REVIEW ARTICLE: Maurice Godelier in the Company of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Emmanuelle Loyer

ABSTRACT

This article takes the occasion of the publication of two lengthy volumes about the life and work of Claude Lévi-Strauss to assess certain elements of Maurice Godelier’s Marxist encounter with structuralism. While providing an overall view of each book, and the way they speak to each other, I also explore particular dimensions of Godelier’s engagement with Lévi-Strauss, including in relation to Godelier’s attempt to introduce psychoanalysis into his Marxist-structuralist equations. Four broad themes are addressed: the horizontal and vertical dimensions of kinship as alliance and descent; domination and the so-called ‘exchange of women’; Godelier’s limited appeal to Freud, especially in relation to his near occlusion of Lacan; and Godelier’s ‘suspicious’ humanist relationship to sacred belief as ideological illusion. This last matter leads to a concluding section which, drawing on Loyer’s biography, contrasts Godelier’s version of late Enlightenment humanism with what was arguably the more radically expanded humanism of the mature Lévi-Strauss.     

Book Reviews*

The Dialectics of Social Life. By Robert F. Murphy Stone Age Economics. By Marshall Sahlins Disconcerting Issue: Meaning and struggle in a resettled Pacific community. By Martin G. Silverman. Social Consequences of Resettlement: The impact of the Kariba resettlement upon the Gwembe Tonga. By Elizabeth Colson Immigration and Social Change: Agricultural settlement of new immigrants in Israel. By Dov Winteraub The Rope of MOka: Big-Men and Ceremonial Exchange in Mount Hagen, New Guinea. By Andrew Strathern We, the Navigators. By David Lewis A Residence of Eleven Years in New Holland and the Caroline Islands. By James F. O'Connell Sir William MacGregor. By R. B. Joyce Australia in New Guinea. By Lucv P. Mair Bridge and Barrier: The Natural and Cultural History of Torres Strait. Edited by D. Walker O1 Tumbuna. Archaeological excavations in the Eastern Central Highlands, Papua New Guinea. By J. Peter White Woman's Role in Aboriginal Society. Edited by Fay Gale Daisy Bates. By Elizabeth Salter Rice and Man: agricultural ecology in Southeast Asia. By Lucien M. Hanks Mythology. Edited by Pierre Maranda Environment and Archeology. By Karl W. Butzer In the Shadow of Man. By Jane Van Lawick Goodall Man and His Ancestors. By Alan Houghton Brodrick The Dawn of Man. By Vincent Megaw and Rhys Jones Anthropology Today.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: The Garia: An Ethnography of a Traditional Cosmic System in Papua New Guinea. By Peter Lawrence Talk Never Dies: The Language of Huli Disputes. By Laurence Goldman The First Taint of Civilization. A History of the Caroline and Marshall Islands in Pre-Colonial Days, 1521–1885. By Francis X. Hezel The Island States of the Pacific and Indian Ocean: Anatomy of Development. Edited by R.T. Shand Micronationalist Movements in Papua New Guinea. Edited by R.J. May The Political Economy of Fiji, Jay Narayan The Lost World of Irian Jaya. By Robert Mitton The Filipino Nation. Edited by Jim Haskins Tongan Society at the time of Captain Cook's Visits: Discussions with Her Majesty Queen Salote Tupou. By Elizabeth Bott with the assistance of Tavi Sexual Antagonism, Gender, and Social Change in Papua New Guinea. Edited by Fitz John P. Poole and Gilbert H. Herdt Sorcery and Social Change in Melanesia. Edited by Marty Zelenietz and Shirley Lindenbaum Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality. Edited by S.B. Orner and H. Whitehead. Muslim Women. Edited by Freda Hussain Women In Islamic Societies: Social Attitudes and Historical Perspectives. By Bo Utas Mothering in Greece: From Collectivism to Individualism. By Mariella Doumanis Mother Worship: Theme and Variations. By James J. Preston Mothers At Work. Public Policies in the United States, Sweden, and China. By Carolyn Teich Adams and Kathryn Teich Winston Language-The Loaded Weapon. The use and abuse of language today. By Dwight Bolinger The History of the Fijian Languages. By Paul A. Geraghty A Grammar of Manam. By Frantisek Lichtenberk Ethnography and language in Educational Settings. Edited by Judith Green and Cynthia Wallat Language Planning: An Introduction. By Carol M. Eastman The Ethnography of Communication. An Introduction. By Muriel Saville-Troike Forms of Talk. By Erving Goffman Native Language and Foreign Language Acquisition. Edited by Harris Winitz Racism and Colonialism. Essays on Ideology and Social Structure. Edited by Robert Ross Village Communities and the State. Changing Relations Among the Maka of South-Eastern Cameroon since the Colonial Conquest. By Peter Geschiere Old Modes of Production and Capitalist Encroachment. Edited by Wim van Binsbergen and Peter Geschiere Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule. A South Indian Case. By Arjun Appadurai. Development and Underdevelopment in Historical Perspective: Populism, Nationalism and Industrialization. By Gavin Kitching Culture and Sericulture. Social Anthropology and Development in South Indian Livestock Industry. By S.R. Charsley Essays on Linguistics. Language, Systems and Structures. By Members of the Institute of Linguistics.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson. The Origin and Evolution of Cultures Zohl dé Ishtar. Holding Yawulyu: White Culture and Black Women's Law Donald Denoon. A Trial Separation: Australia and the Decolonisation of Papua New Guinea Sarah F. Green. Notes from the Balkans: Locating Marginality and Ambiguity on the Greek‐Albanian Border Holger Jebens. Pathways to Heaven: Contesting Mainline and Fundamentalist Christianity in Papua New Guinea Verena Keck. Social Discord and Bodily Disorders: Healing among the Yupno of Papua New Guinea Hotze Lont. Juggling Money: Financial Self‐help Organizations and Social Security in Yogyakarta Fiona Magowan and Karl Neuenfeldt (eds). Landscapes of Indigenous Performance: Music, Song and Dance of the Torres Strait and Arnhem Land David McKnight. Of Marriage, Violence and Sorcery: The Quest for Power in Northern Queensland B. J. Parker and L. Rodseth (eds). Untaming the Frontier in Anthropology, Archaeology and History Alexei Yurchak. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More     

