Identity work : constructing Pacific lives / edited by Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Stewart, Pamela J.

Strathern, Andrew.

Series:

ASAO monograph

ASAO monograph series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethnology--Oceania.

Ethnology.

Social conditions.

Women.

Oceania.

Ethnology--Biographical methods.

Identity (Psychology).

Women--Oceania--Biography.

Oceania--Social conditions.

Oceania Region.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

x, 217 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2000]

Summary:

Traditionally, life-story narratives have held a significant place in anthropological writings. Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern strive to broaden and deepen this tradition by explicitly linking biography, history, and the concepts of personhood. Each contributing author traces a set of themes in the life of the subject represented, showing how persons can be both linked to and alienated from their social worlds through their own developing experiences. These studies contribute to the understanding of how Pacific Islanders creatively negotiate with changes in their lives over time, and how their ongoing construction of their identities relates to the wider processes of history in which they are involved. The authors' studies are drawn from across the Pacific -- Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Tonga, New Zealand, and the Marianas (Saipan) -- and represent a comprehensive and valuable study for scholars and those interested in Pacific culture.

Contents:

Pt. 1. Self changes. "Some peoples, if you marry, you marry to everybody" : a Tongan life story / Barbara Burns McGrath

Fragmented selfhood : contradiction, anomaly, and violence in female life-histories / Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern

Life history and female initiation : a case study from Irian Jaya / Louise Thoonen

Pt. 2. Male leaders. Further twists of the rope : Ongka and Ru in a transforming world / Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart

Knowledge makes the man : Matiu Mareikura, a contemporary Maori ritual specialist / Karen Sinclair

Pt. 3. Agencies. Where resistance falls short : rethinking agency through biography / Richard Scaglion and Marie Norman

Outlaw memories : biography and the construction of meaning in postcolonial Vanuatu / William Rodman

Carolinian history and the story of a chief : the case of the damaged utt / Juliana Flinn

Afterword : lives and histories / Geoffrey M. White.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-208) and index.

ISBN:

0822957167

0822941155

OCLC:

43474673