Thomas Widlok obtained his PhD in Social Anthropology at the LSE and has taught anthropology in the universities of London, Cologne, Kyoto, and Heidelberg. He was a member of the Max Planck Cognitive Anthropology Research Group in Nijmegen, Netherlands. Currently he is a research staff member at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany.

• PrefaceIntroductionWolde Gossa TadesseChapter 1. Power and Property in Twenty-First Century Foragers: A Critical ExaminationRichard Borshay LeeChapter 2. Money Makes the World Go Round? Commodity Sharing, Gifting and Exchange in the Baka (Pygmy) EconomyAxel KöhlerChapter 3. Whose Forest Is It Anyway? Mbendjele Yaka Pygmies, the Ndoki Forest and the Wider WorldJerome LewisChapter 4. The Significance of Trade in an Immediate-Return Society: The Batek CaseKirk EndicottChapter 5. The Road to Equality? Landscape Transformation and the Batek of Pahang, MalaysiaLye Tuck-PoChapter 6. Equalising Processes, Processes of Discrimination and the Forest People of Central AfricaJustin KenrickChapter 7. Delay, Return and Hierarchy: Six Aboriginal Marriage Systems ComparedIan KeenChapter 8.8 The Power of Women in an Ostensibly Male-Dominated Agro-Pastoral SocietyJean LydallChapter 9. The Incorporated Ground: The Contemporary Work of Distribution in the Kutubu Oil Project Area, Papua New GuineaJames F. WeinerChapter 10. Sharing the Land: Kalahari San Property Rights and Resource ManagementRobert K. HitchcockChapter 11. The Professionalisation and Commoditisation of the Contemporary Bushman Trance Dancer and Trance Dance, and the Decline of SharingMathias GuentherChapter 12. From Humility to Lordship in Island Southeast AsiaThomas GibsonNotes on ContributorsIndex

“These excellent books enrich our understanding of immediate return societies and the persistence of immediate-return arrangements in delayed-return societies. I was reflecting recently that anthropologists have not given sufficient attention to Woodburn’s theoretical framework. These contributions go a long way towards filling that gap.”  ·   Jérôme Rousseau in Anthropological Forum