(DOWNLOAD) "Retheorizing Mana: Bible Translation and Discourse of Loss in Fiji." by Oceania # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Retheorizing Mana: Bible Translation and Discourse of Loss in Fiji.
- Author : Oceania
- Release Date : January 01, 2006
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 205 KB
Description
More than twenty years ago, Roger Keesing called for anthropologists to rethink their understandings of mana, criticizing the adoption of R.H. Codrington's definition of it as 'supernatural power' expressed in terms of substance (Codrington 1957: 118). Keesing wrote that 'mana as invisible medium of power was an invention of Europeans, drawing on their own folk metaphors of power and the theories of nineteenth-century physics' (Keesing 1984: 148; see also Keesing 1985). Mana, he argued, is a quality, not a medium; a stative verb, not a noun of substance. In making this argument, he echoed mid-century anthropologists such as Raymond Firth, who observed the tendency for mana to become 'a specialized abstraction of the theoretical anthropologist' (Firth 1940: 487), and E.E. Evans-Pritchard, who complained about 'the speculations of such influential writers as Marett and Durkheim, who conceived of [mana] as a vague, impersonal force' (Evans-Pritchard 1965:110). Despite the clarity and persuasivness of the argument, however, a new scholarly theorization of mana has yet to take place. This may partly be the result of intellectual conservatism and partly the result of English grammar. It is difficult to jettison the idea of mana as substantive power, especially when such an idea fits well with intellectualist definitions of 'religion' which have been so prominent and influential in anthropology for the past several decades (e.g. Geertz 1973). Moreover, as Whorf observed about English, 'We are constantly reading into nature fictional acting entities, simply because our verbs must have substantives in front of them' (Whorf 1956: 243). The task of retheorizing mana should be a central one for scholars of Oceanic religions, however, and this article is an attempt to rise to the challenge that Keesing posed: to '[trace] out the development of mana as a concept in time and space, anchoring it in social systems rather than disembodied philosophies' (1984: 153). However the term is translated--I will discuss the Fijian translations at length--its grammar, poetics, and pragmatics can inform debates about power, authority, agency, and responsibility.
 "Retheorizing Mana: Bible Translation and Discourse of Loss in Fiji." by Oceania # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free){kind=link}