Texts and Contexts

The Pacific Way: A Memoir. By Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press, 1998. xvi, 280 pp, maps, photos, index, gloss., apps. ISBN 0824818938. $US14.95 (paperback).

A Vision for Change: A. D. Patel and the Politics of Fiji. By Brij V. Lal. Canberra, National Centre for Development Studies, The Australian National University, 1998. xvii, 282 pp, map, photos, index, refs. ISBN 073152350. $A25 (paperback).

Hard Times on Kairiru Island: Poverty, Development, and Morality in a Papua New Guinea Village. By Michael French Smith. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1994. x, 278 pp, map, tables, photos, app., notes, gloss., bibliog, index. ISBN 0824815815.

Neither Cargo nor Cult: Ritual Politics and the Colonial Imagination in Fiji. By Martha Kaplan. Durham, Duke University Press, 1995. xviii, 226 pp, maps, bibliog., index. ISBN 0822315785.

Footsteps in the Sea: Christianity in Oceania to World War II. By John Garrett. Suva and Geneva, Institute of Pacific Studies in association with World Council of Churches, 1992. 514 pp, maps, plates, bibliog. ISBN 9820200687. $US13.95 pb.

Where Nets Were Cast Christianity in Oceania Since World War II. By John Garrett. Suva and Geneva, Institute of Pacific Studies in association with World Council of Churches, 1998. 499 pp, maps, plates, bibliog. ISBN 9820201217. $US13.95pb.

Double Ghosts. Oceanian Voyagers on Euroamerican Ships. By David A. Chappell. Arrnonk, New York and London, M. E. Sharpe, 1998. xix, 231 pp, illus., notes, bibliog., index. ISBN 1563249987.

Living Tradition: A Changing Life in Solomon Islands. As told by Michael Kwa'ioloa to Ben Burt. London, British Museum Press, 1998. vi, 169pp. ISBN 0714125334.

The Cassowary's Revenge: the Life and Death of Masculinity in a New Guinea Society. By Donald Tuzin. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998. xiii, 256 pp, bibliog., index, plates, maps. ISBN 0226819515.

Political Decentralisation in a Mew State: The Experience of Provincial Government in Papua Mew Guinea. Edited by R. J. May and A. J. Regan with A. Ley. Bathurst, Crawford House Publishing, 1998. xii, 431pp (paper).

Sites of Desire, Economies of Pleasure: Sexualities in Asia and the Pacific. Edited by Lenore Manderson and Margaret Jolly. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998. xii, 367pp. ISBN 0226503046 (paper), 0226503038 (cloth).

Hannah Dudley: Hamari Maa. By Morven Sidal. Suva, Pacific Theological College [1998]. viii, 144 pp, appendix.

Great Powers and the Wider World. By John Dunbabin. London and New York, Longman, 1994. Two vols, 513 and 549pp respectively, indexes. £44 and £42 hardback; £17.99 and £16.99 paperback.

Trading Beyond the Mountains: the British Fur Trade on the Pacific, 1793–1843. By Richard Somerset Mackie. Vancouver, UBC Press, 1998. 444 pp, figs, maps, tables, bibliog., index. ISBN 0774805595. $29.95.

Beyond a Mountain Valley, The Simbu of Papua New Guinea. By Paula Brown. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1995. 296pp. ISBN 082481701X.     

Texts and Contexts in the Globalizing Academic Marketplace: Comments on the Debate on Geopolitical Remote Sensing

A prominent political geographer adds to the exchange of views presented in the two preceding papers in this issue of Eurasian Geography and Economics (Antonsich, 2006; Moisio and Harle, 2006). His comments extend beyond the debate on geopolitical remote sensing (a term originated by the author) to the need to more fully contextualize concepts and practices in human geographic research and to examine more closely the role played by internationalizing (and English language-dominated) publishing markets in the review and publication of papers that increasingly cross the borders of linguistic contexts. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O52, Z13.     

Early Metal in South India: Copper and Iron in Megalithic Contexts

In South India early metal artifacts, usually associated with megalithic sites, include both copper and iron. Although in some cases copper artifacts predate those made of iron, there is no evidence of an extensive metallurgical tradition based on copper and its alloys. Typological studies have had limited success in explaining the megalithic sites and the production and consumption of metal, while other approaches have not explicitly addressed the social contexts of metal production. While there emerge some suggestive patterns from the archaeometallurgical evidence to date, understanding the role of metal production and consumption in megalithic contexts means reevaluating traditional paradigms about the nature of these sites and about how metal technologies develop.     

