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Social Reproduction and History in Melanesia
Mortuary Ritual, Gift Exchange, and Custom in the Tanga Islands

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Part of Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology

Author: Robert John Foster, University of Rochester, New York

Date Published: May 1995
availability: Available
format: Paperback
isbn: 9780521483322

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About the Authors

This study describes and interprets the ritual activity that follows upon death in the Tanga Islands, Papua New Guinea. Robert J. Foster shows how the performance of large-scale feasts and ceremonial exchanges both commemorate the dead and regenerate the social relations of the living. He places the rites in an historical context by demonstrating how the effects of participation in an expanding cash economy has allowed Tangans to conceive of the rites as "customary" in opposition to the new and foreign practices of "business."
- Ethnography of a Melanesian society based on 16 months of extensive fieldwork
- Detailed description and analysis of mortuary rituals
- An argument for the combination of ethnographic, historical and comparative perspectives in Melanesian anthropology
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Reviews & endorsements
"Foster offers a powerful and innovative analysis of Tangan notions of personhood, agency, value and exchange through this account of mortuary feasts. His historical perspective provides insight into how these notions have shifted in response to new opportunities for exchange within the Melanesian context. In short, for scholars concerned with the interchange between the crises of modernity and indigenous perspectives of social reproduction, this book is a welcome and essential contribution." Ilana Gershon, Chicago Anthropology Exchange
"Foster's attempt at forging [a] new Melanesian anthropological approach is as subtle as it is courageous, and Melanesian and non-Melanesian scholars alike will find his book an informative read." American Anthropologist
"In short, this book will become a classic, in at least two senses: its innovations are firmly grounded in disciplinary and areal traditions, and it should provide a template for others attempting to situate ritual structures in historical contexts." Richard Parmentier, Ethnohistory
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Product details
- Date Published: May 1995
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521483322
- length: 316 pages
- dimensions: 229 x 152 x 17 mm
- weight: 0.43kg
- contains: 14 b/w illus. 3 maps 13 tables
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: history, alterity, and a new (Melanesian) anthropology
2. Commoditization and the emergence of kastam
3. Kastam, bisnis and matriliny
4. Finishing the dead: an outline of Tangan mortuary feasts and exchanges
5. Replacing the dead: identical exchange and lineage succession
6. Performing lineage succession: feast giving and value-creation
7. Performing lineage succession: transformative exchange and the power of mortuary rites
8. Conclusion.
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Author
Robert John Foster, University of Rochester, New York