Kula Ring Research Articles

From Muyuw to the Trobriands: Transformations along the Northern Side of the Kula Ring

From Muyuw to the Trobriands: Transformations along the Northern Side of the Kula Ring

From Muyuw to the Trobriands: transformations along the northern side of the Kula Ring

The Kula Ring is the name given to a regional exchange system among islands off Papua New Guinea. Bronislaw Malinowski's classic research in the Trobriand Islands has described a representative culture of that region; now Frederick Damon examines relationships within and between cultural forms found on Muyuw (Woodlark) Island and the Trobriands to propose that the several societies on the northern arc of the Kula Ring can be viewed as variants or transformations of one underlying structure.

: Death Rituals and Life in the Societies of the Kula Ring . Frederick H. Damon, Roy Wagner.

: Death Rituals and Life in the Societies of the Kula Ring . Frederick H. Damon, Roy Wagner.

Death Rituals and Life in the Societies of the Kula Ring.

Death Rituals and Life in the Societies of the Kula Ring.

Death Rituals and Life in the Societies of the Kula Ring.

Death Rituals and Life in the Societies of the Kula Ring.

Death rituals and life in the societies of the kula ring

Death rituals and life in the societies of the kula ring

Constructing Regional Worlds in Experience: Kula Exchange, Witchcraft and Gawan Local Events

Constructing Regional Worlds in Experience: Kula Exchange, Witchcraft and Gawan Local Events

The ethnography of destabilization: Pacific islanders in the nuclear age

When one thinks of anthropological research in the Pacific, such luminaries as Malinowski, Firth, Fortune and Mead come naturally to mind. Because of the historic twist of fate that caused Malinowski to be stranded in the Trobriands during World War I, we were all enriched by the new ethnography-and especially the revelations about the kula ring--of this century's early anthropological light. Likewise, Fortune's Dobuan sorcerers titillated our images of "the other" in an exotic setting, and Mead's controversial work in Papua New Guinea and Samoa continues to stir heated debate even today. In the immediate post-World War II period, a regiment of applied anthropologists fanned out across the 2,100 islands of Micronesia in what one anthropologist referred to as a "massive ethnographic salvage program2." In what was called the CIMA program ? Coordinated Investigation of Micronesian Anthropology-some 35 anthropologists simultaneously collected data for their Ph.D. dissertations and assisted the Navy Department in the administration of the former Japanese Mandated Islands. According to officialNaval historian Dorothy Richard, the CIMA program (which began in 1947) was intended "to determine precise trends in the local development of governments and to recognize, if possible, incipient conflicts and socially disruptive patterns for correction3." The symbiotic nature of the relationship between the CIMA anthropologists and the U.S. military was captured in the following passage from Goodenough:

Political Implications of Kula Exchange: A Reply to Hage, Harary, and James

Political Implications of Kula Exchange: A Reply to Hage, Harary, and James

Wealth and Hierarchy in the Kula Ring

American AnthropologistVolume 88, Issue 1 p. 108-115 Free Access Wealth and Hierarchy in the Kula Ring Per Hage, Per Hage Department of Anthropology University of UtahSearch for more papers by this authorFrank Harary, Frank Harary Department of Mathematics University of MichiganSearch for more papers by this authorBrent James, Brent James Department of Biostatistics Harvard School of Public HealthSearch for more papers by this author Per Hage, Per Hage Department of Anthropology University of UtahSearch for more papers by this authorFrank Harary, Frank Harary Department of Mathematics University of MichiganSearch for more papers by this authorBrent James, Brent James Department of Biostatistics Harvard School of Public HealthSearch for more papers by this author First published: March 1986 https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1986.88.1.02a00070Citations: 4AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume88, Issue1March 1986Pages 108-115 ReferencesRelatedInformation

The enigma of the kula ring: Gift-exchanges and primitive law and order

There is no such thing there as a free gift. 1 Exchanges are peacefully resolved wars and wars are the result of unsuccessful transactions. 2 As long as ceremonial exchanges continued to take place assurance, that peace prevailed, the linked groups could continue to carry on other mutually advantageous activities, such as trade in ordinary goods … 3

The development of trading networks among spatially separated traders as a process of proto-coalition formation: the kula trade

Our aim in this paper is to look at graph-theoretic and coalition-formation approaches to the development of exchange networks among spatially separated traders. In particular, we shall show: 1. (1) That decentralized trading structures involving bilateral trading with left-hand and right-hand neighbors in a connected ring can, for a certain specified spatial arrangement of traders, be more efficient in minimizing total transportation costs of goods than a centralized market-trading structure; and 2. (2) That an adaptation of a model of sequential proto-coalition formation proposed by Grofman (1982) can be used to predict trade linkages among traders in the Kula ring of the Massing region of Papua New Guinea and to account for the development of the inner ring structure. We shall also briefly discuss how graph theory can be used as a tool to explicate the underlying market structure of a given network of traders.

Cyclical Change and Circular Exchange: A Re‐Examination of the KULA Ring

Students of the modern world have come increasingly to recognize the theoretical importance of shifting the analytical focus from single societies to multiple-society systems (see, e.g., Wallerstein 1974, Friedman 1976). They now sense that the former 'paradigm' gives but a partial view of those macrophenomena, such as capitalist imperialism, that it once was (inter alia) supposed to explain. This major weakness of single-society models is, by extrapolation, also taken to apply when systems of other times and places are being examined (Ekholm and Friedman 1979, Ekholm 1980). Whether our primary concern is modern national states or primitive tribal communities, no understanding of them as closed entities can lay claim to accuracy; a complete model must properly take into account those interdependencies and contacts linking societies together into larger socio-economic wholes. To make a case for a holistic perspective in anthropology along these lines of argumentation, I shall in this paper attempt to reinterpret the data on what is probably the best known exchange system of the primitive world the kula ring among the Massim peoples of eastern New Guinea. If this system is treated as a social totality, and not merely as the expression of local practices, we might expect to find a logic at work that the separate investigation of its individual societies must necessarily omit.

On Ethnographic Authority

Research Article| April 01 1983 On Ethnographic Authority James Clifford James Clifford Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Representations (1983) 2: 118–146. https://doi.org/10.2307/2928386 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation James Clifford; On Ethnographic Authority. Representations 1 April 1983; 2 118–146. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2928386 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRepresentations Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1983 Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Calendars and Calendrical Rites on the Northern side of the Kula Ring

Calendars and Calendrical Rites on the Northern side of the Kula Ring

Conflict, parochialism and social differentiation in Portuguese society

One of the more challenging theoretical problems confronting the anthropologist today is the study of the relations between the units of his investigation-some kind of community-and the units of analysissome larger system of which they are a part. Even tribal societies, where the social and cultural characteristics of one local group tend to be replicated in others of the same tribe, there is often more differentiation than might be imagined. Furthermore, trade, ritual or other relationships between members of different tribes complicate any assumed independence of such units. Thus the kula ring which links the Trobrianders with their neighbors says something indispensable about the structure of the Trobriand society itself; the merbok path about that of certain Australian tribes, etc. In these cases it is relatively easy to trace the significance of this external interaction because it takes place largely in face-to-face situations. It is at least understandable that the anthropologist