Gava thus involves not only affection but also certain aspects of duty, responsibility and care that refer to a larger social structure. Rather it reflects both the value of alliance and an emotional state of being part of a larger group. Most important, gava does not refer to the kind of romantic and erotic love between individuals we are used to. “Gava is not ʻloveʼ, it can’t be mixed with other words, it is like gold” (B.J. Yet, gava has little to do with love in the English or European sense: The latter is commonly translated as a person’s or even an entire community’s ‘love and affection’. There is no native word for love among Badagas except the term ‘gava’. Even money and love need not – cannot! – be kept apart. However, one of the most important lessons I learned during fieldwork among Badagas in the South Indian Nilgiri hills is how frequently and consciously money may be used and institutionalized with the sole purpose of making social relations explicit. Many social scientists have thus lamented the impersonal nature of money and its socially disruptive effects. According to the Marxian paradox, money is a social relation but may simultaneously act as a veil for such relations.
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