Melanesianist Anthropology in the Era of Globalization

Abstract

What is the agenda of Melanesianist anthropology in the era of globalization? I advocate thinking of Melanesia as a site for the ongoing configuration of global flows of images and ideas, capital and commodities, people and technology. The historical and cultural contingencies of this configuration define the specificity of Melanesia. In other words, this configuration defines Melanesia as something less like a fixed geographic location or broad culture area and more like a localized concentration of shifting, not-always-symmetrical social networks within a global web of such networks. Accordingly, a Melanesianist anthropology would ask how social linkages and relationships—old and new—channel a traffic in meaningful forms that is more or less continuous with previous patterns. It would ask, What altered and alternative forms of culture, community, and personhood are emerging at the site called Melanesia? I accordingly propose how a Melanesianist anthropology might evolve by studying the (re)organization of social relationships effected through linkages into unprecedented and large-scale networks. Such an anthropology entails mobile, multi-sited ethnographic research geared toward tracking and tracing global flows as well as intensive, locally committed fieldwork sensitive to the varieties of globalized experience. The paper reviews some of the relevant intellectual resources available to Melanesianist anthropologists and considers the implications of globalization for ethnographic fieldwork.