Early Christian Representations of the Economy: Evidence from New Testament Texts

The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of economic issues that permeate certain aspects of the New Testament narrative world. After critically discussing the proper methodological patterns, the essay explores the possibility of reconstructing the socio-economic world in which these narratives emerged and evolved. We then proceed to assess the economic norms embedded in a rich diversity of New Testament texts, and we analyse how these religious discourses affected the economic attitudes of their respective audiences. To avoid overgeneralization, we properly differentiate the distinctive responses to the problem of economic necessity, in conformity to the particular social setting. We in turn suggest an alternative reading of some economic aspects of these texts; in so doing, we employ theories that advance a new understanding of the ancient economy. Finally, findings are summarized and further propositions are formulated.     

Prostitution,Sex Work and Violence: Discursive and Political Contexts for Five Texts on Paid Sex, 1987–2001

This article deals with the trope of the victimised, female body in feminist debates on the selling of sexual services. The notion of ‘violence’ is central to the construction of a key axis of the debates. The article explores these issues by discussing five recent and historical feminist works on prostitution/sex work, and touches on works which address methodological issues of gathering information on an activity which is, by definition, illicit, stigmatised and socio‐politically marginalised. The essay brings out several tensions in the framing of the present debates, especially regarding the varied contexts of ‘the West’ and the ‘non‐West’, as well as issues of macropolitical change, including economic globalisation. It concludes with the ways in which the texts serve to disaggregate the concepts of ‘sex work’ and ‘violence’.     

Translation de Domicile: Rethinking Sedentarity and Mobility in the Early Modern French Countryside

Was the countryside of early modern France marked fundamentallyby mobility or sedentarity? Tax rolls suggest the former, highendogamy rates the latter. For the period 1660–1720, ararely used source, the registers of translation de domicile(change of tax domicile), provide a more comprehensive answerthan civil or tax records. They suggest that, first, 60,000–70,000better-off families moved each year; second, poor migrants,such as day labourers, rarely made declarations; third, thosewho owned land, moved far less often; fourth, laboureurs typicallymoved between 10 and 40 kilometres to take on farms of greaterimportance; fifth, cottagers and day labourers moved to a nearbyvillage, rarely more than 5 kilometres away and finally, menand their families moved for economic gain, whereas women movedbecause of economic loss, after the death of their husband.Because the laboureurs dominated the villages—for example,paying most of the taxes—their movement shook the villagein fundamental ways. The translation de domicile registers indicatevillages open to the outside, full of in-migrants, whose economicstatus often bore a close correlation to the distance of theirmove (high-long, low-short).     

A Crisis of Lordship: Robert Ogle,Fifth Lord Ogle,and the Rule of Early Tudor Northumberland*

Henry Tudor’s diffusion of power in the English far north, and his savage pruning of resources for his wardens there to maintain good rule and defence, were perhaps necessary steps initially to prevent further challenges from overmighty subjects. Twenty years later, this was no longer an issue; and once peace with Scotland collapsed, the absence of the region’s traditional ruling magnates was keenly felt. Under Henry VIII, an obscure border baron, Lord Ogle of Bothal, was often Northumberland’s only resident lord, precipitating a crisis of lordship described as ‘the decay of the borders’. Unable to recruit as warden a reliable magnate on acceptable terms, Henry VIII then decided that, as a matter of principle, he would ‘not be bound, of a necessity, to be served there with lords’. The King appointed himself as warden-general, delegating the real work to gentlemen deputy wardens whose manraed was enhanced by feeing other leading local landowners, including Lord Ogle. Ogle’s kin and connection thus supplied successive wardens with an adequate following in peacetime; but in the ensuing war Ogle was overwhelmed with his warden on Ancrum Moor, becoming the only nobleman in England under Henry VIII to die in battle.     

The Henrician legend revived: the Palatine couple and its public image in early Stuart England

By exploring the nature of the Palatine myth in Early Stuart England this article contributes to the debate on the religious and political polarisation in Europe in the decades before the Thirty Years War. In the battle of words that preceded the armed conflict of men, references to the national past and greatness were used and misused by the opposing sides as influential instruments of propaganda. The paper sets out to answer two basic questions. In what way was Frederick, the Palatine Elector, put within the context of English Protestant mythology? How did the public image of the Palatine Couple change after the disaster at the White Mountain?