The Logic of Misplaced Concreteness: Paiela Body Counting and the Nature of the Primitive Mind

The paper has two goals: to demonstrate ethnographically the connection between "structure" and communication, which Lévi-Strauss has consistently alleged to exist, and to challenge the thesis of Hallpike's book , The Foundations of Primitive Thought, that primitive thought reflects an "incomplete," unsophisticated logic .
The paper focuses on the counting system of the Paiela, a highland Papua New Guinea group. It argues that Paiela counting behavior is best analyzed as an element in a complex communication process. The logic of Paiela counting behavior is then the logic of the encompassing process: a communicational logic founded on concepts such as information and pattern. According to some theorists, the relationship between this logic and the logic that informs Western science is metalogical and dualistic. Paiela thought is thus revealed to be based on a complete and sophisticated alternative logic, a science among sciences. [Papua New Guinea, counting behavior, communication]     

Characterization of population structure from the mitochondrial DNA vis‐à‐vis language and geography in Papua New Guinea

Situated along a corridor linking the Asian continent with the outer islands of the Pacific, Papua New Guinea has long played a key role in understanding the initial peopling of Oceania. The vast diversity in languages and unique geographical environments in the region have been central to the debates on human migration and the degree of interaction between the Pleistocene settlers and newer migrants. To better understand the role of Papua New Guinea in shaping the region's prehistory, we sequenced the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region of three populations, a total of 94 individuals, located in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. We analyzed these samples with a large data set of Oceania populations to examine the role of geography and language in shaping population structure within New Guinea and between the region and Island Melanesia. Our results from median‐joining networks, star‐cluster age estimates, and population genetic analyses show that while highland New Guinea populations seem to be the oldest settlers, there has been significant gene flow within New Guinea with little influence from geography or language. The highest genetic division is between Papuan speakers of New Guinea versus East Papuan speakers located outside of mainland New Guinea. Our study supports the weak language barriers to genetic structuring among populations in close contact and highlights the complexity of understanding the genetic histories of Papua New Guinea in association with language and geography. Am J Phys Anthropol 142:613–624, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Rimbunan Hijau versus the World Bank and Australian Miners: Print Media Representations of Forestry Policy Conflict in Papua New Guinea

