| Zusammenfassung: | With specific reference to Kubo people of Papua New Guinea, and their neighbours, we explore the manner in which boundaries and barriers—where the former are fluid and the latter fixed—are implicated in wide-ranging expressions of sociality both within and beyond the group. We reflect upon ways in which anthropologists, similarly, indulge in the creation of boundaries and barriers—often doing so, not unlike some Papua New Guineans, for reasons that amount to territorial claims over intellectual property. Such claims, we argue, may impose barriers to anthropological understanding. More importantly, however, they may bar opportunities for those whose lives are studied to dwell within relational worlds where the flexibility of boundaries always takes precedence over the fixity of barriers.
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