The Death of a Key Symbol

Authors

  • Christine Dureau

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15286/jps.121.1.11-32

Abstract

Sherry Ortner's concept of key symbols has been a mainstay in symbolic studies since its publication in 1973, but it has been little developed since then. This paper proffers temporality as a significant, but largely overlooked element of some key symbols. A case study of an old-woman's death on Simbo, Western Solomon Islands, demonstrates how key symbols may emerge and decline rapidly in contexts of uncertainty and political negotiation.

Author Biography

Christine Dureau

Christine Dureau is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology and an Arts Faculty Assistant Dean at the University of Auckland. She has conducted participant observation fieldwork in Simbo, Western Solomon Islands, and with Simbo communities elsewhere in the Solomons. Her current research is focused on New Zealand and
Australian Methodist missionaries to the Solomon Islands, 1903-1968. As a historical ethnographer, her interests include religious change and conversion, colonial cultures and their consequences, kinship relations (particularly notions of motherhood) and the work of the early anthropologist, Arthur M. Hocart.

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Published

2013-05-28

Issue

Vol. 121 No. 1 (2012)

Section

Articles

License

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