Social Reproduction and History in Melanesia
Social Reproduction and History in Melanesia

Author: Robert John Foster

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1995-04-27

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9780521483322

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In much of Melanesia, the process of social reproduction unfolds as a lengthy sequence of mortuary rites - feast making and gift giving through which the living publicly define their social relations with each other while at the same time commemorating the deceased. In this study Robert J. Foster constructs an ethnographic account of mortuary rites in the Tanga Islands, Papua New Guinea, placing these large-scale feasts and ceremonial exchanges in their historical context and demonstrating how the effects of participation in an expanding cash economy have allowed Tangans to conceive of the rites as 'customary' in opposition to the new and foreign practices of 'business'. His examination synthesizes two divergent trends in Melanesian anthropology by emphasizing both the radical differences between Melanesian and Western forms of sociality and the conjunction of Melanesian and Western societies brought about by colonialism and capitalism.

Social Change in Melanesia
Social Change in Melanesia

Author: Paul Sillitoe

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2000-04-13

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780521778060

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book, first published in 2000, is a companion volume to An Introduction to the Anthropology of Melanesia (1998). It gives a clear and absorbing account of social change in Melanesia since the arrival of Europeans covering the history of the colonial period and the new postcolonial states. Paul Sillitoe deals with economic and technological change, labour migration and urbanisation, and formation of the modern state, but he also describes the sometimes violent reactions to these dramatic transformations, in the form of cargo cults, secession movements, and insurrections against multinational companies. He discusses development projects but brings out associated policy dilemmas, reviews developments that threaten the environment, and implications for local identity, such as romanticises 'primitive culture'. This fascinating account of social change in the pacific is addressed to students with little or no background in the region's history and development.

Population, Reproduction, and Fertility in Melanesia
Population, Reproduction, and Fertility in Melanesia

Author: Stanley J. Ulijaszek

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9781571816443

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Human biological fertility was considered a important issue to anthropologists and colonial administrators in the first part of the 20th century, as a dramatic decline in population was observed in many regions. However, the total demise of Melanesian populations predicted by some never happened; on the contrary, a rapid population increase took place for the second part of the 20th century. This volume explores relationships between human fertility and reproduction, subsistence systems, the symbolic use of ideas of fertility and reproduction in linking landscape to individuals and populations, in Melanesian societies, past and present. It thus offers an important contribution to our understanding of the implications of social and economic change for reproduction and fertility in the broadest sense.

The History of Melanesian Society
The History of Melanesian Society

Author: William Halse Rivers Rivers

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-08-14

Total Pages: 619

ISBN-13: 1107419344

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This two-volume work from 1914 presents William Halse Rivers' theory of the diffusion of culture in the south-west Pacific. Volume Two details the many similarities and differences among the societies of Melanesia and the possible ways in which these contrasts could have arisen.

The History of Melanesian Society, Vol. 1 of 2 (Classic Reprint)
The History of Melanesian Society, Vol. 1 of 2 (Classic Reprint)

Author: W. H. R. Rivers

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2017-11-17

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 9780331289701

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Excerpt from The History of Melanesian Society, Vol. 1 of 2 At the present moment there exists in Melanesia an influence far more likely to produce disintegration of native institutions than the work of missionaries. I refer to the repatriation of Melanesian labourers from Queensland which has been the result of the movement for a white Australia. Large numbers of men, women and children have recently returned to nearly every Melanesian island. Some had been many years in Queensland and have quite forgotten all they ever knew of their native institutions; some even have that contempt for these institutions which so often accompanies a smattering Of civilisation. Their influence on native institutions in the future must almost certainly be great, but this influence is so comparatively recent that I do not believe it has had any appreciable effect on the social conditions which I record in this volume. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Gender of the Gift
The Gender of the Gift

Author: Marilyn Strathern

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 439

ISBN-13: 0520072022

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Marilyn Strathern argues that gender relations in Melanesia have been a particular casualty of unexamined assumptions held by Western anthropologists and feminist scholars alike. The book treats with equal seriousness, and with equal good humour, the insights of Western social science, feminist politics, and ethnographic reporting, in order to rethink the representation of Melanesian social and cultural life.

The History of Melanesian Society, Vol. 2 of 2 (Classic Reprint)
The History of Melanesian Society, Vol. 2 of 2 (Classic Reprint)

Author: W. H. R. Rivers

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2017-11-25

Total Pages: 624

ISBN-13: 9780331936308

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Excerpt from The History of Melanesian Society, Vol. 2 of 2 IN entering upon the theoretical discussion of the material presented in the first volume of this book, it will be well to begin with a short consideration of the principles upon which the study and the mode of arrangement of the argument will be based. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Making of Global and Local Modernities in Melanesia
The Making of Global and Local Modernities in Melanesia

Author: Holly Wardlow

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1351886215

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Authored by well-established and respected scholars, this work examines the kinds of efforts that have been made to adopt Western modernity in Melanesia and explores the reasons for their varied outcomes. The contributors take the work of Professor Marshall Sahlins as a starting point, assessing his theories of cultural change and of the relationship between cultural intensification and globalizing forces. They acknowledge the importance of Sahlins' ideas, while refining, extending, modifying and critiquing them in light of their own first hand knowledge of Pacific island societies. Also presenting one of Sahlins' less widely available original essays for reference, this book is an exciting contribution to serious anthropological engagement with Papua New Guinea.