Sinuous objects revaluing women's wealth in the contemporary Pacific edited by Anna-Karina Hermkens and Katherine Lepani.

Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextSeries: ANU Press Pacific SeriesPublication details: Acton, ACT, Australia Australian University Press 2017Description: xxix, 292 pages colour illustrations 24 cmISBN:
  • 9781760461331
  • 9781760461348
Subject(s): Online resources:
Contents:
Introduction: Revaluing womens wealth in the contemporary Pacific / Anna Karina Hermkens and Katherine Lepani -- Doba and Ephemeral Durability: The Enduring Material Value of Womens Work in the Trobriand Regenerative Economy / Katherine Lepani -- Doing away with Doba? Womens Wealth and Shifting Values in Trobriand Mortuary Distributions / Michelle MacCarthy -- Poem: Doba Trobriand Skirts / Katherine Lepani -- Womens Wealth and Moral Economies among the Maisin in Collingwood Bay, Papua New Guinea / Anna Karina Hermkens -- Revaluing Pots: Wanigela Women and Regional Exchange / Elizabeth Bonshek -- The Extraordinary Values of Ordinary Objects: String Bags and Pandanus Mats as Korafe Womens Wealth? / Elisabetta Gnecchi-Ruscone -- Poem: Making the Mark / Tessa Miller -- Capturing the Female Essence? Textile Wealth in Tonga / Fanny Wonu Veys -- Passing on, and Passing on Wealth: Compelling Values in Tongan Exchange / Ping Ann Addo -- Cook Islands Tivaivai and the Haircutting Ceremony in Auckland: Ritual Action, Money and the Parameters of Value / Jane Horan -- Poem: urohs language / Emelihter Kihleng -- Epilogue: Sinuous Objects, Sensuous Bodies: Revaluing Womens Wealth Across Time and Place / Margaret Jolly.
Review: Some 40 years ago, Pacific anthropology was dominated by debates about women's wealth. These exchanges were generated by Annette Weiner's (1976) critical reappraisal of Bronislaw Malinowski's classic work on the Trobriand Islands, and her observations that women's production of wealth (banana leaf bundles and skirts) for elaborate transactions in mortuary rituals occupied a central role in Trobriand matrilineal cosmology and social organisation. This volume brings the debates about women's wealth back to the fore by critically revisiting and engaging with ideas about gender and materiality, value, relationality and the social life and agency of things. The chapters, interspersed by three poems, evoke the sinuous materiality of the different objects made by women across the Pacific, and the intimate relationship between these objects of value and sensuous, gendered bodies. In the Epilogue, Professor Margaret Jolly observes how the volume also trace[s] a more abstract sinuosity in the movement of these things through time and place, as they coil through different regimes of value The eight chapters trace winding paths across the contemporary Pacific, from the Trobriands in Milne Bay, to Maisin, Wanigela and Korafe in Oro Province, Papua New Guinea, through the islands of Tonga to diasporic Tongan and Cook Islander communities in New Zealand. This comparative perspective elucidates how women's wealth is defined, valued and contested in current exchanges, bride price debates, church settings, development projects and the challenges of living in diaspora. Importantly, this reveals how women themselves preserve the different values and meanings in gift giving and exchanges, despite processes of commodification that have resulted in the decline or replacement of women's wealth.
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Current library Call number URL Status Date due Barcode
MAIN LIBRARY Noumea 305.40995 SIN 2017 Available 49833
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Includes bibliographical references.

Introduction: Revaluing womens wealth in the contemporary Pacific / Anna Karina Hermkens and Katherine Lepani -- Doba and Ephemeral Durability: The Enduring Material Value of Womens Work in the Trobriand Regenerative Economy / Katherine Lepani -- Doing away with Doba? Womens Wealth and Shifting Values in Trobriand Mortuary Distributions / Michelle MacCarthy -- Poem: Doba Trobriand Skirts / Katherine Lepani -- Womens Wealth and Moral Economies among the Maisin in Collingwood Bay, Papua New Guinea / Anna Karina Hermkens -- Revaluing Pots: Wanigela Women and Regional Exchange / Elizabeth Bonshek -- The Extraordinary Values of Ordinary Objects: String Bags and Pandanus Mats as Korafe Womens Wealth? / Elisabetta Gnecchi-Ruscone -- Poem: Making the Mark / Tessa Miller -- Capturing the Female Essence? Textile Wealth in Tonga / Fanny Wonu Veys -- Passing on, and Passing on Wealth: Compelling Values in Tongan Exchange / Ping Ann Addo -- Cook Islands Tivaivai and the Haircutting Ceremony in Auckland: Ritual Action, Money and the Parameters of Value / Jane Horan -- Poem: urohs language / Emelihter Kihleng -- Epilogue: Sinuous Objects, Sensuous Bodies: Revaluing Womens Wealth Across Time and Place / Margaret Jolly.

Some 40 years ago, Pacific anthropology was dominated by debates about women's wealth. These exchanges were generated by Annette Weiner's (1976) critical reappraisal of Bronislaw Malinowski's classic work on the Trobriand Islands, and her observations that women's production of wealth (banana leaf bundles and skirts) for elaborate transactions in mortuary rituals occupied a central role in Trobriand matrilineal cosmology and social organisation. This volume brings the debates about women's wealth back to the fore by critically revisiting and engaging with ideas about gender and materiality, value, relationality and the social life and agency of things. The chapters, interspersed by three poems, evoke the sinuous materiality of the different objects made by women across the Pacific, and the intimate relationship between these objects of value and sensuous, gendered bodies. In the Epilogue, Professor Margaret Jolly observes how the volume also trace[s] a more abstract sinuosity in the movement of these things through time and place, as they coil through different regimes of value The eight chapters trace winding paths across the contemporary Pacific, from the Trobriands in Milne Bay, to Maisin, Wanigela and Korafe in Oro Province, Papua New Guinea, through the islands of Tonga to diasporic Tongan and Cook Islander communities in New Zealand. This comparative perspective elucidates how women's wealth is defined, valued and contested in current exchanges, bride price debates, church settings, development projects and the challenges of living in diaspora. Importantly, this reveals how women themselves preserve the different values and meanings in gift giving and exchanges, despite processes of commodification that have resulted in the decline or replacement of women's wealth.