Tradition and agency : tracing cultural continuity and invention / edited by Ton Otto & Poul Pedersen.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

ebrary, Inc, Content Provider.

Otto, Ton.

Pedersen, Poul.

Language:

Danish

English

Subjects (All):

Manners and customs.

Politics and culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (355 p.)

Place of Publication:

Aarhus ; Oakville, CT : Aarhus University Press, c2006.

Language Note:

Danish

Summary:

Tradition helps to ensure continuity and stability in human affairs, signifying both the handing down of cultural heritage from one generation to the next, and the particular customs, beliefs and rituals being handed down. In the social sciences, tradition has been a central concept from the very start. Yet - to update the old quip about nostalgia - tradition is not what it used to be. Twenty years ago, Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger showed in ""The Invention of Tradition"" how new governments acquire legitimacy and status by creating 'traditional' ceremonies and identities.Their work helped

Contents:

Front Matter; Front Cover; Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of Contents; Preface; Bibliography; Chapter 1. Disentangling Traditions. Culture, Agency and Power; The invention of tradition; Reinvented traditions in the Pacific; Tradition as culture; Habit and custom; Tradition and invention; Tradition and agency; Tradition as a resource; Researching tradition; Chapter 2. 'Be Proud to Be Bwile: It is Your Tribe!' Ethnicity, Political Jubilees and Traditions of Origins among the Bwile of Zambia; Traditions and political praxis; The Bwile of Zambia and their tradition of origins

Tracking Lungwana memoriesThe celebration of Chief Puta's jubilee; The dialectics of centre and periphery; Polar ethnicities in Africa; Bibliography; Oral sources; Chapter 3. Tradition Invented and Inherited in West Africa. A Study of Loma Cultural Identity; A complex religious symbol; A changing political context; The politics of tradition; Secret society laws; Civil war and the politics of tradition; A Loma traditionalist movement; The distribution of religious knowledge; Organised differences and the transmission of religious knowledge

The symbolic value of a traditional religious categoryDifference and identity; The revival of tradition; Conclusion; Bibliography; Chapter 4. The Cow, the Cheese and the Anthropologist. The Revival of Traditional Practices in Rural France; The proliferation of revitalisation; Place and revitalisation; History and revitalisation; New social relations and revitalisation; Objects and revitalisation; Bibliography; Appendix: recent revitalisation studies in France; Chapter 5. Padanian Identity. Ethnogenesis as a Political Strategy; The ritual foundation of a nation

The invention of a national mythologyThe socioeconomic background to the ethnogenesis of Padania; Postscript; Bibliography; Chapter 6. Cherishing the Nation's Time and Space. Lithuanian Identity and the Maintenance of Tradition; Introduction; Identifying Lithuanians; Lithuania before Lithuania: the Grand Duchy and the Rsezpospolita; The discovery of Lithuanian language, culture and Volk; Lithuania awakening; The Lithuanian republic and the Lithuanian Socialist Soviet Republic; The second awakening of Lithuania; Lithuanians awake; Maintaining the Nation; Bibliography

Chapter 7. On the Genealogy of Sasi. Transformations of an Imagined Tradition in Eastern IndonesiaIntroduction; Politics, culture and actors in the invention of tradition; Colonial imaginings of sasi; The governmentality of sasi: 1800-1880; Sasi as a cultural problématique: 1880-1920; Church appropriations of 'traditional sasi'; The environmentalisation of sasi; The post-colonial dissemination of Church sasi; The sorcery of Church sasi in North Maluku; Curses, property rights and the danger of the spirits; The contested sorcery of the Church; Conclusion; Postscript; Bibliography

Chapter 8. 'Ol i kam long hul bilong Wotnana' (They Come from the Hole of Wotnana). How a Papua New Guinean Artefact Became Traditional

Notes:

"Most chapters derive from papers that were originally presented during the 5th biennial EASA conference in Frankfurt in 1998"--P.8.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

OCLC:

768697044