TY - JOUR
T1 - Disparate dimensions of a Mekeo socio-moral order: Values, emotions and dispositions in language, discourse andpractice
AU - Jones, Alan
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Terms for affective constructs and references to social ideals proliferate in the ethnography of the Mekeo, but these are often inconsistently defined and treated in isolation. I here attempt to produce a more coherent account of relevant terms and, ultimately, a systematic representation of the ontologically disparate elements that combined to produce a viable socio-moral order in twentieth-century Mekeo village society. The exercise reveals unexpected synergies between seemingly unrelated dispositions and emotions, espoused values and enacted Using Bourdieu's concept of a 'generative model' (1990) I develop a schematic account that brings a gamut of diverse socio-moral constructs into semi-orderly alignment with the realities of a disorderly lifeworld. For a certain time at least, the socio-moral discourse and practices summarised in this schema successfully resolved the basic lived problem of the Mekeo lifeworld-the antinomy between a social structure based on inequality and the intransigence of a narcissistic and hubristic inner male self.
AB - Terms for affective constructs and references to social ideals proliferate in the ethnography of the Mekeo, but these are often inconsistently defined and treated in isolation. I here attempt to produce a more coherent account of relevant terms and, ultimately, a systematic representation of the ontologically disparate elements that combined to produce a viable socio-moral order in twentieth-century Mekeo village society. The exercise reveals unexpected synergies between seemingly unrelated dispositions and emotions, espoused values and enacted Using Bourdieu's concept of a 'generative model' (1990) I develop a schematic account that brings a gamut of diverse socio-moral constructs into semi-orderly alignment with the realities of a disorderly lifeworld. For a certain time at least, the socio-moral discourse and practices summarised in this schema successfully resolved the basic lived problem of the Mekeo lifeworld-the antinomy between a social structure based on inequality and the intransigence of a narcissistic and hubristic inner male self.
U2 - 10.1111/taja.12159
DO - 10.1111/taja.12159
M3 - Article
VL - 26
SP - 365
EP - 380
JO - Australian Journal of Anthropology, The
JF - Australian Journal of Anthropology, The
IS - 3
ER -