WEALTH IN PEOPLE AND SELF-REALIZATION IN EQUATORIAL AFRICA

The article argues that understanding of commodity transactions and their implications for systems can be enriched by bringing together analytical concepts from the Melanesian literature on gifts and commodities, concepts of political dynamics from the Equatorial African literature, and empirical sources on the development of Equatorial material culture and indigenous currencies over the centuries of the slave and ivory trades. Archival sources on two museum collections, ethnography and history are drawn on to develop an approach to the following characteristics relevant to commodities in non-capitalist economies: a) continuous value registers and their intervals, b) the value of 'labour', concepts of persons and self-realization, and c) the origins, pathways and destinations of things, with special attention to the importance of capture as an origin and immobilization/alienation as a destination.