You can manage bookmarks using lists, please log in to your user account for this.
Media type:
E-Article
Title:
Melanesian egalitarianism: The containment of hierarchy
Contributor:
Rio, Knut
imprint:
SAGE Publications, 2014
Published in:Anthropological Theory
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1177/1463499614534113
ISSN:
1463-4996;
1741-2641
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
<jats:p>Using Dumont’s analysis of value, this paper discusses the interplay between equality and hierarchy in Ambrym Island, Vanuatu. From this vantage point Melanesian egalitarianism appears to be a dynamic and hybrid form that reproduces itself through tensions between different forms of potential inequality. The discussion is situated within a thoroughly globalized society, where money and Christianity have played a fundamental role for over a century, and where ceremonial displays and exchanges of food are still absolutely central to village life. Those food ceremonies create important material spectacles of sociality, where the exhibition, destruction and distribution of food are part of an ongoing process of submitting potentially hierarchical structures to an ethos of egalitarianism.</jats:p>