CHIEFS TODAY by Geoffrey M. White, Lamont Lindstrom, Geoffrey M. White (Editor) ( 9780804728515 )

Item Details

Title:

CHIEFS TODAY
TRADITIONAL PACIFIC LEADERSHIP AND THE POSTCOLONIAL STATE

By:

Geoffrey M. White, Lamont Lindstrom, Geoffrey M. White (Editor)

Format:

Paperback

List price:	£16.50
We currently do not stock this item, please contact the publisher directly for further information.

ISBN 10:

0804728518

ISBN 13:

9780804728515

Publisher:

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Series:

Contemporary Issues in Asia and the Pacific

Pages:

368

Description:

This volume presents detailed analyses of the accommodations between chiefs and states in thirteen Pacific societies. In some states, traditional perquisites and political authority have overlapped so that the state is a contemporary form of chiefdom.

Synopsis:

Thirty-five years after the first new Pacific states gained their independence, traditional leaders remain important political actors throughout the region. The political environs of the South Pacific, freshly populated with presidents, prime ministers, members of parliament, and local judiciary officers, are also increasingly crowded with newly visible chiefs. Far from being premodern relics, the chiefs who operate within modern Pacific states today figure significantly in attempts to fashion national identities and manage the direction of political and economic development. This volume presents detailed analyses of the accommodations between chiefs and states in thirteen Pacific societies. In some states, traditional perquisites and political authority have overlapped so that the state is a contemporary form of chiefdom. Elsewhere, chiefs operate as a mechanism of local accommodation to centralized state authority, facilitating state operations in the local community. In still other states, local chiefs have risen up against central authority, leading their communities in opposition to the state and its deprecations.In each case, the chief is a focus for cultural struggle in the border zones of local, national, and transnational politics.

Illustrations:

1 map

Publication:

Imprint:

Stanford University Press

Returns:

Non-returnable

Some other items by this author:

ACROSS THE WORLD WITH THE JOHNSONS