Poststructuralism

The social context by which meaning is assigned to trade goods—or any item of material culture, for that matter—operates in a way similar to, but not identical to, that of linguistic context. As Ferdinand de Saussure observed, the relationship between the linguistic signifier and the signified is purely arbitrary.^[7] In the case of trade, the relationship between the object and what it "means" is also arbitrary. A structural linguist would maintain that the meaning of a word is determined by the relationship between that word and others. A relationship of binary opposition is the most obvious. Thus, "black" clearly means the opposite of "white," "love" of "hate," and so forth. But, meaning is really not quite so simple and cannot be adequately explained by this model. Meaning is really determined by numerous relationships, not only between words, but between words and other value-laden cultural phenomena, such as meanings attached to nonverbal symbols, and values and beliefs that are

difficult to articulate because they are partially or wholly embedded in the pre- or subconscious (often these are related metaphorically, as in myths, stories, and anecdotes). Richard Harland provided an example. The meaning of the word "rape" depends upon its relationship, in a structural sense, to words like "marriage" and "love"—so much so that feminists have had difficulty in achieving acceptance of concepts like rape within marriage and date-rape.^[8] That some acceptance of these notions has occurred is an indication of a change in context larger than a purely linguistic one. It is this sort of a context that concerns "poststructuralists." Generally, as in this example, it is a cultural context that includes changes in role, status, power relationships, and definitions of identity. And, it is just this sort of "poststructuralist" context that must be taken into consideration in order to understand trade goods, although it almost always has not been. Instead, we have had functionalist treatments of trade goods, treatments that have bolstered stereotypes of Native Americans: Native Americans "foolishly" trading away Manhattan for a few dollars' worth of beads, Native Americans incapable of "handling" alcohol.