This is the first study to focus on ikat of the Timor region from a technical perspective, including microscopy and design analysis of asymmetry, an understudied subject. Paradoxically this technical perspective highlights the human factor. Focused on the last century of the colonial period, we see the weaver’s decisions in close-up, as if we are sitting next to her. This yields rich insights, not just in materiality, but also in the weavers’ creativity.

Asymmetry is widely distributed in...

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Animism as a religion and a culture of the Nilotic peoples of the Upper River Nile in modern 'Southern Sudan'. It gives an account of how the Animistic ritual performances of the divine chief-priests are strategies in conflict management and resolution. For centuries, the Nilotic peoples have been resisting changes to new religious identities and conservatively remained Animists. Their current interactions with the external world, however, have t...

Matters of Belonging foregrounds critical practices within ethnographic museums in relation to their diverse stakeholders, with a special focus on collaboration with artists and differently constituted, self-identified communities. The book emerges from the EU-funded project SWICH (Sharing a World of Inclusion, Creativity and Heritage) that places ethnographic museums at the centre of ongoing debates about Europe's shifting polity and questions around heritage, citizenship and belonging. Addr...

Ci is the Asmat word for dugout canoe. The ci is an integral part of the everyday life of the Asmat - an ethnic group residing in eastern Indonesia in Papua province (formerly Irian Jaya) - who live in the middle of a huge tidal swampy area. Owning a ci is part of the Asmat's habitus because ci is a guarantee for mobility, both individually and collectively. The ci is essential for the everyday lives of the Asmat. However, the existence of these dugout canoes is now critical as they tend to b...

This is the first study to focus on ikat of the Timor region from a technical perspective, including microscopy and design analysis of asymmetry, an understudied subject. Paradoxically this technical perspective highlights the human factor. Focused on the last century of the colonial period, we see the weaver’s decisions in close-up, as if we are sitting next to her. This yields rich insights, not just in materiality, but also in the weavers’ creativity.

Asymmetry is widely distributed in...

In this first volume of essential texts, on the history of anthropological theory, the rise and fall of the notion of structure is certainly one of the most important to note. In this book, this development is traced and held against an understanding of ethnographic practice. The book intently starts with a contemporary ethnographic example that serves as a backdrop for testing theoretical notions.The movement through theory is one that oscillates between structure and no-thing (and perhaps b...

The story of ethnographic collecting is one of cross-cultural encounters. This book focuses on collecting encounters in the Kamoro region of Papua from the earliest collections made in 1828 until 2011. Exploring the links between representation and collecting, the author focuses on the creative and pragmatic agency of Kamoro people in these collecting encounters.In early European encounters, the Kamoro people were described as producers of an abundance of artefacts. Subsequently, the presence...

This book brings together artists, curators, researchers and conservators to consider the significance of coconut fibre armour from the islands of Kiribati. Taking as its focus the armour found in museum collections, it investigates the historical context that led to these unique artefacts leaving the Pacific and entering the orbit of British collectors and institutions, as well the legacies of those practices in the present.As well as exploring the historical milieux surrounding its collecti...

The vast and extraordinary collections from the Pacific, collected from the late eighteenth century onwards, that are dispersed across ethnographic and other museums in Europe amount to hundreds of thousands of artefacts, ranging from seemingly quotidian and utilitarian baskets and fish-hooks to great sculptures of divinities, architectural forms and canoes. Alongside the works themselves are rich archives of documents, drawings by early travellers, and often vast photographic collections, as...