South Coast New Guinea Cultures
History, Comparison, Dialectic

A reassessment of the classic ethnographies of south coast New Guinea.

Bruce M. Knauft (Author)

9780521429313, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 March 1993

316 pages, 6 b/w illus. 8 tables
22.6 x 15 x 1.7 cm, 0.458 kg

"In the 1990s, a comparative ethnography of a region extending some 2,500 kilometers must be either very old-fashioned or postmodern. This work has the virtues of both....The result is a stimulating and useful book." Choice

The communities of south coast New Guinea were the subject of classic ethnographies, and fresh studies in recent decades have put these rich and complex cultures at the centre of anthropological debates. Flamboyant sexual practices, such as ritual homosexuality, have attracted particular interest. In the first general book on the region, Dr Knauft reaches striking new comparative conclusions through a careful ethnographic analysis of sexuality, the status of women, ritual and cosmology, political economy, and violence among the region's seven major language-culture areas. The findings suggest new Melanesian regional contrasts and provide for a general critique of the way regional comparisons are constructed in anthropology. Theories of practice and political economy as well as post-modern insights are drawn upon to provide a generative theory of indigenous social and symbolic development.

Part I. Grounding: 1. Theoretical and ethnographic context
2. Historical background and regional configuration
Part II. Critique: 3. Sexuality in the regional analysis of south New Guinea
4. The analytic legacy of homosexual emphasis: language, subsistence, and political economy
5. Women's status
6. Trends in comparative analysis
Part III. Reconfiguration: 7. Theoretical reconfiguration
8. Marind-anim
9. Symbolic and sociopolitical permutations
10. Regional characteristics and comparisons
Appendix
Notes
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]