Niko Besnier's Books

Negotiating Local Subjectivities on the Edge of the Global

By: Niko Besnier

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Negotiating Local Subjectivities on the Edge of the Global

By: Niko Besnier

Annotation. The global interconnections that the twenty-first-century world is experiencing have raised new questions about agency. Some argue that the destabilization of local truths have given rise to new forms of self-understanding that draw on multiple and ungrounded images. These claims must be scrutinized through an examination of agents' everyday negotiations over the meaning of the local and the global, the modern and the traditional. Through an analysis of vignettes from my ethnographic research in two small-scale societies on the edge of global currents, Tonga (South Pacific) and Tuvalu (Central Pacific), I demonstrate that the crafting of the self constitutes a never-ending and always-contested project, in which performance figures prominently as a resource. I propose a research plan for cultural anthropology at the University of Amsterdam that problematizes modernity by focusing, ethnographically and comparatively, on performance as symbolic and material resources for the formation of subjectivity. This title can be previewed in Google Books - http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN9789056294885.

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Amsterdam University Press

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ISBN 10

9056294881

ISBN 13

9789056294885

On the Edge of the Global

Modern Anxieties in a Pacific Island Nation

By: Niko Besnier

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On the Edge of the Global

Modern Anxieties in a Pacific Island Nation

By: Niko Besnier

Life in twenty-first century Tonga is rife with uncertainties. Though the postcolonial island kingdom may give the appearance of stability and order, there is a malaise that pervades everyday life, a disquiet rooted in the feeling that the twin forces of "progress" and "development"—and the seemingly inevitable wealth distribution that follows from them—have bypassed the society. Niko Besnier's illuminating ethnography analyzes the ways in which segments of this small-scale society grapple with their growing anxiety and hold on to different understandings of what modernity means. How should it be made relevant to local contexts? How it should mesh with practices and symbols of tradition? In the day-to-day lives of Tongans, the weight of transformations brought on by neoliberalism and democracy press not in the abstract, but in individually significant ways: how to make ends meet, how to pay lip service to tradition, and how to present a modern self without opening oneself to ridicule. Adopting a wide-angled perspective that brings together political, economic, cultural, and social concerns, this book focuses on the interface between the different forms that modern uncertainties take.

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Page Count

327

Publisher

Stanford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0804777640

ISBN 13

9780804777643

The Anthropology of Sport

Bodies, Borders, Biopolitics

By: Niko Besnier,Susan Brownell,Thomas F. Carter

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The Anthropology of Sport

Bodies, Borders, Biopolitics

By: Niko Besnier,Susan Brownell,Thomas F. Carter

Few activities bring together physicality, emotions, politics, money, and morality as dramatically as sport. In Brazil’s stadiums or China’s parks, on Cuba’s baseball diamonds or Fiji’s rugby fields, human beings test their physical limits, invest emotional energy, bet money, perform witchcraft, and ingest substances. Sport is a microcosm of what life is about. The Anthropology of Sport explores how sport both shapes and is shaped by the social, cultural, political, and historical contexts in which we live. Core themes discussed in this book include the body, modernity, nationalism, the state, citizenship, transnationalism, globalization, and gender and sexuality.

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336

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Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520963814

ISBN 13

9780520963818

Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics

By: Niko Besnier

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Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics

By: Niko Besnier

Although gossip is disapproved of across the world’s societies, it is a prominent feature of sociality, whose role in the construction of society and culture cannot be overestimated. In particular, gossip is central to the enactment of politics: through it people transform difference into inequality and enact or challenge power structures. Based on the author’s intimate ethnographic knowledge of Nukulaelae Atoll, Tuvalu, this work uses an analysis of gossip as political action to develop a holistic understanding of a number of disparate themes, including conflict, power, agency, morality, emotion, locality, belief, and gender. It brings together two methodological traditions—the microscopic analysis of unelicited interaction and the macroscopic interpretation of social practice—that are rarely wedded successfully. Drawing on a broad range of theoretical resources, Niko Besnier approaches gossip from several angles. A detailed analysis of how Nukulaelae’s people structure their gossip interactions demonstrates that this structure reflects and contributes to the atoll’s political ideology, which wavers between a staunch egalitarianism and a need for hierarchy. His discussion then turns to narratives of specific events in which gossip played an important role in either enacting egalitarianism or reinforcing inequality. Embedding gossip in a broad range of communicative practices enables Besnier to develop a nuanced analysis of how gossip operates, demonstrating how it allows some to gain power while others suffer because of it. Throughout, he is particularly attentive to the ways in which anthropologists themselves are the subject and object of gossip, making his work a notable contribution to reflexive social science. Written in an engaging and accessible style, Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics will appeal to students and scholars of political, legal, linguistic, and psychological anthropology; social science methodology; communication, conflict, gender, and globalization studies; and Pacific Islands studies.

