Cobo and tabua in Fiji: Two forms of cultural currency in an economy of sentiment
Andrew Arno,
Andrew Arno
Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai'i, Honolulu, HI 96822, [email protected]
Search for more papers by this author
Andrew Arno,
Andrew Arno
Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai'i, Honolulu, HI 96822, [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorABSTRACT
Cultural currency, defined in performance terms, is a highly specific medium for the deployment of sentiment in community life, and it can be usefully compared with varieties of material currency. Sentiment, as a cultural system, is an intellectual rather than a material property, and, like all property, it is defined by social relationships and obligations. Cultural currencies are performances that are constrained in use by meaning and identity, rather than by physical possession. Research on the cobo and tabua in Fiji represents an ethnographic case study of cultural currency that has implications for investigating the relationships among culture, sentiment, property, and mode of production generally.
References
- Arno, Andrew 1976a Joking, Avoidance, and Authority: Verbal Performance as an Object of Exchange in Fiji. Journal of the Polynesian Society 85(1): 71–86.
- Arno, Andrew 1976b Ritual Reconciliation and Conflict Management in Fiji. Oceania 47(2): 49–65.
10.1002/j.1834-4461.1976.tb01263.x Google Scholar
- Arno, Andrew 1985 Impressive Speeches and Persuasive Talk: Traditional Patterns of Political Communication in Fiji's Lau Group from the Perspective of Pacific Ideal Types. Oceania 56(2): 124–137.
- Arno, Andrew 1990 Disentangling Indirectly: The Joking Debate in Fijian Social Control. In Disentangling: Conflict Discourse in Pacific Societies. Karen Watson-Gegeo and Geoffrey White, eds. Pp. 241–289. Stanford : Stanford University Press.
- Arno, Andrew 1993 The World of Talk on a Fijian Island: An Ethnography of Law and Communicative Causation. Norwood , NJ : Ablex.
- Arno, Andrew 2002 The Politics of Incommensurability: Localism, Globalism, and Cultural Production in Fiji. In Sights of Contestation: Localism, Globalism, and Cultural Production in Asia and the Pacific. Kwok-Kan Tarn, Wimal Dissanayake, and Terry Siu-Han Yip, eds. Pp. 215–255. Hong Kong : Chinese University Press.
- Arno, Andrew 2003 Aesthetics, Intuition, and Reference in Fijian Ritual Communication: Modularity in and out of Language. American Anthropologist 105(4): 807–819.
- Austin, J. L. 1962 How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press.
- Belshaw, Cyril S. 1964 Under the Ivi Tree: Society and Economic Growth in Rural Fiji. London : Routledge and Kegan Paul.
- Bourdieu, Pierre 1984 Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Richard Nice, trans. Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press.
- Boyle, James 1996 Shamans, Software, and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society. Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press.
- Brown, Michael F. 2003 Safeguarding the Intangible. Cultural Commons, November 2003. Electronic document, http://www.culturalcommons.org/comment-print.cfm?ID=12, accessed June 8, 2004.
- Business Journal of Portland 2003 LeBron James Signs $90M Nike Deal. May 22. Electronic document, http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2003/05/19/daily36.html, accessed June 10, 2004.
- Collins, Randall 1998 The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change. Cambridge , MA : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
- Dominquez, Virginia R. 1986 The Marketing of Heritage. American Ethnologist 13(3): 546–555.
10.1525/ae.1986.13.3.02a00100 Google Scholar
- Engels, Frederick 1942 Family, Private Property and the State. New York : International.
- Foster, Robert J. 2002 Materializing the Nation: Commodities, Consumption, and Media in Papua New Guinea. Bloomington : Indiana University Press.
- Gomes, Lee 2001 In Your Face! MS Open Source Attacks Backfire. Wall Street Journal, June 13. Electronic document, http://zdnet.com.com/210011530058.html, accessed June 12, 2004.
- Gomes, Lee 2004 To Judge Recent Attack on Linux's Origins, Consider the Source. Wall Street Journal, June 14: B1.
- Haas, William 1964 Semantic Value. Proceedings of the IXth International Congress of Linguists. Pp. 1066–1072. The Hague : Mouton.
- Herbert, Christopher 1991 Culture and Anomie: Ethnographic Imagination in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
- Hickson, Letitia 1979 Hierarchy, Conflict, and Apology in Fiji. In Patterns of Conflict Management: Essays in the Ethnography of Law. Klaus-Friedrich Koch, ed. Access to Justice series, 4: The Anthropological Perspective. Mauro Cappelletti, series ed. Pp. 17–39. Boston : Sijthoff and Noordhoff.
- Holy, Ladislav 1989 Culture, Cognition, and Practical Interaction. Cultural Dynamics 2(3): 265–285.
10.1177/092137408900200301 Google Scholar
- Hidden, Mans 2004 Web's Creator Receives $1.2M: Inventor Honored with 1st Millennium Technology Prize. Honolulu Advertiser, June 16: A15.
- Kaplan, Daniel, and Liz Mullen 2003 Reebok, Adidas Bristle at Report Predicting Nike Deal for James. Business Journal of Portland, March 10. Electronic document, http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2003/03/10/daily1.html, accessed June 12, 2004.
- Kaplan, Martha 2003 Promised Lands: From Colonial Lawgiving to Postcolonial Takeovers in Fiji. In Law and Empire in the Pacific: Fiji and Hawai'i. Sally Engle Merry and Donald Brenneis, eds. Pp. 153–186. Santa Fe , NM : School of American Research Press.
- Katz, Richard 1999 The Straight Path of the Spirit: Ancestral Wisdom and Healing Traditions in Fiji. Rochester , VT : Park Street Press.
