Managing Animals in New Guinea: Preying the Game in the Highlands

ISBN-13: 9780415280976 / Angielski / Twarda / 2003 / 416 str.

Paul Sillitoe

Opis

Looking at issues of zoological classification, hunting of wild animals and management of domesticated ones, notably pigs, this book asks how natural parameters affect people's livelihood strategies and their relations with animals and the wider environment. To Western eyes, the farming and foraging practices of the Wola New Guinea highlanders seem counter-productive. Attitudes to hunting are puzzling in their tolerance of low returns, while zoological taxonomies appear fractious and slippery. Closer inspection of Wola practices, however, enables a greater understanding of their underlying cultural politics, and suggests a new application of exchange-theory to social and animal relations. This book explains the values that underlie Wola relations with animals in the light of sustainability issues and social politics. Looking at linguistic, political, fiscal and gender behaviour, it considers how Wola hunting and farming methods make sense within the framework of an exchange-based society. It also challenges the ecological assumption that tropical forest resources can support human populations.

Recenzje

'A scientifically detailed presentation of the attitudes to, and thereby the uses and appreciation of, animals ... This book is written in the ethnographically rich manner of his previous publications ... Sillitoe deals thoroughly with a whole range of interesting issues connected with debates in anthropology ... gives an unusually comprehensive account of the management of pigs ... makes a spirited defence of his approach
of ethnographic determinism' - The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Spis treści

List of figures List of tables Liust of plates Introduction PART 1 WHAT'S THE GAME? THE FOREST AND ITS ANIMALS 1.1 What's that Bird? 1.2 The Birds. 1.3 Methods and knowledge 1.4 Furry Animals. 1.5 Disagreements over Identifications 1.6 Frogs and 'Others' 1.7 Insects and Small Reptiles 1.8 Taxonomic politics 1.9 Negotiated Taxonomy 1.10 Agreeing to Disagree PART 2 WHERE'S THE GAME? HUNTING AND FORAGING 2.1 First Impressions 2.2 Access to Forest 2.3 Forest Resources 2.4 Knowing Animals 2.5 Spell Knowledge 2.6 Hunting Techniques 2.7 Returns on Hunting Efforts 2.8 Hunting and Social Status 2.9 Sharing Game 2.10 Wild Plant and Other Foods 2.11 Hunter Gathering in the Highlands? 2.12 Managing Limited Wild Resources PART 3 WHEN THEY'RE TAME? PIG MANAGEMENT AND PRODUCTION 3.1 Pigmanship in the New Guinea Highlands 3.2 The Pigs 3.3 Pig Management 3.4 Bespelling Pigs 3.5 Ethnovetinary Practices 3.6 Pig Herd Demography 3.7 Pig Ownership 3.8 Pig Politics 3.9 The Work of Pig Management. 3.10 Pigs in the Past, Present and Future. 3.11 Conclusion REFERENCES

O autorze

Paul Sillitoe is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Durham and former Nuffield Fellow in Tropical Agriculture. He has worked extensively in Papua New Guinea. His previous books include Participating in Development (Routledge, 2002), Horticulture in Papua New Guinea (2002), Indigenous Knowledge Development in Bangladesh (2000) and A Place Against Time: Land and Environment in the Papua New Guinea Highlands (1996).