"Foster shows us how seemingly banal activities like making a phone call, chewing betel nut, watching a Coke commercial may give important insights into the ways in which the nation is constructed, materialized or contested."--Orvar Lofgren, author of On Holiday: A History of Vacationing
Why, in the current era of globalization, does nationality remain an important dimension of personal and collective identities? In Materializing the Nation, Robert J. Foster argues that the contested process of nation making in Papua New Guinea unfolds not only through organized politics but also...
"Foster shows us how seemingly banal activities like making a phone call, chewing betel nut, watching a Coke commercial may give important insights...
This study describes and interprets the ritual activity that follows upon death in the Tanga Islands, Papua New Guinea. Robert J. Foster shows how the performance of large-scale feasts and ceremonial exchanges both commemorate the dead and regenerate the social relations of the living. He places the rites in an historical context by demonstrating how the effects of participation in an expanding cash economy has allowed Tangans to conceive of the rites as "customary" in opposition to the new and foreign practices of "business."
This study describes and interprets the ritual activity that follows upon death in the Tanga Islands, Papua New Guinea. Robert J. Foster shows how the...
