The inhabitants of Pororan Island, a small group of 'saltwater people' in Papua New Guinea, are intensely interested in the movements of persons across the island and across the sea, both in their everyday lives as fishing people and on ritual occasions. From their observations of human movements, they take their cues about the current state of social relations. Based on detailed ethnography, this study engages current Melanesian anthropological theory and argues that movements are the Pororans' predominant mode of objectifying relations. Movements on Pororan Island are to its inhabitants what roads are to 'mainlanders' on the nearby larger island, and what material objects and images are to others elsewhere in Melanesia.
Human perceptions, decision-making and (pro-) environmental behaviour are closely connected. This Research Topic focuses on bringing together perceptions and behaviour for sustainable coastal and island marine resource use systems. Management and governance of (large and small-scale) coastal marine resource use systems function in highly complex social and ecological environments, which are culturally embedded, economically interest-led and politically biased. Management processes therefore have to integrate multiple perspectives as well as perception-driven standpoints on the individual as well as the decision-makers’ levels. Consequently, the analysis of perceptions has developed not only as part of philosophy and psychology but also of environmental science, anthropology and human geography. It encompasses intuitions, values, attitudes, thoughts, mind-sets, place attachments and sense of place. All of these influence human behavior and action, and are collected or are available within the respective marine resource use system, which may support the livelihood of a large part of the local population. Management and governance are not only about mediating between resource use conflicts or establishing marine protected areas, they deal with people and their ideas and perceptions. Understanding the related decision-making processes on multiple scales and levels hence means much more than economically assessing the available marine resources or existing threats to the associated system. Over the past decade, there has been a growing inter- and transdisciplinary international community becoming interested in research which integrates perceptions of coastal and inland residents, local and regional stakeholder groups, as well as resource and environmental managers and decision-makers. By acknowledging the importance of the individual perspective and interest-led personal views, it became obvious how valuable and important these sources of information are for coastal research. An increase of research effort spent on the link between perceptions and behaviour in marine resource use systems is thus both timely and needed. By offering a diversity of inspiring and comprehensive contributions on the link between perceptions and behaviour, this Research Topic aspires to critically enlighten the discourse and applicability of such research for finding sustainable, locally identified, anchored and integrated marine resource use pathways.
This book explores postcolonial myths and histories within colonially structured narratives which persist and are carried in culture, language, and history in various parts of the world. It analyzes constructions of identities, stereotypes, and mythical fantasies in postcolonial society. Exploring a wide range of themes including the appropriation and use of language, myths of decolonialization, and nationalism, and the colonial influence on systems of academic knowledge, the book focuses on how these myths reinforce, subvert, and appropriate colonial binaries for the articulation of the postcolonial self. With essays which study narratives of emigrants in Argentina, the colonial mythology in the Dodecanese in Italy, and the mythico-narratives of island insularity in contemporary Sri Lanka among others, this volume emphasizes the role of indigenous studies in building a postcolonial consciousness. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of post-colonial studies, cultural studies, literature, history, political science, and sociology.
This book develops new ways of thinking beyond the nation as a form of political community by seeking to transcend ethnonational categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Drawing on scholarship and cases spanning Pacific Asia and Europe, it steps outside assumptions linking nation to state. Accessible yet theoretically rich, it explores how to think about nationhood beyond narrow binaries and even broader cosmopolitan ideals. Using cutting-edge critical research, it fundamentally challenges the positive connotations of British patriotism and UK politics’ increasingly shrill anti-immigrant discourse, pointing to how these continue to reproduce vocabularies of belonging that are dependent on ethnonational and racialised categorisations. With a cross-continental focus, this book offers alternative ways of thinking about togetherness and belonging that are premised on mobility rather than rootedness, thereby providing a constructive agenda for critical nationalism studies.
In one form or another, water participates in the making and unmaking of people’s lives, practices, and stories. Contributors’ detailed ethnographic work analyzes the union and mutual shaping of water and social lives. This volume discusses current ecological disturbances and engages in a world where unbounded relationalities and unsettled frames of orientation mark the lives of all, anthropologists included. Water emerges as a fluid object in more senses than one, challenging anthropologists to foreground the mutable character of their objects of study and to responsibly engage with the generative role of cultural analysis.
