Wolfgang Kempf
Biographic Data
| ID | 628234 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Wolfgang Kempf |
| GIVEN NAMES | Wolfgang |
| FAMILY NAME | Kempf |
| SIGNATURE | KEMPF W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Göttingen |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3960-5897 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Historicity and assemblage
In this study, I explore the role and relationship of material and immaterial entities as constituents of a religious movement that emerged in 1930 on the atoll of Onotoa in present-day Kiribati. To this end, I conceptualize the movement as a heterogeneous assemblage, encompassing the interweaving and distributed agency of humans, material settings, and immaterial elements in a variety of historical representations. These historicities cover vari…
Belonging in Oceania
Ethnographic case studies explore what it means to “belong” in Oceania, as contributors consider ongoing formations of place, self and community in connection with travelling, internal and international migration. The chapters apply the multi-dimensional concepts of movement, place-making and cultural identifications to explain contemporary life in Oceanic societies. The volume closes by suggesting that constructions of multiple belongings—and, w…
Introduction
This introduction takes a critical look at the heterogeneous corpus of social science research on climate change and Christian religion. The central concern is to present analytical alternatives to the universalist-essentialising approaches which, on the basis of a supposedly inherent contradiction between science and religion, exclude or devalue Christian contestation and modification of climate change discourse. With reference to the empirical-…
Tsunami Warnings
The inhabitants of Kiribati, an atoll state in the Central Pacific, have long been confronted with scientific scenarios of sea-level rise, inundation and displacement as a result of climate change. This article focuses on the nexus of climate change and tsunamis. While most I-Kiribati are well aware of the difference between tidal waves, caused primarily by earthquakes, and climate change impacts, political discourse on climate change and experie…
“Prophecy from the Past”
Pacific Islanders frequently perceive discourses about climate change and what this is going to mean for the Pacific region as imbued with power-especially when statements to that effect involve projections into the future.They clothe their responses to such discourses in various expressive forms.This holds too, in fact especially, for the inhabitants of the State of Kiribati, which is situated in the Central Pacific and often referred to as an a…
Changing Contexts, Shifting Meanings
This book sheds new light on processes of cultural transformation at work in Oceania and analyzes them as products of interrelationships between culturally created meanings and specific contexts. In a series of inspiring essays, noted scholars of the region examine these interrelationships for insight into how cultural traditions are shaped on an ongoing basis.The collection marks a turning point in the debate on the conceptualization of traditio…
Belonging in Oceania
Ethnographic case studies explore what it means to “belong” in Oceania, as contributors consider ongoing formations of place, self and community in connection with travelling, internal and international migration. The chapters apply the multi-dimensional concepts of movement, place-making and cultural identifications to explain contemporary life in Oceanic societies. The volume closes by suggesting that constructions of multiple belongings—and, w…
Belonging in Oceania
Climate Change and Human Mobility
'The greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration', stated the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990. Since then there has been considerable concern about the large-scale population movements that might take place because of climate change. This book examines emerging patterns of human mobility in relation to climate change, drawing on a multidisciplinary approach including anthropology and geography. It…
Climate, History, and Culture
Global climate change and its consequences for humankind opens up a research field for exploring the diverse dimensions and forces of change through time. Chief among the objects of inquiry is how climatic shifts impact on ecological and social structures and developments and what human agencies are able to unfold under given conditions. Conclusions from such reciprocities can help to deliver a differentiated approach to the inroads of anthropoge…
Ritual, power and colonial domination
Syncretism - the synthesis of different religious - is a contentious word. Some regard it as a pejorative term, referring to local versions of notionally standard `world religions' which are deemed `inauthentic' because saturated with indigenous content. Syncretic versions of Christianity do not conform to `official' (read `European') models. In other contexts however, the syncretic amalgamation of religions may be validated as a mode of resistan…
Mapping Oceania past and present
Oceania has always been a place of exchanges, of contacs and interactions, in brief of movements. In this session, we have investigated the themes of ancient migration routes through computer simulation; of modes of maritime and terrestrial representations of space; and finally of the dialectic between mobility and enrootedness over the long term and in relation to cultural or colonial hegemony. The primary objective being to question ideas of Oc…
Introduction to Relations in Multicultural Fiji
Focussing on three historically constituted domains of relations of great importance to all inhabitants of the Fiji Islands, this essay draws attention to cultural modalities and political strategies implicated in shaping these. By way of introduction to six papers which together with this preface and an epilogue are presented in the form of a collection, we distinguish three domains of relations: those between past and present; those between peo…
Reconfigurations of Place and Ethnicity
Spatial belonging and ethnic identity among the Banabans resettled on Rabi Island in Fiji are the product of historically and culturally specific articulations and transformations. Such reconfigurations of place and ethnicity, based mainly on enmeshments between the Banabans' new island home, Rabi, and their island of origin in the Central Pacific, Banaba, have let them position themselves as an autonomous community living out a diaspora existenc…
Dreamscapes
Dreams can contribute much to elucidating how cultural conceptualizations of space are variously generated in a historically constituted terrain of power and knowledge. Our treatment focuses on dreams that deconstruct entrenched demarcations between inside and outside, between the local and the global world. Thus it focuses on dreams that elucidate space as a flexible and negotiable construction. These nexi between dream and space we will attempt…
The Politics of Incorporation
In this paper I argue that the way in which masculinity and spatiality are reconstituted among the Ngaing men of Madang Province (Papua New Guinea) is pivotally implicated in how they articulate their ongoing claim to incorporation in modernity. The manner in which they strive for progress is indicative of identifications coupling Christianity and whiteness with the hope of redemption from a condition of blackness, inferiority and marginality. Wi…
A Conciliation of Powers
‘The second coming of the Lord’
The conversion to Christianity in Melanesia has often been accompanied by the expectation of an imminent millennium. The expectation of a comprehensive and almost immediate transformation could be read as an expression of a cultural concept which sees real change as an occurrence premised on discontinuity and resulting in the total transformation of society. In reconsidering a millenarian movement among the Ngaing around 1930, I suggest that, in …
Introduction
This introduction takes a critical look at the heterogeneous corpus of social science research on climate change and Christian religion. The central concern is to present analytical alternatives to the universalist-essentialising approaches which, on the basis of a supposedly inherent contradiction between science and religion, exclude or devalue Christian contestation and modification of climate change discourse. With reference to the empirical-…
Tsunami Warnings
The inhabitants of Kiribati, an atoll state in the Central Pacific, have long been confronted with scientific scenarios of sea-level rise, inundation and displacement as a result of climate change. This article focuses on the nexus of climate change and tsunamis. While most I-Kiribati are well aware of the difference between tidal waves, caused primarily by earthquakes, and climate change impacts, political discourse on climate change and experie…
Changing Contexts, Shifting Meanings
This book sheds new light on processes of cultural transformation at work in Oceania and analyzes them as products of interrelationships between culturally created meanings and specific contexts. In a series of inspiring essays, noted scholars of the region examine these interrelationships for insight into how cultural traditions are shaped on an ongoing basis.The collection marks a turning point in the debate on the conceptualization of traditio…
Climate, History, and Culture
Global climate change and its consequences for humankind opens up a research field for exploring the diverse dimensions and forces of change through time. Chief among the objects of inquiry is how climatic shifts impact on ecological and social structures and developments and what human agencies are able to unfold under given conditions. Conclusions from such reciprocities can help to deliver a differentiated approach to the inroads of anthropoge…
‘The second coming of the Lord’
The conversion to Christianity in Melanesia has often been accompanied by the expectation of an imminent millennium. The expectation of a comprehensive and almost immediate transformation could be read as an expression of a cultural concept which sees real change as an occurrence premised on discontinuity and resulting in the total transformation of society. In reconsidering a millenarian movement among the Ngaing around 1930, I suggest that, in …
A Conciliation of Powers
The Politics of Incorporation
In this paper I argue that the way in which masculinity and spatiality are reconstituted among the Ngaing men of Madang Province (Papua New Guinea) is pivotally implicated in how they articulate their ongoing claim to incorporation in modernity. The manner in which they strive for progress is indicative of identifications coupling Christianity and whiteness with the hope of redemption from a condition of blackness, inferiority and marginality. Wi…
Dreamscapes
Dreams can contribute much to elucidating how cultural conceptualizations of space are variously generated in a historically constituted terrain of power and knowledge. Our treatment focuses on dreams that deconstruct entrenched demarcations between inside and outside, between the local and the global world. Thus it focuses on dreams that elucidate space as a flexible and negotiable construction. These nexi between dream and space we will attempt…
Introduction to Relations in Multicultural Fiji
Focussing on three historically constituted domains of relations of great importance to all inhabitants of the Fiji Islands, this essay draws attention to cultural modalities and political strategies implicated in shaping these. By way of introduction to six papers which together with this preface and an epilogue are presented in the form of a collection, we distinguish three domains of relations: those between past and present; those between peo…
Reconfigurations of Place and Ethnicity
Spatial belonging and ethnic identity among the Banabans resettled on Rabi Island in Fiji are the product of historically and culturally specific articulations and transformations. Such reconfigurations of place and ethnicity, based mainly on enmeshments between the Banabans' new island home, Rabi, and their island of origin in the Central Pacific, Banaba, have let them position themselves as an autonomous community living out a diaspora existenc…
Mapping Oceania past and present
Oceania has always been a place of exchanges, of contacs and interactions, in brief of movements. In this session, we have investigated the themes of ancient migration routes through computer simulation; of modes of maritime and terrestrial representations of space; and finally of the dialectic between mobility and enrootedness over the long term and in relation to cultural or colonial hegemony. The primary objective being to question ideas of Oc…
Ritual, power and colonial domination
Syncretism - the synthesis of different religious - is a contentious word. Some regard it as a pejorative term, referring to local versions of notionally standard `world religions' which are deemed `inauthentic' because saturated with indigenous content. Syncretic versions of Christianity do not conform to `official' (read `European') models. In other contexts however, the syncretic amalgamation of religions may be validated as a mode of resistan…
Climate Change and Human Mobility
'The greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration', stated the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990. Since then there has been considerable concern about the large-scale population movements that might take place because of climate change. This book examines emerging patterns of human mobility in relation to climate change, drawing on a multidisciplinary approach including anthropology and geography. It…
Climate, History, and Culture
Global climate change and its consequences for humankind opens up a research field for exploring the diverse dimensions and forces of change through time. Chief among the objects of inquiry is how climatic shifts impact on ecological and social structures and developments and what human agencies are able to unfold under given conditions. Conclusions from such reciprocities can help to deliver a differentiated approach to the inroads of anthropoge…
Belonging in Oceania
Ethnographic case studies explore what it means to “belong” in Oceania, as contributors consider ongoing formations of place, self and community in connection with travelling, internal and international migration. The chapters apply the multi-dimensional concepts of movement, place-making and cultural identifications to explain contemporary life in Oceanic societies. The volume closes by suggesting that constructions of multiple belongings—and, w…
Belonging in Oceania
Changing Contexts, Shifting Meanings
This book sheds new light on processes of cultural transformation at work in Oceania and analyzes them as products of interrelationships between culturally created meanings and specific contexts. In a series of inspiring essays, noted scholars of the region examine these interrelationships for insight into how cultural traditions are shaped on an ongoing basis.The collection marks a turning point in the debate on the conceptualization of traditio…
“Prophecy from the Past”
Pacific Islanders frequently perceive discourses about climate change and what this is going to mean for the Pacific region as imbued with power-especially when statements to that effect involve projections into the future.They clothe their responses to such discourses in various expressive forms.This holds too, in fact especially, for the inhabitants of the State of Kiribati, which is situated in the Central Pacific and often referred to as an a…
Tsunami Warnings
The inhabitants of Kiribati, an atoll state in the Central Pacific, have long been confronted with scientific scenarios of sea-level rise, inundation and displacement as a result of climate change. This article focuses on the nexus of climate change and tsunamis. While most I-Kiribati are well aware of the difference between tidal waves, caused primarily by earthquakes, and climate change impacts, political discourse on climate change and experie…
Introduction
This introduction takes a critical look at the heterogeneous corpus of social science research on climate change and Christian religion. The central concern is to present analytical alternatives to the universalist-essentialising approaches which, on the basis of a supposedly inherent contradiction between science and religion, exclude or devalue Christian contestation and modification of climate change discourse. With reference to the empirical-…
Belonging in Oceania
Ethnographic case studies explore what it means to “belong” in Oceania, as contributors consider ongoing formations of place, self and community in connection with travelling, internal and international migration. The chapters apply the multi-dimensional concepts of movement, place-making and cultural identifications to explain contemporary life in Oceanic societies. The volume closes by suggesting that constructions of multiple belongings—and, w…
Historicity and assemblage
In this study, I explore the role and relationship of material and immaterial entities as constituents of a religious movement that emerged in 1930 on the atoll of Onotoa in present-day Kiribati. To this end, I conceptualize the movement as a heterogeneous assemblage, encompassing the interweaving and distributed agency of humans, material settings, and immaterial elements in a variety of historical representations. These historicities cover vari…
Political science (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs (9 works) · Geography (8 works) · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration (7 works) · History (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · Climate change (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works)