Research Catalog

Unwrapping Tongan barkcloth : encounters, creativity and female agency

Title: Unwrapping Tongan barkcloth : encounters, creativity and female agency / Fanny Wonu Veys.
Author: Veys, Fanny Wonu
Publication: London ; New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2017.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JFE 17-3596	Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description

xxi, 227 pages, 16 numbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps; 24 cm

Summary

Tongan barkcloth, made from the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree, still features lavishly in Polynesian ceremonies all over the world. Yet despite the attention paid to this textile in exhibitions, by anthropologists and by art historians, very little is known about its history. This book provides a unique insight into Polynesian material culture by exploring the rich cultural history of barkcloth. Arguing that the manufacture, decoration and use of barkcloth are vehicles of creativity and female agency, it places the materiality of textiles at the heart of Tongan culture. Based on extensive ethnographic and archival research over twelve years, Veys uncovers stories of ceremony, gender, the senses, collecting, religion and nationhood, from the 'birth' of barkcloth in the 18th century right up to contemporary Polynesian culture today, revealing not only how Tongans made (and still make) barkcloth, but also how it defines what it means to be Tongan. Extending the study outside of Tonga to explore the place of barkcloth in the European imagination, Veys addresses the museum collections of Tongan barkcloth held worldwide, from the UK to Italy, Switzerland to the USA, addressing the bias of the European 'gaze' and challenging traditional gendered understandings of the cloth.

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references.

Call Number

JFE 17-3596

ISBN

9781474283328
1474283322

LCCN

2016029696

OCLC

957546488

Author

Veys, Fanny Wonu, author.

Title

Unwrapping Tongan barkcloth : encounters, creativity and female agency / Fanny Wonu Veys.

Publisher

London ; New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2017.

Type of Content

text

still image

cartographic image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references.

Research Call Number

JFE 17-3596

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