Download Free The Polynesian Iconoclasm Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The Polynesian Iconoclasm and write the review.

Within little more than ten years in the early nineteenth century, inhabitants of Tahiti, Hawaii and fifteen other closely related societies destroyed or desecrated all of their temples and most of their god-images. In the aftermath of the explosive event, which Sissons terms the Polynesian Iconoclasm, hundreds of architecturally innovative churches — one the size of two football fields — were constructed. At the same time, Christian leaders introduced oppressive laws and courts, which the youth resisted through seasonal displays of revelry and tattooing. Seeking an answer to why this event occurred in the way that it did, this book introduces and demonstrates an alternative “practice history” that draws on the work of Marshall Sahlins and employs Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, improvisation and practical logic.
How could the Right transform itself from a politics of the nobility to a fatally attractive option for people from all parts of society? How could the Nazis gain a good third of the votes in free elections and remain popular far into their rule? A number of studies from the 1960s have dealt with the issue, in particular the works by George Mosse and Fritz Stern. Their central arguments are still challenging, but a large number of more specific studies allow today for a much more complex argument, which also takes account of changes in our understanding of German history in general. This book shows that between 1800 and 1945 the fundamentalist desire for a single communal faith played a crucial role in the radicalization of Germany's political Right. A nationalist faith could gain wider appeal, because people were searching for a sense of identity and belonging, a mental map for the modern world and metaphysical security.
This book analyses the dual alienations of a coastal group rural men, the Murik of Papua New Guinea. David Lipset argues that Murik men engage in a Bakhtinian dialogue: voicing their alienation from both their own, indigenous masculinity, as well as from the postcolonial modernity in which they find themselves adrift. Lipset analyses young men’s elusive expressions of desire in courtship narratives, marijuana discourse, and mobile phone use—in which generational tensions play out together with their disaffection from the state. He also borrows from Lacanian psychoanalysis in discussing how men’s dialogue of dual alienation appears in folk theater, in material substitutions—most notably, in the replacement of outrigger canoes by fiberglass boats—as well as in rising sea-levels, and the looming possibility of resettlement.
Attending to the mid-Victorian boys’ adventure novel and its connections with missionary culture, Michelle Elleray investigates how empire was conveyed to Victorian children in popular forms, with a focus on the South Pacific as a key location of adventure tales and missionary efforts. The volume draws on an evangelical narrative about the formation of coral islands to demonstrate that missionary investments in the socially marginal (the young, the working class, the racial other) generated new forms of agency that are legible in the mid-Victorian boys’ adventure novel, even as that agency was subordinated to Christian values identified with the British middle class. Situating novels by Frederick Marryat, R. M. Ballantyne and W. H. G. Kingston in the periodical culture of the missionary enterprise, this volume newly historicizes British children’s textual interactions with the South Pacific and its peoples. Although the mid-Victorian authors examined here portray British presence in imperial spaces as a moral imperative, our understanding of the "adventurer" is transformed from the plucky explorer to the cynical mercenary through Robert Louis Stevenson, who provides a late-nineteenth-century critique of the imperial and missionary assumptions that subtended the mid-Victorian boys’ adventure novel of his youth.
Sharing Authority in the Museum provides a detailed and fully contextualised study of a heritage assemblage over time, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Focussing on Māori objects, predominantly originating from the Ngā Paerangi tribe, housed in Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, the book examines thenuances of cross-cultural interactions between an indigenous community and an anthropological museum. Analysis centres on the legacy of historic ethnographic collecting on indigenous communities and museums, and the impact of different value systems and world views on access to heritage objects. Questions of curatorial responsibilities and authority over access rights are explored. Proposing a method for indigenous engagement to address this legacy, and making recommendations to guide participants when forging relationships based around indigenous cultural heritage, Michelle Horwood shows how to negotiate power and authority within these assemblages. She argues that by doing this and acknowledging and communicating our difficult histories, together we can move from collaborative approaches to shared authority and indigenous self-determination, progressing the task of decolonising the museum. Addressing a salient, complex issue by way of a grounded case study, Sharing Authority in the Museum is key reading for museum practitioners working with ethnographic collections, as well as scholars and students working in the fields of museum, heritage, Indigenous or cultural studies. It should also be of great interest to indigenous communities wishing to take the lessons learned from Ngā Paerangi’s experiences further within their own spheres of museum engagement.
