跨越文化的边界:对赠礼交换的双向度理解——以库克船长为例

在近代殖民主义扩张的过程中,跨文化接触常常会伴随着礼物的交换,这类交换行为往往体现着深层次的社会价值观念差异乃至冲突。詹姆斯.库克在其最后一次造访夏威夷群岛的过程中,经历了多次与夏威夷人的赠礼交换。这些赠礼交换是一种象征性交换,在夏威夷社会的理解中具有权力让渡的文化符号意义,但对以库克为代表的西方人而言,它们不过是一种物权转移和权力宣示行为,与社会权力的转移无关。这一分歧源于双方因不同的历史发展条件形成的文化认同差异,反映了两个交换主体各自代表的不同社会价值判断与文化心态,体现出两者在民族文化意识方面自觉性认知的差别。库克造访夏威夷的事件,应当被理解为是一个部族社会和一个民族国家、一种社会文化意识和一种民族文化意识之间的碰撞。

Beyond Cultural Boundaries :A Two-Dimensional Comprehension of Gift Exchanges in the Case of Captain Cook

In the course of modern colonial expansion,intercultural contacts usually began with gift exchanges,which themselves revealed deeper differences or even conflicts in social values.In his last visit to Sandwich Islands,Captain Cook experienced several gift exchanges with Hawaiians.The same gift exchanges might mean differently to the natives and the westerners.For the former,these performances were symbolic,meaning the shift of social power,and,for the latter,the performances meant transferring the ownership...