Warfare,Social Organisation and Resource Access Amongst the Wosera Abelam of Papua New Guinea

In the precolonial period warfare was endemic amongst the Wosera Abelam and social organisation was sufficiently flexible to permit the movement of people between villages and groups, and their full incorporation into their host societies. In the contemporary context of increasing population pressure, and in the absence of warfare, a significant response is a general tightening of the rules governing group membership and resource access. This response, it is argued, may represent a shift from a patrifilial system of social organisation to one based on patrilineal-like principles, resulting in a legacy of marginalised immigrant lineages of three generations or less of village residence.     

The Risks and Uncertainties of Migration: an Exploration of Recent Trends amongst the Wosera Abelam of Papua New Guinea

This paper reports on ongoing research on migration and circulation between the Wosera sub-district, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, and the island province of West New Britain. We examine the pressures contributing to increased family migration and longer-term, possibly permanent, migration from the Wosera. While rising resource/population pressure and stricter forms of land tenure arrangements are altering patterns of out-migration, the situation for long-term and temporary migrants in West New Britain is becoming less certain as land shortages begin to limit opportunities for further settlement and indigenous landowners become less tolerant of migrants from other provinces. We discuss these influences on migration patterns within the context of emerging social stratification of Wosera society, and consider the implications for both migrants and non-migrants.     

公共服务设施可达性、个人社会资本与居民心理健康——基于北京的实证研究

利用2018年来自北京的问卷调查数据,本文探讨了公共服务设施可达性、个人社会资本及其交互作用对居民心理健康的影响。研究发现：公共服务设施可达性对心理健康具有显著的正向影响,且对新市民的影响更突出。个人社会资本中密切交往的网络规模、从社会网络中获取经济支持两个维度对其心理健康有显著正向作用,但在新市民和本地市民群体间不存在显著差异。个人社会资本能够强化公共服务设施可达性对心理健康的正向影响。本文验证了社会生态学的健康促进模型的相关假设,即外部环境特征和个人社会资本相互嵌套共同影响个人健康水平。鉴于此,健康城市规划需兼顾“硬件”与“软件”层面,既要构建公平正义的空间环境,还需加强社会资本和社会组织培育。     

种族问题研究中三个基本概念的界定与阐释

"原住民"、"土著"和"第一民族"是种族问题研究中常常遇到的三个基本概念。原住民是指最早定居在某地方的族群;土著最初是西方殖民者对当地原住民的称谓,而现在也泛指原住民;第一民族原来是加拿大的一个种族称谓,与印第安人同义,指的是在当今加拿大境内的北美洲原住民及其后裔,后来也可指代其他国家的意在凸显其历史渊源、独特文化和地位的原住民。     

Art and Procreative Illusion in the Sepik: Comparing the Abelam and the Arapesh

This essay extends Anthony Forge's ideas about the ‘unspoken meanings’ of Abelam ritual art, by testing them against cognate forms among the neighboring Ilahita Arapesh, and by invoking L.R. Hiatt's insights into ‘pseudo-procreation rites’ among Australian Aborigines. It is argued that the meanings of Abelam visual art and Arapesh myth are comparably ineffable, and that in both cases this non-verbal quality conduces to the expression of ideas that are cognitively, socially, or emotionally unacceptable to consciousness. The conclusions are, first, that veiled, ritual and aesthetic expressions of ‘procreation’ permit the men to enact a fantasy of male parthenogenesis; and, secondly, that the cult-sponsored tricks and illusions surrounding these expressions have the effect of surreptitiously appropriating female procreative power to the concealed goals of male ritual.     

Student activism, mental health, and English-Canadian universities in the 1960s

Student mental health services were created at many American universities during the interwar years in association with the mental hygiene movement of that era. In Canada, psychologists and psychiatrists became focused on the well-being of schoolchildren during this period, but services for university students were minimal or non-existent at most institutions until well after the Second World War. Influenced by American trends and in tune with rising public concern over the problems students were experiencing on Canada's burgeoning campuses, student organizations, in co-operation with the Canadian Mental Health Association, began a concerted campaign for improved services in the early 1960s. Through conferences, seminars, and surveys, they revealed the extent of student distress, and by 1965 their efforts were attracting increasing media attention and having a direct impact on university student health policies. Their campaign then entered a new phase, transformed by the same radicalization that infused the wider student movement in the wake of the Berkeley free speech protests. Dissatisfied with the institutional response and distrustful of the motives behind the services now provided, activists questioned the very meaning of 'mental health' in the context of their deeper critique of the university and society. By the end of the decade, the student mental health movement had run its course, but it left a lasting legacy in the ongoing reform of university health services and in attitudes towards student mental health.     