In a sense, Oceania can be considered a microcosm of World Christianity. Within this region are many of the same observable trends on the global level that impact Christian life, faith, and witness. The geography of Oceania--the "liquid continent"--is unique. Christianity arrived in Australia and New Zealand in the late eighteenth century via British colonial powers. Indigenous Aboriginal peoples, Torres Strait Islanders, and Māori peoples were dispossessed of land, property, rights, and dignity. Christianity grew by migration and conversion (not always voluntary), and over time became tightly intertwined with culture. In the twentieth century, rapid secularization moved Christianity into the private sphere, and by 2020 Christian affiliation had dropped from 97 percent to 57 percent. However, the history of Christianity in the Pacific Islands--Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia--is quite different. Christianity arrived via Protestant and Catholic missionaries between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries and grew substantially in the twentieth century largely due to indigenous Christian efforts. Islanders brought Christianity to neighboring islands, indigenous theologies developed, and churches gradually separated from their Western mission founders. One of the great "success stories" of World Christianity is Papua New Guinea, which grew from just 4 percent Christian in 1900 to 95 percent in 2020. However, growth is never the entire story. Violence against women is endemic in Papua New Guinea and is often combined with accusations of witchcraft. An estimated 59 percent of women have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime (and 48 percent in the last year). As Christianity continues its shift to the global South, it becomes increasingly critical to heed the experiences, perspectives, and theologies of Christians, particularly women, in the Pacific Islands.
Common views of religion typically focus on the beliefs and meanings derived from revealed scriptures, ideas, and doctrines. David Morgan has led the way in radically broadening that framework to encompass the understanding that religions are fundamentally embodied, material forms of practice. This concise primer shows readers how to study what has come to be termed material religion—the ways religious meaning is enacted in the material world. Material religion includes the things people wear, eat, sing, touch, look at, create, and avoid. It also encompasses the places where religion and the social realities of everyday life, including gender, class, and race, intersect in physical ways. This interdisciplinary approach brings religious studies into conversation with art history, anthropology, and other fields. In the book, Morgan lays out a range of theories, terms, and concepts and shows how they work together to center materiality in the study of religion. Integrating carefully curated visual evidence, Morgan then applies these ideas and methods to case studies across a variety of religious traditions, modeling step-by-step analysis and emphasizing the importance of historical context. The Thing about Religion will be an essential tool for experts and students alike. Two free, downloadable course syllabi created by the author are available online.
Drawing on twenty years of research, this book examines the historical perspective of a Pacific people who saw “globalization” come and go. Suau people encountered the leading edge of missionization and colonialism in Papua New Guinea and were active participants in the Second World War. In Memory of Times to Come offers a nuanced account of how people assess their own experience of change over the course of a critical century. It asks two key questions: What does it mean to claim that global connections are in the past rather than the present or the future, and what does it mean to claim that one has lost one’s culture, but not because anyone else took it away or destroyed it?
This clear and engaging guide introduces students to key areas of the field and shows how to apply an anthropological approach to the study of religion in the contemporary world. Written by an experienced teacher, it covers major traditional topics including definitions, theories, and beliefs, as well as symbols, myth, and ritual. The book also explores important but often overlooked issues such as morality, violence, fundamentalism, secularization, and new religious movements. The chapters all contain lively case studies of religions practiced around the world. The third edition of Introducing Anthropology of Religion is fully updated and contains additional content on material religion, visual religion, and affect theory, and a new chapter takes a closer look at medical and health topics. The author encourages the reader to engage throughout with the unifying themes of race, gender, and power, and how these themes are intertwined with anthropology of religion. Images, a glossary, and questions for discussion are included and additional resources are provided via a companion website.
The civil conflict in Solomon Islands (1998-2003) is often blamed on the failure of the nation-state to encompass culturally diverse and politically fragmented communities. Writing of Ranongga Island, the author tracks engagements with strangers across many realms of life—pre-colonial warfare, Christian conversion, logging and conservation, even post-conflict state building. She describes startling reversals in which strangers become attached to local places, even as kinspeople are estranged from one another and from their homes. Against stereotypes of rural insularity, she argues that a distinctive cosmopolitan openness to others is evident in the rural Solomons in times of war and peace.