Circulations - Modernist Imaginaries of Colonialism Decolonization in Papua New

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.In Circulations, Courtney Handman examines the surprising continuities in the ways that modernist communications discourses shaped both colonial and decolonial projects in Papua New Guinea. Often described as a place with too many mountains and too many languages to be modern, Papua New Guinea was seen as a space of circulatory primitivity-where people, things, and talk could not move. Colonial missionaries and administrators, and even anticolonial delegations of the United Nations Trusteeship Council, argued that this circulatory primitivity could be overcome only through the management of communication infrastructures, bureaucratic information flows, and the introduction of English. Innovatively bringing together analyses of radios, airplanes, telepathy, bureaucracy, and lingua francas, Circulations argues for the critical role of communicative networks and communicative imaginaries in political processes of colonialism and decolonization worldwide.

Product details

• Authors: Courtney Handman
• Publisher: University Of California Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 27.05.2025
• EAN: 9780520416000
• ISBN: 978-0-520-41600-0
• No. of pages: 232
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Pre and early history; POLITICAL SCIENCE / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Colonialism & imperialism, Indigenous Peoples, Empires & historical states, Social and cultural anthropology, Colonialism and imperialism, Australasia, Oceania, Pacific Islands, Atlantic Islands, Tribal religions, Oceania, Australasia, Oceania & other land areas, Indigenous, ethnic and folk religions and spiritual beliefs