rather than with the traditional
 MARILYN STRATHERN 519

valuablesthey reservefor transactionsamong themselves (such as the purchase

of rank).
Now the benefitsand evils of money (Bloch & Parry1989) havebeen supple-
mented by a further subject for Euro-Americananxiety and speculation:
technology.By all accounts'technology'(the machineage) has been presentfor
a long time, but in the 1980s and 1990s 'technology'(hitech and micro) seems
to strike people anew. It is ubiquitous,threatening,enabling,empowering,an
omen of a new era.And if Hagen anxietieswere about how to controlthejlowof
money (AJ. Strathern1979), these Euro-AmericananNietiesare aboutwhere to
put limitson technologicalinventionsthat promise to run awaywith all the old
categoricaldivisions (Warnock1985). These include the division between hu-
man and nonhuman.That divisionwas ordinarilyupheld (rendereddurable)by
a host of others, including distinctionsbetween person and property,and be-
tween kinship and commerce.4Across diverse areas of life,5 they seemingly
threatento fold in on one another,and notions about humanityand visions of
technologicaldevelopmentthreatennewly to interferewith each other.
This mutual interferenceis more interestingthan it might seem; I shall sug-
gest that it bears comparisonwith gathering,stopping or containingflows of
wealth or fertility.More generally,if increasingawarenessof the role of technol-
ogy in human affairsnewly links human and nonhuman phenomena, does it
invite us to re-think the kinds of flows of persons and things anthropologists
have describedelsewhere?

Mixed narratives
At the same time as anthropologistshave made explicit the artificialor ethno-
centric natureof many of their analyticaldivisions,they find themse!vesliving
in a culturalworld increasinglytolerantof narrativesthat displaya mixed na-
ture. I refer to the combinationof human and nonhuman phenomenathat, in
the 1980s and early 1990s, producedthe imageryof cyborgsand hybrids.This
imageryhas been fed by the late twentieth-centuryEuro-Americandiscoveryof
science as a source of culturaldiscourse (Franklin1995). Neither culture nor
science is outside the other.
In the case of the hybrid,combinationshave been pressedinto interpretative
service to the point of surfeit. Narayan(1993: 29) was moved to identify an
'enactmentof hybridity'in anthropologicalwritings,citing nine works appear-
ing between 1987-92. What is true inside anthropologyis also true outside.
Culturesare everywhereinterpretedas hybridamalgams,whether of an indige-
nous kind or as the effect of exposureto one another:'almostevery discussion
on cultural identity is now an evocation of the hybrid state' (Papastergiadis
1995: 9). The Cameroonianbusinessman'sbiographyseems anotherexample.
However,Rowland'ssourceon the Bamilek6,Warnier,drawsattentionto a very
particularkind of hybridobject, using the term hybridin the sense given it by
Latour(1993) and to which I shall return.The object was the heterogeneous
knowledge createdby a researchteam investigatinga company'sbusiness net-
works (Warnier1995: 107). The researchteamcompriseda networkof different
competences. Their knowledge, a mix of technique cum social relationship,
520 MARILYN STRATHERN

could be used to throw light on actualbusiness operations,althoughWarnier

doubted its legitimacyin the eyes of experts.They were likely to be proprieto-
rialover certaincomponentsof this knowledgeto whose pure form they could
lay claim as 'puretechnicalities'.
Warnier'scomment takes the tension between pure and hybrid forms to be
partof the constructionof claimsbetween differentexperts.The interpretation
of cultures has led to similar competition; in the hands of the hybridizers,
however, the very concept of the hybrid signals a critique of separations,of
categoricaldivisions,encompassingthatbetween the pure and the hybriditself
'Hybridity'is invokedas a force in the world. This appliesto the world created
by certainforms of criticalnarrativein which the targetis interpretationas such,
and the concept of the hybrida politicalmove to make some kinds of repre-
sentations impossible (Bhabha 1994). Now, imagining the impossibility of
representationis often renderedconcretethroughthe excoriationof boundaries
(artificialdivides)or the celebrationof margins(deterritorialized,decentralized
spaces).Such conceptualizationshave in turn been criticizedas re-enactingthe
old inversionsof an us/themdividewhen one should be attendingthe processes
of mutualtranslation(Papastergiadis 1995: 15; Purdom 1995). The huge critical
onslaught against how to think the way different 'identities'impact on one
anotherhas yielded a multitudeof hybridizingconcepts such as amalgamation,
co-optationand conjuncture.
Yetdespitethe surfeitof terms,there are constantappealsto what this or that
writer leaves out; most regularly,appealsto power relations.It is as though the
politics that lies within the image of hybriditydoes not do sufficientanalytical
work - politics is re-createdas though it were also 'outside' the analysisof
representations.Hence, too, the frequentappealsto categoriessuch as raceand
genderwhich are presented,uninflected,prior to the work that the concept of
the hybridis supposedto do in underminingthem ('powermust be thought in
the hybridityof race and sexuality'[Bhabha1994: 251]). One reason may be
that the languageof boundariesand culturaltranslation6raises inappropriate
expectationsof social analysis.Such expectationsare both superfluousand in-
sufficient:the complexityof people'sinteractionsas they might be apprehended
sociologicallydoes not find a simple substitute in the subtlety with which
categoricalboundariesmay be re-thought.For a start,the concept of boundary
is one of the least subtle in the social science repertoire.
It is therefore interestingto consider a recent sociological approachwhich
hybridizesits tools of social analysis,and devises a new term: network.This is
of coursean old term newly inflected.'Networks'(conventionalnetworkanaly-
sis) have long been present, but now we have 'networks'(in actor-network
theory) of a new kind. I deployedthe latterin referringto the mix of technical
and social competencesin Wamier'sresearchteam,while juxtaposingthe older
usage in regardto the company's range of contacts. But what do the new
networksconvey about hybrids?
Actor-networktheoristsset up narrationalfields in orderto show how effects
are produced out of alliancesbetween human and nonhuman entities. The
body,as a 'network'of materials,is one such narrativefor it gives off diverse
signals,revealingskill,charismaand pathology(Law1994:183).7Thus Pasteur's
discoveryof the microbe for anthraxdependedon a whole series of statistical,
 MARILYN STRATHERN 521

