Anthropological Knowledge, Secrecy and Bolivip, Papua New Guinea, 2007
This chapter describes the famous occasion when three anthropologists met up on the Sepik River i... more This chapter describes the famous occasion when three anthropologists met up on the Sepik River in 1932/3 – and which infamously led to Margaret Mead eventually leaving Reo Fortune for Gregory Bateson. It also looks as much to the anthropologists as to their ethnographies to suggest that a view of one is available in the view of the other. The chapter furthermore presents an interest in how Stocking makes economy of exposition – just ‘one sentence’ – speak so much, and in what he does not need to say; whereas saying it any other way involves a long story to make the same point. Additionally, it intends to use the events instead to look at the commentary and contemporary practices in order to explore continuities in anthropological quasi-scientism sensitivities concerning the proximity between social relations, analytical relations, and ethnography. Mead's art is one of extraordinary clarity, giving hard edges to what it depicts. When the three anthropologists met up in Kankanamu...
... References Barth, Fredrik. 1975. Ritual and Knowledge among the Baktaman of New Guinea. Oslo:... more ... References Barth, Fredrik. 1975. Ritual and Knowledge among the Baktaman of New Guinea. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. _____. 1987. Cosmologies ... Anthropology. Berkeley: University of Califor-nia Press. Weiner, James, and Katie Glaskin. 2006. ...
Reports of poor crops, bad tasting water and stories of an ancestral connection with the Mt. Fubi... more Reports of poor crops, bad tasting water and stories of an ancestral connection with the Mt. Fubilan minesite at Ok Tedi have been reported by people in the Ningerum area since early 1984. In September 2000, a new generation presented a petition on behalf of the West Ningerum Pressure Association. The document had very carefully screened out any traces of customary explanation, and presented the case as if a manifest of poor crops, unfruitful trees, poor water, sparse river life, dried out foliage, and rocks now slippery with moss were the measurable effects of the mine wastes believed to be entering their river systems from underground. It also left out any trace of a tunnel used by spirits and the people who would trade with them and by which fecund water or blessings would flow into the landscape, and left out any trace of the second phase of claiming ownership over the entire mine deposit. This paper analyses these events in terms of regional concerns with revelation and concealment ¢ as if a claim must necessarily comprise both as halves to an equation ¢ and looks at how these concerns are presented in ownership negotiations which depend on eliciting sympathy and recognition of a claim, rather than putting demands into words.
Anthropological Knowledge, Secrecy and Bolivip, Papua New Guinea, 2007
This chapter describes the famous occasion when three anthropologists met up on the Sepik River i... more This chapter describes the famous occasion when three anthropologists met up on the Sepik River in 1932/3 – and which infamously led to Margaret Mead eventually leaving Reo Fortune for Gregory Bateson. It also looks as much to the anthropologists as to their ethnographies to suggest that a view of one is available in the view of the other. The chapter furthermore presents an interest in how Stocking makes economy of exposition – just ‘one sentence’ – speak so much, and in what he does not need to say; whereas saying it any other way involves a long story to make the same point. Additionally, it intends to use the events instead to look at the commentary and contemporary practices in order to explore continuities in anthropological quasi-scientism sensitivities concerning the proximity between social relations, analytical relations, and ethnography. Mead's art is one of extraordinary clarity, giving hard edges to what it depicts. When the three anthropologists met up in Kankanamu...
... References Barth, Fredrik. 1975. Ritual and Knowledge among the Baktaman of New Guinea. Oslo:... more ... References Barth, Fredrik. 1975. Ritual and Knowledge among the Baktaman of New Guinea. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. _____. 1987. Cosmologies ... Anthropology. Berkeley: University of Califor-nia Press. Weiner, James, and Katie Glaskin. 2006. ...
Reports of poor crops, bad tasting water and stories of an ancestral connection with the Mt. Fubi... more Reports of poor crops, bad tasting water and stories of an ancestral connection with the Mt. Fubilan minesite at Ok Tedi have been reported by people in the Ningerum area since early 1984. In September 2000, a new generation presented a petition on behalf of the West Ningerum Pressure Association. The document had very carefully screened out any traces of customary explanation, and presented the case as if a manifest of poor crops, unfruitful trees, poor water, sparse river life, dried out foliage, and rocks now slippery with moss were the measurable effects of the mine wastes believed to be entering their river systems from underground. It also left out any trace of a tunnel used by spirits and the people who would trade with them and by which fecund water or blessings would flow into the landscape, and left out any trace of the second phase of claiming ownership over the entire mine deposit. This paper analyses these events in terms of regional concerns with revelation and concealment ¢ as if a claim must necessarily comprise both as halves to an equation ¢ and looks at how these concerns are presented in ownership negotiations which depend on eliciting sympathy and recognition of a claim, rather than putting demands into words.
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