Leadership and Change in the Western Pacific
Subtitle: Essays Presented to Sir Raymond Firth on the Occasion of His Ninetieth Birthday (London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology)
Contributors: Raymond William Firth (Editor); Richard Feinberg (Editor); Karen Ann Watson-Gegeo (Editor)
Publisher: Athlone Press
Published: July 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 416
ISBN-13: 9780485195668
Subjects: Anthropology; Social groups & communities; Social Science; Cultural And Social Anthropology; Sociology; Archaeology / Anthropology; Polynesia; Pacific Ocean; General; Anthropology - Cultural; Social change; Anthropology - General; Chiefdoms; Leadership; Political anthropology
Description: The book is an ethnographic and theoretical exploration of the rise of new forms of leadership at community and national levels in the islands of the Western Pacific. Changing definitions, functions and expectations of leaders have followed upon political independence for many new nations in Oceania. Islanders are reworking leadership offices, synthesising traditional and Western models, and drawing on indigenous values and symbols to validate the resulting new structures.

These changes raise basic questions about leadership and tradition and bring new challenges to old debates in Pacific anthropology, explored by the contributors to this volume. Leadership and Change in the Western Pacific is published as a tribute to Sir Raymond Firth, whose classic work on Tikopia has been an inspiration to generations of anthropologists.