Serge Tcherkezoff

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and ANU · CREDO and CAP-CHL

Oceania, shortly after being invented by European geographers as the «fifth» region of the world, in other words simply a ‘remnant’ after the four continents, was divided into watertight compartments as a result of the privilege given in the early 19th century to the theory of human ‘races’ in the world. It was not until 1993 that a declaration, no...

Les rencontres entre Océaniens et Occidentaux, depuis les explorations espagnoles du XVIe siècle jusqu’aux périodes coloniales au XIXe siècle, furent marquées par des formes de violence di-verses, tantôt visibles, brutales et immédiates, tantôt durables et plus insidieuses, qui toutes affectèrent les sociétés insulaires de manière irréversible. Ras...

Hierarchy at work on a daily basis: the seating arrangement in a public bus as microcosm. This preprint has foonotes that did not remain in the published text (which is accessible free on line at Journal of Samoan Studies 2019, vol 9.

L’ensemble thématique de ce volume paraît à point nommé. Il souligne à la fois la densité des transformations en cours, qui affecte la position de « chef » dans cette région qu’on appelle Océanie ou Pacifique, et la nécessité de revoir la manière dont l’anthropologie a traité et traite encore cette position sociale. Dans ce qui suit, je m’appuie à...

FREE ACCESS at http://journal.samoanstudies.ws/ Vol 9, 2019. An attempt to examine social relationships in Samoa from a holistic methodological perspective. The social interactions taking place on a Samoan bus, at least for lengthy trips, provide a snapshot of the social relationships characteristic of that society in the years under consideration....

This article is a call to reread Louis Dumont, adressed to all anthropologists, whatever their area of study. Its aim is to reaffirm the importance of the general holistic method proposed by Dumont for the discipline of sociology-anthropology. The following issues are broached: the need to distinguish a methodological holism which can be applied to...

The case in point turns around two words that occur in various Polynesian languages in closely related phonetic (but variously transcribed) forms: toonga, to’onga, taonga, etc. and oloa, koloa, koroa, etc

Kinship, social organisation, definition of groups nuu composing a village-community nuu

Le pluralisme juridique en Nouvelle-Calédonie; discussion sur les notions de culture, coutume, construction d'une société multi-culturelle

This chapter discusses the difficulties involved in explaining the sociocultural paths followed by the “transgender” categories fa'afafine and tomboys in Samoa and proposes another gendered category: girls or women who are said to be born as girls but who come to be viewed as behaving like men at about the same stage in life as when boys become fa'...

Transgender identities and other forms of gender and sexuality that transcend the normative pose important questions about society, culture, politics, and history. They force us to question, for example, the forces that divide humanity into two gender categories and render them necessary, inevitable, and natural. The transgender also exposes a host...

Discussion autour de la société et culture samoane, en général et en rapport aux débats sur la "sexualité" (à la suite du débat "Mead-Freeman"), suivie d'une republication d'un article "Qu'est-ce qu'un acte sexuel, au Samoa occidental"

The article examines the social value of the fine mats of Samoa. These objects do not feature in exhibitions of Pacific art because they appear to exhibit no aesthetic refinement and seem to be reproduced identically each time. And that is true. But their “qualities” in the Maussian sense of the term reside in their immaterial value, namely the gen...

Valeur des nattes fines comme monnaie cérémonielle

This commentary explores the Samoan concept of sau in relation to the Maori concept of hau and elaborates on a comparison—once made by Marcel Mauss—between the sacred gifts of taonga (Maori) and toonga (Samoa). After illustrating how Lévi-Strauss’ interpretation of Mauss’ concepts of “the sacred” and “mana” had abusively narrowed the latter’s thoug...

This commentary explores the Samoan concept of sau in relation to the Maori concept of hau and elaborates on a comparison - once made by Marcel Mauss - between the sacred gifts of taonga (Maori) and toonga (Samoa). After illustrating how Lévi-Strauss' interpretation of Mauss' concepts of "the sacred" and "mana" had abusively narrowed the latter's t...

Samoans have a notion sau which is the corresponding concept (culturally and linguistically) to the famous maori hau (Mauss, Levi-Strauss). Comparisons and more general discussion on Polynesian gift and Maussian models

Some of the most prominent social and cultural anthropologists have come together in this volume to discuss Maurice Godelier's work. They explore and revisit some of the highly complex practices and structures social scientists encounter in their fieldwork. From the nature-culture debate to the fabrication of hereditary political systems, from tran...

This chapter explores the various meanings the idea of “Polynesia” has acquired in changing scientific contexts. It is usually assumed that the naming of the Pacific regions, at least for Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, was invented by the French navigator Dumont d'Urville in the early nineteenth century, as the expanded knowledge of the Pacific,...

Dans un livre qui concerne toutes les sciences sociales, car la question centrale du genre y trouve un profond renouvellement, Irene Thery se revele la plus anthropologue des sociologues. On ne sera donc pas etonnes qu’un anthropologue ait tenu a prendre la parole a propos de ce livre. Car il s’agit bien d’un « A propos » et non d’un compte rendu....

It is usually assumed that the naming of the Pacific regions, at least for Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, was invented by the French navigator Dumont d'Urville in the early nineteenth century, as the expanded knowledge of the Pacific, or Oceania as it began to be called at the same time in France, required more detailed maps and hence new names...

Oceanic Encounters, Desire Exchange Violence

Polynésie / Mélanésie: l'invention française des "races" et des régions de l'Océanie

The texts collected in this volume take an anthropological approach to the variety of contemporary societal problems which confront the peoples of the contemporary South Pacific: religious revival, the sociology of relations between local groups, regions and nation-States, the problem of culture areas, the place of democracy in the transition of St...

http://epress.anu.edu.au/csp_citation.html

In the first part, are presented the European narratives of « first contacts » with Polynesians (Tahiti 1768, Samoa 1787). There are strong contradictions between the concluding and generalising views held by the visitors about the « customs » of the people encountered and some factual descriptions which are to be found in unpublished journals and...

Dumont d'Urville has been credited in the popular imagination with inventing a four part division of Oceania: Malaysia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia. In actuality, he was developing and popularising names already in existence in the scientific literature. Furthermore, his aim was more to contribute to a 'theory of races' than to add names for t...