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ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ETHNOLOGIE - Journal of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Publisher:
—
ISSN:
0044-2666
Category:
ANTHROPOLOGY
Impact factor:
0.3
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Latest articles

Tofiga: Place and Belonging in Samoan Architecture

2025-09-22

Albert L. Refiti, A.-Chr. Engels-Schwarzpaul

The Samoan world opens with the notion of nu‘u tofi, in which every person is assigned a place or position that resonates with culture, polity, citizenship and governance. Tofi (or tofiga) places Samoans according to their ancestral connections within the order of the Samoan world, as ‘the reference point of political action and motivation’ (Tui Atua) – for instance, matai (chiefs) sitting in front of the pou (posts) of the fale (house).

Sāmoa at Large: The Sacred Circle and Travelling Fale and Measina

2025-09-22

Philipp Schorch, Safua Akeli Amaama

In the essay ‘Our sea of islands’, Epeli Hau‘ofa (1994:151–3) influentially argued for ‘what may be called “world enlargement” carried out by tens of thousands of ordinary Pacific Islanders right across the ocean.’ Hau‘ofa further stressed that ‘there is a world of difference between viewing the Pacific as “islands in a far sea” and as “a sea of islands”’.’ ‘The second,’ he concluded, ‘is a more holistic perspective in which things are seen in the totality of their relationships.’ This special section takes up ‘things’ in their material sense. Their travels have amounted to hundreds of thousands of journeys over centuries beyond Oceania and on a global scale. Fale (Sāmoan houses) have been (re)erected in a range of exhibition formats, from the colonial Völkerschauen (human zoos or ethnic shows) (Balme 2008, Thode-Arora 2014) to contemporary art biennials, as well as on university campuses and in tourism resorts. Similarly, measina (Sāmoan material treasures) can be found in museum collections from anthropology via art to natural history, as well as in commercial centres and political institutions. This mobile artifactuality has carried its own cosmological foundations with it, such as the underpinning sacred circle, genealogical inscriptions and cultural meanings, thus embodying a kind of reality that allows for the (re)activation of experiences of Sāmoanness, at home and/or abroad, for example, through architectural interventions, curatorial practices and virtual exhibiting.

The workshop at home. Making sense of craft as a social practice among Tuareg artisans in Niger

2025-09-22

Valerie Nur

This article draws on my dissertation on Tuareg craftsmanship in Niger as a social practice, which was published under the title ‘Die Unbeständigkeit der Dinge: Handwerk, Familie und Mobilität bei den Tuareg in Niger’ (The Impermanence of Things: Craft, Family and Mobility among the Tuareg in Niger) (2024). It explores craft as an embodied knowledge acquired and shared within the family. First, I show how I approached handicraft methodologically from an anthropological perspective. My entry into craft was my own bodily experience in touching, treating and shaping leather, wood and silver. I understood craft as a perception of the world, of tools and things, and studied the materiality and possibilities Tuareg artisans see in them. Second, I aim to show how I made sense of craft as a social practice. Most often, Tuareg artisans work at home in the middle of everyday family life. The same way the family was involved in the workplace, clients and craft-related conversations have been part of and thus shaped family life as a matter of course. Children grow up acquiring handicraft skills just because participating in everyday family life means practicing the trade. The family informs the perception of things and merges with technical routines and innovations that arise in the workshops at home. My concern is to capture the ordinariness of craft, how craftmanship is socially made, just as the family members relate to each other in technological terms.