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Description
Author
Contents
Reviews
More than a century of interaction with colonial and global agencies and forces have brought many changes to the lives of the Maisin people who live on the northeastern coast of Papua New Guinea. Yet ancestral traditions continue to strongly inform their way of life. Their beautifully designed tapa cloth, made from the pounded inner bark of the paper mulberry tree, most vividly connects the past with the present.
Using the various stages of tapa cloth production to frame a broader discussion of changes and continuities in Maisin culture (economic pursuit, social arrangements, gender relations, religion, politics, and the environment) Barker offers a nuanced understanding of how the Maisin came to reject commercial logging on their traditional lands. Viewed in isolation, the decision appears to be a confirmation of tradition over "modernity." Yet the book shows that it is the most recent, and perhaps dramatic, instance in a long chain of improvisations and compromises that have allowed the Maisin to remain true to core ancestral values while participating in wider social, political, and economic systems. Ancestral Lines provides an important counterpoint to the stereotype of indigenous peoples as passive victims of impersonal global forces.
While accessible to most readers, including those with little or no knowledge of Melanesia or anthropology, Ancestral Lines has been designed with introductory anthropology courses in mind. Each chapter opens with a description of succeeding stages in the creation and use of a piece of tapa cloth. These, in turn, lead into discussions of dimensions of Maisin life that correspond to the sections and order of most standard introductory textbooks.
John Barker is a professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia. He has conducted anthropological fieldwork in Papua New Guinea and amongst the Nuxalk and Nisga'a First Nations of Canada. He has published extensively on Christianity amongst the indigenous peoples of Oceania and British Columbia, the history of anthropology, and the impact of environmental activists in Papua New Guinea.
List of Illustrations
Preface
- Fieldwork among the Maisin
- Making a Living
- The Social Design
- The Spiritual Realm
- Community
- Culture Change: Tapa and the Rainforest
Conclusion: Ancestral Lines
References
Index
Barker's book is beautifully organized, clearly written, and each chapter fits snugly within the confines of a basic topic included on all introductory syllabi. Moreover, unlike many ethnographies written specifically for undergraduates, Barker has produced a book that will neither talk down to nor bore students. The Maisin of Papua New Guinea come alive in these pages, and the core question of how they have come to want to preserve their rainforest is one that will capture the imagination of students. It is easy to incorporate into a course's existing structure and it adds the ethnographic detail that most textbooks leave out. Barker's finely observed discussions of such topics as reciprocity, kinship, and sorcery not only cover the major lines of argument surrounding them, but also add new ideas. It is therefore a text that can be as easily assigned to upper level students as to lower level ones.
Joel Robbins, University of California, San Diego
Clearly written and assiduously organized, this book succeeds at many levels, as an engaging and accessible ethnography and a sophisticated analysis of cultural identity and social practice in a globalizing world.
R. Scaglion, University of Pittsburgh
Barker's clear, engaging, and often self-reflexive writing style provides students with a readable and interesting ethnography.
Pacific Affairs
