The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Literacy, Emotion and Authority: Reading and Writing on a Polynesian Atoll
Abstract
Literacy continues to be a central issue in anthropology, but methods of perceiving and examining it have changed in recent years. In this 1995 study Niko Besnier analyses the transformation of Nukulaelae from a non-literate into a literate society using a contemporary perspective which emphasizes literacy as a social practice embedded in a socio-cultural context. He shows how a small and isolated Polynesian community, with no access to print technology, can become deeply steeped in literacy in little more than a century, and how literacy can take on radically divergent forms depending on the social and cultural needs and characteristics of the society in which it develops. His case study, which has implications for understanding literacy in other societies, illuminates the relationship between norm and practice, between structure and agency, and between group and individual.
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“The pawnshop thus emerges as a central nexus in Tonga's 'economy of affect' (Besnier 1995 : 99 ), in which shame operates in different, sometimes contradictory, sometimes complementary, ways.”
From When gifts become commodities: pawnshops, valuables, and shame in Tonga and the Tongan diaspora (2008) · cites this paper as Besnier 1995
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(2011) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822394341-001
FROM REVOLUTION TO RENAISSANCE
(2013) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822391890-002
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(2005) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9780470996522.biblio
(2009) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822390961-007
(2013) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822391890-001
TOXIC BODIES AND INTENTIONAL MINDS:
(2009) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822390961-004
Village and Diaspora as Deterritorialized Library
(2011) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822394341-008
(2013) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822391890-007
(2011) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822394341-011
(2011) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822394341-005
(2013) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822391890-004
(2009) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822390961-002
(2013) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822391890-010
Blommaert, J. (2005) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511610295.014
(2009) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822390961-008
Collins, J., & Blot, R. K. (2003) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511486661.010
Blommaert, J. (2005) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511610295.011
(2011) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822394341-010
LaDousa, C. (2020) · The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology · doi:10.1002/9781118786093.iela0242
(2013) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822391890-009
Literacies and Ethnolinguistic Diversity: Chicago
Farr, M. (2008) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-0-387-30424-3_50
Linguistics: Between Orality and Writing
Graff, H. J. (2022) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-96981-3_2
Anthropology: Reading and Writing from Pictographs to Ethnography
Graff, H. J. (2022) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-96981-3_3
(2009) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822390961-003
Sharing suits and letters: redressing late‐capitalist precarity in South Korea
Fedorenko, O. (2023) · Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute · doi:10.1111/1467-9655.14061
Hoëm, I. (2025) · Rhetorica Scandinavica · doi:10.52610/rhs.v10i40.205
Kockelman, P., Enfield, N. J., & Sidnell, J. (2014) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9781139342872.036
Juzwik, M. M. (2005) · Teachers College Record The Voice of Scholarship in Education · doi:10.1177/016146810510701121
Metadata
- Authors
- Besnier, N.
- Affiliations
- University of Amsterdam (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Besnier, Niko
- ORCID
- Besnier, Niko
- Venue
- Cambridge University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 1995-08-24
- OpenAlex
- W998167931
- Cited by
- 232
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 17.37
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Anthropological Studies and Insights
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › New Caledonia Indigenous Studies
- Social Sciences › Communication › Media, Communication, and Education
- Keywords
- literacy, Polynesian society, social practices, emotions, authority, structure and agency, norm and practice, individual and group, printing technology, social change
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