Karen Brison
Books | Articles
Karen Brison
in Rakiraki, Fiji |
Karen Brison (B.A., McGill and Ph.D., University of California at San Diego)
specializes in political anthropology, the study of language and culture and the study of childhood. Her most recent research is in
Fiji where she and her husband
Stephen Leavitt also run a term abroad. In Fiji she studied the acquisition of gender roles in children's play. For her two years of doctoral research (1984-1986), she lived and did
research in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. She has published a book on oratory and village
politics based on that research. Prof. Brison has a continuing interest in ethnic and national identity in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and in other
Pacific Island nations.
Email: brisonk@union.edu
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Books
Our Wealth is Loving Each Other: Self and Society
in Rakiraki Fiji
By Karen J. Brison, Lexington Books,
2007
Book
description: Our Wealth is Loving Each Other explores the
fluid and context-bound nature of cultural and personal identity among
indigenous Fijians. While national identity in Fiji
is usually defined in opposition to the West through reference to a romanticized
pre-modern tradition, individual Fijians are often more concerned with defining
their identity vis-à-vis other villagers and other groups within Fiji. When
people craft self accounts to justify their position within the indigenous
Fijian community they question and redefine both tradition and modernity.
Modernity on the margins is an experience
of anxiety provoking contradictions between competing ideologies, and between
international ideologies and local experiences. Indigenous Fijians have been
exposed to international ideologies and government programs extolling to virtues
of “pre-modern” communities that place communal good and time honored tradition
over individual gain. But other waves of policy and rhetoric have stressed
individual achievement and the need to “shake” individuals out of community
bonds to foster economic development. Individuals feel contradictory pressures
to be autonomous, achieving individuals and to subordinate self to community and
tradition. Our Wealth examines traditional kava ceremonies, evangelical
church rhetoric and individual life history narratives, to show how individuals
draw on a repertoire of narratives from local and international culture to
define their identity and sense of self. In kava ceremonies, rural villagers
assert that they are the guardians of a sacred village-based tradition, in order
to win respect and support from urban relatives and indigenous Fijians from
other areas of the country. In evangelical churches, people try to define new
ways of being properly Fijian involving demonstrating commitment to community
and God while downplaying traditional rank. In life history narratives of
individuals in a variety of positions in village draw on different aspects of
traditional ideology so as to justify their own life choices. Everyone responds
to a common set of tensions caused by contradictions within international
ideologies and gaps between local realities and extra-local ideology. But
individuals position themselves differently relative to competing ideologies as
they refract through idiosyncratic life circumstances, leading to creative,
hybrid, reformulations of both indigenous tradition and global modernity.
Order this book from Amazon
Just Talk: Gossip, Meetings, and Power in a Papua New Guinea
Village
by Karen J. Brison, University of California Press, 1992.
Just Talk examines the often overlooked role of gossip and rumor in creating power in
small Melanesian communities. The Kwanga of the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea
think that malicious gossip is almost as dangerous as sorcery. They spend several hours a week in
community meetings where they look into rumors about sorcery, adultery, and other sources of
potential trouble. Public debates seldom resolve problems. Instead, over the years public and
private discussions generate layer upon layer of stories, which, though regarded by the community
as plausible but unprovable " just so stories," have an insidious effect in defining situations and
shaping reputations. To understand how " talk" can create and ultimately destroy the position of
Melanesian leaders, Karen Brison follows discussions of particular situations over time and
suggests that gossip and rumor are just as central to shaping and shifting power relations as are
the public meetings which are more often studied.
Kwanga community leaders build reputations by hinting that they are the confidants of sorcerers
able to kill those who challenge the authority of male cult initiates. Such talk creates the
impression that these individuals are very powerful and that all initiated men should be feared, yet
at the same time it endangers trust in surface impressions and leads to alarmist rumors. So, while
ambitious individuals try to define situations in such a way as to further their own goals and
enhance their own reputations, they cannot fully control the impact of their own words.
Ultimately, the same men who build reputations through gossip and innuendo find themselves
victimized in turn by malicious gossip.
Brison's innovative discussion reflects a broader concern with the role of words in constructing
social reality. Just Talk suggests that our understanding of both Melanesian leadership
and the power of words is greatly enhanced by attention to gossip and rumor: words are
dangerous weapons that can have consequences the original speaker neither anticipated nor
desired.
Order this book
from University of California Press
Coping with Bereavement: Long-Term Perspectives on Grief and
Mourning
edited by Karen J. Brison and Stephen Leavitt, American Anthropological Association, vol.23,
no.4, 1995
The cross-cultural study of mourning offers promising ground for exploring the relationship
between culture and emotional experience. Researchers have documented the profound feelings
of grief, anger, and fear that accompany losses everywhere, suggesting that there is a "core
grieving
process" that occurs across cultures. At the same time there is considerable evidence that cultural
beliefs that influence the meaning of death, and funerary practices that govern the expression of
emotion can radically alter people's emotional reaction to bereavement.
The articles in this issue address the relationship between cultural beliefs and the experience of
mourning in cultures as diverse as the Yucatan Maya of Mexico, the Toraja of Sulawesi,
Indonesia, the Midwestern United States, and the Bumbita Arapesh and Kwanga of Papua New
Guinea.
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Articles
- 2001
- Crafting Sociocentric Selves in Religious Discourse in Rural Fiji. Ethos 29:453-74.
- Constructing Identity through Ceremonial Language in Rural Fiji.
Ethnology 40:309-27.
- 1999
- Hierarchy in the World of Fijian Children.
Ethnology 38:97-120.
- Imagining a Nation in Kwanga Village Courts, East Sepik Provice, Papua New Guinea. Anthropological Quarterly 72:74-94.
- 1998
- Giving Sorrow Words: Shifting Politics of Bereavement in a Papua New Guinea Village.
Ethos 26:363-86.
- 1996
- Becoming Savage: Hegemony and Identity in an East Sepik Village.
Anthropology and Humanism 21(1).
- 1995
- You Will Never Forget: Narrative, Bereavement, and World View Among
Kwanga Women. Ethos 23:84-90.
- (with Stephen Leavitt) Coping With Bereavement: Long Term Perspectives on Grief and
Mourning. Ethos 23:84-90.
- Changing Constructions of Masculinity in a Sepik Society. Ethnology 34:155-175.
- 1993
- Organizing the Social Flow in a East Sepik Village. In Migrations and
Transformations. Edited by Andrew Strathern and Gabrielle Sturzenhofecher. University of Pittsburgh Press.
- 1991
- Community and Prosperity: Social Movements in a Papua New Guinea
Village, The Contemporary Pacific 3:325-355.
- 1989
- All Talk and No Action?: Saying and Doing in Kwanga Meetings. Ethnology
28:97-125. Reprinted in: Anthropological Approaches to Politics, Frank McGlynn and Arthur
Tuden.eds. pp.106-129. University of Pittsburgh Press.
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