The author studied the culture, particularly social life, of a tribal society of the Kabar plain in the inland area of the Kepala Burung (Vogelkop) in Irian Jaya. The focus was on constants, variants, and changes in the field of kinship and religion. Ch. 1 gives a historical survey of the Kabar plain. Ch. 2 pays attention to environment and demographic data. To determine the influences of processes of state formation in the East Indonesian archipelago on theKebar, chapters 3 and 4 look at the intra- and intertribal (kinship) relations, including changes occurring in them, and the Kebar man- and worldview. Ch. 5 discusses the connection between social historical and ecological influences on the culture of the Kebar, in particular in the fields of kinship and religion.
This collective volume celebrates that 75 years ago the foundation was laid for the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The contributions to this volume exemplify the evolution of the academic disciplines of anthropology and development studies at Radboud University in the course of its history. Radboud University itself celebrates its centenary in the year 2023. Originally this university was established for the emancipation of the Catholic population in the Netherlands. Emancipation continues to be a distinctive feature of the university’s policy, also of the scholarship as it is conducted in the department of anthropology and development studies. As emancipation and engagement are key concepts in the disciplines of anthropology and development studies at Radboud University, former and current staff members focus their contributions to this anniversary volume on the various meanings of the concepts of emancipation and engagement in their academic practices. They reflect on changes in the meaning of engaged scholarship in their own work, especially in relation to emancipatory issues. The outcome is a rich variety of contributions centering on the shifting tension between engagement and scholarship in the disciplines of anthropology and development studies. Thus, they not only exemplify the evolution of these academic disciplines at Radboud University, but also offer a topical and innovative perspective on a highly dynamic field.
Melansia boasts over one-quarter of the world's distinct religions and presents the most complex religious panorama on earth. The region is famous for its unusual new religious movements that have adapted traditional beliefs to modernity in surprising ways. As the first bibliographical survey to comprehensively cover the entire region, Religions of Melanesia is an invaluable research aid for anyone interested in this growing field. Trompf's work is a complete listing of scholarly publications and provides readable and concise descriptions that will clearly guide the researcher toward the most relevant sources. This survey covers 2188 entries organized topically and regionally. Trompf covers such subjects as traditional and modern belief systems and the emergent indigenous Christianity that has taken root. Regional coverage includes Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Fiji.
The impact of the Indonesian spice trade on global and, more particularly, European history has been widely acknowledged. Although more recent studies have gone beyond the preoccupation with the colonial relationship to provide a more "Asiacentric" view, On the Edge of the Banda Zone is the first to focus an anthropological lens on the dynamics of trade in a specific area: that incorporating the Seram Laut and Gorom archipelagoes (and the adjacent mainland) of east Seram, in the Moluccas. The point of departure for Roy Ellen's analysis is a description of trade relations in the east Seram zone between 1970 and 1990, but the wider importance of the data presented here is readily apparent: For five hundred years (and probably much longer), it has served as a corridor between Eurasia and the southwestern Pacific and played a vital role in the production and distribution of nutmeg and other high-value commodities that have for centuries had an impact on the global economy. Drawing on the author’s fieldwork as well as archival and secondary sources, this ambitious, eclectic volume demonstrates the enduring continuities in the local system as it comes into contact with the changing outside world. It illuminates how barter, ecological and ethnic divisions of labor, exchange patterns, and the organization of trade between the peoples of the New Guinea coast and east Seram, help us make sense of long-term cycles and trends.
"The chapters in this volume were presented in 2005 at an international conference hosted and organised by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences"--Acknowledgements.
How religious practices are reproduced has become a major theoretical issue. This work examines data on Nuaulu ritual performances collected over a 30 year period, comparing different categories of event in terms of frequency and periodicity. It seeks to identify the influencing factors and the consequences for continuity. Such an approach enables a focus on related issues: variation in performance, how rituals change in relation to material and social conditions, the connections between different ritual types, the way these interact as cycles, and the extent to which fidelity of transmission is underpinned by a common model or repertoire of elements. This monograph brings to completion a long-term study of the religious behaviour of the Nuaulu, a people of the island of Seram in the Indonesian province of Maluku. Ethnographically, it is important for several reasons: the Nuaulu are one of the few animist societies remaining on Seram; the data emphasize patterns of practices in a part of Indonesia where studies have hitherto been more concerned with meaning and symbolic classification; and because Nuaulu live in an area where recent political tension has been between Christians and Muslims. Nuaulu are, paradoxically, both caught between these two groups, and apart from them.
