They Make Themselves: Work and Play among the Baining of Papua New Guinea - Brossura

Fajans, Jane

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0226234444 ISBN 13: 9780226234441

Casa editrice: University of Chicago Press, 1997

Riassunto

For generations of anthropologists, the Baining people have presented a challenge, because of their apparent lack of cultural or social structure. This group of small-scale horticulturists seems devoid of the complex belief systems and social practices that characterize other traditional peoples of Papua New Guinea. Their daily existence is mundane and repetitive in the extreme, articulated by only the most elementary familial relationships and social connections. The routine of everyday life, however, is occasionally punctuated by stunningly beautiful festivals of masked dancers, which the Baining call play and to which they attribute no symbolic significance.

In a new work sure to evoke considerable repercussions and debate in anthropological theory, Jane Fajans courageously takes on the "Baining Problem," arguing that the Baining define themselves not through intricate cosmologies or social networks, but through the meanings generated by their own productive and reproductive work.

Su questo libro

Product Description:

Book by Fajans Jane

Su questa edizione

• Editore: University of Chicago Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0226234444
• ISBN 13: 9780226234441
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 328