1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910473446303321

Autore

Gillison Gillian

Titolo

She Speaks Her Anger: Myths and Conversations of Gimi Women : A Psychological Ethnography in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea / / by Gillian Gillison

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer Nature Switzerland : , : Imprint : Springer, , 2020

ISBN

9783030493523

3030493520

Edizione

[1st ed. 2020.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xv, 290 pages) : illustrations

Collana

Culture, Mind, and Society, , 2634-517X

Disciplina

306.09953

305.4889912

Soggetti

Ethnopsychology

Psychoanalysis

Ethnology

Anthropology

Sex

Cross-Cultural Psychology

Sociocultural Anthropology

Ethnography

Gender Studies

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Daily Life in an Eastern Highlands Village -- Chapter 3. Portrait of Karapmene -- Chapter 4. Totem and Taboo in the New Guinea Highlands: The Collusion of Sisters and Brothers -- Chapter 5. “Eating the Head of the Child”: Ritual Exchange as Remedy for Crimes of the Mythic Past -- Chapter 6. The Problem with Women -- Chapter 7. The Mother’s Crime and the Cycle of Blame -- Chapter 8. Conclusion: Totem and Taboo Revisited.

Sommario/riassunto

Taking a novel approach that adapts Freud’s theory of the Primal Crime, this book examines a wealth of ethnographic data on the Gimi of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, focusing on women’s lives, myths, and rituals. Women’s and men’s separate myths and rites



may be ‘read’ as a cycle of blame about which sex caused the ills of human existence and is still at fault. However, the author demonstrates that in public rites of exchange in which both sexes participate, men appropriate and subvert women’s usages as a ritual strategy to ‘undo’ motherhood and confiscate children at puberty. In doing so, she reveals how Gimi women both rebel against the male-dominated social order and express understanding of why they also acquiesce. The result of decades of fieldwork, writing and reflection, this book offers an analysis of Gimi women’s complex understanding of their situation and presents a nuanced picture of women in a society dominated by men. It represents an important contribution to New Guinea ethnography that will appeal to students and scholars of psychoanalysis, gender studies, and cultural, social and psychoanalytic anthropology. Gillian Gillison is Associate Professor at the Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Canada.