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Book
Author Stürzenhofecker, G. (Gabriele)

Title Times enmeshed : gender, space, and history among the Duna of Papua New Guinea / Gabriele Sturzenhofecker
Published Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1998

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'PONDS  305.89 Stu/Teg  AVAILABLE
Description xii, 242 p. : ill. ; 24 cm
Contents 1. History and Histories: Historical Consciousness Among the Duna -- 2. The Ground as Cosmological Image -- 3. Residence and Identity -- 4. Dimensions of Marriage -- 5. Production, Consumption, and Space: Women and Men in Everyday Life -- 6. The Enemy Within: Witchcraft, Consumption, and Agency -- 7. Consumption, Personhood, and History
Summary This innovative work explores the historical consciousness of a people caught between two life-worlds. The Duna of Papua New Guinea have developed their own views of historical change, expressed in a fusion of two elements: indigenous ideas of cosmological cycles, and introduced Christian notions of world's end. The book explores how the formation of historical consciousness is constituted differently for men and women. A central focus is the fluid social environment of the Duna, where new contests about gendered person-hood and agency emerge in the context of changing power relationships and arenas of cooperation between the sexes. The author reveals the links between gender and history and uses a gendered analysis as a lens of historical perception for viewing a wide range of topics. In the process, gender becomes "an idiom of thinking" that permeates all social domains, including kinship, marriage, and residence
The book contributes to emerging trends in anthropological research in three ways. Ethnographically, it presents a transformed picture of people whose lives were examined by earlier, male ethnographers in terms of Marxist or sociobiological models. Analytically, it uses new perspectives to provide a more interpretive and nuanced account of gender relations. Theoretically, it explores the potential value of the theme of historical consciousness for an anthropology concerned with questions of change and with people's perceptions about their past and their future
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-235) and index
Notes Contains a few small word lists, songs, and a narrative in Duna
Subject Duna (Papua New Guinea people) -- Religion
Duna (Papua New Guinea people) -- Social conditions
Duna (Papua New Guinean people) -- Social conditions
Duna (Papua New Guinean people) -- Religion
Philosophy, Duna -- Papua New Guinea -- Aluni
Sex role -- Papua New Guinea -- Aluni
Christianity and culture -- Papua New Guinea -- Aluni
Witchcraft -- Papua New Guinea -- Aluni
Duna language -- Texts
SUBJECT Aluni (Papua New Guinea) -- Social conditions
LC no. 97026896
ISBN 0804728992 (cloth : alk. paper)