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.
Author(s): Holger Jebens
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 336
City: Honolulu
Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique • Holger Jebens
PART I: AGAINST CARGO
2. Cargo Cult at the Third Millennium • Lamont Lindstrom
3. Dissolving the Self-Other Dichotomy in Western “Cargo Cult” Constructions • Elfriede Hermann
4. Neither Traditional nor Foreign: Dialogics of Power and Agency in Fijian History • Martha Kaplan
PART II: EXPANDING THE FRAMEWORK
5. Mutual Hopes: German Money and the Tree of Wealth in East Flores • Karl-Heinz Kohl
6. Violence and Millenarian Modernity in Eastern Indonesia • Nils Bubandt
7. Government, Church, and Millenarian Critique in the Imyan Tradition of the Religious (Papua/Irian Jaya, Indonesia) • Jaap Timmer
PART III: CARGO AS LIVED REALITY
8. Encountering the Other: Millenarianism and the Permeability of Indigenous Domains in Melanesia and Australia • Robert Tonkinson
9. Talking about Cargo Cults in Koimumu (West New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea) • Holger Jebens
10. From “Cult” to Religious Conviction: The Case for Making Cargo Personal • Stephen C. Leavitt
PART IV: COMPARISON AND CRITIQUE
11. Cargo and Cult: The Mimetic Critique of Capitalist Culture • Doug Dalton
12. Work, Wealth, and Knowledge: Enigmas of Cargoist Identifications • Ton Otto
13. Thoughts on Hope and Cargo • Vincent Crapanzano
14. On the Critique in Cargo and the Cargo in Critique: Toward a Comparative Anthropology of Critical Practice • Joel Robbins
References
Contributors
Index
