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Village on the edge : changing times in Papua New Guinea

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Village on the edge : changing times in Papua New Guinea / Michael French Smith.

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Status	Format	Access	Call number	Item location
Status Request for on-site use Request scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	FormatText	AccessUse in library	Call numberDU740.42 .S66 2002	Item locationOff-site

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Summary

Kragur village lies on the rugged north shore of Kairiru, a steep volcanic island just off the north coast of Papua New Guinea. In 1998 the village looked much as it had some twenty-two years earlier when author Michael French Smith first visited. But he soon found that changing circumstances were shaking things up. Village on the Edge weaves together the story of Kragur villagers' struggle to find their own path toward the future with the story of Papua New Guinea's travails in the post-independence era. Smith writes of his own experiences as well, living and working in Papua New Guinea and trying to understand the complexities of an unfamiliar way of life. To tell all these stories, he delves into ghosts, magic, myths, ancestors, bookkeeping, tourism, the World Bank, the Holy Spirits, and the meaning of progress and development. Village on the Edge draws on the insights of cultural anthropology but is written for anyone interested in Papua New Guinea.

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Contents

Nostalgia, Dreams, Progress, and Development -- Finding Kragur -- The Virgin and the Ancestors -- Food, Money, and the Strangeness of Capitalism -- Money and the Moral Puzzle of Prosperity -- To Papua New Guinea for the World Bank -- Weekend on Kairiru -- Free Ticket to Paradise -- The Key to the Village, Structure, and Strife -- Parish Bureaucracy and the Holy Spirit -- Money -- New Knowledge, New Problems -- Worlds Apart -- Something to Hold on To.

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