Structure and Process in a Melanesian Society : Ponam's Progress in the Twentieth Century

Through its analysis of a Melanesian society (Ponam) and the ways it has changed in the 20th century, this book addresses the relationship between the concern with the structure and logic of social organization, and process, with the fluidity of events and individual strategy.

First Published in 1991. In the 1980s many anthropologists rejected the classic concern with the structure and logic of social organisation and embraced instead a concern with process, with the fluidity of events and individual strategy. Through its analysis of a Melanesian society and the ways it has changed in the twentieth century this book addresses the relationship between the classic structural approach and the more recent processual one. The society analysed is Ponam, located on a small island in Papua New Guinea. The book describes Ponam kinship and ceremonial exchange, and so compliments the authors’'' analysis of Onam economic organisation in ''Wage, Tarde and Exchange in Melanesia''. Like its companion volume, this book locates Ponanm in its broader social, political and economic environment.