This article reviews some recent print media representations of Papua New Guinea's changing sense of its regional place by an analysis of debates over forestry policy. While mining and forestry both destabilise Papua New Guinea's internal structures, forestry also uniquely destabilises its sense of its wider regional affiliation. Malaysian capital dominates Papua New Guinea's forestry sector and this sector is closely associated with corruption, threats to national sovereignty and ecological destruction. Attempts to define a new regional position for Papua New Guinea are linked with Asia. Previously hegemonic Australian interests, and others, challenge these attempts in ways that seemingly draw an often sharply nationalistic distinction between the Malaysian loggers and Papua New Guinea's citizens. Forest policy concerns become key signifiers in arguments about Papua New Guinea's changing sense of national identity and appropriate regional position.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Alan Barnard (ed.) Hunter‐Gatherers in History, Archaeology and Anthropology Jeremy Beckett. A Study of Aborigines in the Pastoral West of New South Wales: 1958 MA Thesis with New Introduction and Preface Roy Ellen. On the Edge of the Banda Zone. Past and Present in the Social Organization of a Moluccan Trading Network Thomas Gibson. And the Sun Pursued the Moon: Symbolic Knowledge and Traditional Authority among the Makassar Michael Goddard. The Unseen City: Anthropological Perspectives on Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea Lynne Hume and Jane Mulcock (eds). Anthropologists in the Field: Cases in Participant Observation Bruce Rigsby and Nicolas Peterson (eds). Donald Thomson: The Man and Scholar Joel Robbins. Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society Rowena Robinson. Christians of India. New Delhi: Sage Publications Gerald Sider. Living Indian Histories: Lumbee and Tuscarora People in North Carolina Monique Skidmore. Karaoke Fascism: Burma and the Politics of Fear Jenny B. White. Money Makes Us Relatives: Women's Labor in Urban Turkey Katharine L. Wiegele. Investing in Miracles: El Shaddai and the Transformation of Popular Catholicism in the Philippines     

Contributions to the Cladocera fauna from Papua New Guinea

Twenty-eight taxa of the Cladocera are identified in collections from Papua New Guinea, 17 being new records for New Guinea, bringing the total number of Cladocera taxa reported for this region to 39. Most of the taxa are circumtropical. One species (Sarsilatona papuana) is endemic to Papua New Guinea and northern Australia. The species list includes two species that are normally listed as Holarctic:Alonella nana andAlona rustica. Widespread genera such asDaphnia, Pleuroxus, Disparalona, Acroperus were strikingly absent from the Papua New Guinean material.     

Corsets,Culture and Contingency: Reflections on Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock1

