This book analyses the dual alienations of a coastal group rural men, the Murik of Papua New Guinea. David Lipset argues that Murik men engage in a Bakhtinian dialogue: voicing their alienation from both their own, indigenous masculinity, as well as from the postcolonial modernity in which they find themselves adrift. Lipset analyses young mens elusive expressions of desire in courtship narratives, marijuana discourse, and mobile phone usein which generational tensions play out together with their disaffection from the state. He also borrows from Lacanian psychoanalysis in discussing how mens dialogue of dual alienation appears in folk theater, in material substitutionsmost notably, in the replacement of outrigger canoes by fiberglass boatsas well as in rising sea-levels, and the looming possibility of resettlement.
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"This is a highly sympathetic account of how an anthropologist can find common kinship in unexpected places, in this case with men in Papua New Guinea facing predicaments that mirror the predicaments of simply being in the world. The view it offers on ... existence encountered as inherently multiple also makes it an unusual and insightful commentary on processes ordinarily understood as (societal) 'change'." (Marilyn Strathern, Cambridge University, UK) "This book combines ... rich ethnography of Murik men with innovative theory, deploying Bakhtin and Lacan. Anchored in decades of research ...it constructs a dialogue ... articulating men's dual alienation from indigenous and postcolonial masculinities. Analyzing scintillating stories, ... quotidian conversations and theatrical performances, Lipset offers a compelling culmination to his distinctive corpus on Murik masculinities and modernities." (Margaret Jolly, the Australian National University, Australia) "[T]his remarkable book point[s] the way toward a vital new phase of ethnographic writing on the painfully liminal situations of many indigenous people in a runaway world." (Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart, University of Pittsburgh, USA)
David Lipset is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, USA. He has done long-term fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. His previous books include Gregory Bateson: Legacy of a Scientist and Mangrove Man: Dialogics of Culture in the Sepik Estuary.
