Successful Keda.

R. Bironneau, Pakistan, 2011.

Keda is thus a polysemic concept, in which the circulation of objects, the making of memories and reputations, and the pursuit of social distinction through strategies of partnership all come together. The delicate and complex links between men and things that are central to the politics of the keda are captured in the following extract from the perspective of the island of Vakuta:

The successful keda consists of men who are able to maintain relatively stable keda partnerships through good oratorical and manipulative skills, and who operate as a team, interpreting one anothers' movements. Nevertheless, many keda collapse, regularly making it necessary for men to re-align themselves. Some form completely different keda, while the remnants of a broken keda may want to form another keda by drawing in new men. Yet others may never keda again because of their inability to form another keda owing to a reputation for 'bad' kula activity. In reality, the population of shell valuables in any one keda is migratory and the social composition of a keda transitory. A shell's accumulation of history is retarded by continual movement between keda, while men's claims to immortality vanish as shells lose association with these men after being successfully attracted into another keda, thus taking on the identity of its new owners.

Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, p.18-19.