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Becoming Savage: Western Representations and Cultural Identity in a Sepik Society
Author(s) -
Brison Karen J.
Publication year - 1996
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.1996.21.1.5
Subject(s) - praise , rhetoric , identity (music) , colonialism , sociology , ethnology , political science , political economy , social psychology , aesthetics , law , psychology , art , philosophy , linguistics
This paper examines the impact of European representations on identity in a Papua New Guinean village. Local leaders reinforce their authority by echoing a colonial rhetoric portraying Melanesians as "ignoble savages." On other occasions the same leaders praise local society as orderly, showing that they do not entirely subscribe to European views. But villagers have internalized the European view that Melanesians are violent, an assumption that helps to keep villagers poor and powerless.