China Books

Chinese artist Zhou Xiaoping arrived in Australia in 1988 and immersed himself in natural and native Australia. The fifty or so pieces in this book have been chosen from over 600 paintings. Some of them have been drawn with Australian native pigments, and in many of them it is possible to smell the aroma of the earth and catch the surging feelings of the painter. It is always fascinating to see how Australia and Australians are viewed and depicted by those who are not resident here or who have come to Australia with fresh eyes. Zhou Xiaoping?s view is a complex mix showing the interaction of one culture with another. (For this item please quote stock ID 3022) ISBN: 9787805011707

[Indent] New Guinea, the world's largest tropical island, is a land of great contrasts, ranging from small glaciers on its highest peaks to broad mangrove swamps in its lowlands and hundreds of smaller islands and coral atolls along its coasts. Divided between two nations, the island and its neighbouring archipelagos form Indonesia?s Papua Province (or Irian Jaya) and the independent nation of Papua New Guinea, both former European colonies. Most books on New Guinea have been guided by these and other divisions, separating east from west, prehistoric from historic, precontact from postcontact, colonial from postcolonial. This is the first work to consider New Guinea and its 40,000-year history in its entirety. The volume opens with a look at the Melanesian region and argues that interlocking exchange systems and associated human interchanges are the 'invisible government' through which New Guinea societies operate. Succeeding chapters review the history of encounters between outsiders and New Guinea's populations. They consider the history of Malay involvement with New Guinea over the past 2000 years, demonstrating the extent to which west New Guinea in particular was incorporated into Malay trading and raiding networks prior to Western contact. The impact of colonial rule, economic and social change, World War II, decolonisation, and independence are discussed in the final chapter. Clive Moore is reader in history and head of the history department at the University of Queensland, Brisbane. (For this item please quote stock ID 21229) ISBN: 9780824824853

[Indent] Focusing on exchange and its underlying ethics, this book explores the concept of the person in the Dobu world view. It examines major aspects of exchange such as labour, mutual support, apologetic gifts, revenge and punishment, kula exchange, and mortuary gifts. It discusses in detail the characteristics of small gifts (such as betel nuts), big gifts (kula valuables, pigs, and large yams) and money as they appear in exchange contexts. The ethnography begins with an analysis of the construct of the Dobu person, and sets out to examine everyday practices and values. The belief system (incorporating witches, sorcerers, and a Christian God) is shown to have a powerful influence on individual conduct due to its panoptic character. The institutions that link Dobu with the outside world are examined in terms of the ideology concerning money: the Church receives offerings for God; the difficulties faced by trade-store owners evince conflicting notions concerning monetary wealth. The last two chapters delve into lived experience in two major domains of Dobu exchange. Kula is presented in the narrative of the journey to Duau, exploring the knowledge that matters for kula traders and experiential sensations that are a motivational factor for engaging in kula. The final chapter, based on the narrative of a sagali feast, examines the ideology of fatherhood in the light of Dobu concepts of love and duty. Susanne Kuhling is assistant professor in anthropology in the Institut fur Enthnologie at Heidelberg University. (For this item please quote stock ID 21281) ISBN: 9780824827311

[Indent] History & Traditions of Rarotonga is the earliest known literary work in the Cook Island Mâori language. Its author, Te Ariki Tara ?Are, was a pre-eminent scholar who recorded the historical traditions of his people in the mid-19th century. This volume allows the historical and literary importance of the work to be appreciated. (For this item please quote stock ID 22686) ISBN: 9780908940035

(For this item please quote stock ID 22866) ISBN: 9787503221170

'Anyone involved in the Pacific region will be interested in this volume, and scholars who follow 'new religious movements' should find it exceptionally provocative' - Nancy McDowell, Beloit College. 'Plays out a very lively debate in contemporary Melanesian anthropology' - Dan Jorgensen, University of Western Ontario Cargo cults have long exerted a remarkable attraction on Westerners, and the last decade has seen the publication of much new work on the subject. This collection of original essays is based on fieldwork in Melanesia, Fiji, Australia, and Indonesia by scholars who are influential in the contemporary debate on cargo. Conceived as a reader for undergraduate and graduate courses, the volume offers an up-to-date view of the subject and the debates it arouses among contemporary anthropologists. Some contributors plead for the abolition of 'cargo' because of its troublesome implications, but also because, in the authors? view, cargo cults do not exist as identifiable objects of study. Others argue that it is precisely this troublesome nature that makes the term a useful analytical tool that should be welcomed rather than rejected. By delineating and substantiating key issues and positions in this lively and ongoing debate, this volume underscores and refines the contemporary reevaluation of cargo cults. Scholars of the Pacific region and others interested in new religious movements should find this volume both enlightening and compelling. Contributors: Nils Bubandt, Vincent Crapanzano, Douglas M. Dalton, Elfriede Hermann, Holger Jebens, Martha Kaplan, Karl-Heinz Kohl, Stephen C. Leavitt, Lamont Lindstrom, Ton Otto, Joel Robbins, Jaap Timmer, Robert Tonkinson. Holger Jebens is research fellow at the Frobenius-Institut at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main. (For this item please quote stock ID 23328) ISBN: 9780824828516

Cargo cults have long exerted a remarkable attraction on Westerners, and the last decade has seen the publication of much new work on the subject. This collection of original essays is based on fieldwork in Melanesia, Fiji, Australia, and Indonesia by scholars who are influential in the contemporary debate on cargo. Conceived as a reader for undergraduate and graduate courses, the volume offers an up-to-date view of the subject and the debates it arouses among contemporary anthropologists. (For this item please quote stock ID 23329) ISBN: 9780824828141

Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication No. 31 Bislama is the national language of Vanuatu, the world's most linguistically diverse nation with at least 80 actively spoken Oceanic languages used by about 200,000 people. Bislama began as a plantation pidgin based on English in the nineteenth century, but it has since developed into a unique language with a grammar and vocabulary very different from English. It is one of very few national languages for which there is no readily available reference grammar. This book aims to fill this gap by providing an extensive account of the grammar of Bislama as it is used by ordinary Ni-Vanuatu. It does not, therefore, aim to describe any kind of artificial written norm but sets out to capture a range of different kinds of ways that Ni-Vanuatu will say things in various contexts, both written and spoken, formal and informal. The thrust of this volume is to show that Bislama has a grammar--an unfamiliar concept for those educated in Vanuatu. It also shows that Bislama is a language of considerable complexity, which will come as a surprise to many of its users, who have been taught to view their language as somehow 'simple' and even 'deficient'. Terry Crowley is professor of linguistics at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. (For this item please quote stock ID 23331) ISBN: 9780824828806

The subject of colonialism encompasses a multitude of analytic concerns about the nature and extent of political controls, economic inequalities, and social hierarchies. Underlying the varied conditions of power and subordination are the diverse, sometimes contested representations of human difference that motivate, support, or question colonial practices and projects. Unstable Images concentrates a critical gaze on this discursive side of colonialism through close readings of a series of Western texts on the people of New Ireland from the 1870s to the 1930s - when the status of the New Ireland-New Britain region changed from precolonial to German control and finally to a League of Nations mandated Australian administration. Brenda Johnson Clay is an adjunct faculty member of the Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky. (For this item please quote stock ID 25232) ISBN: 9780824829162

(For this item please quote stock ID 25472) ISBN: 9787532244263

A survey - both historical and contemporary - of Australian aboriginal life. Profusely illustrated with colour and black and white photographs. (For this item please quote stock ID 26886) ISBN: 9787536676091

(For this item please quote stock ID 27259) ISBN: 9789889925208

(For this item please quote stock ID 21606) ISBN: 9787501214747

Oceania is characterised by thousands of islands and archipelagoes amidst the vast expanse of the Pacific. Although it is one of the few truly oceanic habitats occupied permanently by humankind, surprisingly little research has been done on the maritime dimension of Pacific history. The People of the Sea attempts to fill this gap by combining neglected historical and scientific material to provide the first synthetic study of ocean-people interaction in the region from 1770 to 1870. It emphasises Pacific Islanders' varied and evolving relationships with the sea during a crucial transitional era following sustained European contact. Countering the dominant paradigms of recent Pacific Islands' historiography, which tend to limit understanding of the sea's importance, this volume emphasises the flux in the maritime environment and how it instilled an expectation and openness toward outside influences and the rapidity with which cultural change could occur in relations between various Islander groups. The author constructs an extended and detailed conceptual framework to examine the ways in which the sea has framed and shaped Islander societies. He looks closely at Islanders' diverse responses to their ocean environment, including the sea in daily life; sea travel and its infrastructure; maritime boundaries; protecting and contesting marine tenure; attitudes to unheralded seaborne arrivals; and conceptions of the world beyond the horizon and the willingness to voyage. He concludes by using this framework to reconsider the influence of the sea on historical processes in Oceania from 1770 to the present and discusses the implications of his findings for Pacific studies. Paul D?Arcy lectures in Pacific and environmental history at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia. (For this item please quote stock ID 25202) ISBN: 9780824829599

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. 'An excellent portrait of the travails and contradictions of fieldwork itself ... an unobtrusively profound exploration of the contemporary quandries of rural Papua New Guinea' - Journal of the Polynesian Society 113 (2004) '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' - Richard Scaglion, University of Pittsburgh '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' - Bruce Beehler, Conservation International 'Although a variety of scholars and professional anthropologists will benefit from reading this book, Smith's intended audience is much wider' - The Contemporary Pacific 15 (2003) 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 (1994). (For this item please quote stock ID 25527) ISBN: 9780824826093

Seeking Asian Engagement: Australia in World Affairs, 1991-1995 details the response of the Australian foreign policy making community to the challenges facing the country as it looks to the 21st century. Readership: Undergraduate students of Australia's foreign policy, political science and international relations. Students of Asian Studies. Contents: >Figures & tables >Abbreviations >Contributors >Preface >1 James Cotton & John Ravenhill: Introduction: Australia's Engagement with Asia >2 David Goldsworthy: An Overview >3 Anthony Milner: The Rhetoric of Asia >4 Robert O'Neill: Australia & Asia: A View from Europe >5 Paul Dibb: Australia's Defence Policies in the Post-Cold War Era >6 Graeme Cheeseman: Australia, Disarmament & Arms Control >7 John Ravenhill: Australia & the World Economy 1991-95: Closer Economic Integration with Asia? >8 Stuart Harris: Australia & the International Environment >9 Alan Rix: Japan >10 Nancy Viviani: Australia & Southeast Asia >11 Ann Kent: Australia & China, 1991-1995: Asymmetry & Congruence in the Post Cold War-Era >12 James Cotton: Australia & the Asian Dragons: Beyond the Economic Agenda? >13 Roger Bell: Re-Assessed: Australia's Relationship with the United States >14 Philomena Murray: Australia & the European Union >15 Graeme Gill: Australian Relations with the Former Communist State of Europe & the Soviet Union >16 Ramesh Thakur: Australia & New Zealand: Unequal Partners on the Periphery >17 Greg Fry: Australia & the South Pacific: The Rationalist Ascendancy >Notes >Index (For this item please quote stock ID 6105) ISBN: 9780195540871

(For this item please quote stock ID 18564) ISBN: 9780824820459