The Bird's Head Peninsula of Irian Jaya has long been an area neglected by New Guinea Studies. Only in the late seventies, interest began to focus more intensively on this scientifically important border area between Austronesian and Papuan languages and cultures. In the early nineties, this led to the creation in The Netherlands of the Irian Jaya Studies programme ISIR, which organizes and coordinates multi-disciplinary research on the Bird's Head Peninsula. Within this framework, study of the peninsula has reached a peak, with research being conducted in the area by scientists from different disciplines: anthropology, archaeology, (ethno)botany, demography, development administration, geology and linguistics. The diverse perspectives of these disciplines are subject to constant internal debate. Through ISIR and other research initiatives, there is a growing body of data on and insights into the various disciplines concerned with this fascinating area, with each discipline developing its own specific perspectives on the Bird's Head. These perspectives were presented during the First International Conference Perspectives on the Bird's Head of Irian Jaya, Indonesia, organized by ISIR in cooperation with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences LIPI (Jakarta) and the International Institute for Asian Studies ILAS (Leiden) and held at Leiden University, 13-17 October 1997. Researchers were informed on current perspectives in many disciplines to facilitate integration of findings into wider, interdisciplinary frameworks and to stimulate international debate within and between disciplines. As a result of the Conference, the forty-two contributions in these Proceedings present a wealth of recent developments from various disciplines in New Guinea Studies.
This third volume of Andre Wink's acclaimed and pioneering "Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World" takes the reader from the late Mongol invasions to the end of the medieval period and the beginnings of early modern times in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. It breaks new ground by focusing attention on the role of geography, and more specifically on the interplay of nomadic, settled and maritime societies. In doing so, it presents a picture of the world of India and the Indian Ocean on the eve of the Portuguese discovery of the searoute: a world without stable parameters, of pervasive geophysical change, inchoate and instable urbanism, highly volatile and itinerant elites of nomadic origin, far-flung merchant diasporas, and a famine- and disease-prone peasantry whose life was a gamble on the monsoon.
This third volume of Andre Wink's acclaimed and pioneering Al-Hind:The Making of the Indo-Islamic World takes the reader from the late Mongol invasions to the end of the medieval period and the beginnings of early modern times in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. It breaks new ground by focusing attention on the role of geography, and more specifically on the interplay of nomadic, settled and maritime societies. In doing so, it presents a picture of the world of India and the Indian Ocean on the eve of the Portuguese discovery of the searoute: a world without stable parameters, of pervasive geophysical change, inchoate and instable urbanism, highly volatile and itinerant elites of nomadic origin, far-flung merchant diasporas, and a famine- and disease-prone peasantry whose life was a gamble on the monsoon.
This is a history which deals with the end of the Dutch colonial rule, the early independent Indonesia, the West New Guinea question, and the emergence of Papuan nationalism. The book chiefly concentrates on Dutch policies ands perspectives, which have so far generally been ignored in existing English language publications. Netherlands-Indonesian relations between 1950 and 1958 are treated in depth, with a description and analysis of the struggle for power between the early, more Western-attuned and economic-rationalist cabinets, on the support of which the fate of the vast Netherlands-controlled export economy was dependent, and the masses, driven by Sukarno and the populist parties. West New Guinea and Papua nationalism began as early as the 1920s and 1930s, and by the early 1950s the Dutch had set about guiding the Papuans towards independence. This policy had to be aborted, however, with the threat of an Indonesian invasion and the unwillingness of the US to provide armed support to Dutch forces. As a result, Australia, too, was reluctantly forced to abandon the Dutch. Australia was forced to accept the inevitable. It had actively encouraged the Netherlands to hold onto West New Guinea, completed agreements on economic and social cooperation, and conducted in-depth studies about a possible Australia-Dutch defence system against Indonesian aggression. Without US military support, however, the situation became untenable. This book will be required for those seeking to understand the genesis of the situation in West New Guinea today, where Papuan nationalism is again in the ascendant following the recent dramatic events leading to the independence of East Timor. Co-published with Crawford House Publishing
