{"title":"Bruce M Knauft","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"exchanging-the-past-book-bruce-m-knauft-9780226446349","title":"Exchanging the Past","description":"Twenty years ago, the Gebusi of the low-land Papua New Guinea rainforest had one of the highest homicide rates in the world. Bruce M. Knauft found then that the killings stemmed from violent scape-goating of suspected sorcerers. But by the time he returned in 1998, homicide rates had plummeted, and Gebusi had largely disavowed vengeance against sorcerers in favor of modern schools, discos, markets, and Christianity. In this book, Knauft explores the Gebusi's encounter with modern institutions and highlights what their experience tells us more generally about the interaction between local peoples and global forces. As desire for material goods grew among Gebusi, Knauft shows that they became more accepting of and subordinated by Christian churches, community schools, and government officials in their attempt to benefit from them - a process Knauft terms \"recessive agency.\" But the Gebusi also respond actively to modernity, creating new forms of feasting, performance, and music that meld traditional practices with Western ones, all of which Knauft documents in this fascinating study.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49507325214993,"sku":"GOR013112494","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53336305959185,"sku":"NGR9780226446349","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0226446344.jpg?v=1750876471"},{"product_id":"genealogies-for-the-present-in-cultural-anthropology-book-bruce-m-knauft-9780415912648","title":"Genealogies for the Present in Cultural Anthropology","description":"This work critically evaluates a range of perspectives that implicate culture, power, and representation in anthropology and examines how cultural anthropology can remain both ethically committed and ethnographically rigorous.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49801178382609,"sku":"CIN0415912644VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50351166030097,"sku":"CIN0415912644G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52484602167569,"sku":"NLS9780415912648","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0415912644.jpg?v=1751166313"},{"product_id":"gebusi-book-bruce-m-knauft-9780072972634","title":"The Gebusi","description":"What is it like for a native people of the rainforest to confront features of a modern world? In 1980-82, the Gebusi of Papua New Guinea held elaborate ritual dances and spirit seances, practiced alternative sexual customs, and endured a very high rate of violence. By 1998, however, most Gebusi had been willingly transformed by Christian conversion, schooling, market activity, disco music, sports leagues, and local government. This book vividly portrays both the traditions and the dramatic changes of Gebusi society and culture. Written especially for students, the account uses personal stories and ethnographic examples to connect developments among Gebusi to topics that are widely considered in anthropology courses, including comparative features of subsistence, kinship, economics, politics, religion, gender, ethnicity, and nationalism.The author lived among the Gebusi for several years, on two occasions. His account of his experience with these fascinating people aims to illustrate issues and topics prominent in undergraduate anthropology courses; provide a dramatic, personal, and well-written story of cultural transformation; and unfold the relation between so-called traditional customs and so-called modern ones. His goal in publishing the ethnography is 'to let the Gebusi come alive to readers, to portray their past and their present, and to connect their dramatic changes with those in my own life and those in contemporary anthropology'.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50761439904017,"sku":"CIN0072972637G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51415471096081,"sku":"CIN0072972637VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0072972637.jpg?v=1751036022"},{"product_id":"south-coast-new-guinea-cultures-book-bruce-m-knauft-9780521418829","title":"South Coast New Guinea Cultures","description":"The communities of south coast New Guinea were the subject of classic ethnographies, and fresh studies in recent decades have put these rich and complex cultures at the centre of anthropological debates. Flamboyant sexual practices, such as ritual homosexuality, have attracted particular interest. In the first general book on the region, Dr Knauft reaches striking new comparative conclusions through a careful ethnographic analysis of sexuality, the status of women, ritual and cosmology, political economy, and violence among the region's seven major language-culture areas. The findings suggest new Melanesian regional contrasts and provide for a general critique of the way regional comparisons are constructed in anthropology. Theories of practice and political economy as well as post-modern insights are drawn upon to provide a generative theory of indigenous social and symbolic development.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52128161497361,"sku":"NLS9780521418829","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521418829.jpg?v=1757489678"},{"product_id":"south-coast-new-guinea-cultures-book-bruce-m-knauft-9780521429313","title":"South Coast New Guinea Cultures","description":"The communities of south coast New Guinea were the subject of classic ethnographies, and fresh studies in recent decades have put these rich and complex cultures at the centre of anthropological debates. Flamboyant sexual practices, such as ritual homosexuality, have attracted particular interest. In the first general book on the region, Dr Knauft reaches striking new comparative conclusions through a careful ethnographic analysis of sexuality, the status of women, ritual and cosmology, political economy, and violence among the region's seven major language-culture areas. The findings suggest new Melanesian regional contrasts and provide for a general critique of the way regional comparisons are constructed in anthropology. Theories of practice and political economy as well as post-modern insights are drawn upon to provide a generative theory of indigenous social and symbolic development.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52332467159313,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52332467650833,"sku":"NLS9780521429313","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521429313.jpg?v=1758151737"},{"product_id":"genealogies-for-the-present-in-cultural-anthropology-book-bruce-m-knauft-9780415912631","title":"Genealogies for the Present in Cultural Anthropology","description":"This work critically evaluates a range of perspectives that implicate culture, power and representation in anthropology, and examines how cultural anthropology can remain both ethically committed and ethnographically rigorous.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52522012213521,"sku":"NLS9780415912631","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53489920147729,"sku":"NIN9780415912631","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780415912631.jpg?v=1760574353"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-bruce-m-knauft.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}