Male and female in Abelam society: Opposition and complementarity (New Guinea) [microform]
- Bib ID:
- 3287448
- Format:
- Book and Microform
- Author:
- Losche, Diane Sara Brady
- Description:
- 426 p.
- Summary:
-
The research for this dissertation was done among people of two Abelam villages, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Analyses of interactions between the sexes, covering spatial and social organization, production and reproduction, taboo and magic, postulates that Abelam male/female relations form a paradigm in which neither opposition nor complementary interdependence is paramount; what is crucial is the balance between countervailing tendencies of opposition and identity. Each area studied defines activities exclusively male or female; and those of mutual interdependence in nuclear family are recognized and given pronounced ideological emphasis. While opposition between the sexes is of central structural significance in defining male and female power in politics, production, reproduction and ritual, concurrent are other types of oppositions between individuals in various roles tending to unify cross-sex interests.
For example, oppositions between exchange partners influence husband-wife parameters of domestic production, such that in exchange context men and women tend to perceive identity of interests vis-a-vis other such units to which they are opposed. Also, emphasis on authority/respect relations between elder and younger siblings cross-cuts intersexual oppositions, such that same age grade men and women perceive identity of interests rather than divergence. Spatially, there are areas forbidden access by the other sex and areas where sexual mutuality is emphasized. Productively, the sexes have their own crops, although male crops, yams, are surrounded by an ideology of taboo not surrounding women's crops.
Parturition and lactation are elaborated by taboos in a way that parallels are drawn between women's childbirth activities and male initiation activities. A superficial analysis of magic and taboo structure suggests opposition of male and female domains, but further analysis suggests that besides opposition, nodes of identity, substances and interests are present in certain points of life and seasonal cycles. Emphasis on opposition between the sexes, an important and well studied organizational facet in certain contexts, obscures identity of interests across sex lines, and recognition of mutual interdependence between the sexes in certain roles. Opposition, complementary interdependence and identity are three facets of organization of male/female relations which are of equal importance.
- Notes:
-
- (UnM)AAI8307604
- Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-11, Section: A, page: 3642.
- Thesis (Ph.D.)--Columbia University, 1982.
- Reproduction:
- Microfiche. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International.
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Cultural
- Other authors/contributors:
- Columbia University
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
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Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Unpublished
- Creation date:
- 1982
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