The Past is Not Another Country: Exploring Indigenous Histories in Bolivia

The concept of indigeneity is founded on an historical relation: my people were here before yours and are therefore legitimate occupiers of this land. This aspect of indigeneity, and its concomitant claim to justice, is most clearly articulated in the indigenous politics of postcolonial nations and the rhetoric of indigenous leaders. The discourses of politicians who invoke five centuries of oppression are frequently heard and easily accessible but much less so are the views of indigenous people far from the arena of metropolitan politics. In its focus on European colonisation and conquest the standard understanding of indigeneity necessarily invokes Western concepts of identity and being focused primarily on descent and a particular relationship to history, that of being a conquered people. This paper looks at how the people of one Aymara‐speaking hamlet understand their history and their place in it. It explores the profound differences in historical consciousness to that of “mainstream” indigeneity and raises questions about how people relate to their past; the importance of the Conquest to indigenous people; and, consequently, the consequences a differently rooted identity may have for the contemporary politics of indigeneity.     

Fuelling toxic relations: Oil sands and settler colonialism in Canada

How does the often-invisible nature of pollution affect people's physical health and psychosocial relations, and their well-being near major industrial projects? Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Northern Alberta, Canada, this article explores this question by focusing on oil sands extraction on Cree, Dené and Métis nations' homelands with its environmental and socio-cultural consequences. Looking at different forms of dispossessions and Indigenous concepts of relationality and home, the author argues that pollution should be seen as an act of settler violence instead of merely a by-product of industry.     

Sanitized Modernity: Rural Public Health in Mid-Twentieth Century Khuzestan

Existing histories of public health in Iran often center on elite or urban narratives. This paper shifts the focus to Iran’s villages by examining the twentieth century public health history of rural northern Khuzestan. It argues that Khuzestani villagers desired, rather than resisted, modern medical services. However, vertical decision-making and the prioritization given by public health planners to economic concerns over social well-being led to the uneven distribution of services and failure to fulfill the expectations of Khuzestan’s villagers. This paper uses memoirs, official reports, correspondence, and other records from the Development & Resources Corporation, along with reports from Iran’s Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health, to bring a richer picture of Iranian villagers’ twentieth century history into focus.     

Who's indigenous? Whose archaeology?

Abstract

The International Labour Organisation, the United Nations and various indigenous Organisations have raised and/or objected to diverse criteria through which indigenous groups have been defined and the rights that should be accorded to them. This paper discusses the implications of these issues in relation to archaeological research and heritage management and uses this to position the other papers in this volume. Specific themes that are addressed include: the impact of colonialism and nation-forming on indigenous groups; the continuing influence of 19th and early 20th century social evolutionary concepts on the representation of indigenous groups and the role of archival material from this period today; the contrasting processes of cultural continuity and assimilation within ‘dominant’ societies in which indigenous communities have participated, and the effects that this has had on more recent claims over land rights; the cultural differences that surround the concepts of individual and community ownership, particularly in relation to copyright; the role of academia, museums and the media in the representation of indigenous people in the past and the present.     

The Maritime Cultural Landscape of Northern Patagonia

This article is a contribution to the study of the indigenous navigation and its boats in the region of northern Patagonia. This article also aims to contribute to the understanding of indigenous navigation practices and technologies and their origins from prehistoric times to the mid-twentieth century. It presents and discusses the concept of Westerdahl’s Maritime Cultural Landscape in relation to other landscape concepts. This model is applied to northern Patagonia in order to discuss if it is possible to speak of a true maritime culture in the region. For this purpose, archaeological, historical and ethnographic data are presented in an integrative and innovative methodology for the discipline. Finally, the Maritime Cultural Landscape model will allow the integration of aquatic and terrestrial landscapes as routes traveled by native inhabitants of northern Patagonia and southern Chile, and propose an important and diversified maritime, river and lake tradition.     

Boundaries are Made for Crossing: The feminized spatiality of Puerto Rican Espiritismo in New York City

Espiritismo is a system of ritual healing indigenous to the Caribbean. Nearly 3 years of fieldwork in an Espiritismo worshipping community in Manhattan has produced a rich and textured source of ethnographic information that is analyzed in terms of its feminized spatiality. The central figure in this community is Maria; the priestess/medium who negotiates the exigencies of this world and the world of the spirits through trance-possession performance. Her articulation of Espiritismo uses the boundaries between self and community, male and female, Catholic and non-Catholic, the human world and the spirit world, and racial identities as resources for solving problems of well-being such as poor health, lost love, and economic deprivation for herself and her community of devotees. Maria's body is the primary site where these issues are resolved in that her body (re)presents, (re)produces and (re)valorizes the Espiritismo community's use of (in)visibility, particularity, trance-possession and inclusivity as a means for healing everyday problems in familiar spaces.     

‘ … por decir Dios Trino y Uno,dijo Dios tres y uno son cuatro’: the Christian Trinity and the multiplicity of Andean Deities: indigenous beliefs and the instruction of the Christian doctrine in Quechua

In this paper I examine how Christian priests in the early colonial period in the Andes tried to communicate the Christian concept of the Trinity to the indigenous population, mainly through textual but also through visual means. On the basis of these sources, I will address the following questions: how did the priests present the concept in Quechua, one of the general languages of the Andes, in morphological, lexico-semantic and argumentative terms; how was the Trinity represented in painting and, could the Indians relate these explanations to something they were familiar with in their own religion? Answering these questions will provide us with hypotheses as to how the indigenous population might have understood this Christian concept, which, in turn may enable us to better understand modern Andean belief forms with respect to the Trinitarian concept, which I shall briefly discuss in the final section. On the whole, the evidence suggests that, whilst the Christians may have thought that they could explain their Trinity to the Andean people better by using the Quechua language, the adoption of Andean concepts and language resources resulted in different reception strategies, such as the accommodation of Christian beliefs in the Andean religious system, but also the creation of new hybrid concepts based on Amerindian as well as Christian belief forms.     

