Person and Place: Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu

Sabine Hess

Published by Berghahn Books 2009

Person and Place

Ideas, Ideals and Practice of Sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu

Sabine Hess

Volume 2 in the series Person, Space and Memory in the Contemporary Pacific

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781845459390

Overview
Contents

About this book

Concerned with contemporary notions of personhood and the relationship between persons and places, this book, presents a detailed insight into the Vanua Lavan’s engagement with modernity, and examines how they relate to the past, make sense of the present and anticipate the future. Marilyn Strathern's claim that the Melanesian person is a dividual by and large holds for the Vanua Lavan person. But Vanua Lavans have also been exposed to, and creatively engaged with, what can be summarised under the term ‘Western individualism’. The author draws together several themes, discourses and conversations which concern Vanuatu specifically, the Pacific as a wider geographic area but also theoretical fields in anthropology: the relevance and expressions of sociality through kinship, concepts of person, issues about land and cosmology, the kastom debate, and questions about continuity and change. In doing so she provides a snapshot of contemporary notions of personhood.

Author / Editor information

Sabine Hess was awarded a Ph.D. from the Australian National University in Canberra and is currently teaching Anthropology at the Institute für Ethnologie, University of Heidelberg. She is also working on an interdisciplinary project to document two endangered languages of Vanua Lava, Vanuatu, funded by the VW Foundation.

Reviews

“…the book’s most admirable qualities are evident when Hess allows her ethnographic description to develop, in the attention she gives to vernacular narrative and linguistic analysis, and in the commitment that she gives to engaging with Vanua-Lavan sociality within a flux of historical change.” · JRAI

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
List of Figures, Maps and Tables Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Maps Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1 Sociality: Ideas, Ideals and Practice Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
Chapter 2 Person Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
Chapter 3 Life Cycles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	67
Chapter 4 Being in Place Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
Chapter 5 Talking about Place Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
Chapter 6 Church and kastom: An Old Couple Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	156
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
Appendix A Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213
Appendix B Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
Appendix C Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 252
Keywords: Anthropology (General)

eBook

Published: August 1, 2009
ISBN: 9781845459390