Climate change is a lived experience of changes in the environment, often destroying conventional forms of subsistence and production, creating new patterns of movement and connection, and transforming people’s imagined future. This book explores how people across the world think about environmental change and how they act upon the perception of past, present and future opportunities. Drawing on the ethnographic fieldwork of expert authors, it sheds new light on the human experience of and social response to climate change by taking us from the Arctic to the Pacific, from the Southeast Indian Coastal zone to the West-African dry-lands and deserts, as well as to Peruvian mountain communities and cities. Divided into four thematic parts - Water, Landscape, Technology, Time – this book uses rich photographic material to accompany the short texts and reflections in order to bring to life the human ingenuity and social responsibility of people in the face of new uncertainties. In an era of melting glaciers, drying lands, and rising seas, it shows how it is part and parcel of human life to take responsibility for the social community and take creative action on the basis of a localized understanding of the environment. This highly original contribution to the anthropological study of climate change is a must-read for all those wanting to understand better what climate change means on the ground and interested in a sustainable future for the Earth.
Just as climate change and environmental sustainability have become growing concerns in public discourse, so too have they become a persistent focus in business and organization studies. It is increasingly acknowledged that humans and animals do not dwell in separate spheres; rather, they are entangled in a number of commercial or organizational settings, and organization theory needs to respond more comprehensively to this more-than-human shift in outlook. Important questions continue to arise about the nature of contemporary organization and organizing practices: who are these for? Who benefits from the operation of increasingly globalized capital markets? What place is there for the nonhuman animals in all this organization? What place is there for multispecies companionship, solidarity, and mutual value creation today and in the future, if any? This volume brings together interdisciplinary work on human-animal relationships within business, management, and organization for the first time. It maps the contours of an emerging new discipline, here termed 'Animal Organization Studies', touching on the politics, theory, and empirical experience of multispecies life-worlds. Spanning a number of disciplinary approaches including critical geography, critical management studies, social studies of science, and human-animal studies, the volume highlights the contact points as well as the tensions in humanity's relationship with a range of animal species and habitats. It holds relevance for those investigating debates around humanism and its futures; environmental and sustainability matters; the experience of working with and on animals, and the future of animal consumption and production.
“...ngabaya painted all this, you know when we were kids we would come here and look and sometimes the paintings would change, they were always changing.” Annie a-Karrakayny Fully illustrated, Jakarda Wuka (Too Many Stories) draws on a combined 70+ years of collaborative research involving Yanyuwa Elders, anthropologists, and an archaeologist to tell a unique story about the rock art from Yanyuwa Country in northern Australia’s southwest Gulf of Carpentaria. Australia’s rock art is recognised globally for its antiquity, abundance, distinctive motifs and the deep and abiding knowledge Indigenous people continue to hold for these powerful symbols. However, books about Australian rock art jointly written by Indigenous communities, anthropologists, and archaeologists are extremely rare. Combining Yanyuwa and western knowledge, the authors embark on a journey to reveal the true meaning of Yanyuwa rock art. At the heart of this book is the understanding that a painting is not just a painting, nor is it an isolated phenomenon or a static representation. What underpins Yanyuwa perceptions of their rock art is kinship, because people are kin to everything and everywhere on Country. Jakarda Wuka highlights the multidimensional nature of Yanyuwa rock art: it is an active social agent in the landscape, capable of changing according to different circumstances and events, connected to the epic travels and songs of Ancestral Beings (Dreamings), and related to various aspects of Yanyuwa life such as ceremony, health and wellbeing, identity, and narratives concerning past and present-day events. In a time where Indigenous communities, archaeologists, and anthropologists are seeking new ways to work together and better engage with Indigenous knowledges to interpret the “archaeological record”, Jakarda Wuka delivers a masterful and profound narrative of Yanyuwa Country and its rock art. This project was supported by the Australian Research Council and the McArthur River Mine Community Benefits Trust.