Transitions in Payments for Ecosystem Services in Guatemala: Embedding Forestry Incentives into Rural Development Value Systems

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programmes increasingly reflect multiple stakeholder demands and rarely operate in market form. In Guatemala, the earliest forestry incentives — a form of PES — benefited larger landowners and functioned as subsidies for both extractive forest production and ecosystem services. Smallholders and indigenous communal land managers in Guatemala campaigned for PES programmes to meet their needs, leading to the creation of a second programme that focuses on improving rural development, coupled with ecosystem services. This article examines how these historically marginalized groups have used PES as an opportunity to engage with the state and demand embedded development that more strongly reflects their values of forests and their desired relationship with the Guatemalan state. As a result of this activism, these Guatemalan forestry incentives reach smallholders more successfully than PES programmes in many other countries. However, more far-reaching changes in land use are tempered by power imbalances and structural inequalities that are unaddressed and, in fact, reinforced by PES programmes, such as underfunding, narrow conceptions of land ownership, and unequal representation.     

Essai de typologie des centres de santé et de services sociaux au Québec

Given the importance of contextual factors—physical, social and institutional environments—for understanding health landscapes, this article examines the situation in the province of Québec and suggests a spatial typology at the scale of the health and social services centres (CSSS). These CSSS provide services for 95 areas which are the finest territorial delineation in terms of health policies since a reform instituted in 2003. While delivery of primary health and social services is defined at this local scale, overall health policy is decided at the provincial scale. The challenge for stakeholders is to supplement their local knowledge with that of the broader context. In this article, we use principal components analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis to identify eight profiles of CSSS. The final results of the cluster analysis demonstrate that two‐thirds of the health and social services centres correspond with two marginally differentiated profiles and the remaining third shows specificities that are highly spatially anchored.     

The Thrill of the Line,the String,and the Frond,or why the Abelam are a non-cloth culture

With few exceptions, weaving was traditionally unknown in Oceania. Yet soft, pliable bark cloth — often richly decorated — was produced, and used like textiles, especially in Polynesia. This cloth was artistically draped around objects and people and in turn ritually removed. These cloth cultures are based on a system of aesthetic values radically different from those of inland groups especially in New Guinea. This article demonstrates that within Oceania there are two different cultural traditions with opposing aesthetic fundamental values. Taking as an example the Abelam (East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea) whose aesthetics is based on the principle of ‘visual open-work’, the fundamental aesthetic values of a non-cloth culture and the gender specific attributes associated with them are analyzed.     

“I do not know if Mum knew what was going on”: Social reproduction in boarding schools in Soviet Lapland

ABSTRACT

This inquiry into the history of boarding schools for indigenous and quasi-indigenous, tundra-connected children in the Soviet part of Lapland tries to answer why children were sent to a boarding school despite their parents living in the same village, and also why an additional school for mentally disabled children, a school half as big as the boarding school for “regular” children, was opened. Data from oral history interviews among former pupils and teachers, both indigenous and incomers, are combined with archival materials. Using the concepts of cynical knowledge as well as the Bourdieuan notions of social exclusion and reproduction, concealed functions of the boarding school system are identified, among which are the attenuation of housing shortage and the operation of the school out of economic interests, alongside with ethnocentric and paternalist patterns. The stigmatization of mostly Sámi children from relocated families as mentally disabled is set in a frame of individualization of the negative, which sought to present failures of the state’s social engineering as personal fallibility.     

Whose politics and which science: beyond the colonial in liberal political theory

ABSTRACT

This article examines liberal political theory’s limits and possibilities in relation to indigenous self-determination. It shows that while the liberal tradition has provided theoretical rationale to the colonial project it is also equipped to rationalise a politics of substantive indigenous inclusion. The article introduces the recourses that exist within liberal theory for non-colonial interpretations of citizenship, democracy and sovereignty. It shows how these concepts may be interpreted to contribute to a liberal theory of indigeneity as a theory emphasising independent indigenous authority on the one hand and culturally contextualised and substantive participation in the politics of the state on the other.     

The Impossible Aesthetic: the Abelam,the Moa Bird and Me

This paper explores the ramifications of encounters which two Abelam men and the author had in the Australian Museum and Taronga Zoo in Sydney, 1982. Rather than place a ready-made analytic framework on the men's experiences and rather than removing myself from the frame, as is usual in much anthropological analysis, I have chosen to explore the effects of these experiences on my own imagination. In the latter part of the paper I explore the way in which the imaginative entanglement of the Zoo and Museum experiences with my own memories has acted as a path of clues. This path has led to the development of the notion of sign which includes the idea of efficaciousness and transformation.