This article turns an anthropological sensitivity onto a literary text from its own society. It takes Joan Lindsay's novel ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ and ‘reads’ it in the light of ideas prominent in recent anthropological writings (the ideas of Lévi-Strauss are particularly used): it also articulates an interpretation by using notions current in modern literary and cultural analysis. The article points out that Lindsay's text has most commonly been interpreted as being about mysterious natural forces injurious to man. Whilst the text explores the disjunction between nature and culture, the article interprets the text as exploring the nature of cultural institutions and cultural processes.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: The Destruction of Aboriginal Society. Outcasts in White Australia. The Remote Aborigines. By C. D. Rowley Chariots of the Gods? By Erich von Daniken Archaeology of the Gallus Site, Koonalda Cave. Edited by R. V. S. Wright Fighting with Food. Leadership, values and social control in a Massim society. By Michael W. Young One Father, One Blood. Descent and Group Structure Among the Melpa People. By Andrew Strathern Crocodile and Cassowary: Religious Art of the Upper Sepik River, New Guinea. By Douglas Newton Papua New Guinea. Prospero's Other Island. Edited by Peter Hastings The Human Aviary. A Pictorial Discovery of New Guinea. By George Holton and Kenneth E. Read A Revised Linguistic Survey of Australia. Edited by W. J. Oates and Lynette F. Oates Notes on the Bandjalang Dialect Spoken at Coraki and Bungawalbin Creek, N.S.W. By Nils M. Holmer Papers on the Languages of Australian Aboriginals. Contributions by B. J. Blake A Partial Vocabulary of the Ngalooma Aboriginal Tribe. By Harold Aubrey Hall Dating Techniques for the Archaeologist. Edited by Henry N. Michael and Elizabeth K. Ralph The Aborigine Today. Edited by B. Leach. Paul Hamlyn     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Anthropology in Papua New Guinea. Edited by lan Hogbin Politics in New Guinea. Traditional and in the Context of Change: Some Anthropological Perspectives. Edited by Ronald M. Berndt and Peter Lawrence Alternative Strategies for Papua New Gulnea. Edited by A. Clunies Ross and J. Langmore Baegu: Social and Ecological Organisation in Malaita, Solomon Islands. By Harold M. Ross The South Sea Islanders and the Quensland Labour Trade. By William T. Wawn. Edited by Peter Corris The Australian Aborigines. By B. A. L. Cranstone Hunters of the Northern Forest. By Richard K. Nelson Tahitians, Mind and Experience in the Society Islands. By Robert I. Levy Ancient Polynesian Society. By Irving Goldman Ilocano Rice Farmers. By Henry T. Lewis La course de pirogues au Laos: an complexe culturel. By Charles Archaimbault The Character of Kinship. Edited by Jack Goody Population Growth: Anthropological Implications. Edited by Brian Spooner Researches into the Physical History of Man. By J. C. Prichard. Edited by G. W. Stocking Human Origins. By D. Weitzman and R. E. Gross Communicating Across Time and Space. By D. Weitzman and R. E. Gross     

The Incorporated What Group: Ethnographic,Economic and Ideological Perspectives on Customary Land Ownership in Contemporary Papua New Guinea

Land law and economic development in Papua New Guinea, by David Lea and Timothy Curtin. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, UK, 2011, 207pp. ISBN: 9-781443-826518.

The incorporated land group (ILG), created by the Land Group Incorporation Act (1974) in Papua New Guinea, was one of a number of results of the 1971 Committee of Inquiry into Land Matters that convened in Papua New Guinea just before Papua New Guinea independence in 1975. It allowed for the legal incorporation of customary land-holding groups and was designed to promote business and cash-earning opportunities in rural Papua New Guinea in the post-independence period of nation- and citizen-building.

In more recent times, the ILG however has been put under considerably more strain by being forced to acquire functions that were not envisioned by its architects in 1971—namely the receipt, distribution and investment of incomes from resource extraction projects. The ILGs set up by various resource projects (most significantly in the petroleum project areas of PNG) have all run into various and severe difficulties in meeting these requirements of resource income management and business development on a scale not ever anticipated in 1971. Using examples from Papua New Guinea's petroleum project area and elsewhere, I cast doubts on the capacities of contemporary indigenous landowning units to make incorporation work for them in the face of current organization and financial challenges.     

