REGION, AGENCY, AND POPULAR MUSIC: THE NORTHWEST SOUND, 1958–1966

Through the method of reconstituted regional geography, this paper explores the origins, development, and demise of a regional popular musical phenomenon, known as the Northwest Sound. Renowned for the rock classic 'Louie Louie, 'the music of the Pacific Northwest was a product of local geographic conditions within the context of the state of popular music in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This tension between structure and human agency resulted in a period of musical creativity that epitomized teenage social life in the region, but which had limited impact beyond the local area at the time. The passing of the Northwest Sound helped mark the integration of a frontier into the mainstream of North American culture.
Par la méthode ďon;une géographie régionale reconstituée, cet essai examine les origines, le développement et la mort ďon;un phénomène musical, régional et populaire connu comme le 'son du nord-ouest. Renommée pour son rock tube 'Louie Louie, la musique du nord-ouest du Pacifique était un produit des conditions géographiques locales dans le contexte de la musique populaire de la fin des années cinquante et du début des années soixante. De la tension entre structure et ouvrage humain résulta une période de créativité musicale qui fut le modèle même de la vie des jeunes de la région mais qui eut peu ďon;impact au delà de la région cette époque. La disparition du 'son du nord-ouest' marque ľon;integration de la musique régionale dans le courant principal de la culture nordaméricaine.     

Pakeha Deaconesses and the New Zealand Methodist Mission to Maori, 1893–1940

This paper focuses on the first three decades of deaconess involvement in the New Zealand Methodist Maori Mission. Drawing upon church policy statements, deaconess narratives of experience which entered the public domain, as well as reminiscences which did not, it situates the deaconess missionaries in relation to the assimilationist discourses and gender assumptions of their day. It considers how Pakeha (European) deaconesses' potential as cultural intermediaries and models of white femininity was shaped by the particular histories of the areas in which they worked, by their own anomalous status within their denomination and by the spread of competing, secular channels of influence. As the sisters added a social work role to evangelism and education, many were drawn into close association with Maori communities, acting as advocates for Maori causes and challenging derogatory Pakeha constructs of Maori lifestyles.     

ETHICS AT HOME – A NON-CONFERENCE REPORT

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 17–21 November 2004     

Modern observations: new ornithology and the science of ourselves, 1920–1940

The emergence and organisation of amateur networks of observation in Britain in the period between 1920 and 1940 are addressed in this paper. It examines the geographical, organisational and epistemological associations between networks of ornithological observation (traced through the British Trust for Ornithology), which emerged from the 1920s, and amateur ethnography (traced through Mass-Observation) which emerged in the late 1930s. I approach these ‘observational cultures’ as spaces which brought together new concepts of the local, of everyday nature and society, as well as the possibilities of changing the everyday. The paper suggests that popular observation during the period partly constituted a reframing of ways of knowing Britain differentiated through the everyday production of natural and social knowledge and the construction of the active citizen and new communities of practice.