plan A / Pacific Islands Studies

La recherche archéologique au sujet du Complexe Culturel Lapita, qui se développa en Océanie il y a environ 3200-2800 ans BP, a considérablement évolué ces dernières décennies. Le propos de la thèse présentée ici est de montrer que l’étude des décorations des poteries lapita peut être particulièrement utile pour la compréhension de des populations lapita. Après avoir rappelé l’historique de la recherche autour du lapita, et l’état de la recherche actuelle, nous présentons dans un second temps une étude très détaillée des décors céramiques : comment ceux-ci étaient réalisés, comment les différentes frises et les motifs s’organisaient entre eux. Enfin, quelles sont les différences et les répartitions spatiales et temporelles de tous ces motifs et de leurs variantes. Cette première étape permet de dresser un bilan exhaustif du mode de représentation graphique des Lapita et d’insister sur son importance dans notre connaissance de la société au tournant des IIème et Ier millénaires avant notre ère. Dans un troisième temps, les observations et les résultats obtenus sont mis en relation avec les autres données archéologiques, ainsi que celles issues de la linguistique historique et de l’ethnologie pour tenter de montrer que les décors lapita peuvent sans doute être considérés comme les reflets de certains aspects immatériels –principalement sociaux- des Lapita : de la parenté à l’organisation des groupes lapita dans le vaste territoire compris entre la Nouvelle-Guinée et les îles Samoa, en passant par les îles Salomon, le Vanuatu, la Nouvelle-Calédonie, les îles Fidji et les archipels de Tonga et de Wallis et Futuna. Ce type d’étude permet une ouverture de la recherche océanienne vers des hypothèses de reconstitutions sociales ouvrant de nouvelles perspectives pour la compréhension des sociétés dites « à tradition orale. » / Archaeological research on the Lapita Cultural Complex, which developed in Oceania about 3200-2800 years Before Present, has evolved considerably in recent decades. The purpose of the thesis presented here is to show that the study of Lapita pottery decoration can be particularly useful for the understanding of the Lapita people. After having remembered the history of research about Lapita, and the state of current research, we present in a second time a very detailed study of ceramic decorations : how they were made, how the various friezes and motifs organize themselves. Finally, what are the differences, spatial and temporal distributions of all these patterns and their variants. This first step allows a comprehensive review of the mode of graphical representation of the Lapita and emphasize its importance in our understanding of society at the turn of second and first millennia BC. In a third step, observations and results are linked with other archaeological data, as well as those from historical linguistics and ethnology in an attempt to show that Lapita decorations can probably be seen as the reflections of intangible aspects -mainly social- of Lapita: the relationship to the organization of Lapita groups in the vast territory between New Guinea and Samoa, through the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji and the archipelagos of Tonga and Wallis and Futuna. This type of study allows an opening for the Pacific Research into social assumptions reconstructions opening new perspectives for understanding the cultures so-called "oral tradition."

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This thesis explores the part gambling plays in an urban setting in Highland Papua New Guinea. Gambling did not exist in (what is now) Goroka Town before European contact, nor Papua New Guinea more broadly, but when I conducted fieldwork in 2009-2010 it was an inescapable part of everyday life. One card game proliferated into a multitude of games for different situations and participants, and was supplemented with slot machines, sports betting, darts, and bingo and lottery games. One could well imagine gambling becoming popular in societies new to it, especially coming on the back of money, wage-work and towns. Yet the popularity of gambling in the region is surprising to social scientists because the peoples now so enamoured by gambling are famous for their love of competitively giving things away, not competing for them. Gambling spread while gifting remained a central part of the way people did transactions. This thesis resists juxtaposing gifting and selfish acquisition. It shows how their opposition is false; that gambling is instead a new analytic technique for manipulating the value of gifts and acquisitions alike, through the medium of money. Too often gambling takes a familiar form in analyses: as the sharp end of capitalism, or the benign, chance-led redistributor of wealth in egalitarian societies. The thesis builds an ethnographic understanding of gambling, and uses it to interrogate theories of gambling, money, and Melanesian anthropology. In so doing, the thesis speaks to a trend in Melanesian anthropology to debate whether monetisation and urbanisation has brought about a radical split in peoples' understandings of the world. Dealing with some of the most starkly ‘modern' material I find a process of inclusive indigenous materialism that consumes the old and the new alike, turning them into a model for action in a dynamic money-led world.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Anthropology, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 196-211).

