Cannibals in Paradise

The Exotic, the Familiar, and the Strange in Ritual and Performance in Vanuatu

Bibliographic Data

ID2226436
AuthorsHugo Deblock (corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume74
Issue4
Pages541-557
Publication date2018-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Anthropological Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0091-7710 • E-ISSN: 2153-3806
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/699944
OpenAlexW2896281057
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited16

Within a framework of politicized revitalization of culture, conceptions of "the real," of authenticity, are omnipresent in Vanuatu. Ancient ritual is reenacted in cultural festivals that take place in several locations throughout the archipelago in a context of cultural revival as well as tourism. Based on fieldwork in Vanuatu in 2008-2009, in this paper I discuss the encounter between the self-declared primitive and the tourist. In a bricolage of ritual that is put on, both the strange and the familiar intervene, in the form of cannibal-as well as paradise-imaginaries. In most islands, this results in different ways of knowing and different discourses, which in turn generate discussions among local people about what it means to revive culture. People negotiate notions of "the real," of the authenticity of their actions, and disagree about whether their culture is familiar or strange to themselves while at the same time offering it to outsiders

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Archipelago · Art · Art history · Bricolage · Context (archaeology · Negotiation · Paradise · Social science · Sociology · Tourism · Visual arts · Anthropology · Culinary Culture and Tourism · History · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs

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