rhetoricaland operationalfactorsthat had to be held togetherin order to sus-

tain, within a continuous networkof effects, the cruciallydemonstrativelinks
between bacillus,disease,laboratory,field experimentand the life and death of
individualanimals(Latour1988:84-92). The concept of networksummons the
traceryof heterogeneouselements that constitute such an object or event, or
string of circumstances,held together by social interactions:it is, in short, a
hybrid imagined in a socially extended state. The concept of network gives
analyticalpurchaseon those interactions.Latour(1993: 10-11) is explicit: the
networkingactivityof interpretationsthat 'link in one continuous chain'repre-
sentations, politics and the world of the scientific discovery creates mixed
narratives.The theorist's interpretationsare as much networks as any other
combinationof elements.
For Latour,the rhetoricalpower of the hybrid rests on its critique of pure
form, of which the archetypeis the critique of the separationof technology
from society, culture from nature, and human from nonhuman. And this is
indeed critique:in his terms, the work of 'translation'depends on the work of
purification,and vice versa.At the same time, the hybridizedform appealsto a
realitythatpure formswould conceal.Euro-Americanshave alwrays mixed their
categories.It is (modernist) academic disciplines that have tried to pretend
otherwise,and Latourcastigatesanthropologyas condemned to territoriesand
unableto follow networks(1993: 116). Now, anthropologistsareperfectlycapa-
ble of following such networks, that is, of trackingbetween the Achuar and
Arapesh(his examples)and, in the organizationof knowledge,between science
and technology.8Indeed, in the spirit of his account (Euro-Americanshave
alwayshad hybrids),anthropologistshave alwaysdone so in their 'translations'
of 'other cultures'.As students of comparativeinquiry,however,they will not
necessarilyend up with a critiqueof the same pure forms that bother Euro-
Americans,such as technology and society. That is, their accounts will not
necessarilylook like anything that could be applied to the social analysis of
science and technology.In fact,we know thatanthropologistsare often diverted
by kinship,and may attendinsteadto matterssuch as the flow of substanceor
the applicationof marriagerules.
In anthropologizingsome of these issues, however,I do not make appealsto
other culturalrealitiessimply becauseI wish to dismiss the power of the Euro-
Americanconceptsof hybridand network.The point is, rather,to extend them
with social imagination.That includesseeing how they are put to work in their
indigenous context, as well as how they might work in an exogenous one.9 It
also includes attentionto the way they become operationalizedas manipulable
or usable artefactsin people's pursuit of interests and their construction of
relationships.In the home culture,partof theirpower will lie in their analogiz-
ing effect, in their resonancewith other concepts and other people's usages;
outside the home culture, anthropologistsmust make their own interpretative
decisions as to their utility.I proposeto utilize one characteristicof the hybrid,
its apparentubiquity,and to considerhow this is supplementedby the concept
of network.
522 MARILYN STRATHERN

Can networkshavelengths?
Latourrefersto the modem proliferationof hybridsas an outomeof purificatory
practice.The more hybridsare suppressed- the more categoricaldivisions are
made - the more they secretlybreed. Their present visibility is just that: the
outcome of present awarenessof this process.Yet the capacityof hybrids to
proliferateis also containedwithin them. For the very concept of the hybrid
lends itself to endless narrativesof (about, containing)mixture, including the
constant splicing of culturaldata in what a geneticist might call recombinant
culturology.In fact, the concept can conjoin anything, a ubiquity consonant
with the perceivedubiquityof culture itself I see the apprehensionof surfeit,
then, as a moment of interpretativepause. Interpretationmust hold objects of
reflectionstablelong enough to be of use. That holding stablemay be imagined
as stopping a flow or cutting into an expanse,and perhapssome of the Euro-
Americans'voiced concem over limits re-runs Derrida'squestion of how to
'stop'interpretation.How arewe to bring to rest expandablenarratives,not to
speakof the culturalanthropologist'sendless productionof culturalmeanings
(Munro in press)?'Cutting'is used as a metaphorby Derridahimself (1992, as
cited by Fitzpatrickin press.) for the way one phenomenon stops the flow of
others.Thus the force of 'law'cuts into a limitlessexpanseof 'justice',reducing
it and renderingit expressible,creatingin the legaljudgment a manipulable
objectof use;justice is operationalizedso as to producesocial effects.
If I see in the network of some actor-networktheoristsa socially expanded
hybrid, it is because they have captureda concept with similar propertiesof
auto-limitlessness;that is, a concept which works indigenouslyas a metaphor
for the endless extension and intermeshingof phenomena.
A networkis an apt image for describingthe way one can link or enumerate
disparateentities without makingassumptionsabout level or hierarchy.Points
in a narrativecan be of any materialor form, and network seems a neutral
phrasefor interconnectedness.Latour'sown symmetricalvision bringstogether
not only human and nonhumanin the orderingof social life, but also insights
from both modern and premodem societies. And that is the purpose of his
democratizingnegative,Wehaveneverbeenmodern(1993). Modems divide soci-
ety from technology,culturefrom nature,human from nonhuman,except that
they do not - Euro-Americanmodernsare like anyone else in the hybridsthey
make,even though they are rarelyas explicit.Before he castigatesanthropology
for not going far enough, he praises the discipline both for creatinghybrid
accounts (miNingnaturaland supernaturalin their ethnographies,politics and
economics, demons and ecology)andfor uncoveringthe thinkingof those who
make such hybridsexplicit (in dwelling on them, he says, such people in fact
keep them in check). The divides of modern people's thinking do not corre-
spond to the methods they actuallydeploy, and this is what people such as
PapuaNew Guineanscan tell them. There are similarities,he implies, in the
way everyoneputs hybridstogether:'Is Boyle's air pump any less strangethan
the Arapeshspirithouses?'(1993: 115).
For Euro-Americans,technologicaldevelopmentoffers a vision of the mixed
forms implied by technique(nonhumanmaterialsmodifiedby human ingenu-
ity, or human dispositionmoulded by tools). Network imageryoffers a vision
of a social analysisthatwill treatsocial and technologicalitems alike;any entity
 MARILYN STRATHERN 523

