Melanesian Odysseys

Lisette Josephides is Professor of Anthropology at Queen’s University Belfast, following many years of fieldwork in Papua New Guinea and teaching positions at the University of Papua New Guinea, the London School of Economics and the University of Minnesota.

“…a bold attempt to reshape ethnographic approaches to Melanesia.”  ·  JRAI"The effect is refreshing. The book is written with an immediacy of feeling for place and time and persons... It is a real pleasure to read, its theoretical impetus shot through with insights and aphorisms that can only have come from long reflected-upon ethnographic wisdom. This engaging book will be much debated, and deserves to be."  ·  Marilyn Strathern in The Australian Journal of Anthropology"...convincing and empathetic, rich in detail, and clearly based on a lifetime of fieldwork and friendship."  ·  Pacific Affairs

• List of IllustrationsDramatis PersonaePrefaceOvertures, Ethnographic and TheoreticalChapter 1. The Aesthetics of Fieldwork among the KewaThe Style and Tone of Kewa LifeBickering, Bantering and Coming to BlowsPlace, Movement and Residential MobilityDaily Life Scrambling into the Field: Mining the Field and Eliciting MinefieldsChapter 2. Self Strategies: Ascription, Interlocution, ElicitationThe Person/Self/IndividualAn Archaeology of the Self Ascription: Distinguishing, Co-creating and Merging Self and OtherA Modern History of the Self: Interlocution and Its DenialThe Everyday Self: Language and Communication at IssueWhat Speech Does: Communication as Capability StrategiesElicitation, Explicitness, Rehearsed and Rehearsing Talk and ActionConclusionPART I: NARRATIVESChapter 3. Narrating the Self I: Moral Constructions of the Self as Paradigmatic AccountsTheories of NarrativeNarrative and Paradigmatic ThoughtEthics, Morality and the Self in Paradigmatic AccountsThe Storytellers (Wapa, Ragunanu, Pupula, Yakiranu, Payanu) KewaPre-contact Practices and Persons: A Narrative of Many Growing upOf Courtship and MarriageOf Magic and Gardens Spirit HousesPig Kills Warfare and PacificationConclusions: Moral Constructions of the Self as Paradigmatic AccountsChapter 4. Narrating the Self II: Metanarratives of Culture, Self, and ChangeThe Storytellers (Rumbame, Alirapu, Mayanu, Mapi)Rumbame’s StoryAlirapu’s StoryMayanu’s Story (Excerpt)Mapi’s StoryMapi: Visionary and DreamerFour Features Revisited and ExpandedCreating Moral PersonhoodConstructing Coherent SelvesConstructing Critical MetanarrativesFacing Modernity and ChristianityConclusionChapter 5. Narrating the Self III: The Heroic, the Epic and the Picaresque in a Changed WorldThe Storytellers (Hapkas, Papola, Rimbu, Lari)The Stories: Third Set Hapkas’s (Nasupeli’s) StoryPapola’s StoryRimbu’s StoryLari’s StorySeizing the New World: Narrative, Consciousness and CommunicationThe Heroic, the Epic, the Picaresque and the SymbolicNarrative as Form of Consciousness and Organization of ExperienceExperience and ConsciousnessMorality Narratives as CommunicationPART II: PORTRAITS (Several Weddings, Some Divorces and Three Funerals)Chapter 6. Portraits and Minimal Narratives: Elicitations of Social RealityPortraits, Stories and Minimal NarrativesElicitation and ExplicitnessLanguage, Talk and ActionNorms and Claims: Rehearsed and RehearsingTalk and ActionConclusionChapter 7. Love and All That: Negotiating Marriage and Marital LifeCourtship Problems with Bride PriceIrregular UnionsPolygyny and ConflictAinu and YakoGiame and YadiLari and RimbuLiame, Rosa and KiruRarapalu, Karupiri, Foti and WaliyaNegotiating Marriage and Marital LifeLove and All ThatChapter 8. The Politics of DeathWho’s the Big Man of Us All?Rake’s DeathDuties to Persons, Rights in Persons: Wapa’s DeathOut with the Old, in with the New: Payanu’s DeathDeath and Recurring Conflict: ConclusionChapter 9. Mimesis, Ethnography and KnowledgeStories, Ethnography, TheoryMimesis as a Way of KnowingEthnography as Difference, Locality and ChronicleCultural Region and the Tyranny of Theoretical RegionalismEthnography as Chronicle of Cultural History/History of ConsciousnessReferencesIndex