Theoretical Overviews

A Proposed Framework for the Analysis of Stress (1965) Download PDF
This article presents an encompassing theoretical scheme based on the reduction of conceptual barriers between various biochemical, physical, psychological, and sociocultural models of stress.

Models of Stress (1970) Download PDF
The primary purpose of this article is to survey conceptual models of stress in order to evaluate the contribution each has made to our understanding of stress phenomena.

Decision-Making and the Study of Social Process (1971) Download PDF
A discussion of the advantages and limitations of decision analysis for social anthropology, and a discussion of the theoretical and methodological implications of "rationality." Includes a suggested sequence of hypothetical steps that regarded as requisites for an adequate decision-making
analysis.

An Arsenal of Words: Social Science and its Victims (1978) Download PDF
A review article of three books that raises questions about the language of social science for portraying groups that diverge from some notion of presumed "normality."

Pain as Cultural Drama (1980) Download PDF
An investigation of the infliction of pain, such as torture of prisoners of war, as cultural dramas involving changes in the status of the victim.

The Study of Minority Groups in Complex Societies (1981) Download PDF
The main contention in this article is that a strong middle-class bias has resulted in a body of research findings that focuses on alleged deficiencies in minority groups, and that this has led to faulty understanding and weak theory.

Interactional Psychology: Some Implications for Psychological Anthropology (1982) Download PDF
It is proposed in this article that the interactionist framework, which focuses on persons-in-situations, fits well with trends in anthropology that emphasize the contextualization of behavior and an interest in intracultural diversity.

Crime and Deviance in Cultural Perspective (1985) Download PDF
An exploration of the implications for law and order in culturally complex pluralistic societies as compared with relatively homogeneous societies.

Ethnopsychology and the Prospects for a Cultural Psychology (1985) Download PDF
An epilog to the volume Ethnopsychology and the Prospects for a Cultural Psychology, discussing issues involved in contrasting assumptions embedded in Western psychology with indigenous theories of personhood and behavior.

Cultural Paradigms, History, and the Search for Identity in Oceania (1990) Download PDF
An epilog to the volume Cultural Identity in Oceania discussing metatheories of personhood and cultural identity in Pacific Islands cultures, and the ways in which they contrast with Western folk psychology.

Introduction to Spirits in Culture, History, and Mind (1996) Download PDF
The premise of this introduction is that spirits as well as gods perform vital social, cultural, and psychological tasks for people occupying an uncertain world. The theoretical challenge, as we define it, is to determine what kinds of work each does when historical circumstances require, and the ways the work
of gods and spirits articulate with one another in religious systems.

Gods, spirits, and History: A Theoretical Perspective (1996) Download PDF
In this chaper we offer a set of propositions contrasting the implications of gods and spirits for social structure, personhood, personal experience and morality in the interest of suggesting dimensions along which numinal beings tend to vary. We also discussthe range of social and psychological conditions within which spirits, gods, and spirit possession flourish.

Epilog: A New Look at Grandparenting (2007) Download PDF
In this epilog to a special issue of Pacific Studies on grandparenting in Pacific Island societies, we reflect on the studies included in the issue to consider the present and future of variability in grandparenting, and the growing practice of inclusive grandparenting that extends it beyond strict genealogical descent
relationships.

Introduction to Pacific Islands Diaspora, Identity, and Incorporation (2012) Download PDF
An introductory essay setting the context for a set of papers documenting the dispersion of people from Pacific Island societies and the issues that confront them when adapting to new socio-cultural environment.