From primitive to postcolonial in Melanesia and anthropology / Bruce M. Knauft.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Knauft, Bruce M.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethnology--Melanesia.

Ethnology.

History.

Social conditions.

Manners and customs.

Melanesia.

Melanesia--Social life and customs.

Melanesia--Social conditions.

Ethnology--Melanesia--History.

Physical Description:

x, 320 pages, 16 pages of plates : illustrations (some color), map ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [1999]

Summary:

What have anthropologists taught us about Melanesia -- one of anthropology's most important and intensively studied world regions? In this book, Professor Bruce Knauft draws together and critically reanalyzes what we know about major features of Melanesian cultural history, warfare and politics, gender, bodily practices, and spirituality as discerned from more than a century of academic study.

From Primitive to Postcolonial in Melanesia and Anthropology is arguably the most comprehensive single reassessment of Melanesia as an ethnographic world area to have been published in several decades. Written for students as well as professional scholars, this work further broadens our understanding by analyzing the history of Melanesian ethnography and relating this history to the larger relationship between Melanesia as a contemporary world area and anthropology as a field of contemporary human study.

Contents:

Melanesia as "culture area"

Bodily images in Melanesia: cultural substances and natural metaphors

Warfare and history in Melanesia

Gender and modernity in Melanesia and Amazonia

Post-Melanesian studies? A contemporary look at the anthropology of Melanesia.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-307) and index.

ISBN:

0472096877

0472066870

OCLC:

39914442