Week 6 - Life Cycle Writeup

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WEEK 6 - THE LIFE CYCLE WRITEUP

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday Oct. 19 in Taveuni. You should use the next week (including 3 days in the village to try to conduct one more personal interview (as described in last week's handout), to revise your social structure chapters, to finish a draft of your economics chapter, and to read up to page 84 in Body, Self, and Society. If you have time you can also begin a draft of your life cycle chapter to be handed in the following week (Oct. 26 or 27) when we next meet in Rakiraki. For that week, what you do will depend to an extent on the kind of information you now have. But for most of you it will be best to start by describing the cultural marking of the life cycle. This should include:

Basic cultural descriptions of the various important life cycle events in Fiji and how they are celebrated, based on information collected from your informants (but please feel free to quote and cite Ravuvu or any other source that has relevant information to supplement). One logical way to organize this is to start with a general introduction, talking about Fijian priorities regarding the marking of life cycle events, and then go on to give a description of the events in order, from birth to childhood, to marriage, to childbirth and childrearing, to death. NOTE: Remember that the sevusevu is an important element of all rituals so your description should include a description of what goes on in a sevusevu.

A detailed description of one life cycle ritual that you have witnessed, as described in last week's handout. Try to keep in mind the points we handed out last week about writing–use direct quotes and specific examples where possible, strive to make this as interesting as you can. Aim for maybe 10 pages double spaced for this.

The second half of the chapter will deal with interview material you have dealing with life cycle issues. There are several ways you can do this–you can include this kind of material as part of your general description of life cycle events, thus lengthening this section of the chapter, or your can have a separate section dealing, say, with how an individual (as represented by your interview informant) deals with these important life cycle stages as a person. Or you can start a whole new section dealing with how these themes play out in individual lives. The idea here is to find a way to use more personal information. Obviously the topics of this section will vary depending on what you have information on.

To be handed in Tuesday, Oct 19 in Taveuni:

• Fieldnotes, including summaries of personal interviews
• Revised social organization chapter
• Good first draft of economics chapter
• Ideally, first half of life cycle chapter

• Also: read Body Self and Society up to 84

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