Bargain Empowering the Past, Confronting the Future

Empowering the Past, Confronting the Future

This accessibly written book is a very welcome addition to the literature on the Papua New Guinea highlands. It is refreshingly free of jargon, written in a highly readable style but, drawing on the authors' enormous fund of experience, evidencing considerable anthropological depth and awareness. The focus is on issues of change and the book adopts a welcome commonsense perspective balancing between the timeless ideas of tradition--seen not as static but a constantly shifting perspective--and modernity--seen not as globalizing similarity but as a pluralizing process. It has a particular interest in ritual responses to change that are prominent in Duna culture, presenting some fascinating ethnography on these issues. The book will also appeal to those interested in ideas about the constitution of highland New Guinea social groups, from the early debate on the relevance of African models--to which one of the authors made prominent contributions--to today's concerns with the flexibility of these local entities. --Paul Sillitoe, Head of Anthropology Department, University of Durham The authors' familiarity with and extensive publications on Duna culture and society provide a 'sufficient ethnography' from which emerges this nuanced account of the forces of change in a contemporary Papua New Guinean society. This ethnography uncommonly privileges the reader with insights into the choices, and their often unintended consequences, made by Duna men and women as they grapple with tradition that is not fixed but constantly shifting, and modernity that is pluralizing rather than homogenizing. The authors capture the texture, ironies and complexities of Duna society while criticallychallenging the idea of 'modernity' as a meta-narrative and explanatory concept in anthropology and the social sciences generally. Highly recommended. --Naomi McPherson, Chair of Department of Anthropology, Okanagan University College, Kelowna, Canada The Aluni Valley Duna of Papua New Guin