Three new Indo-Australian species of the sciaenid genusAtrobucca,with a reevaluation of generic limit

Three new species of the sciaenid genusAtrobucca are described:A. kyushini from off Borneo, differs from all known congeners in having no swimbladder appendages enveloplng the bladder, no forward directed branches from the ventral limbs of the appendages, a long tube-like last appendage parallel to the bladder wall and a pale mouth lining;A. brevis from off northern Australia and Papua New Guinea, is distinguished by its short pectoral fin (less than 23% SL) and pleural rib on the 11th vertebra;A. adusta from Papua New Guinea, is distinctive in having a low dorsal soft ray number (23–24) and long caudal peduncle (27–30% SL).Atrobucca Chu, Lo et Wu is redefined to accommodate the new species: the genus is principally characterized by the swimbladder appendages divided into developed dorsal and ventral limbs, and the only slightly curved sulcus tail of the sagitta. A key and diagnoses are provided for all known species ofAtrobucca.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: M. Auge and C. Herzlich (eds). The Meaning of Illness. Stanley R. Barrett. Anthropology: A Student's Guide to Theory and Method. Steen Bergendorff. Faingu City: A Modern Mekeo Clan in Papua New Guinea. Ben Burt. Living Tradition: A Changing Life in Solomon Islands. As told by Michael Kwa'ioloa to Ben Burt. Ann Game and Andrew Metcalfe. Passionate Sociology. Matthew C. Gutmann. The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City. Edvard Hviding. Guardians of Marovo Lagoon: Practice, Place and Politics in Maritime Melanesia. Bernard Juillerat. L'Avènement du Père. Rite, représentation, fantasme dans un culte mélanésian. L. Kendall. Getting Married in Korea: Of Gender, Morality, and Modernity. M. Lock. Encounters with Aging: Mythologies of menopause in Japan and North America. Daniel Miller. Capitalism: An Ethnographic Approach. Alcida Rita Ramos. Sanuma Memories: Yanomami Ethnography in Times of Crisis. Stanley J. Tambiah. Leveling Crowds: Ethnonationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Ecrits. A Selection. By Jacques Lacan. Translated from the French by Alan Sheridan Structuralism and Since. From Lévi-Strauss to Derrida. Edited by John Sturrock     

Why Alewai village needed a church: Some reflections on Christianity,conversion, and male leadership in south‐east Papua New Guinea

In the Vula'a villages of south‐east Papua New Guinea, the experience of more than a century of Christianity has been incorporated into local understandings of identity and tradition. Church‐building (in both the architectural and ideological sense) is at the centre of village life. Even though it was a general policy of the London Missionary Society to build a church in every village in which conversion was undertaken, they did not build a church in the Vula'a village of Alewai. In 2001 the fact that Alewai did not have a church initiated a chain of events that draws attention to a situation of current relevance for Papua New Guinea, as evangelists no longer work to convert the ‘heathen’ but to convert Christians from one denomination to another. As a case study the article is focused on the pastors and deacons of the United Church and thus also serves to document some of the changes that have occurred in male leadership since the early colonial era.     

Bound Blood: Paiela `Conception‘ Theory Interpreted

While aboriginal populations have been widely reported to entertain magico-religious beliefs concerning conception, the Paiela of the Papua New Guinea Highlands apparently do not. Semen, it is thought, must wrap around menstrual blood many times to keep it from ‘coming outside’ if the woman is to conceive. Bound blood forms the foetus. This seemingly naturalistic view is herein examined for its symbolic content. Uaiela ‘conception’ theory, it is argued, reflects not natural but social structural processes. It constitutes a complex statement, in a metaphoric mode, about the logically prior social arrangements in which conception is embedded and through which sexual reproduction becomes organized. Paiela ‘conception’ theory is revealed to be much broader in its range of competence than Western conception theory; and its relationship to Lévi-Strauss' Elementary Structures of Kinship is explored at the close.     

Etolo hunting performance and energetics

Analyses of nearly 3000 hr of hunting for mammals by Etolo people of Papua New Guinea reveal that older hunters were more successful than younger hunters, that increased success was due, in large part, to higher rates of capture for only two of 24 prey species, and that access to a good hunting dog accounted for the increase in rate of capture for one of these two species. A comparison of Gadio Enga and Rofaifo mammal hunting with that of Etolo reveals a marked decline in energy and protein yields with increase of altitude. This is attributed to altitudinal changes in the composition of the available fauna within Papua New Guinea and to reinforcing effects from increased human population density.