Japanese Journal of Cultural Anthropology
Online ISSN : 2424-0516
Print ISSN : 1349-0648
ISSN-L : 1349-0648
Associated Practices and Segmented Meaning : The Funerary Use of Shell Money in the Tolai Society of Papua New Guinea(<Special Theme>Accountabilities: An Inquiry into Orders of Things and Humans)
Juntaro FUKADA
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2009 Volume 73 Issue 4 Pages 535-559

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Abstract

In the Tolai society of Papua New Guinea, shell money called tabu is used for a wide range of purposes, such as the payment of bride money, taxes, school tuition, or admission fee to secret societies. How is it possible to understand a situation when one currency acquires different sets of meaning and performs effective roles? In order to approach that question, this paper draws on a theoretical perspective developed in the field of ethnomethodology. Ethnomethodological studies have argued that things and practices constitute a particular set of meaning in a way that is publicly comprehensible and "accountable" to participants. For instance, shells become a kind of currency if participants coordinately view and account them as such. It is not necessary, according to the ehnomethodological framework, to presuppose that things and practices have their own innate meaning; instead, their meaning is always observable and publicly comprehensible. As long as there is a certain degree of shared, not separate, understanding, or as long as things and practices exist in a publicly ordered, recognizable and accountable configuration, their meaning will arise. The notion of the context provides an important insight in analyzing conditions under which a particular situation becomes accountable. Things and practices are considered meaningful when situated within their relevant contexts. (For example, shells are recognized as medium of exchange when placed in a context of purchasing goods). In the field of economic anthropology, it has been assumed that the context exists prior to the practices people perform, as if it were shaping them with its predetermined order and goal. Economic anthropologists have often used a spatial metaphor of "spheres," which suggests that the context, as expressed in the language of "spheres," exists in a way spatially detached and excluded from actual practices and people who perform them. By contrast, this paper argues that the context does not exist in isolation from or prior to practices. It rather emphasizes the continual process in which practices form the context as one of its components. Things and practices indeed acquire their effective meaning when situated in a particular context; at the same time, such context is generated and made visible by individual practices. (Shells are recognized, for instance, as a medium of exchange only within a context of purchasing goods, but people would recognize the situation as a context of commercial trade only when shells are exchanged for goods). This paper will demonstrate the reflexive, generative process in which the currency is transformed into an accountable object endowed with a specific set of meaning while its contexts and practices generate accountable meaning for one another. My analysis will focus on the funerary use of tabu in the Tolai society. At the time of a funeral, the Tolai people use tabu in different settings as a way to mark their respect to the deceased, display their wealth, maintain their kin ties, or even purchase ice cream to quench their thirst. I will describe the method and process through which each practice of using tabu, situated within its relevant context, gradually acquires effective meaning. In my analysis and description, I especially focus on commonalities and differences in "performing" separate practices of using tabu. Subtle differences are observed in the forms of tabu (short/long, untied/bottled/loloi), or in its various treatments (handed in/thrown out, recorded/unrecorded). Depending on whether those subtle "cues" are shared or not, the individual practices of using tabu are associated with, or disassociated from, the events that precede or follow each practice, or the people, things, and places that are related to it. For example, the practice of throwing out tabu on a funeral site, when performed by those wearing

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2009 Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology
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