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Locating the Divine in Melanesia: An Appreciation of the Work of Kenelm Burridge
Author(s) -
Jorgensen Dan
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
anthropology and humanism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1548-1409
pISSN - 1559-9167
DOI - 10.1525/ahu.1994.19.2.130
Subject(s) - realm , premise , openness to experience , character (mathematics) , transformational leadership , epistemology , order (exchange) , sociology , work (physics) , philosophy , history , social psychology , psychology , mechanical engineering , geometry , mathematics , finance , engineering , economics , archaeology
A peculiarity of Kenelm Burridge's work on cargo cults and Melanesian religion is his emphasis on what he calls the divine. Although superficially resembling Durkheim's concept of the sacred, the divine designates a realm of experience that challenges the moral sphere, rather than endorses it. This departure from functionalist tenets takes the limited and incomplete character of the social order into account, dispensing with the premise of culture as a closed and integrated system in order to examine the ways in which an openness to events and their transformational possibilities highlights the improvisatory and mobile character of Melanesian cosmologies.