Rank and Status in Polynesia and Melanesia
Essays in honor of professor Douglas Oliver Douglas L. Oliver Publications de la SdO … Excerpt (Source: http://books.openedition.org) One of the less fortunate legacies that we who practice ethnography in Oceania have given the scholarly world is the stereotype of the Melanesian leader as “Big Man”. The designation “Big Man”, derived literally from the metaphor commonly used […]
Archaeology and the Origins of Social Stratification in Southern Bougainville
Archaeology and the Origins of Social Stratification in Southern Bougainville John Terrell p. 23-43 TEXT BIBLIOGRAPHY NOTES AUTHORILLUSTRATIONS FULL TEXT Source: http://books.openedition.org One of the Lessons of modern economic geography, abstract theory of graphs, and contemporary thinking in theoretical biology appears to be that hierarchical control networks are one solution to the problem of what to do about systems that […]
Filipinos, Colonial Mentality, and Mental Health
A psychological approach to exploring the effects of colonialism among Filipinos I was just in the Philippines recently, where I saw skin-whitening products and clinics everywhere! It is also where I saw the pervasive vestiges of western colonial influences, from the widespread use of English and the regard of it as the language of the […]
Democracy, custom and the Melanesian Way
By Susan Merrell, http://www.pngecho.com/ Is there a democratic Papua New Guinean nation – or is it merely an arbitrary state built on a shaky, crumbling foundation of disparate traditional customs and the ‘Melanesian Way’? Has the system of government become a hybrid of concepts that fail to work on any level – a bastardization of both […]
Tribal Democracy (Tribal jirga, Afghanistan)
By Bilal AhmedPosted on 18 November 2013Posted in Asia, Politics I was speaking to my mother about democracy, expressing wariness about European models, which many Pakistanis associate with the Soviet-inspired experiments of the Afghan Communist era. I mentioned the jirga, as a way of envisioning direct democracy, in South Asian vernacular. She found it appealing. “That’s like the old days, […]
The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond – review
Should we look to traditional societies to help us tweak our lives? Wade Davis takes issue with the whole idea Source: https://www.theguardian.com/ Anthropology was born of an evolutionary model by which 19th-century men such as Lewis Henry Morgan and Herbert Spencer, who coined the phrase “survival of the fittest”, envisioned societies as stages in a linear […]
The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond: review
Tom Payne is riveted by a thought-provoking study of peoples from New Guinea to the Kalahari Desert, which asks what we can learn from such societies. By Tom Payne 7:00AM GMT 08 Jan 2013 Parents: when your child cries in the night, should you pick him up and let him snuggle in your bed? Or, like […]
The Slave Mentality
June 15, 2010, By Kevin Jackson When slavery is implemented by force, it is certainly a despicable institution. But is it any less despicable when the slaves are there by choice?The interesting point about slavery is that whether it’s forced or voluntary, the master is responsible for the slaves. The master feeds, clothes, and cares for […]