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266

Publisher

University of Hawaii Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0824833570

ISBN 13

9780824833572

Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics

By: Niko Besnier

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Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics

By: Niko Besnier

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265

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University of Hawaii Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0824862694

ISBN 13

9780824862695

Tuvaluan

A Polynesian Language of the Central Pacific.

By: Niko Besnier

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Tuvaluan

A Polynesian Language of the Central Pacific.

By: Niko Besnier

Tuvaluan is a Polynesian language spoken by the 9,000 inhabitants of the nine atolls of Tuvalu in the Central Pacific, as well as small and growing Tuvaluan communities in Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia. This grammar is the first detailed description of the structure of Tuvaluan, one of the least well-documented languages of Polynesia. Tuvaluan pays particular attention to discourse and sociolinguistics factors at play in the structural organization of the language.

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689

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

113497471X

ISBN 13

9781134974719

Negotiating Local Subjectivities on the Edge of the Global

By: Niko Besnier

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Negotiating Local Subjectivities on the Edge of the Global

By: Niko Besnier

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Amsterdam University Press

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ISBN 10

9056294881

ISBN 13

9789056294885

The Anthropology of Sport

Bodies, Borders, Biopolitics

By: Niko Besnier,Susan Brownell,Thomas F. Carter

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The Anthropology of Sport

Bodies, Borders, Biopolitics

By: Niko Besnier,Susan Brownell,Thomas F. Carter

Few activities bring together physicality, emotions, politics, money, and morality as dramatically as sport. In Brazil's stadiums or parks in China, on Cuba's baseball diamonds or rugby fields in Fiji, human beings test their physical limits, invest emotional energy, bet money, perform witchcraft, and ingest substances, making sport a microcosm of what life is about. The Anthropology of Sport explores not only what anthropological thinking tells us about sports, but also what sports tell us about the ways in which the sporting body is shaped by and shapes the social, cultural, political, and historical contexts in which we live. Core themes discussed in this book include the body, modernity, nationalism, the state, citizenship, transnationalism, globalization, and gender and sexuality"--Provided by publisher.

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336

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520289013

ISBN 13

9780520289017

Literacy, Emotion and Authority

Reading and Writing on a Polynesian Atoll

By: Niko Besnier

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Literacy, Emotion and Authority

Reading and Writing on a Polynesian Atoll

By: Niko Besnier

In this study Niko Besnier analyzes the transformation of the Polynesian community of Nukulaelae from a nonliterate into a literate society, using a contemporary perspective that emphasizes literacy as a social practice embedded in a socio-cultural context. His case study, which has implications for understanding literacy in other societies, illuminates the relationship between norm and practice, between structure and agency, and between group and individual.

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Page Count

256

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521480876

ISBN 13

9780521480871

Tuvaluan

A Polynesian Language of the Central Pacific

By: Niko Besnier

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Tuvaluan

A Polynesian Language of the Central Pacific

By: Niko Besnier

The first detailed description of the structure of Tuvaluan, one of the least well-documented languages of Polynesia.

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1378

Publisher

Psychology Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0415024560

ISBN 13

9780415024563

Edith Amituanai

Double Take

By: Edith Amituanai,Ane Tonga,Anna Miles,Haruhiko Sameshima,Niko Besnier,Christina Barton

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Edith Amituanai

Double Take

By: Edith Amituanai,Ane Tonga,Anna Miles,Haruhiko Sameshima,Niko Besnier,Christina Barton

This publication, and the exhibition it accompanies, is the first to survey Edith Amituanai’s photographic practice. In images spanning 2003 to the present, Amituanai shares her experiences of life as a first-generation New Zealand-born Sāmoan, presenting portraits of people and places from her home in Ranui, West Auckland to her homeland of Sāmoa, to the scattered sites of Pacific diaspora from Christchurch, New Zealand to Montpellier, France, and Anchorage, Alaska. These prove her empathy and engagement, confounding photography’s reputation as an organ of control and objectification. In this volume, Haruhiko Sameshima calls Amituanai a ‘village photographer’. This term aptly captures her commitment to record events and occasions as an embedded chronicler working for her community; it also encompasses the notion that her’s is a global village connected by her lens and through her ready embrace of social media. The images brought together speak to the multiple realities that exist both here and across the world that expand our presumptions about who ‘we’ in Aotearoa are and what constitutes ‘home’"--Publisher's website.

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143

Published Date

ISBN 10

1877309435

ISBN 13

9781877309434

Book's by Niko Besnier

Negotiating Local Subjectivities on the Edge of the Global

Negotiating Local Subjectivities on the Edge of the Global

On the Edge of the Global

On the Edge of the Global

The Anthropology of Sport

The Anthropology of Sport

Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics

Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics

Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics

Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics

Tuvaluan

Tuvaluan

Negotiating Local Subjectivities on the Edge of the Global

Negotiating Local Subjectivities on the Edge of the Global

The Anthropology of Sport

The Anthropology of Sport

Literacy, Emotion and Authority

Literacy, Emotion and Authority

Tuvaluan

Tuvaluan

Edith Amituanai

Edith Amituanai

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