or materialcan qualifyfor attention.Thus insteadof askingquestionsabout the

relationshipof 'science' and 'society' in Pasteur'sdevelopmentof the anthrax
vaccine, Latour(1988: 91) suggestswe follow what Pasteurdid and what his
inventiondependedon. However,the power of such analyticalnetworksis also
theirproblem:10theoretically,they arewithout limit. If diverseelements makeup
a description,they seem as extensibleor involuted as the analysisis extensible
or involuted. Analysisappearsable to take into account, and thus create, any
numberof new forms.And one can alwaysdiscovernetworkswithin networks;
this is the fractallogic that rendersany length a multiple of other lengths, or a
link in a chain a chain of furtherlinks. Yet analysis,like interpretation,must
have a point; it must be enactedas a stoppingplace.
Now if networkshad lengthstheywould stop themselves.One kind of length
is imagined by Latour:networks in action are longer the more powerful the
'allies' or technological mediators that can be drawn in. (Technology has a
lengtheningeffect and, in his view,premodernstend to have limited networks.)
We may also say that a network is as long as its different elements can be
enumerated.This presupposesa summation;that is, enumerationcoming to
rest in an identifiableobject (the sum). In coming to rest, the networkwould
be 'cut' at a point, 'stopped'from furtherextension.How might that be done?
It is worth consulting some of the actorswho put such images to use in their
dealingswith one another.

Cuttingnetworks
Actor-networktheorists,and their alliesand critics,are interestedin the diverse
props,to use Law's(1994) phrasing,thatsustainpeople'sactionsand in the way
the props are held in place long enough to do so. Networks renderedcontin-
gent on people'sinteractionsturn out to have a fragiletemporality.They do not
last for ever;on the contrary,the question becomes how they are sustainedand
made durable.They may seem to dependon continuitiesof identity(thatis, on
homogeneity).But heterogeneousnetworksalso have their limits. I shall argue
that if we take certainkinds of networksas sociallyexpandedhybridsthen we
can takehybridsas condensednetworks.That condensationworks as a summa-
tion or stop. The Euro-Americanhybrid,as an image of dissolvedboundaries,
indeed displacesthe image of boundarywhen it takesboundary'splace.
I give two very brief illustrations,the first an instance in which the actors
involved might well have recognizedthemselves as a network in the conven-
tional social sense, and the second a case in which the social scientist might
think of the chain of elements as a 'network' in Latour'ssense and of the
resultantartefactas a hybrid.The perceivablenetworkin the first,andthe analytical
hybrid in the second, both bring potentialextensions to a halt. In both cases
these imagesof networkor hybridservethe furtheranceof claimsto ownership.
In 1987 a Californiancorporationdiscovered the hepatitis C virus.11The
virus was a discoveryin the sense of an unearthingof fresh knowledge about
the world. But the means of detectingthe virus led to the invention of a blood
test for which the corporationappliedfor, andwas granted,a patent.Patentsare
claims to inventions;that is, to applicationsof someone's inventivenesswhich
others technically could, but are forbidden to, utilize without acknow-
ledgement. This test met all the modern criteriafor a patent. It was novel,
524 MARILYN STRATHERN

producedby human interventionand, in the interestsof simultaneouslypro-

tecting and promoting competition, capableof industrialapplication.12As a
result, the BritishNational Health Servicewill reportedlybe payingmore than
?2 for every hepatitisC test it administers- some 3 million a year.Apparently,
the technologyfor the blood test is standard.What the inventorsaddedwas the
genetic sequenceof the virus, maldngidentificationof the DNA an integralpart
of the test.
HepatitisC hadbeen underinvestigationfor twelveyearsbeforethe viruswas
isolated.The patent counsel for the company that developed the test was re-
ported as saying: 'We don't claim we did all the research,but we did the
researchthat solvedthe problem'(TheIndependent, Dec 1 1994).Any one inven-
is
tion only made possible by the field of knowledge which defines a scientific
community.The social networks here are long; patenting truncatesthem. So it
mattersvery much over which segment or fragment of a network rights of
ownership can be exercised. In another case, forty names to a scientific article
became six names to a patent application; the rest did not join in. The long
network of scientists that was formerly such an aid to knowledge becomes
hastilycut. Ownership therebycurtailsrelationsbetween persons;owners ex-
clude those who do not belong.
Scientistsworking with referenceto one anotherwould no doubt recognize
themselves as a social network, along the lines of conventionalsocial analysis
('networkanalysis').In this sense, the interestslinking the severalinvestigators
of the virus were comparable:at the outset, any one of them was a potential
claimant.The network as string of obligations,a chain of colleagues,a history
of co-operation,would be sustainedby continuities of identity.However di-
verse their roles, participantsreplicated one another in the fact of their
participation.13 The patentintroducedthe question over what areathe network
spread;who participatedin the final spurt.
The extent of a homogeneous network, such as this one, appearsto be
bounded by the definition of who belongs to it. However, the divide, created
for the purposesof the patent,between those who did and those who did not
belong, was establishednot by some cessationof the flow of continuitybut by
a quite extraneousfactor:the commercialpotentialof the work that turned a
discoveryinto a patentableinvention.We could say that the prospectof owner-
ship cut into the network.The claim to have done the researchthat solved 'the
problem'justified a deliberateact of hybridization:co-operativeor competitive,
the scientists'prior work could now be evaluatedby criteriafrom a different
world altogether:that of commerce.
Now, while we might expect our (not quite hypothetical)scientiststo talk of
networks,we would be surprisedif they talkedof hybrids.However, an actor-
network theorist might well observe that the act of hybridizationwas doubly
accomplishedin this instance,for it also involved a classic form of Latourian
hybrid:the invention.An invention implies by definitionthat culturehas been
addedto nature.The ingenuityof the inventoris held to change the character
of an entity;intellectualactivityconferspropertyin it, as does the applicationof
skill or labourwhich gives people (the possibilityof) propertyin products.14
Hence a person from whom the originaltissue comes finds it difficultto claim
ownershipof cell lines subsequentlyproducedin the laboratory.Propertyrights
 MARILYN STRATHERN 525

cannot be claimedover an unalterednature;they applyonly to an alteredone.

