Pigs and Persons in the Philippines
Human-Animal Entanglements in Ifugao Rituals- Authors:
- Publisher:
- 2014
Summary
The Ifugao of Northern Luzon, the Philippines, are famous for their extensive system of irrigated rice terraces, and previous anthropological accounts of the Ifugao have stressed their immense importance for social life. This book attempts to "go against the grain" and approach Ifugao society through an often overlooked element, namely their pigs. By a detailed ethnographic description of Ifugao cultural practices related to kinship, animism, prestige, and death, Pigs and Persons in the Philippines shows how pigs are involved in the constitution and re-constitution of relations between humans and between humans and spirits.
Remme draws upon theories of relationality, performativity, and assemblages to argue that the exchange and consumption of pig meat have the ontological effect of enacting persons. He also shows how pigs are the prime means of engaging in relations with spirits and argues further that prestige can be understood as a heterogeneous assemblage of relations of which pigs play a central role. While pigs are thus constitutively involved in the enactment of persons, Remme also shows how they are operative in the re-constitution of relations that occurs at death.
In documenting these practices, Remme argues for a relational understanding of personhood that goes beyond inter-human relations and includes relations with nonhuman beings, including spirits, and animals.
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Bibliographic data
- Copyright year
- 2014
- ISBN-Print
- 978-0-7391-9041-8
- ISBN-Online
- 978-0-7391-9042-5
- Publisher
- Lexington, Lanham
- Language
- English
- Pages
- 161
- Product type
- Book Titles
Table of contents
- Contents No access
- List of Figures No access
- List of Tables No access
- Acknowledgements No access
- 1 Introduction No access Pages 1 - 26
- 2 Pigs Make Kin No access Pages 27 - 54
- 3 Pigs and Human–Bā’i Relations No access Pages 55 - 78
- 4 Pigs and Social Differentiation No access Pages 79 - 106
- 5 Unmaking a Person No access Pages 107 - 134
- 6 Conclusion No access Pages 135 - 142
- Notes No access Pages 143 - 146
- Bibliography No access Pages 147 - 152
- Index No access Pages 153 - 160
- About the Author No access Pages 161 - 161





