Languages of Governance in Conflict
Negotiating democracy in Tokelau
1st Edition
Published on 20. March 2015
XXII, 152 pages
978-90-272-6892-1 (ISBN)
Description
Through an ethnographically based study of local communicative practices in the Pacific atoll society of Tokelau, the book adds to our understanding of how systems of governance are constituted by minute acts of social interaction, and are informed by our conceptions of the nature of sociality. It combines a social anthropological approach to postcolonial studies in which local and trans-national communicative practices related to governance and conflict management are analysed as different language games. The book offers an experience-near approach to local modes of conflict management and patterns of leadership, and documents how micro-level communicative practices have an impact on macro-political processes.
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03/2015
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Content
- Languages of Governance in Conflict
- Editorial page
- Title page
- Lcc data
- "Goldilocks Zone"
- A note on names and anonymity
- Table of contents
- Note on linguistic conventions
- Preface
- Conflict
- Presentation of the argument and structure of the book
- The case as presented throughout
- Historical transformations and theoretical perspectives
- Tokelau in the world, Tokelau i te lalolagi
- The approach
- The subject matter
- Acknowledgements
- Languages of governance
- Tokelau: a political background
- Na aho anamua - the days before
- Early contacts
- Changes in leadership institutions
- The "neo-traditional order", migration and transnational relations
- Contemporary politics and the emergence of national institutions
- The political situation from the 1990s to the present: The relationship between Tokelau and New Zealand
- Language games
- A semiotic approach to values
- Languages of governance in conflict
- A conversation with the pastor
- Some underlying principles
- Gender issues: Pastor and wife as role models
- Leadership and forms of sociality*
- Forms of sociality
- Sides and kin
- The brother: Sister relationship
- Kinship, principles and practice
- The dynamics of kaiga: Connecting (fau) through land, and separating by untying (tatala) land
- Kinds of kin: Different types of power and responsibilities
- Generational cohorts and relationships of command and responsibility
- Relationships (va), avoidance and shame (ma)
- Ha (tapu, sacred, forbidden) and va in schoolchildren's conceptions
- Sides and the village
- Ritual moieties
- Making sides, making wholes: Separation and unity
- Conflict management
- Morality, gender and governance
- The case, continued
- Transformations in leadership and political institutions: Effects on conflict management
- Voluntary service abroad and the women's committee (fatupaepae)
- Communicative practice and contested values
- Communicative practice: Underlying values and basic orientations
- Ways of speaking: Expressions of leadership and legitimate authority
- The Tokelauan language situation and intertextuality
- The Tokelauan language
- Use of ergative construction (written report, formal)
- Use of absolutive construction (written report, formal)
- Linguistic skill and exchange of semiotic resources
- Intertextuality
- Information flow, media and scale
- Intertext one
- A news report - and its reception
- Intertext two
- Traces of a missing concept, alofa
- Intertext three
- Learning the principle of "sides" on Facebook
- Intertext four
- On the relationship between people of the land and visitors from overseas
- Disentangling concepts
- Spatial orientations and temporality
- Temporal regimes and the Tokelau life world
- Exploring semantic field s-comparing concepts
- The semantic fields of "growth" and "tupu"
- Traces of polynesian ontology
- "Tupu" in contemporary social context
- Growth and translated/transposed concepts
- The semantic fields of "transparency" and "social visibility"
- The semantic fields of "accountability" and of "keeping inati records"
- Qualitative differences: Genealogical time and audit culture in comparison
- What is at stake - a lesson from material semiotics
- Political Consequences
- "What would happen if I stood up and did the haka?"
- A conflation of spiritual and secular power, and a merging of administrative and political institutions
- How gender came to be a critical factor
- Consequences for the referendum
- One conflict - different approaches to governance
- On the significance of the different conceptions of governance
- Common ground and gaps in communication
- Transformations of governance in the light of conflict management
- How conflicts were handled in the mid-1980s to 1990s
- Governance, concepts of power and legitimate authority
- Local political dynamics viewed as an impediment to progress
- Speeding up
- And slowing down
- Changing media and instruments of communication
- Language games: Two different approaches to conflict management
- Consensus, democracy, containment of conflict and the transnational context
- Future perspectives
- Transformations of leadership institutions and principles of representation
- Main challenges posed by the current political and administrative institutions
- Tokelau in the Pacific and beyond
- Language games: ethnicity versus intertextuality
- Abbreviations
- Tokelauan kinship terms
- Tokelauan words with English glosses
- References
- Index
