Robert J. Foster – författare

"Foster shows us how seemingly banal activities like making a phone call, chewing betel nut, watching a Coke commercial may give important insights into the ways in which the nation is constructed, materialized or contested."—Orvar Löfgren, author of On Holiday: A History of VacationingWhy, in the current era of globalization, does nationality remain an important dimension of personal and collective identities? In Materializing the Nation, Robert J. Foster argues that the contested process of nation making in Papua New Guinea unfolds not only through organized politics but also through mundane engagements with commodities and mass media. He offers a thoughtful critique of recent approaches to nationalism and consumption and an ethnographic perspective on constructs of the nation found in official policy documents, letters to the editor, school textbooks, song lyrics, advertisements, and other materials. This volume will appeal to readers interested in the links among nationalism, consumption, and media, in Melanesia and elsewhere.

In this theoretically sophisticated volume, contributors examine the process of nation making in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu- states that attained formal political independence between 1970 and 1980. The remarkable cultural diversity within these states demands close ethnographic study of different groups and their contesting definitions of nationhood and leads to highly original approaches. The essays explore the political conditions and cultural assumptions that inform how Melanesians variously imagine a national community. The authors interpret a wide range of materials, from political speeches and official ceremonies of state to newspaper advertisements and life crisis rites. They demonstrate both how the legacies of divisive colonial rule, the weakness of the postcolonial state, and the exigencies of capitalist markets undermine the processes of nation making in contemporary Melanesia and how new forms of popular and consumer culture potentially shape an emergent national consciousness.Comparative and historical in its orientation, this book will appeal to readers not only in anthropology but in political science, social history, and cultural studies. It will be of special value to those interested in comparative politics and history, Pacific studies, ethnicity and nationalism, and colonial and postcolonial studies.Robert J. Foster is Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Rochester.

Robert J. Foster untersucht in diesem Buch, wie Jakobus seine vier Figuren aus der jüdischen Geschichte und Tradition (Abraham, Rahab, Hiob und Elija) einsetzt, und analysiert dabei sowohl ihre gemeinsame als auch ihre individuelle Funktion im Text. Dabei kommt er zu dem Ergebnis, dass jedes dieser vier Vorbilder bis an seine Grenzen geprüft wurde (wenngleich auf sehr unterschiedliche Art und Weise), aber Gott dennoch vollkommen ergeben geblieben ist. Durch diese Hingabe wurde jedes dieser Vorbilder zum Außenseiter, sowohl im kulturellen als auch im historischen Kontext. "Jakobus" drängt seine Leserschaft, in ihren weniger extremen alltäglichen Prüfungen diesen Vorbildern nachzueifern, indem sie weltliche Wertvorstellungen in der Welt ablehnt und nach der neu interpretierten Tora von Jesus Christus lebt.