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A tribute to Jane C. Goodale, Pulling the Right Threads discusses the vibrant ethnographer and teacher's principles for mentoring, collaborating, and performing fieldwork. Known for her ethnographic research in the Pacific, development of the Association of Social Anthropology in Oceania, and influence in the anthropology department at Bryn Mawr College, Goodale and other contributors renew the debate in anthropology over the authenticity of field data and representations of other cultures. Together, they take aim at those who claim ethnography is outmoded or false.
Melanesia has been the research focus of some of anthropology’s legendary names. In the best tradition of Melanesian scholarship, Jane Goodale writes here of the Kaulong who live in the deep forests of New Britain, an island in the vast territory of Papua New Guinea. Even in the last half of the twentieth century, the Kaulong’s contact with the outside world through government patrols and missionaries has been minimal. Their story enhances our understanding of Melanesia and adds new and significant material to the comparison of Oceanic cultures and societies. In the course of her fieldwork with them, Goodale recognized that everything of importance to the Kaulong--every event, every rela...
This volume, the result of ongoing collaborations between Australian and French anthropologists, historians and linguists, explores encounters between Pacific peoples and foreigners during the longue durée of European exploration, colonisation and settlement from the sixteenth century to the twentieth century. It deploys the concept of `encounter¿ rather than the more common idea of `first contact¿ for several reasons. Encounters with Europeans occurred in the context of extensive prior encounters and exchanges between Pacific peoples, manifest in the distribution of languages and objects and in patterns of human settlement and movement. The concept of encounter highlights the mutuality i...
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Large-scale comparisons are out of fashion in anthropology, but this book suggests a bold comparative approach to broad cultural differences between Africa and Melanesia. Its theme is personhood, which is understood in terms of what anthropologists call 'embodiment'. These concepts are applied to questions ranging from the meanings of spirit possession, to the logics of witchcraft and kinship relations, the use of rituals to heal the sick, 'electric vampires', and even the impact of capitalism. There are detailed ethnographic analyses, and suggestive comparisons of classic African and Melanesian ethnographic cases, such as the Nuer and the Melpa. The contributors debate alternative strategies for cross-cultural comparison, and demonstrate that there is a surprising range of continuities, putting in question common assumptions about the huge differences between these two parts of the world.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world."--Margaret Mead This quotation--found on posters and bumper stickers, and adopted as the motto for hundreds of organizations worldwide--speaks to the global influence and legacy of the American anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-78). In this insightful and revealing book, Nancy Lutkehaus explains how and why Mead became the best-known anthropologist and female public intellectual in twentieth-century America. Using photographs, films, television appearances, and materials from newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals, Lutkehaus explores the ways in which Mead became an American cultural heroine. Iden...