The inventor'sclaim is that human tissue has been demonstrablymodified by
ingenuity,includingingenuityembodiedin technologicalprocess.An American
commentaryon immortalcell lines, that is, cells infinitely reproduciblein the
laboratory,is explicit. 'Manyhuman cells have alreadybeen grantedpatentsin
the US on the basis that they would not exist but for the interventionof the
"inventor", who extractedandmanipulatedthem' (NewScinist,January12, 1991).
In the famous Moore litigation,15the man who tried to claim propertyrights
in cells developedfrom tissue removedfrom his body during an operationlost
the case. It was the claim to the heterogeneoushybrid,the fact that these cells
had been immortalizedthrough human ingenuity, that was upheld. In fact
Moore was castigatedby one judge (see Rabinow 1992) for his commercial
motives, unseemly in relationto one's body but appropriatefor those develop-
ing technologywith commercialapplicationin mind. Between Moore and his
opponents,the claims could be constructedas of differentorders;one claimed
a body partas partof his person, the other an intellectualproductas a result of
certainactivities.The hybridobject,then, the modifiedcell, gathereda network
into itself; that is, it condensed into a single item diverseelements from tech-
nology, science and society,enumeratedtogetheras an invention and available
for ownershipas property.In fact there is a good case for seeing propertyas a
hybridizingartefactin itself, althoughI do not develop the point here.
Ownership cuts both kinds of network, homogeneous and heterogeneous.
First,it can truncatea chain of severalclaimants,otherwiseidentifiablethrough
their social relationshipswith one another,dividing those who belong from
those who do not. Belonging is thus given a boundary.Second, it can bring
togethera networkof disparateelements summatedin an artefact(such as the
invention) that holds or contains them all. If it is the perceived addition of
human enterprisethatbestowspropertyrights,the humanelement addedto the
nonhuman one, then the proof of that hybriditycurtailsother interests.As at
once the thing that has become the object of a right, and the right of a person
in it, propertyis, so to speak,a networkin manipulableform.
The structureof these entailmentsand curtailmentsholds an interestbeyond
the specificapplicationsnoted here. It is thus necessaryto spell out the fact that
there is a culturalpredispositionamong Euro-Americansto imaginethat social
relationshipsconcerncommonalitiesof identitybefore they concerndifference,
and thatheterogeneityis inevitablein combiningthe humanwith the nonhuman.
I turn now to networksthat are homogeneous in so far as they presupposea
continuityof identitiesbetweenhumanandnonhumanforms,andheterogeneous
in so fir as personsaredistinguishedfromone anotherby theirsocialrelationships.

II

Stoppingpflow
Coppet'saccountof 'Are'areof the Solomon Islandsshows the power of mak-
ing objectswhich can be manipulated.'Are'aredivide living creaturesinto three
kinds. Cultivated plants have body, domesticatedpigs have both body and
breath,while human beings also hold a name or 'image'.At death, the once
living person is disaggregatedor decomposedinto these differentelements:the
526 MARILYN STRATHERN

body,a productof nurturereceivedfrom others, is eaten as taro and vegetable

food; breath is taken away in the breathof slaughteredpigs, while the image
becomes an ancestor(Coppet 1994:42, 53, referring,it would seem, primarily
to men). This ancestralimage is revealedas an enduringentity,as the person is
strippedof body,breathand relationswith all other persons bar ancestorsand
descendants.Interpersonaldebts are settled (Coppett 1994: 53), as elsewhere
the memory of the deceasedis 'finished'(Battaglia1992).
The living human being thus appearsto be a hybrid.But we would be mis-
taken to see this in the 'addition'of breathto body or in the 'modification'of
breathingbody by ancestralimage. Each of the three components has its own
manifestation,and if the amalgamatedhuman being is a person, so too we may
think of each component as a person (a person is made up of persons), in
continuities facilitatedby flows of money. I use the term 'person' since the
human being is also conceived as an aggregationof relations;it can take the
form of an objectavailablefor consumptionby those otherswho compose it. In
these acts of consumption, the person is, so to speak, hybridized,dispersed
among a networkof others.
Nonhuman substitutesexist, then, for each of the forms (body,breath and
image) that the human person takes. Through body and breath persons are
interchangeablewith taro and pigs, both of which are living beings like them-
selves; in the case of their distinctive image, however, they become
interchangeablewith non-living things.Ancestralimage appearsin the form of
money; that is, stringsof shell beadsof varyinglengths.The image is composed
of strandspresentedat earlierfuneralfeastsand destinedfor future ones. Shell
money travelsfrom one funeralplatformto another,gatheringand dispersingas
one might imaginea shadowythrongof ancestorsdoing; the fragmentationand
recombinationof different strands in the dealings of everyday life, Coppet
notes, anticipatethe money's appearanceas an entiretyat death.Everytransac-
tion assiststhe circulationof fragmentsor segmentsof an image.This image is
the deceased made present as an ancestor;for shell money is, in effect, an
'ancestor-image' (1994:42), one of a person'spersons,so to speak,in nonhuman
form.
What is this money? Money is divisible into standarizedportions, measured
by the fathom containingtwenty-fourunits of fifty shells. It thus 'serves as a
measuringrod, situatingon a single scale events as differentas the purchaseof
ten tarosor of a canoe, a marriageor a murder,the amount of a funeralpresta-
tion, the paymentfor a ritualserviceor for an ensemble of musicians'(Coppet
1994: 40). Markingan event in monetaryterms gives it an official seal. It also
builds up the person as a composite of past transactionswith diverse others.
There is a furtherdimension to money.This stimulatorof flows can stop flow.
Shell money has circulatorypower preciselybecauseother entities, events and
productscan be convertedinto it: pastencountersand relationshipscirculatein
condensedform in its 'body' (my metaphor).Now, at deaththere is a finalizing
sequence of exchangesin which the living being's two other components be-
come money; in one sequence taro is convertedinto money, in anotherpigs
(Copet 1994: 53-4). The ancestor-imageencompassesboth, and the sequences
stop at that point. Money thus becomes the repositoryor containerof prior
interchanges.It is as an anticipationof the final cessationof flow at death that
 MARILYN STRATHERN 527

