Unfolding the Moon
Subtitle: Enacting Women's Kastom in Vanuatu
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: January 2003
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 232
ISBN-13: 9780824825355
Subjects: Australasian & Pacific history: postwar, from c 1945 -; Social & cultural anthropology; Women's studies; c 1980 to c 1990; Vanuatu; Social conditions; Social Science; Gender Studies; Sociology; Women; Anthropology - General; Feminism & Feminist Theory; Women's Studies - General; Textile fabrics; Women in development
Description: "Unfolding the Moon is a lucid and engaging account of a quiet but crucial transformation in the status of women in Vanuatu. In the first decades after independence in 1980, kastom - ingenous knowledge and practice - became a key marker of ni-Vanuatu identity.

Long used as a unifying force against the Anglo-French expatriates by leaders of the independence movement, kastom was almost entirely concerned with men: women were effectively excluded from participating in arts festivals, cultural programs, and other new national events. Then in 1991 the Vanuatu Cultural Centre initiated a project that focused on women's knowledge and skill in producing plaited pandanus textiles (mats) on the island of Ambae in north Vanuatu.

This acknowledgment that "women have kastom too," widely welcomed by rural ni-Vanuatu, was an important step in establishing women's kastom."--BOOK JACKET.