Cosmologies in the Making: A Generative Approach to Cultural Variation in Inner New Guinea (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Series Number 64) - Hardcover

Barth, Fredrik

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521342791 ISBN 13: 9780521342797

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1987

Synopsis

All culture, particularly that of non-literate traditions, is constantly being recreated, and in the process also undergoes changes. In this book, Fredrik Barth examines the changes that have taken place in the secret cosmological lore transmitted in male initiation ceremonies among the Mountain Ok of Inner New Guinea, and offers a new way of explaining how cultural change occurs. Professor Barth focuses in particular on accounting for the local variations in cosmological traditions that exist among the Ok people, who otherwise share similar material and ecological conditions, and similar languages. Rejecting existing anthropological theory as inadequate for explaining this, Professor Barth constructs a new model of the mechanisms of change, based on his close empirical observation of the processes of cultural transmission. This model emphasises the role of individual creativity in cultural reproduction and change, and maintains that cosmologies can be adequately understood only if they are regarded as knowledge in the process of communication, embedded in social organization, rather than as fixed bodies of belief. From the model he derives various theoretically grounded hypotheses regarding the probable courses of change that would be generated by such mechanisms. He then goes on to show that these hypotheses fit the actual patterns of variation that are found among the Ok.

About this title

Review

"Barth provides significant theoretical insight into the nature of traditional and cultural variation. His focus on the mechanisms of communication and their effects on cultural symbols and the distribution of knowledge opens up a promising direction for future research." William H. McKellin, Pacific Affairs

Book Description

In this book, Fredrik Barth examines the changes that have taken place in the secret cosmological lore transmitted in male initiation ceremonies among the Mountain Ok of Inner New Guinea, and offers a new way of explaining how cultural change occurs.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521342791
• ISBN 13: 9780521342797
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 112