Metaphor, Precedence and the Poetics of Social Life: Papers in Honour of James J. Fox
Convenors: Kathryn Robinson, Australian National University; Greg Acciaioli, University of Western Australia
Panel description: James J. Fox has made an enduring contribution to the understanding of Austronesian social relations and culture through his work on ritual language and social classification in Roti and on the understanding of structures of precedence in the wider Austronesian world. His articles and books have ranged across issues of symbolic classification and dualism, metaphor, ritual language, concepts of locality, and architectural idioms, especially as these are related to social ordering and the dynamics of precedence, a term his work elevated into a major tool of analysis for understanding Austronesian social structure, reconceptualising the study of alliance and descent in eastern Indonesia and beyond. This panel seeks to extend these analytics by inviting papers that address these themes. This panel is intended not only to display the influence of Professor Fox’s work on these issues, itself only part of his legacy, but also to survey new developments in these fields. Papers that explicitly build upon the contributions of Professor Fox are sought, as well as those that pose critiques and complementary modes of analysis that engage with these themes.
Abstracts
Thomas Reuter, Monash University - Difference, Equality and the Austronesian Approach to Life
Kathryn Robinson, Australian National University - Binary Oppositions and Gender Power in Indonesia
Mark S. Mosko - Australian National University - The Fractal Yam: Fractal Recursion and Agency in the Trobriands
Ian Keen, Australian National University -Time in Yolngu Djang'kawu songs
Tom Therik with Lintje Pellu, Australian National University - Christianity Hymns in Rotinese Taste: Local Efforts to Translate Rotinese Culture into Christian Belief
Jeffrey Sissons, Victoria University of Wellington - Meeting Houses and the Materialisation of Maori Society