La fin de la Guerre froide marque le début de l'accélération du processus de mondialisation de l'art contemporain. À la faveur d’une diversité régionale reconnue, les artistes de tous les continents s'exposent pour «Les Magiciens de la terre». Mais tandis que de nouvelles théories critiques requestionnent l'histoire de l'art des pays des Sud, un monde de l'art spécifique à la Mélanésie se structure, comportant ses propres conventions, ses techniques, ses matériaux ou ses modes d'exposition. Les règles qui s'appliquent, fondées sur les valeurs de tradition, d'authenticité et d'innovation, légitiment ou répriment la circulation des artistes et de leurs œuvres. Créant les cadres sociaux du regard, elles limitent grandement l'expérience visuelle des observateurs, tout en restreignant la visibilité des arts actuels de Mélanésie à l'échelle planétaire. À l'heure où de plus en plus d'écrits paraissent sur la mondialisation artistique, il devient essentiel de faire connaître cette partie du Pacifique insulaire, ses caractéristiques et limites. Loin de vouloir intégrer de force ces créations dans un marché international, il s'agit avant tout d'envisager de nouveaux outils et de nouvelles méthodes pour écrire une histoire de l'art à l'ère de la mondialisation, de comprendre dans les œuvres ce qui est proche et lointain. Car c'est en créant une altérité que l'art de Mélanésie peut ouvrir la place aux sentiments et aux émotions qui se partagent avec le public. / The end of the Cold War marks the beginning of the acceleration of globalization of contemporary art. Due to their recognized regional artistic diversity, artists from all continents were represented at “Les Magiciens de la Terre” exhibition. While new critical theories are assessing anew the history of art of the Global South, the Melanesian art world itself, with its own conventions, techniques, materials and exhibition modes has become more organized. Rules founded on the values of tradition, authenticity, and innovation can either legitimize or repress the circulation of artists and their works. The traditions have created a social framework surrounding Melanesian art that can greatly limit the visual experience of viewers, and restrict the global visibility of contemporary Melanesian arts. Now that the globalization of art is a major topic of discussion, it is important to advertise the characteristics and limitations of art from this region of the Pacific islands. It would not be right to try to force Melanesian art onto an international art market. However, new ways to describe the history of Melanesian art in this era of globalization should be considered. By creating something original, Melanesian art can elicit novel emotional responses to art, which deserve to be widely appreciated.

The thesis describes the community composition, population structure and dispersal in a lowland rainforest community, extended to changes in butterfly composition along an altitudinal gradient. It tests the feasibility of mark-release-recapture studies in the understories of lowland primary forests, describes dispersal in relation to host plants and compares dispersal and demographic parameters with temperate species. Focusing on primary as well as secondary sites the thesis analyzes species richness and similarity between sites along an altitudinal gradient. It also tests ecological correlates for endemism in New Guinea butterflies, particularly their geographic and altitudinal range, as well as their optimum altitude.

This is a study of coming to know what it is to be Paamese. The work seeks to present an anthropological understanding of ontological concerns that constitute a Paamese perception of subjectivities. I take my lead from Paamese perceptions that the internal capacities of subjects or “things” (e.g. persons, villages, islands, and movement itself) are revealed through relations with others. This correlates with anthropology’s methodology of testing its analytical strategies through the ethnographic practices of others in order to reach more accurate representations. Paamese, as is common elsewhere in Vanuatu and Melanesia, have an extremely fluid attitude towards sociality and easily accommodate urban dwelling without leaving Paama behind. I suggest that a nuanced multi-positioned approach in which several aspects of Paamese sociality are considered from a point of limitation employed by Paamese to focus an event, such as a marriage exchange, will present a better understanding of how these subjectivities, that is Paamese people and Paama Island, adhere such that they do not part company wherever they go. Paamese suggest that each event should be considered as if following a single branch in the canopy of a tree – a scalable perception that offers the promise that a multi-faceted approach will reveal a replicable form. I take this approach to specificity seriously and employ a looping aesthetic, measi, adapted from Paamese sand-drawing in order to consider the shifting concerns expressed by Paamese perceptions of out (place), āmal (agnatic clans), sise (road), vatte (origin), ara (blood) and asi (bone). I suggest that these, parts, can be considered together as a holography for how to come to know what it is to be Paamese.

Nickel silicate laterite deposits developed on ultra-mafic rocks are similar in many general respects but they vary considerably in detail. The mineralogy of these surficial deposits is very complex and difficult to determine because of the fine grained nature and solid solution characteristics of the hydrous secondary minerals and because many of the phases are actually mineraloids that are poorly ordered or amorphous. To try some new approaches toward clarification of these phases, 24 samples from New Caledonia and Puerto Rico ranging from the ophiolite-ultramafic olivine-pyroxene-chromite-serpentine substrate rocks upward through intermediate phases of weathering to the final oxide -hydroxide iron cap phase were analyzed with the infrared spectrophotometer (IR -10) and with the automated X –ray diffractometer. Four limonite samples were also mineralogically analyzed. Goethite, secondary quartz, cryptomelane, hematite, chromite, talc, thuringite, and garnierite have been identified in various samples as weathering profile products.

This thesis is concerned with the cultural shifts that have occurred in Lihir, Papua New Guinea, as Lihirians were drawn into greater engagement with the capitalist system, initially through the colonial labour trade and more recently through large-scale resource extraction. This research draws upon 15 months of fieldwork in the Lihir Islands from 2003 to 2004. This thesis is intended as a critical dialogue with world system theorists.World systems arguments are constructive for understanding how Lihirians have remained economically marginal.However, I reject the assertion commonly propounded in these approaches that the world capitalist system inevitably destroys ‘traditional’ cultures and remakes them to its own specifications. Working from Sahlins’ (1985, 1992) premise that there is always continuity in change, I have sought to illustrate those enduring structures and received cultural values that have shaped Lihirian engagement with the capitalist system. My concern iswith articulation rather than penetration; to capture the dialectic of global structural inequalities and Lihirian selective appropriation. This approach allows me to emphasise the heterogeneity of Lihirian culture, notonly prior to sustained European contact, or even mining activities, but specifically at the height of their engagement with the capitalist system. (For complete abstract open document)