Abstract
This article takes up the conundrum of conducting anthropological fieldwork with people who claim that they have 'lost their culture,' as is the case with Suau people in the Massim region of Papua New Guinea. But rather than claiming culture loss as a process of dispossession, Suau claim it as a consequence of their own attempts to engage with colonial interests. Suau appear to have responded to missionization and their close proximity to the colonial-era capital by jettisoning many of the practices characteristic of Massim societies, now identified as 'kastom.' The rejection of kastom in order to facilitate their relations with Europeans during colonialism, followed by the mourning for kastom after independence, both invite consideration of a kind of reflexivity that requires action based on the presumed perspective of another.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 507-532 |
Number of pages | 26 |
Journal | Ethnos |
Volume | 71 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2006 |
Keywords
- Culture loss
- Custom
- Death
- Forgetting
- Massim