This wide-ranging volume captures the diverse range of societies and experiences that form what has come to be known as Melanesia. It covers prehistoric, historic and contemporary issues, and includes work by art historians, political scientists, geographers and anthropologists. The chapters range from studies of subsistence, ritual and ceremonial exchange to accounts of state violence, new media and climate change. The ‘Melanesian world’ assembled here raises questions that cut to the heart of debates in the human sciences today, with profound implications for the ways in which scholars across disciplines can describe and understand human difference. This impressive collection of essays represents a valuable resource for scholars and students alike.

'In Melanesians and Missionaries', one of the best of the younger generation of missionary anthropologists demonstrates that a commitment to the missionary enterprise on the part of a solid scholar facilitates, rather than hinders, the anthropological study of a missionary topic. This is better anthropology because Dr. Whiteman is able to probe more deeply into his topic and demonstrates that he understands and appreciates both Melanesians and missionaries." Charles H. Kraft, Professor of Anthropology, School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena

Authored by well-established and respected scholars, this work examines the kinds of efforts that have been made to adopt Western modernity in Melanesia and explores the reasons for their varied outcomes. The contributors take the work of Professor Marshall Sahlins as a starting point, assessing his theories of cultural change and of the relationship between cultural intensification and globalizing forces. They acknowledge the importance of Sahlins' ideas, while refining, extending, modifying and critiquing them in light of their own first hand knowledge of Pacific island societies. Also presenting one of Sahlins' less widely available original essays for reference, this book is an exciting contribution to serious anthropological engagement with Papua New Guinea.

Originally published in 1982, James Clifford's analytical biography of Maurice Leenhardt (1878-1954)--missionary, anthropologist, founder of French Oceanic studies, historian of religion, and colonial reformer--received wide critical acclaim for its insight into the colonial history of anthropology. Drawing extensively on unpublished letters and journals, Clifford traces Leenhardt's life from his work as a missionary on the island of New Caledonia (1902-1926) to his subsequent return to Paris where he became an academic anthropologist at the École Practique des Hautes Études, where he followed Marcel Mauss and was succeeded in 1951 by Claude Lévi-Strauss. Clifford sees in Leenhardt's career a foreshadowing of contemporary anthropological concerns with reflexivity, cultural hybridity, and colonial and post-colonial entanglements.

Anthropologists like to tell other people’s stories but local experts tell them even better. This book introduces the vibrant living culture and fascinating history of Tanna, an island in Vanuatu, Melanesia, through the stories of a dozen interconnected Tanna Islanders. Tracing the past 250 years of island experiences that cross the globe, each of these distinctly extraordinary lives tells larger human narratives of cultural continuity and change. In following Tanna’s times, we find that all of us, even those living on seemingly out-of-the-way Pacific Islands, are firmly linked into the world’s networks. Each chapter opens with a telling life story then contextualizes that biography with pertinent ethnographic explanation and archival research. Since 1774, Tanna Islanders have participated in events that have captured global anthropological and popular attention. These include receiving British explorer James Cook; a nineteenth-century voyage to London; troubled relations with early Christian missionaries; overseas emigration for plantation labor; the innovation of the John Frum Movement, a so-called Melanesian “cargo cult”; service in American military labor corps during the Pacific War; agitation in the 1970s for an independent Vanuatu; urban migration to seek work in Port Vila (Vanuatu’s capital); the international kava business; juggling arranged versus love marriages; and modern dealings with social media and swelling numbers of tourists. Yet, partly as a consequence of their experience abroad, Islanders fiercely protect their cultural identity and continue to maintain resilient bonds with their Tanna homes. Drawing on forty years of fieldwork in Vanuatu, author Lamont Lindstrom offers rich insights into the culture of Tanna. His close relationship with the island’s people is reflected in his choice to feature their voices; he celebrates and recounts their stories here in accessible, engaging prose. An ethnographic case study written for students of anthropology, the author has included a concise list of key sources and essential further readings suggestions at the end of each chapter. Tanna Times complements classroom and scholarly interests in kinship and marriage, economics, politics, religion, history, linguistics, gender and personhood, and social transformation in Melanesia and beyond.

The British Museums uniquely important Melanesian collection is pre-eminent among early collections, and the 20,000 items it comprises are core to understanding the cultures of the western Pacific.

A prominent scholar surveys the special place of Melanesia in our understanding of human cultural variation

This book contains the work of seven leading anthropologists on the subject of ritualized homosexuality, and it marks the first time that anthropologists have systematically studied cross-cultural variations in homosexual behavior in a non-Western culture area. The book as a whole indicates that contemporary theories of sex and gender development need revision in light of the Melanesian findings. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984. This book contains the work of seven leading anthropologists on the subject of ritualized homosexuality, and it marks the first time that anthropologists have systematically studied cross-cultural variations in homosexual behavior in a non-Western culture

The inhabitants of Pororan Island, a small group of 'saltwater people' in Papua New Guinea, are intensely interested in the movements of persons across the island and across the sea, both in their everyday lives as fishing people and on ritual occasions. From their observations of human movements, they take their cues about the current state of social relations. Based on detailed ethnography, this study engages current Melanesian anthropological theory and argues that movements are the Pororans' predominant mode of objectifying relations. Movements on Pororan Island are to its inhabitants what roads are to 'mainlanders' on the nearby larger island, and what material objects and images are to others elsewhere in Melanesia.

Am invariable guide and analysis to pressing issues of religious and Soviet change in the Pacific.