money at other points in life can stop other flows, most significantlyin homi-
cide payments(Coppet 1994: 10-11). Where there has been a series of deaths,
money alone stems the flow of revenge.
'Are'areare explicit about this finalizingsequence:they refer to it as a 'stop'
or 'break',imaginedas a fall, as at sunset,or as the sinkingof a stone. Such stops
can only be effected by means of shell money. In other types of exchange,by
contrast,money is merelya contributoryelement;these include tied exchanges
('linkedsuccession')which connect events leadinginexorablyfrom one to an-
other so that the giver's repaymentof a debt constitutes a new debt for the
recipient.Any one prestationis also composed of 'returns',the smallest se-
quence in a cycle of exchanges;exchanges are thus made up of exchanges.
Together,these activities bring about networks of different lengths: 'Are'are
measurethe length of debt in an enlargingseriesof acts,from 'return'to 'linked
succession' to 'stop', the last gatheringup all preceding flows into one mo-
ment.16 Like strands of shell money itself, these flows are simultaneously
divisibleand indivisible.In short, networksare composed of both human and
nonhumanentities;they differ in how they are absorbedor consumed.
The mortuary ceremony that makes the deceased's networks visible also
blocks their futureeffect. Old networksare cut by being gatheredup at a point
(in the deceased),whose sociallyhybrid form is dispersedand thereby brings
new networks into play. The relationshipsthat once sustained the deceased
become recombinedin the personsof others.

Bringingfw back
If the 'Are'arepersonemergesfrom such transactionsas hybrid,then its hetero-
geneity comes from the way differences are sustained between the social
relationsthat sustain it; the hybrid is an amalgamof social relations.In this
Melanesiancase, it is made visible as a networkvia funerary,bridewealthand
similarprestations,transactionsthat lay out the person in terms of the claims
diverseothers have.And vice versa:the same transactionscondense claimsinto
sociallymanipulableobjectsof consumption(things).Whatare, in a mannerof
speaking,homogeneous, implyingcontinuitiesof identity,are the forms - hu-
man and nonhuman- that these objectsof consumptiontake (the body is the
taro).With referenceto similartransactionson Tanga,Foster (1995: 166 sqq.)
reminds us that it is an illusion to imagine that differencesof value lie in the
intrinsicnatureof things:values are the outcome of relationalpractices.Thus
'identical'productsmay have 'different'values (cf Piot 1991).
Coppet analysesexchangesin terms of a hierarchyof encompassment:from
the tiniest interchangethat carries an expectationof a return, to the ritual
compulsion by which people are linked through maldng paymentsrequiring
further payments,to the capacityto gathersuch exchangesup in a mortuary
prestationthat caps them all. Here they are condensedinto money.Money can,
in turn, be spreadout and disaggregated.What is true of a man's death is also
true of a woman's marriage.Bride-giversbestow on the husband's kin the
potential for growth in their sister whom they have grown, and they receive
back,and thus consume, evidenceof growth alreadyaccomplishedin the form
of valuables.Here are objects with different values: reproductivewealth (a
future wife) in return for a non-reproductivesister. Now a non-returnable
528 MARILYN STRATHERN

portion of money ('money to stop the woman') is said to stop the woman's
image;her kinsmen'sidentitywill no longer flow throughher. In addition,her
kin receive furthermoney which they returnto the husband'sside in separate
lots as money,taroand pigs. Her kin therebyre-create,as separatecomponents,
the body,breathand image of the woman from the single gift of money.
'Are'areancestor-moneyis thus a condensed objectificationof the person
who can be disaggregatedinto variousmanifestationsof relationswith others.
The (homogeneous) network of elements that make up the person - human
and nonhuman - is also a (heterogeneous)network of social relationships.In
turn, the person acts as both containerand channel,blockingflow and bodying
it forth.
Kinship systems, as anthropologistsmodel them, have long providedanalo-
gies to this kind of process. Consider those curtailmentsof claims that come
with exogamy,sister-exchangeor cross-cousin marriage.If we imagine these
protocolsas creatingnetworksof varyinglengths, then they have differentca-
pacities for sustaining flow or stopping it. Many kinship systems certainly
presupposemeasurementsfor tracingthe extent of substance.Indeed we may
take this as diagnosticof 'lineal'modes of kinship reckoning.Extensivenessof
claims may be reckonedin terms of continuity of identity,as when a descent
group whose members share common substance truncates claims over its
members at the exogamic boundary;making new relationsthrough marriage
stops the flow. Or old relationsmay have to be cancelledbefore new ones are
produced.Or, again,the kind of marriagerule that invites persons to think of
themselvesas marryingcousins or exchangingsiblingsinvites them to think of
substanceas turningbackon itself Here networksare stoppedin the personsof
relativeswho become the turningpoint for directingthe flow of fertilityback.17
On South Pentecost, shortly after the birth of a child, Sa-speakersmake a
payment to the mother's kin for the loss of blood (jolly 1994: 146). This is
among those called lo sal, 'inside the road, or path' (1994: 109). Perhapsthis
particularpaymentcan be read as given both for the blood spilt at intercourse
and birth (the reasonSa people give) and for the blood dammedup, no longer
flowing with theirfertility;father'ssemen blocks mother's flow of blood (jolly
1994: 143). The child embodies maternalblood but cannot pass it on; instead,
lifelong payments are due to the maternalkin. When the mother's brother
receives a boar in recognitionof the blood which, while contributingto the
child, has no forwardeffect, he is forbiddenfrom tying it up. Insteadthat role
is performedby the mother'smother'sbrother,who in turn is forbiddenfrom
eating it. The latter has alreadyeaten pigs given him earlierby the mother's
brother (jolly 1994: 111-12); he is thus made presentbut cannot benefit from
the flow of fertilitybeyond one generation.A sister's substance,then, is not
passedon to her grandchildrenbut is stopped in her children.The grandchil-
dren of cross-sexsiblings,preferredmarriagepartners,subsequentlyremakethe
'road'(Sa for 'marriage'):a man marriesinto the place from which his father's
mother came.
While these Melanesianchains - of persons, and of the wealth that flows
along with them - are followed outwardsto a certainextent, some may turn
aroundat key points and return.This may be accomplishedover time: previous
generationsare reborn, persons making up other persons. In terms of social
 MARILYN STRATHERN 529

