listings. Presumably, the subjects' typical day-to-day 
meanings of ownership would have some significant influence 
on their recall listings and that influence could be 
subsequently identified. 
Ownership as Social Relations 
It is possible that ownership does not entail a simplé, 
primary relationship between an owner and the object he 
owns. There is a body of thought that ownership largely 
entails relationships between people. This is clearly 
expressed by Turner (1941): 
The law of ownership is not a set of rules fixing what 
[I may or may not do to a thing, but a set of rules 
fixing what others may or may not prevent me from 
doing to a thing, and what I may or may not prevent 
“hem from doing to a thing. (p.343) 
Cohen (1954) took a more radical stance that ownership 
essentially concerns relationships between people, and need 
not involve actual things: 
Can we agree then that this institution of property 
rhat we are trying to understand may Or may not 
involve physical objects, but always does involve 
~elations between people. (p.7) 
Harbrecht and Berle (1959) viewed property primarily in 
terms of interpersonal power relationships. Hoebel (1966), 
a lawyer-turned-anthropologist, considered that ownership 
consisted of an object (material or not) and a network of 
social relations that limit and define relationships between 
people “and the object. Perhaps Bhalla (1981), a Nigerian 
orofessor of law, best expressed the role ownership plays ‘in