Singing it 'Local
The Appropriation of Christianity in the Vula'a Villages of Papua New Guinea
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2174597 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Deborah Van Heekeren (0000-0001-8620-5290, Macquarie University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 44-59 |
| Publication date | 2011-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Canberra Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0314-9099 • E-ISSN: 1740-9314 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14442213.2010.537368 |
| OpenAlex | W1987152028 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 29 |
The Vula'a people of south-eastern Papua New Guinea have been Christians for more than a century. Through a phenomenology of the transformation of their song and dance styles, this paper sheds light on the nature of the engagement between globalising religions and localised practice. It draws attention to the importance of the appropriation of the Polynesian prophet songs (peroveta), initially as part of the process of conversion undertaken by the London Missionary Society, and presently as an expression of local Christian identity that is shaped by ‘traditional’ exigencies. Song connects the living community and extends the bounds of that community to the non-living, promoting an existential plenitude. I argue that the Christian song styles which replaced traditional dances reproduce a distinctly Melanesian ontology. Further, the instrumental position of early Polynesian mission teachers, both as agents for the new religion and their self-representation as geographically distant ‘kin’ of the Vula'a problematises any easy division between the local and the global
Aesthetics · Ancient history · Appropriation · Archaeology · Art · Christianity · Dance · Epistemology · Ethnology · Existentialism · Indigenous · Literature · New guinea · Procession · Singing · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Asian Studies and History · Gender Studies · History · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Philosophy
Why Suyá sing
An Introduction to the Bootstrap
Music Grooves
To eat for another
The Austronesians
Epilogue
The Melanesians of British New Guinea
Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia
The Voice of The Tambaran
The London missionary society pastorate and the emergence of an educated elite in Papua
Feeding Relationship
Poetry, language, thought
A Kind of Mending
Dancing Prophets
Sound and Sentiment
Becoming Sinners
The Gender of the Gift
The Value of Indigenous Music in the Life and Ministry of the Church
Assessing Cultural Anthropology
Linguistic Anthropology
Don't Tell the Crocodile
Continuity Thinking and the Problem of Christian Culture
Introduction
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,4 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2022 (12) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |