Diverging and merging regimes of historicity along the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea

Datos Bibliográficos

ID19219232
AutoresC Falck (0000-0003-2356-2543, University of Göttingen, autor de correspondencia)
Año2026
Volumen37
Número3
Páginas1-12
Fecha de publicación2026-06-16
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaHistory and Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0275-7206 • E-ISSN: 1477-2612
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02757206.2026.2687556
OpenAlexW7164893228
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas18

Using Hartog’s regimes of historicity as a heuristic device, I analyze three case studies from the Nyaura (West Iatmul) of the middle Sepik to show how different ways of being-in-time interact with and impact on each other. Discussing the ways that Christian and modern regimes of historicity have come to interact with Nyaura ways of being-in-time, I highlight that historicity has a strong practical component and can be analyzed by studying people’s actions during temporal crises. While historicity is usually understood as a singular mode of temporal being and awareness shared by a cultural group, I demonstrate that multiple regimes of historicity can co-exist in the same society and that people may move forth and back between different dominant orders of time. Secondly, I propose that different regimes of historicity are linked to different cosmo-ontological premises and that the (in)commensurability of these premises crucially affects the ways that the Nyaura have come to engage with Christianity and modernity. Finally, I emphasize that humans are historical actors who evaluate and represent the past in relation to individual and collective future aspirations. Thus, I argue that regimes of historicity have to be understood in the context of power relations and politics.

Historicity (philosophy) · New guinea · Pastoralism · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies