Unfolding the moon : enacting women's kastom in Vanuatu / Lissant Bolton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bolton, Lissant, 1954-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Vanuatu--Social conditions.

Women.

Textile fabrics--Vanuatu.

Textile fabrics.

Women in development--Vanuatu.

Women in development.

Vanuatu--Social conditions.

Vanuatu.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (275 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In the first decades after independence in 1980, kastom--indigenous knowledge and practice--became a key marker of ni-Vanuatu identity. However, it was almost entirely concerned with men. Then in 1991 the Vanuatu Cultural Centre initiated a project that focused on women's knowledge and skill in producing plaited pandanus textiles (mats) on the island of Ambae in north Vanuatu. This acknowledgment that "women have kastom too," widely welcomed by rural ni-Vanuatu, was a significant step in establishing women's kastom. Lissant Bolton's account of this important but undocumented period considers the circumstances that led to these events and analyzes their effects on Ambae. Her ethnography of women's production and use of plaited pandanus textiles shows a changing world whereby colonial and missionary ideas about the position of women and feminist discourses on women's rights have engaged with specific, kinship-based constructions of gender to create contemporary ni-Vanuatu views on the position of women.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. History /Kastom

2. Kastom in the National Arena

3. Women without Kastom

4. Ples

5. Ambae: On Being a Person of the Place

6. Plaiting: "The Reason That Women Came into the World"

7. Dyeing: Designs, Power, Status

8. Making Textiles into Kastom

Conclusion: Women with Kastom

Epilogue

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 28. Aug 2019)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 209-222) and index.

ISBN:

9780824865405

0824865405

9780585464091

058546409X

OCLC:

52763978