Food and Bodily Fabrication

An alimentary approach to personhood in Papua New Guinea

Bibliographic Data

ID2612396
AuthorsJohanna Louise Whiteley (London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume34
Issue1
Pages42-61
Publication date2009-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSuomen Antropologi Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0355-3930 • E-ISSN: 1799-8972
PublisherSuomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.30676/jfas.v34i1.116494
OpenAlexW4298209367
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited12

This paper exposes the integral role of food within the production of social configurations and the persons who constitute them in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The critical appraisal of current perspectives on food in PNG reveals the necessity of providing a theoretical framework that allows its exchange and consumption to be analysed simultaneously. In order to achieve this, a reconceptualisation of the body as fabricated is undertaken, which in turn, evokes recent attempts to translate 'ontological perspectivism' into Melanesia. Drawing upon this theoretical manoeuvre, an ontologically significant relationship is elucidated between the ingestion of food, bodily transformation, and the production of different 'types' or 'kinds' of person in PNG. The reanalysis of data from existing ethnography reveals how persons throughout this region manipulate both external and internal relations through the exchange and consumption of food in order to activate crucial differentiations between persons. These arguments suggest that food should be elevated as a critical focus in anthropological studies of social processes in PNG, specifically those concerned with the activation of personhood. Keywords: food, ontological perspectivism, bodily transformation, social processes,personhood

Consumption (sociology · Epistemology · Materialism · Personhood · Perspectivism · Social science · Sociology · French Urban and Social Studies · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Philosophy

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access