This new edition of the critically acclaimed The Fame of Gawa-originally published in 1986-makes available for the first time this important work in paperback. The Fame of Gawa is concerned with fundamental practices of value creation on Gawa, a small island off the southeast coast of mainland Papua New Guinea, the inhabitants of which participate in the long-distance kula shell exchange ring. Integrating various aspects of the study of society and culture--including the sociocultural construction of space and time, self-other relations and the body, and moral and political problems of hierarchy and equality-Nancy D. Munn shows that it is through achieving fame in the wider inter-island world that the Gawan community asserts its own internal viablity.

Concerned with fundamental practices of value creation on Gawa, a small island off the southeast coast of mainland Papua New Guinea

About the Author

Nancy D. Munn is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago.

Reviews
"This is an almost ideal realisation of the twin aims of anthropology and ethnographic writing... This is not just a book about a tiny island, and not just a book for Melanesianists. It coordinates a number of contemporary issues in anthropology." Marilyn Strathern, Man "At once both virtuoso ethnography and a brilliant effort at systematic conceptualization in social theory." George Marcus, Choice "The Fame of Gawa will sit comfortably on the shelf alongside--or perhaps even replace--Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific as a classic of anthropology... [Munn's book] ... masterfully integrates cultural analysis with detailed ethnography." Miriam Kahn, American Anthropologist



Book Information
ISBN 9780822312703
Author Nancy D. Munn
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press