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Peoples and Cultures of
the Pacific
Instructor: Mary McCutcheon
Department of Sociology and
Anthropology
George Mason University
Fairfax, Virginia 22030
phone: (703) 993-1457
email: mmccutch@gmu.edu
Texts used:
Quanchi, Max and Ron Adams, Culture
Contact in the Pacific
Smith, Michael French, Hard Times on Kairiru
Island
McCall, Grant, Rapanui
Map Quiz (mandatory 100% grade)
two in-class tests
two papers
-- first on ethnographic background for an island or a
culture -- second on an anthropological problem or
contemporary issue that the island/culture of choice has
exemplified. (I give a long list in class)
Part I Geographic, cultural, prehistoric
and historic background. (I do a lot on linguistics)
Part II Case studies:
Kairiru (good for Melanesian
cosmology, cargo cult ingredients, economic change,
values)
Palau (good for colonial history,
social change, contemporary political and social
problems, stories about ex-patriate communities and
cultural continuity and compromise)
Rapanui (good for popularization of
images, consequences of population growth and politics of
habitat conservation)
Part III Contemporary issues to which the
Pacific has contributed
Habitat conservation
Anti-nuclear movement
Social problems -- drugs, alcohol, suicide and domestic
violence
Emergence from colonialism
Economic development options for the tropics
Comments : If I were doing it again
I wouldn't use Quanchi and Adams. I think I would use Douglas
Oliver and a reader instead, plus Smith and McCall and maybe
other ethnographies.
[Subject: Anthropology; Pacific/Comparative]
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