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Cobo and tabua in Fiji: Two forms of cultural currency in an economy of sentiment
Author(s) -
Arno Andrew
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.2005.32.1.46
Subject(s) - currency , possession (linguistics) , property (philosophy) , sociology , meaning (existential) , ethnography , cultural identity , economic anthropology , economics , economy , monetary economics , social science , anthropology , linguistics , epistemology , philosophy , negotiation
Cultural currency, defined in performance terms, is a highly specific medium for the deployment of sentiment in community life, and it can be usefully compared with varieties of material currency. Sentiment, as a cultural system, is an intellectual rather than a material property, and, like all property, it is defined by social relationships and obligations. Cultural currencies are performances that are constrained in use by meaning and identity, rather than by physical possession. Research on the cobo and tabua in Fiji represents an ethnographic case study of cultural currency that has implications for investigating the relationships among culture, sentiment, property, and mode of production generally.