Entangled objects : exchange, material culture, and colonialism in the Pacific
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Entangled objects : exchange, material culture, and colonialism in the Pacific
Harvard University Press, 1991
- : hard
- : pbk
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Note
Bibliography: p. 211-255
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: hard ISBN 9780674257306
Description
Drawing on his work on contemporary postcolonial Pacific societies, Nicholas Thomas takes up three issues central to anthropology: the cultural and political dynamics of colonial encounters, the nature of Western and non-Western transactions (such as the gift and the commodity), and the significance of material objects in social life. Along the way, he raises doubts about any simple "us / them" dichotomy between Westerners and Pacific Islanders, challenging the preoccupation of anthropology with cultural difference by stressing the shared history of colonial entanglement. Thomas integrates general issues into a historical discussion of the uses Pacific Islanders and Europeans have made of each other's material artifacts. He explores how 19th-century and 20th-century islanders, and visitors from the time of the Cook voyages up to the 1990s have fashioned identities for themselves and each other by appropriating and exchanging goods. Previous writers have explored museums and the tribal art market, but this book concentrates on the distinct interests of European collectors and the islanders. It should be of interest to all those working in the fields of cultural studies, from history
Table of Contents
- Part 1 Objects, exchange, anthropology: prestations and ideology
- the inalienability of the gift
- immobile value
- the promiscuity of objects
- value - a surplus of theories. Part 2 The permutations of debt - exchange systems in the Pacific: alienation in Melanesian exchange
- debts and valuables in Fiji and the Marquesas
- valuables with and without histories
- the origin of whale teeth
- value conversion versus competition in kind. Part 3 The indigenous appropriation of European things: the allure of barter
- the musket economy in the southern Marquesas
- the representation of the foreign
- the whale tooth trade and Fijian politics
- prior systems and later histories. Part 4 The European appropriation of indigenous things: curiosity - colonialism in its infancy
- converted artifacts - the material culture of Christian missions
- murder stories - settlers' curios
- ethnology and the vision of the state
- artifacts as tokens of industry
- the name of science. Part 5 The discovery of the gift - exchange and identity in the contemporary Pacific: transformations of Fijian ceremonies
- the disclosure of reciprocity
- discoveries.
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9780674257313
Description
Entangled Objects threatens to dislodge the cornerstone of Western anthropology by rendering permanently problematic the idea of reciprocity. All traffic, and commerce, whether economic or intellectual, between Western anthropologists and the rest of the world, is predicated upon the possibility of establishing reciprocal relations between the West and the indigenous peoples it has colonized for centuries.
Drawing on his work on contemporary postcolonial Pacific societies, Nicholas Thomas takes up three issues central to modern anthropology: the cultural and political dynamics of colonial encounters, the nature of Western and non-Western transactions (such as the gift and the commodity), and the significance of material objects in social life. Along the way, he raises doubts about any simple "us/them" dichotomy between Westerners and Pacific Islanders, challenging the preoccupation of anthropology with cultural difference by stressing the shared history of colonial entanglement.
Thomas integrates general issues into a historical discussion of the uses Pacific Islanders and Europeans have made of each other's material artifacts. He explores how nineteenth- and twentieth-century islanders, and visitors from the time of the Cook voyages up to the present day, have fashioned identities for themselves and each other by appropriating and exchanging goods. Previous writers have explored museums and the tribal art market, but this is the first book to concentrate on the distinct interests of European collectors and the islanders. In its comparative scope, its combination of historical and ethnographic scholarship, and its subversive approach to anthropological theory and traditional understandings of colonial relationships, Entangled Objects is a unique and challenging book. It will be tremendously interesting to all those working in the fields of cultural studies, from history to literature.
Table of Contents
- Part 1 Objects, exchange, anthropology: prestations and ideology
- the inalienability of the gift
- immobile value
- the promiscuity of objects
- value - a surplus of theories. Part 2 The permutations of debt - exchange systems in the Pacific: alienation in Melanesian exchange
- debts and valuables in Fiji and the Marquesas
- valuables with and without histories
- the origin of whale teeth
- value conversion versus competition in kind. Part 3 The indigenous appropriation of European things: the allure of barter
- the musket economy in the southern Marquesas
- the representation of the foreign
- the whale tooth trade and Fijian politics
- prior systems and later histories. Part 4 The European appropriation of indigenous things: curiosity - colonialism in its infancy
- converted artifacts - the material culture of Christian missions
- murder stories - settlers' curios
- ethnology and the vision of the state
- artifacts as tokens of industry
- the name of science. Part 5 The discovery of the gift - exchange and identity in the contemporary Pacific: transformations of Fijian ceremonies
- the disclosure of reciprocity
- discoveries.
by "Nielsen BookData"