In the Midst of Life: Affect and Ideation in the World of the Tolai

by A. L. Epstein

Overview

The Tolai are among the most distinctive of Papua New Guinea's indigenous peoples. For all their success in the pursuit of modernity, the Tolai remain traditional in their attitudes toward death, the cultural elaboration of which colors almost every aspect of their existence.

In his new book, A. L. Epstein develops an emotional profile of the Tolai, contending that societies are distinguished as much by the shape of their emotional life as they are by their social arrangements and cultural styles. Epstein describes a wide range of mourning ceremonies and other more and less public occasions. By investigating not only the words that stand for emotions but also the way affect enters into and informs people's conduct, he charts a new course for ethnography that seeks to integrate the study of the emotions into anthropological analysis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520075627
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	02/12/1992
Series:	Studies in Melanesian Anthropology , #9
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	(w) x (h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

A. L. Epstein is Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex.