Village on the Edge: Changing Times in Papua New Guinea / Edition 1

by Michael French Smith

Overview

Kragur village lies on the rugged north shore of Kairiru, a steep volcanic island just off the north coast of Papua New Guinea. In 1998 the village looked much as it had some twenty-two years earlier when author Michael French Smith first visited. But he soon found that changing circumstances were shaking things up. Village on the Edge weaves together the story of Kragur villagers' struggle to find their own path toward the future with the story of Papua New Guinea's travails in the post-independence era. Smith writes of his own experiences as well, living and working in Papua New Guinea and trying to understand the complexities of an unfamiliar way of life. To tell all these stories, he delves into ghosts, magic, myths, ancestors, bookkeeping, tourism, the World Bank, the Holy Spirits, and the meaning of progress and development. Village on the Edge draws on the insights of cultural anthropology but is written for anyone interested in Papua New Guinea.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780824826093
Publisher:	University of Hawaii Press, The
Publication date:	06/30/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Michael French Smith is a senior research associate with LTG Associates, Inc., a consulting firm that applies the methods of cultural anthropology to health and human services policy and management issues. He is the author of Hard Times on Kairiru Island

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Introduction	xi
Chapter 1	Nostalgia, Dreams, Progress, and Development	1
Chapter 2	Finding Kragur	11
Chapter 3	The Virgin and the Ancestors	22
Chapter 4	Food, Money, and the Strangeness of Capitalism	33
Chapter 5	Money and the Moral Puzzle of Prosperity	47
Chapter 6	To Papua New Guinea for the World Bank	58
Chapter 7	Weekend on Kairiru	68
Chapter 8	Free Ticket to Paradise	81
Chapter 9	The Key to the Village, Structure, and Strife	102
Chapter 10	Parish Bureaucracy and the Holy Spirit	120
Chapter 11	Money	136
Chapter 12	New Knowledge, New Problems	150
Chapter 13	Worlds Apart	160
Chapter 14	Something to Hold on To	168
	Epilogue	177
	Notes	183
	Glossary	193
	References Cited	197
	Index	209

What People are Saying About This

Richard Scaglion

Michael French Smith spins a great yarn. He has an admirable ability to translate personal experiences into a meaningful message and can describe complex social phenomena in ways that the anthropologically uninitiated can understand and appreciate.

Ted Wolfers

Both a reflective, personal memoir and well-researched scholarly work. The combination provides a thoughtful, and thought provoking, introduction to contemporary village life in Papua New Guinea.

Ann Geracimos

If you have ever been curious about the working methods of cultural anthropologists, this is the book for you.... Could be a model etiquette guide for any traveler—or modern tourist—exploring any off-the-beaten track.... [Smith] writes simply and plainly—none of academia's woolly prose for him.

Bruce Beehler

In Village on the Edge, Michael French Smith provides the reader with something rare and precious—a humane and sharply insightful view into the rich local world of a village in transition in Papua New Guinea.

Editorial Reviews

An excellent portrait of the travails and contradictions of fieldwork itself, ... an unobtrusively profound exploration of the contemporary quandaries of rural Papua New Guinea

Journal of the Polynesian Society

Although a variety of scholars and professional anthropologists will benefit from reading this book, Smith's intended audience is much wider

The Contemporary Pacific

L'analyse se construit par cercles concentriques et par petites touches issues de l'expérience de terrain, s'affine, et garde toujours une agréable et fécondante distance critique.... Notons enfin que l'auteur n'est pas dénué d'humour et que le livre se lit facilement, ce qui n'est pas le moindres des ses mérites.

L'homme