Dingen als spiegel van relaties

Samenvatting

In much anthropological & sociological writing "things" have been considered in two ways: either as commodities or as gifts. Correspondingly, people's relationships to things & other people seem to fall in two broad categories, often regarded as mutually exclusive: either as impersonal, economic, or market relationships with strangers; or as personal gift relationships with intimates, friends, or relatives. The "social life of things," however, is more varied. The two types of social relationships are not the only possibilities of relating people to things & each other. Here, drawing on Alan Page Fiske's (1991) theory of the four fundamental models of human relationships, four ways in which people may relate to each other & things are distinguished. Complications may occur when transactors do not share the same frame of mind with respect to each other & the things that are transacted. Things may have conflicting social lives. 25 References. Adapted from the source document.