process, alternatingsocialitiescome to be effected by, among other means, the

sustaineddifferencebetween flow thatspreadsand growth thatgathersor stops
the flow.18.To energizeprocreativesubstanceeitherto disperseorreturn,it must
be made different in the way its network is spreadout. 'Are'arebridewealth
money fixes the woman'sancestralidentity,while taroandpig effect the transfer
of her body and breathbetween kin groups. Each side retains,so to speak,its
version of her.
Whetheror not accompaniedby marriagerules,such procreativerelationships
tend to shareone generalcharacteristic: transactionsconstructnetworksof re-
strictedlength. Networks become measurable.They are measuredby people's
indebtednessto one anotherthroughthe flow of objects,humanandnonhuman;
those who give or receivewealth, or the people they standfor, become links in
a specifiablechain. Claims can be conceptualizedas simultaneouslyresulting
from ties of bodily substance and from previous transactions.So brides or
ancestorsact as objects that may flow either with or againstthe flow of other
objects (Wagner1977). Links appearin the chain when it becomes possible to
exchange'different'objectsfor social consumption.By the same token, chains
come to rest in these objects,human or nonhuman,at the point when actions
can be takenwith them. Bridewealthlays out who shall receive at a woman's
marriage,and anticipatesthe next generation of transactionsat her future
daughter'smarriage.
J. Weiner (1993a: 292) remarksthat in a relationallybased world 'the task
confrontinghumans is not to sustainhuman relationships... [but] to place a
limit on relationship'.Giving and receivingshell valuablesat marriagecontrols
the flow of relationshipbetween affinal groups. So does the movement of
persons. The paternalinheritanceof the Hagen bride terminateswith her; she
is like the Vanuatumotherwhose blood is blockedat pregnancy,or the 'Are'are
ancestor in whom all reciprocitiesare finished. At the point at which claims
cease or turn back, they become truncatedby their intersectionwith other
claims, signified by a hybrid figure (human being or wealth item or ritual
substance)who gathersthem within, so that they are seen to stop in his or her
person.

III
One class of kinshipsystems in the anthropologicalrepertoireis notorious for
havingno internalstops. Bilateralor cognatic(nonunilineal)kinshipreckoning
allows that substanceflows, and evinces itself in individualpersonsbut it does
not stop in them or turn back.Indeed, indigenesmay tell themselvesthat they
are all related - trace far enough back and everyone shares substancewith
everyone else.19As a response to such systems, there was, in the 1950s and
1960s, much anthropologicaldebate about cutting networks. These debates
addressedthe problem of potentiallyendless networksof relationsthat seem-
ingly did not cut themselves.One could traceforeveroutwards.Fromthis came
the presumptionthat therewas no measurebeyondthe dictatesof contingency:
bilateralkinship appearedto have no inbuilt boundariesof its own. It was
arguedthat in orderto creategroups,for example,ramifyingkin ties had to be
cut throughother principlesof social organization.
530 MARILYN STRATHERN

I would argue that what was appliedto analysinggroup formation in such

societieswere the very mechanismsthatdo in factgive bilateralkin networksof
the Englishkind a self-limitingcharacter(Edwards& Strathernn.d.). One kind
of reckoningnever operatesalone; it alwaysoperates in conjunction withfactorsof
a different order. From the anthropologist'scomparativeviewpoint, 'kinship'
has to lie in the combination.
Here we have the Euro-Americanhybrid:not just an expanse 'cut into' by
other phenomenabut a specificabridgementof natureand culture. Social rela-
tions depend on multitudinous factors that truncate the potential of
forever-ramifyingbiologicalrelations.Biologicalrelatedness- 'blood ties' - can
thus be cut by failureto accordsocial recognition(someone is forgotten),just
as social relationshipscan be cut by appealto biological principles (dividing
'real'kin from others). So in practiceone does not trace connexions for ever;
converselythe most intimate group is also open to discoveringcontacts they
never knew existed. Factorsfrom diverse domains can affect the reach of an
otherwisehomogeneous networkbasedon 'blood'or 'family'.
Whatis interestingaboutEnglishbilateralism,then, is that the basison which
everyone might say they are related(biologicaland genetic connexion) can be
reckonedseparatelyfrom the trafficof social relations.This gives us both con-
tinuitiesand discontinuitiesof identity.In so faras biology and society are taken
as distinct domains, we can see why the users of English culture presume an
identityof interestsin social relationsand why they presume heterogeneityin
mixes of human and nonhuman.In Melanesianterms I might want to say that
these Euro-Americansimagine a boundaryto the person that makes internal
flows of substanceradicallydifferentfrom externalones (interactions with others).
That also gives a tenacityto their ideasaboutraceand sexuality:continuitiesare
somehow within and discontinuitiessomehow outside.
While my argumentshave been pitched very generally,I would assert that
such generalizationslie 'within'the specificitiesof social life as well as 'outside'
them. ConsiderSteve, in Simpson'saccountof the 'unclearfamily'constituted
throughparentaldivorce.20
Steve's narrationof his 'family life' places him at the centre of a network of relationships
which carryvaryingloads in terms of affect and commitment. For example, he sees himself
as a 'father'to six children. However, the way in which fatherhoodis expressedand experi-
enced by Steve in relationto each of his childrenis variable.The label 'father'condensesand
concealsvaryinglevels of financialand emotional commitment, differentresidentialarrange-
ments and variablequantitiesof contact (1994: 834).
Steve is at once a (singular)fatherand containswithin his fatherhooda rangeof
elements. They comprise connexions with persons, different social practices,
resourcesand materials,heterogeneouselements from which, in this passage,
Simpson has selecteda few.
Disaggregatedinto its components,it would seem that the figureof the father
expandsto bring in a rangeof referencepoints;yet it also contractsin so far as
only a small set of componentsis singled out: what Steve means by 'father'is
likely to encompassmore than can ever be specified.21When the specification
is reduced to distinguishableelements, as in commitments defined as both
financialand emotional,then we can referto the resultantconstruct,the father
who shows both, as a hybrid.As a kinsperson,then, this figure constitutesa
 MARILYN STRATHERN 531

