Suchergebnisse

The article analyses the male ritual cycle of the Ankave‐Anga in Papua New Guinea. In the 1980s, male initiations in this region were interpreted as institutions for the reproduction of male domination. And yet, looking at the ritual gestures performed at the same time by the men in the forest and by the women in the village, it becomes possible to offer another interpretation, one that, following Marilyn Strathern, underscores a relational dimension. But, whereas Strathern saw these rituals as times when boys went from a 'cross‐sex' state to a 'single‐sex' state capable of reproduction, following a process of extraction, the article argues that the Ankave ritual cycle can be read as an ordered series of transformations of the relations between the boys and their mothers and sisters, in the presence of these female relatives. At the heart of these initiations lies the boys' accession to the capacity to act for others. Such an analysis of specific ethnographic Melanesian material makes possible a critical appraisal of the Strathernian notions of partibility and detachability, which have often been taken as given by researchers outside the region.

International audience ; Chris Owen, décédé en 2018, était un documentariste de renom qui arriva en Papouasie Nouvelle-Guinée deux ans avant l'Indépendance et en partit en 2011. Employé par diverses institutions nationales, il participa à la grande majorité des films qui y furent tournés : tour à tour réalisateur, preneur de son et chef opérateur, il apporta aussi une aide logistique aux réalisateurs de passage et dirigea le National Film Institute, créé en 1999.Après avoir évoqué son parcours, l'article présente le paysage institutionnel des années 1970 dans lequel ses premières réalisations et celles d'autres jeunes expatriés prirent place puisqu'en même temps que d'une vocation personnelle, l'article cherche à rendre compte d'un idéal artistique et politique partagé.Il est ensuite question de deux de ses films, Gogodala et Malagan Labadama ainsi que d'un projet de film de fiction jamais abouti. L'article se termine en présentant les activités d'archivage, de formation, de réalisation et de production du National Film Institute ainsi que les difficultés auxquelles il fait face aujourd'hui.

International audience ; Chris Owen, décédé en 2018, était un documentariste de renom qui arriva en Papouasie Nouvelle-Guinée deux ans avant l'Indépendance et en partit en 2011. Employé par diverses institutions nationales, il participa à la grande majorité des films qui y furent tournés : tour à tour réalisateur, preneur de son et chef opérateur, il apporta aussi une aide logistique aux réalisateurs de passage et dirigea le National Film Institute, créé en 1999.Après avoir évoqué son parcours, l'article présente le paysage institutionnel des années 1970 dans lequel ses premières réalisations et celles d'autres jeunes expatriés prirent place puisqu'en même temps que d'une vocation personnelle, l'article cherche à rendre compte d'un idéal artistique et politique partagé.Il est ensuite question de deux de ses films, Gogodala et Malagan Labadama ainsi que d'un projet de film de fiction jamais abouti. L'article se termine en présentant les activités d'archivage, de formation, de réalisation et de production du National Film Institute ainsi que les difficultés auxquelles il fait face aujourd'hui.

Land and Exchanges among the Anga (Papua New Guinea)

The lineage model worked out by africanists does not account for the definition of local groups or, more generally, for the nature of social bonds in New Guinea. The ways the environment is worked and land is appropriated (bush country for hunting and fields for farming) in two Anga groups (Ankave and Baruya) are described. Questions then arise about the forms of the relationship with the land. This comparative study sheds light on the overall logic linking earth, food and exchanges. References to localities and to work are inherent in this logic, which sheds light on cooperation between affines and forms of marriage, as well as on the ceremonial use of game from hunting. The main markers of the land are the trees associated with the production of the bodily substances most valued in conceptions about the making of human beings and in masculine initiation ceremonies : blood and sperm.

Human biological fertility was considered a important issue to anthropologists and colonial administrators in the first part of the 20th century, as a dramatic decline in population was observed in many regions. However, the total demise of Melanesian populations predicted by some never happened; on the contrary, a rapid population increase took place for the second part of the 20th century. This volume explores relationships between human fertility and reproduction, subsistence systems, the symbolic use of ideas of fertility and reproduction in linking landscape to individuals and populations, in Melanesian societies, past and present. It thus offers an important contribution to our understanding of the implications of social and economic change for reproduction and fertility in the broadest sense

One of the great riddles of cultural history is the remarkable parallel that exists between the peoples of Amazonia and those of Melanesia. Although the two regions are separated by half a world in distance and at least 40,000 years of history, their cultures nonetheless reveal striking similarities in the areas of sex and gender. In both Amazonia and Melanesia, male-female differences infuse social organization and self-conception. They are the core of religion, symbolism, and cosmology, and they permeate ideas about body imagery, procreation, growth, men's cults, and rituals of initiation. The contributors to this innovative volume illuminate the various ways in which sex and gender are elaborated, obsessed over, and internalized, shaping subjective experiences common to entire cultural regions, and beyond. Through comparison of the life ways of Melanesia and Amazonia the authors expand the study of gender, as well as the comparative method in anthropology, in new and rewarding directions