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- Title
Negotiating Currency: Dynamics of Currency Interfaces among the Langalanga, Solomon Islands.
- Authors
Pei-yi Guo
- Abstract
For hundreds of years the Langalanga people of the Solomon Islands have been making shell money (bata) and using it in regional trade. Shell money is an important mobile object in the Langalanga's daily lives, trade and participation in the national economy, and has deep cultural and social significance. The Langalanga have, for a long time, encountered multiple currencies, including various local currencies employed in regional trade, European currencies, short-term currencies (tobacco etc.), and national currencies. These currencies and shell money have formed several entangled interfaces. This paper examines how the Langalanga have understood and used multiple currencies from colonial times to the establishment of a national currency, and reconsiders what "currency" is. In contrast to the static functional definition of currency in the past, I argue that currency in practice is continually undergoing a dynamic negotiation process. I highlight three characteristics of currency, which have rarely been studied before: that currency is negotiatory, interfacial and dynamic. Through the perspective of dynamic negotiation of currency interfaces, this paper analyzes the process of monetization of European currencies and tobacco in the colonial era, and the processes of "demonetization" and "remonetization" that shell money underwent.
- Subjects
SOLOMON Islands; SHELL money; ECONOMICS; MONEY; BUSINESS; MONETIZATION
- Publication
Taiwan Journal of Anthropology, 2008, Vol 6, Issue 2, p89
- ISSN
1727-1878
- Publication type
Article