Introduction

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Moutu
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Personal Names ◽  
Ritual Action ◽  
Sepik River

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to present an ethnographic study of the nature of personhood, name and marriage systems, gender, kinship, and concomitant issues of ownership — all of which provide a vantage point to rethink the anthropological presumption of social relations. The book looks into the modes and behaviour of ownership as it is instantiated through items of cultural heritage, ritual action, and a system of personal names in Kanganamun, an Iatmul-speaking village on the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea.

The Dialectic of Creativity and Ownership in Intellectual Property Discourse

2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Moutu
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Personal Names

AbstractOwnership is often understood merely as a function of social relations, that is, it emerges merely because of the relations between people with respect to the things that they own. Concomitantly ownership is also seen as being dependent upon creativity to bring its force into motion. Far from dismissing such a view of ownership, it is acknowledged that such a view possibly comes from a world that is preoccupied with creativity. This discussion aims to show a particular kind of dialectic between creativity and ownership that underlies discourses about intellectual property especially in countries like Papua New Guinea. Through an ethnographic concern with personal names and their attendant claims to ownership and creativity, this paper aims to show how two trajectories of ownership co-exist in a Papua New Guinea society.

Names are Thicker than Blood

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Moutu
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Data Gathering ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Culture History ◽  
Sepik River ◽  
Rigorous Method

This book is an ethnographic study of kinship and the nature and behaviour of ownership amongst the much-studied Sepik River Iatmul people. Until very recently, anthropology has remained a Western analytical project for understanding and conceptualising non-Western societies, and was often geared towards the pragmatics of colonial and post-colonial interest. In the spirit of social science, it has formulated a rigorous method of research and a specialised language of description and analysis. Embedded within this approach are metaphysical assumptions about the nature of human society, culture, history, and so forth. This book provides the vantage point from which to rethink anthropology's central assumption about social relations by focusing on the way in which they are assumed and prefigured in the methodological approach in data gathering and in subsequent theorisation. It presents an ethnographic study of the nature of personhood, name and marriage systems, gender, understandings of kinship, and concomitant issues of ownership amongst the Sepik River Iatmul people, a people well known and of enduring importance to anthropology on either side of the Atlantic and in Australasia.

Sediment export from the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea: evidence for a divergent sediment plume

2000 ◽  
Vol 20 (16) ◽  
pp. 2239-2266 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.C Kineke ◽  
K.J Woolfe ◽  
S.A Kuehl ◽  
J.D Milliman ◽  
T.M Dellapenna ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Sepik River ◽  
Sediment Export

scholarly journals ET VILDNIS AF TABUER: Jagten på en kulinarisk struktur

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Liep
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Asymmetric Structure ◽  
Lactating Women ◽  
Food Taboos ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
Clear Idea ◽  
The Universe

John Liep: A Wilderness of Taboos: The Quest for a Culinary Structure Recent anthropological research in Melanesia has focused on the construction of the person, theories of conception and procreation, and flows of substances through social relations and persons. There will often be a correspondence between substances such as sperm and biood, bodily parts such as bone and flesh, and contrasting foods that are gendered. An asymmetric constitution of the person and a clear structuration of food prestations between affinal sides may exist. A study of these themes on Rossel Island, Papua New Guinea yielded frustrating results. No clear idea of contrasting, gendered body aspects was found. Further, a large number of food taboos for menstruating, pregnant and lactating women was distributed in clusters that were amenable to various logics of interpretation without any total structural logic appearing. This negative result is explained by the absence of any sustained practice of asymmetric marriage and corresponding complementary prestations between affines, which would reproduce an ordering asymmetric structure of the person and of the universe of foods.

Some chemical features of two Papuan fresh waters (Papua New Guinea)

1976 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 467 ◽  
Author(s):  
T Petr
Keyword(s):  
River Water ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Chemical Weathering ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Tropical River ◽  
Dominant Source ◽  
Sepik River ◽  
The World ◽  
Port Moresby ◽  
Total Salinity

The Purari River in Papua (Papua New Guinea) is a tropical river with ionic dominance similar to that of the world average river water, i.e. Ca > Mg > Na > K, and HCO3 > (SO4?) > Cl. As the sulphate concentration was not determined, the anionic trend still needs to be further investigated. The Na:Ca as well as the Ca + Mg:Na + K ionic ratios suggest that chemical weathering in the highlands is the dominant source of dissolved solids, and that it determines the chemistry of the lower course of the Purari River. Among the waters investigated, the Purari River, in its lower course, has a total salinity higher than that of the Sirinumu impoundment, and lower than that of the Sepik River. The low concentration of solutes in the Sirinumu impoundment near Port Moresby indicates that oligotrophication can be expected in reservoirs built on Papuan rivers.

What Gifts Engender: Social Relations and Politics in Mendi, Highland Papua New Guinea.

1988 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 198
Author(s):  
Robert Tonkinson ◽  
Rena Lederman
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
New Guinea

The Water-fern Salvinia molesta in the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea

1980 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Mitchell ◽  
Tomislav Petr ◽  
Anthony B. Viner
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Chemical Analyses ◽  
Complete Elimination ◽  
Salvinia Molesta ◽  
Sago Palm ◽  
Slowing Down ◽  
Sepik River ◽  
Physical Impact

Since 1977 the Sepik River backwaters between Pagwi and Angoram in Papua New Guinea have become increasingly covered by the exotic water-fern Salvinia molesta. By May 1979, Salvinia covered about 80 km2. Water chemical analyses for dissolved substances give no evidence that nutrients in the Sepik River and ‘lagoons’ might become limiting enough to affect the Salvinia population. The physical impact of the plant is reflected especially in the decline of the fisheries for Saltfish Tilapia (Sarotherodon mossambicus), crocodile hunting, collection of sago-palm, and in the slowing down or complete elimination of water transport. As a consequence, people in a number of villages are unable to reach markets and children cannot go to schools.A programme of management has been formulated which will involve the United Nations, central and provincial governments, and local inhabitants. However, it should be understood that there is little chance of complete elimination of the weed from Sepik River backwaters.

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