Cargo cults, cultural creativity, and autonomous imagination

Journal/Book: Ethos. 1997; 25: 4350 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 640, Arlington, VA 22203. Amer Anthropological Assoc. 333-358.

Abstract: This article draws attention to the ways in which Western psychiatric models of psychopathology applied to the so-called ''Cargo cults'' of Melanesia have served to endorse co; lonial and cultural discourses of power. It argues that while the ethnographic evidence indicates the positive and creative potential of such movements, Western assumptions concerning irrationality and the unconscious mind obscure this potential. The concept of autonomous imagination is proposed as a way of understanding these movements without pathologizing them.

Note: Review Stephen M, La Trobe Univ, Dept Sociol Polit & Anthropol, Bundoora, Vic 3083, AUSTRALIA

Keyword(s): DREAMS; POWER; SELF

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