The Threshold of the Pacific: An Account of the Social Organization, Magic and Religion of the People of San Cristoval in the Solomon Islands

Abstract The multi-ethnic and multilingual complexes of the Upper Rio Negro and the Upper Xingu share common aspects that frequently emerge in ethnographies, including notions of descent, hierarchical social organization and ritual activities, as well as a preference for forms of exogamy and the unequal distribution of productive and ritual specialties and esoteric knowledge. In this article we investigate how the people of both regions conceive of their humanity and that of their neighbours as variations on a shared form, since in both regions ritual processes for negotiating positions and prerogatives seems to take the place of the latent state of warfare typical of the social life of other Amazonian peoples. In this article we will synthesize, for each region, the spatio-temporal processes that underscore the eminently variable constitution of collectivities, seeking, in conclusion, to isolate those elements that the two regions have in common.

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Numbers 21–36

10.5040/9780300261134 ◽

2000 ◽

Author(s):

Baruch A. Levine

Keyword(s):

Social Organization ◽

Old Testament ◽

Power Struggles ◽

Near Eastern ◽

Contemporary World ◽

Linguistic Research ◽

The People ◽

The Social ◽

Ten Commandments ◽

Uncertain Future

The Book of Numbers is an account of how the Israelites wandered in the wilderness after receiving the Ten Commandments of Mount Sinai. Through this time of testing, while facing an uncertain future, the people complained repeatedly to Moses and to God. Though fraught with tension and power struggles, their pilgrimage led to the discovery that God is indeed faithful to His promises, regardless of how people behave. In Numbers 21-36, world-renowned Bible scholar Baruch A. Levine unravels the complexity and confusing details in this Old Testament book. His lucid translation, based on thorough textual and linguistic research, including the ancient Deir Alla texts, opens the door for modern readers to understand and appreciate the richness of this intriguing book. Further, Levine examines the route of the wilderness wanderings, the ancient Near Eastern context of the laws, the social organization of early Israel, and the meaning of this biblical book for the contemporary world. Destined to become a classic and to share the same glowing reception that greeted Numbers 1-20 and its publication, Numbers 21-36 also completes the Anchor Bible series' first multivolume commentary on a book of the Torah.

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Chea's Great Kuarao

Journal of Anthropological Films ◽

10.15845/jaf.v2i2.1542 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. e1542

Author(s):

Rolf Erik Scott ◽

Edvard Hviding ◽

Trygve Tollefsen

Keyword(s):

Social Stratification ◽

Solomon Islands ◽

Practical Importance ◽

Public Television ◽

Large Circle ◽

Surplus Production ◽

The People ◽

Large Numbers ◽

The Social ◽

The Village

The People of Chea Village live in the Marovo Lagoon situated in the Western Province of the Salomon Islands. Annually they would organise communal fishing expeditions they called Kuarao and where all the villages took part. Early in the morning and after days of preparation, a large circle of bush vines was laid out in the lagoon waters near the barrier reef. As people swam with the vines and dragged them along, large numbers of fish were caught by surprise and herded together inside the gradually narrowing circle. Finally, the tightly packed schools of fish were stunned by plant poison and collected in canoes. The Kuarao has both ritual and practical importance. It confirms the collective and the social stratification of the village while serving as a powerful linkage between ancestral tradition, customary ownership of the reef, and the surplus production of modern cash. The filming in the Marovo Lagoon took place in collaboration with the local communities and the National Museum of Solomon Islands. The intended audience of this film was first of all the people of the Solomon Islands, which influenced its content and structure. This has ensured that the film has had a prolific life. We have subsequently been told that the film is a big hit among many women, as parts of the film present the backstage life of the men who while making the wines used for fishing out in the outer islands of the Lagoon, converse in a "raunchy" manner. Chea's Great Kuarao was the first film distributed to all the high schools of the islands. It was the film shown at the first public film screening in the capital, Honiara, following the end of the ethnic violence (1998-2003). It was later screened numerous times on public television.

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Conflict in Irrigation

Comparative Studies in Society and History ◽

10.1017/s0010417500001985 ◽

1963 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 76-83 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Robert A. Fernea

Keyword(s):

Social Organization ◽

Social System ◽

Social Systems ◽

Social Effects ◽

Central Mexico ◽

Social Setting ◽

The People ◽

The Social ◽

Euphrates Valley ◽

Irrigation Agriculture

Recently, in this journal, René Millon and others discussed the results of their study of irrigation agriculture in the contemporary social setting of the Teotihuacan Valley, Central Mexico. In introducing their study, the authors briefly noted comparable investigations (including my own) and came to the general conclusion that “any system of irrigation agriculture creates its own distinctive potential for both cohesion and conflict, whatever may be the social system of the people who practice it.” Do social systems play as passive a role in determining the social effects of irrigation agriculture as the statement implies? I wish to suggest a distinction which may be important in seeking answers to this question and then to briefly compare certain aspects of Millon's Mexican example with my own study of irrigation agriculture and social organization in the Southern Euphrates Valley of Iraq.

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Incompatibility, Substitution or Complementarity? Interrogating Relationships between International, State and Non-State Peace Agents in Post-Conflict Solomon Islands

Post-Liberal Peace Transitions ◽

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474402170.003.0011 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Volker Boege

Keyword(s):

Solomon Islands ◽

Field Research ◽

Pacific Region ◽

Post Conflict ◽

The Pacific ◽

The Social ◽

State Agents ◽

State And Local ◽

Shadow It ◽

Violent Conflicts

This concluding chapter illustrates how, in the Soloman Islands, very significant agency lies at the social level of peacemaking. In July 2003, after several years of internal violent conflicts, the Solomon Islands became the target of the biggest peacebuilding intervention in the Pacific region to date — the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI). This mission is generally presented as a success story of post-conflict peacebuilding and statebuilding. The chapter shows how locals have pursued their own indigenous processes of peace formation detached from, and parallel to, RAMSI, albeit in its shadow. It draws mainly on field research into community views on the capacities, effectiveness, and legitimacy of international, state, and local, non-state agents of peace and state formation, using the categories of incompatibility, substitution, and complementarity to analyse the approaches and practices of these actors.

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Exploring the social relations of Roma employability

Journal of Comparative Social Work ◽

10.31265/jcsw.v11i1.138 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 115-144 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Loreni Elena Baciu ◽

Melinda Dinca ◽

Theofild Lazar ◽

Johans Tveit Sandvin

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Study ◽

Social Organization ◽

Labour Market ◽

Social Relations ◽

Institutional Ethnography ◽

Minority Group ◽

Roma Population ◽

The People ◽

The Social ◽

Formal Employment

The article reports on a qualitative study of Roma employability in Romania. Being the largest ethnic minority group in Europe, the Roma population is the object of profound marginalization in most of the countries where they reside, by measures such as spatial segregation and exclusion from the formal labour market. This article focuses particularly on the Roma living in rural segregated communities. Inspired by institutional ethnography, the aim is to explore the social organization of rural Roma employability from the standpoint of the Roma themselves. The main obstacles to employment, as they are known and shared by our interviewees, are a lack of available jobs within reach, their own lack of education and a rejection by employers on the grounds of them being Roma. As the analyses show, these obstacles, and the individual’s experiences and knowledge about them, are shaped and maintained by extended translocal relations of administration and governance, thus making the rural Roma dependent on a precarious secondary labour market of low-paid day work for neighbouring farmers. The uncertainty of this work, and the organization and work of everyday life it implies for the people inhabiting these communities, further increases the distance to formal employment. It is this complex set of relations coordinating people’s doings that produce the employability of Roma inhabiting the rural segregated communities.

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