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Friendship and Exchange Along the North Coast of New Guinea

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Friendship and Exchange Along the North Coast of New Guinea

Robert L. Welsch

224 pages, 25 illls., bibliog., index

ISBN  978-1-83695-421-7 $135.00/£104.00 / Hb / Not Yet Published (March 2026)

eISBN 978-1-83695-420-0 eBook Not Yet Published


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Reviews

“This book is a strong contribution to the literature. Very few studies of “friendship,” ... bind together regional networks of small societies, in a region of great linguistic diversity, have ever been undertaken.” • Richard Scaglion, University of Pittsburgh

Description

The exchange of important commodities like fish, sago, and pots between communities speaking dozens of different languages was not a focus of anthropological research in Papua New Guinea until the 1990s. This book explores how more than 100 communities who speak nearly fifty languages from five unrelated language phyla interact by developing persistent relations known as “hereditary friendship.” These relations provide everyone along the coast with fish, sago, and earthenware pots as well as many other useful commodities. By minimizing hostilities between and among different groups without invoking marriage, which is so important elsewhere in Papua, friendship relations brought harmony, peace, and basic commodities.

Robert L. Welsch is now retired from teaching anthropology at Franklin Pierce University and Dartmouth College and was formerly affiliated with The Field Museum in Chicago. In addition to conducting extensive field research in Papua New Guinea, he is co-author of a series of textbooks with Oxford University Press. His most recent publication is Anthropology: Asking Questions About Human Origins, Diversity, and Culture (OUP, 2024).

Subject: Anthropology (General)Cultural Studies (General)Sociology
Area: Asia-Pacific


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