condensed image whose dispersed, network version is distributed between

separableordersof fact (money,emotion).
English and other Euro-Americanbilateralsystems of kinshipjoin together
disparatereasonsfor relatedness.They arepremissedon conservingontological
differencebetween domains:on imaginingthatthe affectiverelationsof kinship
are materiallydifferentfrom the flux of economic life, or that the transmission
of substanceoperatesunder laws of biology separatefrom social laws, or that
individualpersonsarenaturalbeingsmodifiedby society.Here the earlierexamples
of invention have a particularpoint in my narrative.The inventoris a kind of
enhancedagent.All human agentsare inventors(creators)in a modern,Euro-
Americansense: the person is substanceplus the animatingself-inventiveness
of agency,a combinationof distinctelements.The elements may be regardedas
'added'together,'modifying'one anotherin the same way as culture modifies
nature. If, in Melanesianterms, Euro-Americanssometimes seek to sustain a
differencebetween internaland externalflows (body and intellect versus biol-
ogy and culture,and so forth), it is becauseeach can be presentedas havingits
own impetus or logic. For they can be turned to use separatelyas well as in
conjunction,as I have indicatedin respectof conceptsof ownership.Belonging
marksrelationsbasedon continuitiesof identity,and thus the separationof pure
forms,while propertypresupposesdiscontinuity,and the conjunctionof human
enterprisewith nonhumanresources.
I havewilfully mixed old and new - the old networksof networkanalysisand
kinshiptheory,and the new ones of actornetworktheory.It has led me to think
about an indigenous, Euro-Americanmechanism for cutting: 'ownership'.
Ownershipis powerfulbecauseof its double effect, as simultaneouslya matter
of belongingand of property.Euro-Americanswill not have to look farin order
to determine network length; they have alwaysknown that belonging divides
and propertydisowns. So where technology might enlargenetworks,proprie-
torshipcan be guaranteedto cut them down to size.
Perhaps,in this, the 'Are'arenotion of 'stop' as a prestationthat is a resting
place, repositoryor turningpoint bearscomparisonwith, though by no means
assimilationto, the notions of ownershipI have sketchedhere. These notions
challenge the interpretivepossibility of limitlessness:the kinds of interests,
social or personal,that invite extensionalso truncateit, and hybridsthat appear
able to mix anvthingcan serve as boundariesto claims.

NOTES
This article is in memory of Jeffrey Clark, and his account (1991) of pearlshellsthat flow
and pearlshellsthat grow. Alan Macfarlanehas contributedinvaluablecomments on ideas of
property,and I am furthergratefulto the severalcomments of the ESRC seminaron Technol-
ogy as Skilled Practice convened by Penny Harvey at the University of Manchesterwhich
heard a version of this article.Comments from Annelise Riles, Simon Harrisonand the Jour-
nal's anonymousreadershave been much to its improvement.Thanks to those who have given
me permissionto cite as yet unpublishedworks: Peter Fitzpatrick,IrisJean-Klein,Christopher
Taylor,Nicholas Thomas.
1 Taylor (n.d.) focuses on 'flow' and 'blockage'in certain Central and East African under-
standingsof channels of potency. A. Weiner (1992) and Godelier (1995) have commented on
similarissues to differenttheoreticalends, as hasJ. Weiner (1995a;1995b).
2 I personifya discoursefor expositionalconvenience.
532 MARILYN STRATHERN

