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Working Session: Imagination and Innovation in Pacific
Oceania Most papers circled around imaginative continuity and creativity as reflected in material culture. Rod Ewins considered how changing criteria of identity are reflected in Fijian bark cloth designs. Katie Glaskin discussed the changing use and re-use of dream-revelations in making Australian Aboriginal religious paraphernalia. Pierre Lemonnier contemplated the role of drums in triggering the imagination in Papua New Guinea. Roger Lohmann explored how products of the imagination are distinguished from products of the senses to decide what is "real" in Papua New Guinea. Heather Miller focused on how material culture variation in Papua New Guinea reflects different imagined affiliations and changing aesthetics. Laurie Zadnik, in absentia, considered how children's clothing on a school dress-up day reflects notions of common nationhood in Papua New Guinea. Six papers were pre-circulated. Five presenters participated in person, plus one in absentia. About 25 people attended; several expressed interest in participating next year. We agreed to pursue continuation next year as a formal symposium. Additional participants are especially welcome (and needed to reach the minimum of seven). To build on the nascent coherence achieved in the working session, all participants should include in their papers emic and/or etic definitions of the session's two key concepts of "imagination" and "innovation," and should incorporate creativity, agency, temporality, cultural change, and material culture and its associated performativity. If, by August 15, 2008, a sufficient number of participants (1) send an abstract, (2) express willingness to complete an advanced paper for pre-circulation by October 30, 2008, and attend the session in Santa Cruz, we will move ahead to symposium. If not, this year's participants will seek publication independently. The proposed symposium's title would be changed, to reflect the new focus on material culture: "Artifacts of Imagination and Innovation in Pacific Oceania." Roger Lohmann, Department of Anthropology, Trent University, 2000 Simcoe St. N., Oshawa, Ontario L1H 7L7 CANADA; <rogerlohmann@trentu.ca> |
