Research Catalog

Title

Tradition and agency : tracing cultural continuity and invention / edited by Ton Otto & Poul Pedersen.

Publication

Aarhus ; Oakville, CT : Aarhus University Press, ©2005.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Otto, Ton.
• Pedersen, Poul.

Description

355 pages : illustrations, map; 25 cm

Summary

"Twenty years ago, Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger showed in The Invention of Tradition how new governments acquire legitimacy and status by creating "traditional" ceremonies and identities. Their work helped revolutionize the understanding of tradition in anthropology, history and sociology, stimulating an enormous amount of research on invented and imagined traditions." "However, most of this research has focussed on the cultural dynamics of specific local innovations and reactions to global developments. The present anthology seeks to highlight instead just how widespread the invention and revival of traditions is. The individual chapters feature a fascinating series of case studies from Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Australia, and Europe, while the editors provide an overview of how the various discussions address the larger questions of cultural continuity, agency and the use of cultural resources. In the postscript, Terence Ranger offers a complementary perspective by tracing the effects of nationalism, imperialism and globalised exchange on tradition."--Jacket.

Subject

• Politics and culture
• Manners and customs
• Cultural Characteristics
• Tradition
• Begriff
• Ethnologie
• Customs

Genre/Form

Case studies (form)

Note

• "Most chapters derive from papers that were originally presented during the 5th biennial EASA conference in Frankfurt in 1998"--P.8.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index

Contents

Ch. 1. Disentangling traditions : culture, agency and power / Ton Otto and Poul Pedersen -- Ch. 2. Be proud to be Bwile : it is your tribe' : ethnicity, political jubilees and traditions of origins among the Bwile of Zambia / Pierre Petit -- Ch. 3. Tradition invented and inherited in West Africa : a study of Loma cultural identity / Christian Kordt Hojbjerg -- Ch. 4. cow, the cheese and the anthropologist : the revival of traditional practices in rural France / Denis Chevallier -- Ch. 5. Padanian identity : ethnogenesis as a political strategy / Pietro Scarduelli -- Ch. 6. Cherishing the nation's time and space : Lithuanian identity and the maintenance of tradition / Andreas Roepstorff and Ausra Simoniukstyte -- Ch. 7. On the genealogy of Sasi : transformations of an imagined tradition in Eastern Indonesia / Nils Bubandt -- Ch. 8. 'Ol i kam long hul bilong Wotnana' (they come from the hole of Wotnana) : how a Papua New Guinean artefact became traditional / Roberta Colombo Dougoud -- Ch. 9. 'No matter that modern world' -- an aboriginal approach to a polychronic past : a case study from Northern Australia / Britta Duelke -- Ch. 10. politics of indigenous -- or ingenious -- tradition : some thoughts on the Australian and New Zealand situation / Erich Kolig -- Postscript / Terence Ranger.

ISBN

• 8779341381
• 9788779341388

LCCN

• 2006296825
• 9788779341388

OCLC

• ocm60613533
• 60613533
• SCSB-8801618

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library