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Village Inventions: Historical Variations Upon a Regional Theme in Uiaku, Papua New Guinea
Author(s) -
Barker John
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.356
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1834-4461
pISSN - 0029-8077
DOI - 10.1002/j.1834-4461.1996.tb02552.x
Subject(s) - colonialism , ideology , new guinea , theme (computing) , government (linguistics) , world war ii , colonial period , sociology , history , ethnology , gender studies , geography , political science , politics , law , archaeology , linguistics , philosophy , computer science , operating system
Anthropologists have come to realize that even the most ‘traditional’ Melanesian practices and ideologies may be historically shaped by the people's experiences within encompassing regional systems. This article examines the reshaping of local understandings of the village among the Maisin people of Oro Province over the past century. I distinguish three contexts within which Maisin notions of the village have been formed: colonial models of village government imposed before the Second World War; Christian village cooperatives in the post‐war colonial period; and village meetings in the 1980s. The paper shows that the idea of the village has a complex evolution, shaped within overlapping dialogues between villagers and significant outsiders and between elder and younger village leaders who have had differing experiences of the outside world and the place of their own community within it.