Description
Book Synopsis The insular Pacific is a region saturated with great cultural diversity and poignant memories of colonial and Christian intrusion. Considering authenticity and authorship in the area, this book looks at how these ideas have manifested themselves in Pacific peoples and cultures. Through six rich complementary case studies, a theoretical introduction, and a critical afterword, this volume explores authenticity and authorship as “traveling concepts.” The book reveals diverse and surprising outcomes which shed light on how Pacific identity has changed from the past to the present.
Trade Review “This is a fine collection of essays about the vexed question of what constitutes authenticity, how it relates to authorship, and, most importantly, how these concepts have travelled in cultural exchanges between Western and Pacific societies…The theoretical questions that are examined in this collection are presented in a substantial introduction by the editors, in which they situate their enquiry not only against the backdrop of Pacific anthropology, but also in a wider perspective on the subject of change in European philosophy since the Enlightenment. Their agenda is ambitious and intellectually challenging … a must-read for everyone interested in cultural change and the concept of authenticity.” • Anthropos
Table of Contents List of Illustrations
Introduction: On Authoring and Authenticity
Jeannette Mageo and Bruce Knauft
Chapter 1. Tenues Végétales in Beauty Contests of French Polynesia: Authenticity on Islanders’ Own Terms
Joyce D. Hammond
Chapter 2. American Colonial Mimicry: Cultural Identity Fantasies and Being “Authentic” in Samoa
Jeannette Mageo
Chapter 3. Authorship, Authenticity, Anthropology: Critical Reflections across Four Decades of Work with Gebusi
Bruce Knauft
Chapter 4. Authenticity and the Garamut Slit-Drum in Papua New Guinea
Alphonse Aime
Chapter 5. The Flying Fox and the Sentiment of Being: On the Authenticity of a Papua New Guinea Rawa Tradition
Doug Dalton
Chapter 6. Digital Storytelling in the Pacific and “Ethnographic Orientalism”
Sarina Pearson
Chapter 7. Afterward -- Authoring and Authenticity: Reflections on Traveling Concepts in Oceania
Margaret Jolly
Index
