Culture & Transformations

Due during the week of April 18th (that is to say, due by April 22nd)

Hutchinson’s Nuer Dilemmas is in large part about the circulation of things, both tangible things like guns and cattle and less tangible substances like blood and pollution. Choose at least two things from the following list—money, cattle, blood, food, spears, and guns—and write a 2-to-4 page essay about their movement and meaning among the Nuer. Consider the following:

How does the circulation of objects affect relations among people (men vs. women, husbands vs. wives, young men vs. older men, killer vs. killed, and so forth)?
What meanings and values are attributed to these things?
How are things treated as equivalent or not equivalent by the Nuer? That is: can one thing (such as cash) be exchanged, completely or partially, for another or be converted into another (such as cattle)? Is one thing seen as (completely/partially) the same as another?
How have civil war, colonial rule, and other hardships and changes affected all of this?

There many ways to organize the essay, but one obvious way is to divide it into two sections, devoting each section to one thing and its relationship to people and other things. Alternatively, you could devote each section to a pair of things (money/cattle, blood/food, guns/spears). If you have enough to say and are willing to take the risk, you could devote the whole essay to one thing and its meanings and connections, or to one pair of things.