Common Worlds and Single Lives: Constituting Knowledge in Pacific Societies (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781859731642)

In Pacific societies, local knowledge, which has been accumulated over thousands of years and is irreplaceable, is rapidly disappearing. With the extinction of languages, the ability to observe and interpret the world from varying perspectives is also being lost. At the same time, an enormous body of knowledge about nature, plants and animals is vanishing. However, in parallel with this, the people of the Pacific are confronted with new modes of knowledge and newly introduced technologies through imported educational systems, missions of various denominations, and the media. They do not passively assimilate this knowledge but adopt, adapt, and apply it in a syncretistic way.These changes will have permanent effects on the individual lives of people in the region and their knowledge about themselves and their surrounding 'world'. This stimulating book tracks the course of these developments and offers revealing insights into the complexity of Pacific peoples' responses to the process of globalization.

Author: Verena Keck
ISBN-10: 1859731643
ISBN-13: 9781859731642
Publisher: Routledge
Language: English
Published: 11/01/1998
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.30lbs
Size: 8.66h x 5.46w x 0.98d