- Keane, Webb 1997 Signs of Recognition: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society. Berkeley : University of California Press.
- Kelly, John D. 2003 Gordon Was No Amateur: Imperial Legal Strategies in the Colonization of Fiji. In Law and Empire in the Pacific: Fiji and Hawai'i. Sally Engle Merry and Donald Brenneis, eds. Pp. 61–100. Santa Fe , NM : School of American Research Press.
- Kurin, Richard 2003 Tangible Progress: A Response to “Safeguarding the Intangible” a Cultural Comment Essay by Michael F. Brown. Cultural Commons, December 2003. Electronic document, http://www.culturalcommons.org/kurin.htm, accessed June 8, 2004.
- LiPuma, Edward 1999 The Meaning of Money in the Modern Age. In Money and Modernity. David Akin and Joel Robbins, eds. Pp. 192–213. Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press.
- Luhmann, Niklas 1990 Essays on Self-Reference. New York : Columbia University Press.
- Luhmann, Niklas 1998 Observations on Modernity. William Whobrey, trans. Stanford : Stanford University Press.
10.1515/9781503617230 Google Scholar
- Luhmann, Niklas 2002 Theories of Distinction: Redescribing Descriptions of Modernity. William Rasch, ed. Stanford : Stanford University Press.
- Marcus, George E. 1998 Ethnography of/in the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography. In Ethnography Through Thick and Thin. George E. Marcus. Pp. 79–104. Princeton : Princeton University Press.
- Marcus, George E., and Michael M. J. Fischer 1986 Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
- Marx, Karl 1977 Karl Marx: Selected Writings. David McLellan, ed. New York : Oxford University Press.
- Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels 1991 The German Ideology: Part One with Selections from Parts Two and Three, Together with Marx's “Introduction to a Critique of Political Economy.” C. J. Arthur, ed. New York : International.
- Mauss, Marcel 1967 The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. Ian Cunnison, trans. New York : W. W. Norton.
- Merry, Sally Engle, and Donald Brenneis 2003 Introduction. In Law and Empire in the Pacific: Fiji and Hawai'i. Sally Engle Merry and Donald Brenneis, eds. Pp. 3–34. Santa Fe , NM : School of American Research Press.
- Miyazaki, Hirokazu 2000 Faith and Its Fulfillment: Agency, Exchange, and the Fijian Aesthetics of Completion. American Ethnologist 27(1): 31–51.
- Morgan, Lewis Henry 1964 [1877] Ancient Society. Leslie A. White, ed. Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press.
10.4159/harvard.9780674865662 Google Scholar
- Nayacakalou, Rusiate 1975 Leadership in Fiji. New York : Oxford University Press.
- Nida, E. 1945 Linguistics and Ethnology in Translation Problems. Word 1: 194.
- Parry, Jonathan, and Maurice Bloch 1989 Introduction: Money and the Morality of Exchange. In Money and the Morality of Exchange. Jonathan Parry and Maurice Bloch, eds. Pp. 1–32. New York : Cambridge University Press.
- Pike, Kenneth L. 1967 Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior. The Hague : Mouton.
10.1515/9783111657158 Google Scholar
- Putnam, Robert D. 2000 Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York : Simon and Schuster.
10.1145/358916.361990 Google Scholar
- Qalo, Ropate Rakuita 1997 Small Business: A Study of a Fijian Family—The Mucunabitu Iron Works. Suva , Fiji : Star Printery.
- Quain, Buell 1948 Fijian Village: An Anthropologist's Account of Fijian Institutions, Ethics, and Personalities. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
- Rappaport, Roy A. 1979 Ecology, Meaning, and Religion. Richmond , CA : North Atlantic Books.
- 1999 Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
- Ravuvu, Asesela D. 1987 The Fijian Ethos. Suva , Fiji : Institute of Pacific Studies.
- Robbins, Joel 2001 Ritual Communication and Linguistic Ideology: A Reading and Partial Reformulation of Rappaport's Theory of Ritual. Current Anthropology 42(5): 591–614.
- Robbins, Joel, and David Akin 1999 Introduction to Melanesian Currencies. In Money and Modernity: State and Local Currencies in Melanesia. David Akin and Joel Robbins, eds. Pp. 1–40. Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press.
- Rorty, Richard 1991 Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. New York : Cambridge University Press.
- Rorty, Richard 1992 The Pragmatist's Progress. In Interpretation and Overinterpretation. Umberto Eco, with Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler, and Christine Brooke-Rose. Stefan Collini, ed. Pp. 89–108. New York : Cambridge University Press.
- Searle, John R., and Daniel Vanderveken 1985 Foundations of Illocutionary Logic. New York : Cambridge University Press.
- Simmel, Georg 1950 The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Kurt H. Wolff, ed and trans. New York : Free Press.
- Spate, O. H. K. 1959 The Fijian People: Economic Problems and Prospects. Suva , Fiji : Government of Fiji.
- Thomas, Larry, prod and dir 2001 A Race for Rights. 53 min. Larry Thomas. Suva, Fiji.
- Thomas, Nicholas 1991 Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific. Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press.
10.4159/9780674044326 Google Scholar
- Toren, Christina 1990 Hierarchy: Cognition as Social Process in Fiji. Atlantic Highlands , NJ : Athlone Press.
- Williams, Thomas 1982 [1858] Fiji and the Fijians, vol. 1: The Islands and Their Inhabitants. Suva , Fiji : Fiji Museum.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1958 Philosophical Investigations. Oxford : Basil Blackwell.
10.1023/A:1006262513765 Google Scholar
- Zelizer, Viviana 1994 The Social Meaning of Money. New York : Basic Books.
