Resistance : the Kwaio struggle for cultural autonomy

"November 1990.""Presented at a Center for International Studies seminar 'Peoples and States: Ethnic Identity and Struggle'" November 8, 1990."Includes bibliographical reference

Melanesian pidgin and second language acquisition

The development of Melanesian Pidgin English has interesting implications for second language acquisition. First, it has been hypothesized that the development of a pidgin in an interlingual situation parallels the pidgin stage in acquiring a second language. The Pacific case shows the dangers of assuming that superstrate (here, English) is the target language in such situations. Second, the process whereby a developing pidgin is shaped by the grammar of the substrate but lexified mainly from the superstrate is illuminating. Where substrate languages are syntactically similar, grammaticalization can be short-cut: superstrate lexical elements are borrowed to fill substrate grammatical slots. The result of this short-cutting, where new labels are fitted into slots common to substrate languages, is a pidgin highly "effable" (Bickerton) to substrate speakers. Able to calque on their native languages using formulas of morpheme equivalence, they can acquire fluency and gramatical competence extremely easily and quickly

Métaphores conventionnelles et métaphysiques anthropologiques

L’examen des travaux récents sur la métaphore conventionnelle associés aux réinterprétations des études classiques portant sur « l’âme-substance » et le mana conduit à confirmer les dangers de la surinterprétation – de l’attribution de théologies et de métaphysiques fictives – chez les ethnographes. Ne sommes-nous pas enclins, dans notre entreprise de traduction culturelle, à prêter aux manières de parler des autres peuples une pertinence qui va bien au-delà de ce qu’elles impliquent en fait ?Recent work on conventional metaphor together with reinterpretations of classic studies of “soul substance” and mana are examined to assess the dangers of overinterpretation – the attribution of inexistent theologies and metaphysics – by ethnographers. In our project of cultural translation, are we prone to attribute deeper salience to other peoples’ way of talk than they in fact imply 

Reflecting on loss in Papua New Guinea

This article takes up the conundrum of conducting anthropological fieldwork with people who claim that they have 'lost their culture,' as is the case with Suau people in the Massim region of Papua New Guinea. But rather than claiming culture loss as a process of dispossession, Suau claim it as a consequence of their own attempts to engage with colonial interests. Suau appear to have responded to missionization and their close proximity to the colonial-era capital by jettisoning many of the practices characteristic of Massim societies, now identified as 'kastom.' The rejection of kastom in order to facilitate their relations with Europeans during colonialism, followed by the mourning for kastom after independence, both invite consideration of a kind of reflexivity that requires action based on the presumed perspective of another

Learning to Believe in Papua New Guinea

This chapter examines how witchcraft and sorcery beliefs are reproduced among the educated working and middle classes in Papua New Guinea. In a context where tertiary schooling is accessible only to a tiny segment of the population, many educated people in PNG feel anxious about their social position and worry that their upward mobility will provoke envy and resentment in the less fortunate. This anxiety is projected most strongly onto the “ples lain” or rural population, who are thought to maintain many traditional practices, including witchcraft and sorcery. Drawing on ethnographic research among nursing students in the Eastern Highlands, I examine the ways that class identity and Pentecostal social forms coalesce, giving students resources for narrating, understanding, and resisting the dangers they face as social outsiders and (future) employees of a neglectful state. Looking specifically at events during a nursing practicum in rural Eastern Highlands Province, I describe how students and their teachers collapsed different forms of invisible violence—both traditional and contemporary—into a generic evil to be discerned and resisted. Following Robbins (2009) I argue that witchcraft talk is exceptionally socially productive—in this case, productive of a distinctly Christian, professional class identity in which the problems created by “the villagers” and “pasin tumbuna” (ancestral practices) are objects of profound concern.falseAccepte