Abstract
This article describes an ethnographic project initiated by a group of people in Irupara village, Papua New Guinea (PNG), who for a period between 2001 and 2010 self-identified as ‘historians’. At the forefront of the group’s concerns was a younger generation unfamiliar with the local language names of fish and fishing techniques. I document the collaborative project developed to address a situation perceived as a loss of language, culture, and identity. As well as providing a valuable lexicon in an Austronesian language, the research brings to light important distinctions between recording ‘history’ and ways of recalling and expressing the past commonly referred to as ‘historicity’.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 605-629 |
Number of pages | 25 |
Journal | History and Anthropology |
Volume | 28 |
Issue number | 5 |
Early online date | 2 May 2017 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2017 |
Keywords
- Fish Names
- Historicity
- Language
- Oral History
- Papua New Guinea