ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that the myopic stance concerning the presence of an indigenous commodity barter economy in old Melanesia has resulted in serious deficiencies in the theoretical treatment of 'exchange' in non-commercial contexts as well. 'Reproductive gift exchange' in Melanesia arises through the recasting of social relationships which could be conducted without material transfers of objects-as-gifts, into a relationship-idiom in which these transfers figure centrally. The 'tensions' which mark non-commodity-exchanging societies in Melanesia have to do with gender politics. In non-commodity-exchanging societies men are placed in disadvantageous and conflictual relationships through their relationships with women, which are obviated, to some extent, once the transactional mode of 'reproductive gift exchange' is established. Commodity barter, as Marx pointed out, arises at the boundaries of social systems. These boundaries are a male preserve, physically and symbolically, because men are specialists in hunting and violence.
