Paper long abstract:

The notion of intermediacy obtains its pertinent unity within a rigorous thinking of the Two. Today, however, Twoness is purged under the jurisdiction of the privileged Multiple or plurality. This trend is coextensive with anthropology's marginalization. For anthropology's vocation of productively sheltering intermediate categories had been historically organized under the sign of Twoness. The case to be considered here is the name that summons the gift. Among Papuans and Melanesians, as famously observed by Mauss, the same term designates both the giver and the receiver of the gift. This one name does not join the two. Rather, by a referential self-inadequation - whereby two referents receive one name - the operation points to an 'intermediary' excess that disallows the giver and the receiver ever becoming equivalents in thought. The one-name brings the two together only to make their incompatibility visible. Sylvain Lazarus' 'Anthropology of the Name' will be our guide.