Inalienable Possessions tests anthropology's traditional assumptions about kinship, economics, power, and gender in an exciting challenge to accepted theories of reciprocity and marriage exchange. Focusing on Oceania societies from Polynesia to Papua New Guinea and including Australian Aborigine groups, Annette Weiner investigates the category of possessions that must not be given or, if they are circulated, must return finally to the giver. Reciprocity, she says, is only the superficial aspect of exchange, which overlays much more politically powerful strategies of "keeping-while-giving."

The idea of keeping-while-giving places women at the heart of the political process, however much that process may vary in different societies. As the producers and distributors of cloth, which can be an inalienable possession, women have power and a major role in cultural reproduction. Weiner's formulations -- which are not, as she points out, limited to Oceania -- are certain to influence future developments in ethnography and the theoretical study of gender and exchange.