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Disparate dimensions of a Mekeo socio‐moral order: Values, emotions and dispositions in language, discourse and practice
Author(s) -
Jones Alan
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the australian journal of anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1757-6547
pISSN - 1035-8811
DOI - 10.1111/taja.12159
Subject(s) - lifeworld , antinomy , sociology , epistemology , schema (genetic algorithms) , moral order , generative grammar , social psychology , psychology , social science , linguistics , philosophy , machine learning , computer science
Terms for affective constructs and references to social ideals proliferate in the ethnography of the Mekeo, but these are often inconsistently defined and treated in isolation. I here attempt to produce a more coherent account of relevant terms and, ultimately, a systematic representation of the ontologically disparate elements that combined to produce a viable socio‐moral order in twentieth‐century Mekeo village society. The exercise reveals unexpected synergies between seemingly unrelated dispositions and emotions, espoused values and enacted Using Bourdieu's concept of a ‘generative model’ (1990) I develop a schematic account that brings a gamut of diverse socio‐moral constructs into semi‐orderly alignment with the realities of a disorderly lifeworld. For a certain time at least, the socio‐moral discourse and practices summarised in this schema successfully resolved the basic lived problem of the Mekeo lifeworld—the antinomy between a social structure based on inequality and the intransigence of a narcissistic and hubristic inner male self.