3 One of the Journal'sreaderscommented on the role of legal thinking in such separations.

Indeed, one might take the development of the law as historicallycrucial to that modernist
commonplace,the distinction between subject and object. If the eighteenth-centurydevelop-
ment of copyrightlaw, for instance,turned on claimingauthors'paternityin relationto prod-
ucts, through the concept of commercialprofit it also renderedauthors'works separablefrom
their persons.
4 The distinctionsdo not preclude but make more powerful the attachmentof persons to
their property.Propertyis of course integralto family life, not to speakof inheritanceand fam-
ily businesses.
5 There are innumerablesuch pairsof terms in English (human and nonhuman,culture and
nature,law and society, person and propertyand so forth). These merographicconnexions are
a source of flexibilityin Euro-Americanconceptualizations,giving a particularinflection to the
'layersof redundancy'one expectsin culturallife (Battaglia1993: 439). As similarbut not iden-
tical constructs,such pairs sustain one another. Indeed, that none of them is identicalto an-
other is part of their rhetoricalpower, since similarcontrastsappearto hold across severaldis-
crete (all slightlydifferent)fields. Thus one can talk of an embryo as human but not a person,
while makingmoral discriminationsbetween human and nonhuman,person and property.
6 Papastergiadis(1995: 14-15) gives the exampleof Lotman's(1991) 'semiosphere'.'For Lot-
man, the semiosphereis in a constant state of hybridity.It always oscillates between identity
and alterity,and this tension is most evident at its boundaries'.Boundariesare contained in
those first-personforms that differentiateself from other. In Lotman's (1991: 131) phrase,
'Everyculture begins by dividing the world into "its own" internalspace and "their"external
space'. This is the dangerous nonsense of which European xenophobia is formed (Stolcke
1995). It will be clear that I do no more than brush the tip of recent culturalcritiques;for an
anthropologicalcommentary,see the essaysedited by Fardon1995.
7 When Law (1994: 18-19) defines network, he remarksthat it does not have much to do
with standardsociologicalusage as in the traditionof kinship studies. I suggest to the contrary
that English kinship offers an interestingmodel of networks that concern links not just be-
tween persons but between human and nonhuman entities. This is touched on at the end of
the article.
8 The tools of their discipline include methods of classificationand comparisonthat are, ar-
guably, an effect of the same Euro-Americanscientific imaginationwith which they battle in
every ethnographicdescription.
9 Whereasthe brief referencesto Melanesiathat follow distil extensive ethnographicenquiry,
the referencesto Euro-Americanincidentsare ethnographicallyanecdotal;that is, no more than
examplesof the culturallypossible. Their value lies in their distillationof reflectionon analyti-
cal models within the discipline.
10And they are not innocent (Riles 1994). The observer'sor writer'scounter-rhetoricalprac-
tice in deconstructingnarrativesof unity carriesits own politics (Jean-Kleinn.d.), as does the
easy assimilationof conjunctureto the concept of hybridity(Thomas in press).
11I have used the exampleelsewhere (Strathernn.d.) from the point of view of the element
'added'by human enterprise.The detailsare as The Independentreportedthem on December 1st
1994, following a High Court rulingenforcingthe patentin this country.
12Critics have pointed out that there is only one set of DNA sequences to be identified in
the human genome, and no claims to identificationcould be challengedby further inventions;
the patentis protectingthe companyfrom competition,not promotingcompetition.
13Hill and Turpin (1995: 145) quote the Vice-Presidentfor Science and Technology at IBM
who observed in 1991: 'Most large companiesin the world are extensivelycross-licensedwith
each other. Exclusivelicences are almost non-existent.The key is not ownership, it is access'.
Of course the key is ownership, but ownership of a network or segments of it along which
'access',like money, flows.
14'No skill or labour has been exercisedon it; and there has been no change in its charac-
ter': a dissentingjudge refutingclaims made to propertyin a corpse, quoted in Nuffield Coun-
cil on Bioethics 1995: 80. Such principlesare of course open to contestationin the way they
are appliedin specificcases;I do not have to add that which persons claim propertywill depend
on the relationsof production.
15 Moore v Regentsof the Universityof California, 1990, is taken as a locus classicus for debate
concerning human tissue developed as the basis for a commercialproduct (Nuffield Council
 MARILYN STRATHERN 533

on Bioethics 1995: 72). The phrasingin this paragraphis 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 the judgment). Rabinow 1992 of-
fers a full and fascinatinganthropologicalcomment.
16A distinctionbetween those killed by other persons (death by homicide) and those killed
by ancestors(death by illness) alters the sequences here. I should add both that I have put my
own interpretationon Coppet's analysisand that my extractsdo not do justice to his fine, ho-
listic account.
17The exegeses of severalMelanesianistsare relevanthere, but I truncatethat chain of col-
laborativework in referringto one: J. Weiner (1993b)invokes a delightfulsuccession of resting
placesin his descriptionof the winged Foi pearlshellcapturingin hardenedform the life-giving
force of birds in flight, while certainshells set aside in houses immobilize the life-giving force
of shells in constantcirculation.
18 In a positive mode; negative modes would include uncontrolled flow or unproductive
blockageor obstruction(Taylorn.d).
19 However, in contrastto universesof kin where affines are alreadyconsanguines(see, for
instance,Kapadia[1994] on South India),for Euro-Americansthe possibilityis either rhetorical
or belongs to the class of bizarretruths.
20 Networks (in Latour'ssense) arise as a result of 'translation',that is, the mobilizationof
claims and interests by which people traverseor assemble components of their lives. While
Steve and his present wife try to 'treat'all the children equally, his mother-in-law cuts the
network: she ignores Steve's children from his earlier marriagesand gives treats only to her
daughter'schildren (Simpson 1994: 835).
21This observationderivesfrom Wagner's(1986) descriptionof contractionand expansionin
perceptualprocess. The figure of the father serves as a single 'iconic' image, while containing
specifiable,'symbolic',possibilitieswithin itself. These act as codes or referencepoints for the
image, but they alwaysadd up to less than the whole. I should note that in this work Wagner
is concernedwith the 'flow' of imagerywhich is 'stopped'by the specifyingpracticeof sym-
bolic reference.My focus here is with anotherside of that process:the endless abilityto create
more and more referencepoints, as in a narrative,or bring more and more elements into play,
which is 'stopped'by the singularityof the image as a particular,usableobject. Law (n.d.) ob-
serves that actor network theory createslinks in the very process of creatingobjects of study.
The 'objectof study' thus cuts potentialnetworks,by drawingthings to a particularencompass-
ing point or image.

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Couper a travers le reseau

R6sund
Les nouvelles technologies ont rouvert un vieux d6bat concernant les descriptionsde la vie
sociale et les approchesconsid6rees novatricesou surann6es.RWpondantI l'appel lance par
Latour,qui pr6ne une anthropologiesymrtrique r6unissantles formes de savoir modernes
et non-modernes, l'article considere les concepts d'hybride et de reseau tels qu'ils sont
utilises aujourd'hui.Ce faisant, il pr6sente une r6flexion sur le pouvoir d'extension infinie
de la narrationanalytique,et sur la placetout a faitint6ressantequ'occupe le droit de propri6t6
dans un monde apparemmentsans limites.

Universityof Cambridge,
of SocialAnthropology,
Department CB2 3Rf,
FreeSchoolLane, Cambridge,
U.K