Nzari’s objects in the 21st century: Materiality, emotions, and female agency in the Lower Ramu region of Papua New Guinea
This essay explores the interplay between materiality, emotions, and female agency in the Bosmun area, located at Papua New Guinea’s Lower Ramu River. The material forms that I address by means of an emotion-focused materiality approach relate to a prominent mythical heroine called Nzari. Following...
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| I publikationen: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jso, |
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| Materialtyp: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Språk: | Anglais |
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Journal de la société des océanistes
2018
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| Länkar: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sammanfattning: | This essay explores the interplay between materiality, emotions, and female agency in the Bosmun area, located at Papua New Guinea’s Lower Ramu River. The material forms that I address by means of an emotion-focused materiality approach relate to a prominent mythical heroine called Nzari. Following local cosmology, Nzari gave women the markers of female identity that are universally considered respected and powerful insignia: fire, clay pots, wooden bowls, paddles, and clubs. Nzari’s story and the associated female power thus materializes in a number of objects. Due to wider societal transformations in contemporary Papua New Guinea, Bosmun women today enact emotions, agency, and power in complex and sometimes ambivalent ways in relation to “Nzari’s objects.” While some of the contents, meanings, and practices relating to these objects have been devalued, the objects themselves do not lose their agency since women continue to emotionally engage with them while making sense of a changing cultural world. |
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