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The Alienations of Murik Men in a Papua New Guinea Modernity

  • Book
  • © 2017

Overview

Authors:
  1. David Lipset

    1. University of Minnesota Twin Cities, St Paul, USA

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  • Develops an innovative theoretical framework that draws from anthropology, literary criticism and psychoanalysis and its central concept is not hegemony but alienation
  • Focuses on how a group of men living in rural and urban Papua New Guinea find themselves estranged both from their own indigeneity as well as from the modernity that encompasses them
  • Contributes to the emerging field of global masculinities

Part of the book series: Culture, Mind, and Society (CMAS)

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xviii
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  2. Introduction: Masculinity, Modernity, Papua New Guinea

    • David Lipset
    Pages 1-25

  3. Dialogics of Masculine Alienation

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 27-27
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    2. Desire in Young Men’s Courtship Stories

      • David Lipset
      Pages 29-55

    3. Marijuana, Youth and Society

      • David Lipset
      Pages 57-77

    4. Mobile Telephony in a Peri-urban Setting

      • David Lipset
      Pages 79-98

  4. In the Time and Space of the Other

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 99-99
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    2. Folk Theater and the Signifier

      • David Lipset
      Pages 101-134

    3. Money and Other Signifiers

      • David Lipset
      Pages 135-163

    4. In the Anthropocene

      • David Lipset
      Pages 165-191

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 193-253
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Keywords

About this book

This book analyses the dual alienations of a coastal group rural men, the Murik of Papua New Guinea. David Lipset argues that Murik men engage in a Bakhtinian dialogue: voicing their alienation from both their own, indigenous masculinity, as well as from the postcolonial modernity in which they find themselves adrift. Lipset analyses young men’s elusive expressions of desire in courtship narratives, marijuana discourse, and mobile phone use—in which generational tensions play out together with their disaffection from the state. He also borrows from Lacanian psychoanalysis in discussing how men’s dialogue of dual alienation appears in folk theater, in material substitutions—most notably, in the replacement of outrigger canoes by fiberglass boats—as well as in rising sea-levels, and the looming possibility of resettlement. 

Reviews

“This is a highly sympathetic account of how an anthropologist can find common kinship in unexpected places, in this case with men in Papua New Guinea facing predicaments that mirror the predicaments of simply being in the world. The view it offers on ... existence encountered as inherently multiple also makes it an unusual and insightful commentary on processes ordinarily understood as (societal) ‘change’.” (Marilyn Strathern, Cambridge University, UK)

“This book combines ... rich ethnography of Murik men with innovative theory, deploying Bakhtin and Lacan. Anchored in decades of research ...it constructs a dialogue ... articulating men’s dual alienation from indigenous and postcolonial masculinities. Analyzing scintillating stories, ... quotidian conversations and theatrical performances, Lipset offers a compelling culmination to his distinctive corpus on Murik masculinities and modernities.” (Margaret Jolly, the Australian National University, Australia)

“[T]his remarkable book point[s] the way toward a vital new phase of ethnographic writing on the painfully liminal situations of many indigenous people in a runaway world.” (Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart, University of Pittsburgh, USA)

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Minnesota Twin Cities, St Paul, USA

    David Lipset

About the author

David Lipset is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, USA. He has done long-term fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. His previous books include Gregory Bateson: Legacy of a Scientist and Mangrove Man: Dialogics of Culture in the Sepik Estuary. 

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