Archiving a Prophecy. An ethnographic history of the ‘John Frum files’ (Tanna, Vanuatu, 1941–1980) - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue PAIDEUMA. Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde Année : 2018

Archiving a Prophecy. An ethnographic history of the ‘John Frum files’ (Tanna, Vanuatu, 1941–1980)

Résumé

Repeated signs of a large-scale rebellion on the South Pacifie island of Tanna (Vanuatu) appeared in 1941. Civil disobedience was expressed through reference to a prophetic figure namedJohn Frum. In order to repress this politico-religious movement, categorized later as a cargo cult in the anthropological literature, the British administration accumulated thousands of pages of surveillance notes, reports and commentaries. This article proposes an introduction to the existence of these documents known as the 'John Frum files', which were classified as confidential until the last few years. The presentation of this body of documentation follows Ann Stoler's injunction to study colonial archives not only as data sources but also as an ethnographie subject in its own right. An ethnographie overview of the John Frum files will contribute to recent debates among anthropologists about 'cargo cult archives' and how their colonial authors in Tanna and John Frum cultists were inextricably bound up with one another.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
Archiving_a_prophecy._An_ethnographic_hi.pdf (495.85 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine Fichiers éditeurs autorisés sur une archive ouverte
Loading...

Dates et versions

hal-01962249 , version 1 (09-07-2019)

Licence

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-01962249 , version 1

Citer

Marc Tabani. Archiving a Prophecy. An ethnographic history of the ‘John Frum files’ (Tanna, Vanuatu, 1941–1980). PAIDEUMA. Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde, 2018, 64. ⟨hal-01962249⟩
170 Consultations
507 Téléchargements

Partager

Gmail Mastodon Facebook X LinkedIn More