Flying away like a bird: An instance of severance from the parental abode (Iwolaqamalycaane, Yagwoia, Papua New Guinea)

This is a psychoanalytic ethnographic account of a Yagwoia-Angan boy’s struggle to break away from the sphere of his paternal and agnatic fraternal relatedness. It exemplifies a particular biographical situation which is consonant with the general cultural-existential dynamics of the Yagwoia father-son relationship.Ce texte est une interprétation psychanalytique de l'ethnographie concernant la lutte d'un garçon Yagwoia-Anga pour se détacher de la sphère de ses relations paternelles et de ses frères agnatiques. C'est un exemple d'une situation biographique particulière qui correspond à la dynamique générale, culturelle et existentielle, de la relation père-fils chez les Yagwoia

Translation: The relative native

Translation by Julia Sauma and Martin Holbraad of: Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo (2002) "O Nativo Relativo." Mana, vol. 8, no. 1, p. 113-14

Differential Geometry, the Informational Surface and Oceanic Art: The Role of Pattern in Knowledge Economies

Graphic pattern (e.g. geometric design) and number-based code (e.g. digital sequencing) can store and transmit complex information more efficiently than referential modes of representation. The analysis of the two genres and their relation to one another has not advanced significantly beyond a general classification based on motion-centred geometries of symmetry. This article examines an intriguing example of patchwork coverlets from the maritime societies of Oceania, where information referencing a complex genealogical system is lodged in geometric designs. By drawing attention to the interplay of graphic pattern and number-based code and its role in the knowledge economies of maritime societies, the article offers new insight into possible ways of designing a digital informational surface that captures the behaviour of an operational system, allowing both for differentiation and integration

Of shamanism and planetary crisis

Comment on Kopenawa, Davi and Bruce Albert. 2013. The falling sky: Words of a Yanomami shaman. Translated by Nicholas Elliott and Alison Dundy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Omalyce : an ethnography of the Ikwaye view of the cosmos

This ethnographic interpretation of the Ikwaye view of the cosmos is based on the following presuppositions: a) human experience of the world as a whole (cosmos) is an a priori ontological fact ; b) a view of the cosmos is a cultural construct expressing the metaphysical conception human beings have of their relation with the social and natural world. For the Ikwaye the cosmos is an anthropomorphic realm envisaged as the body of the male creator Omalyce. The main focus of the thesis is the interpretation of the nature of this conception both as a tacit dimension of everyday life existence and as a more articulate view expressed by one gifted informant. I further show that the Ikwaye view of the cosmos legitimates the ideology of male primacy in the procreation and perpetuation of life . The Ikwaye cosmological notions are tacit and generated through the mythopoeic process. This process is interpreted as a dimension of the Ikwaye lived experience of the world. Since the Ikwaye view of the cosmos is not a structured body of knowledge - an explicit cosmology - I emphasize my active role as an ethnographer in rendering explicit the meanings of their experience of the world. In this task I am guided by phenomenology and hermeneutics. The key concepts in the Ikwaye view of the cosmos are the macrocosmos, microcosmos, and autogenesis

Numbers and the natural history of imagining the self in Taiwan and China

In the Chinese cultural tradition, numbers may be seen as meaningful, creative, even poetic things, and they figure prominently in accounts of the self. Rather than 'reducing people to numbers', quantification is used - by at least some people some of the time - as a mode of differentiating themselves from others, a means of narrating unique life experiences. This paper explores the role of numbers in accounts of the self, drawing primarily on a case study of one woman from rural Taiwan. It is suggested that a natural historical framework can help illuminate numbers and number systems as Chinese technologies of the imagination