The Fame Of Gawa: A Symbolic Study Of Value Transformation In A Massim Society

'The Fame Of Gawa' is concerned with fundamental practices of value creation on Gawa, a small island off the southeast coast of mainland Papua New Guinea, the inhabitants of which participate in the long-distance kula shell exchange ring.

This new edition of the critically acclaimed "The Fame of Gawa"--originally published in 1986--makes available for the first time this important work in paperback. "The Fame of Gawa" is concerned with fundamental practices of value creation on Gawa, a small island off the southeast coast of mainland Papua New Guinea, the inhabitants of which participate in the long-distance kula shell exchange ring. Integrating various aspects of the study of society and culture--including the sociocultural construction of space and time, self-other relations and the body, and moral and political problems of hierarchy and equality--Nancy D. Munn shows that it is through achieving fame in the wider inter-island world that the Gawan community asserts its own internal viablity.