Table Of Content

CARGO, CULT, AND CULTURE CRITIQUE CARGO, CULT, AND CULTURE CRITIQUE Edited by Holger Jebens UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI`I PRESS honolulu © 2004 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 09 08 07 06 05 04 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cargo, cult, and culture critique / edited by Holger Jebens. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8248-2814-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8248-2851-8 (pbk.) 1. Cargo cults. 2. Nativistic movements. 3. Melanesia—Religious life and customs. 4. Melanesia—Social life and customs. I. Jebens, Holger. GN472.75.C37 2004 306.6’99925—dc22 2004003470 University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Cover and interior design, and composition by Teresa Bonner. Text in Goudy Old Style and display type in Agenda. Printing and binding by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group. Printed on 60 lb. Sebago Eggshell, 420ppi. Contents Acknowledgments vii 1. Introduction: Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique 1 Holger Jebens PART I: AGAINST CARGO 2. Cargo Cult at the Third Millennium 15 Lamont Lindstrom 3. Dissolving the Self-Other Dichotomy in Western “Cargo Cult” Constructions 36 Elfriede Hermann 4. Neither Traditional nor Foreign: Dialogics of Power and Agency in Fijian History 59 Martha Kaplan PART II: EXPANDING THE FRAMEWORK 5. Mutual Hopes: German Money and the Tree of Wealth in East Flores 79 Karl-Heinz Kohl 6. Violence and Millenarian Modernity in Eastern Indonesia 92 Nils Bubandt 7. Government, Church, and Millenarian Critique in the Imyan Tradition of the Religious (Papua/Irian Jaya, Indonesia) 117 Jaap Timmer PART III: CARGO AS LIVED REALITY 8. Encountering the Other: Millenarianism and the Permeability of Indigenous Domains in Melanesia and Australia 137 Robert Tonkinson 9. Talking about Cargo Cults in Koimumu (West New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea) 157 Holger Jebens 10. From “Cult” to Religious Conviction: The Case for Making Cargo Personal 170 Stephen C. Leavitt PART IV: COMPARISON AND CRITIQUE 11. Cargo and Cult: The Mimetic Critique of Capitalist Culture 187 Doug Dalton 12. Work, Wealth, and Knowledge: Enigmas of Cargoist Identifications 209 Ton Otto 13. Thoughts on Hope and Cargo 227 Vincent Crapanzano 14. On the Critique in Cargo and the Cargo in Critique: Toward a Comparative Anthropology of Critical Practice 243 Joel Robbins References 261 Contributors 283 Index 287 Acknowledgments The texts collected here are revised versions of papers presented at a workshop bearing the same title as this volume and generously sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation (and supported by the Aarhus Univer- sity), which was organized by Karl-Heinz Kohl, Ton Otto, and me and held in November 1999, in Aarhus, Denmark. The workshop, whose title was suggested by Ton Otto, simultaneously marked the conclusion of a three-year research project, which was also generously supported by the Volkswagen Foundation, was supervised by Karl-Heinz Kohl, and in which Otto and I took part. Personally, I wish to thank Karl-Heinz Kohl, without whom neither the research, the workshop, nor this volume would have been possible. CARGO, CULT, AND CULTURE CRITIQUE