• Contact

  • Newsletter

  • About us

  • Delivery options

  • Prospero Book Market Podcast

  • News

  • Literacy, Emotion and Authority: Reading and Writing on a Polynesian Atoll

    Literacy, Emotion and Authority by Besnier, Niko;

    Reading and Writing on a Polynesian Atoll

    Series: Studies in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Language; 16;

      • GET 20% OFF

      • The discount is only available for 'Alert of Favourite Topics' newsletter recipients.
      • Publisher's listprice GBP 36.00
      • The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.

        18 219 Ft (17 352 Ft + 5% VAT)
      • Discount 20% (cc. 3 644 Ft off)
      • Discounted price 14 576 Ft (13 882 Ft + 5% VAT)

    18 219 Ft

    db

    Availability

    Estimated delivery time: In stock at the publisher, but not at Prospero's office. Delivery time approx. 3-5 weeks.
    Not in stock at Prospero.

    Why don't you give exact delivery time?

    Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.

    Product details:

    • Publisher Cambridge University Press
    • Date of Publication 24 August 1995

    • ISBN 9780521485395
    • Binding Paperback
    • No. of pages256 pages
    • Size 229x152x15 mm
    • Weight 380 g
    • Language English
    • Illustrations 7 b/w illus. 2 maps 2 tables
    • 0

    Categories

    Short description:

    This 1995 book is a study of the development of literacy in the Polynesian community of Nukulaelae.

    More

    Long description:

    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.

    "...exceptionally rich in its fine reviews of both theory and case material in the anthropology of literacy, in its deep treatment of the situation on Nukulaelae, and in its demonstration of the way in which attention to literacy permits engagement with major anthropological issues about the construction of person and society. The book is well produced, with glossary and index, and is illustrated with maps and photographs....it would be appropriate in a wide range of upper-division and graduate courses." Journal of Anthropological Research

    More

    Table of Contents:

    1. Introduction; 2. The ethnographic context; 3. The domains of reading and writing; 4. Letter writing and reading; 5. Letters, economics and emotionality; 6. Between literacy and orality: the sermon; 7. Literacy, truth and authority; 8. Conclusion.

    More