ABSTRACT
One of the central messages of this book is that sharing phenomena are inadequately understood when they are considered as cases of reciprocal giftgiving. I shall also point out the repercussions that this change of perspective has for what we think humans are and what culture and society is all about. However, reconceptualizing sharing in a negative way, with regard to what it is not, is not good enough. As Strathern (1988: 11) has pointed out, there is an unfortunate tendency in anthropology to build theory largely out of negativities, emphasizing when and where existing concepts and ideas do not apply. I do not want to entrench this trend and therefore will also be pointing out what is important to take in, positively speaking, from the substantive results of the anthropology of giftgiving and of other modes of transfer to date. One possibility of condensing the contents of the book into one positive sentence is as follows: Sharing, defined as enabling others to access what is valued, provides a conceptual and practical alternative to market exchange and to gift-exchange. The social practice of sharing is therefore a fundamental and independent part of the human repertoire of making a living. Sharing continues to have important repercussions for what humans are and what they can become. Aspects of sharing in this technical sense are to be found in all societies. However, a necessary first step towards such a positive reconceptualization is nevertheless a critical assessment of what has been blocking our understanding of sharing and its role in human relations. A major intellectual obstacle that is in the way, is the assumption that sharing is a form of reciprocal gift-exchange and that it can be expected to follow the same logic that we find in gifts or other reciprocal exchanges. The goal of this chapter is to get this obstacle out of the way and to prepare the ground for a more productive view of what sharing is all about.
