• When Culture Is Not A System: Why Samoan Cultural Brokers Can Not Do Their Job

    Author(s):
    Ilana Gershon (see profile)
    Date:
    2006
    Group(s):
    Anthropology
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    migrants, welfare, cultural mediators, political representation
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/hpxh-tg49
    Abstract:
    In independent and American Samoa, Samoan representatives have historically been successful at furthering their communities' interests when dealing with various colonial regimes. Yet during my fieldwork in California, I kept witnessing failed encounters between Samoan migrants and government officials. I argue that government officials helped create these problems through the ways they expected Samoan migrants to act as culture-bearers. I conclude by exploring how cultural mediators become the focal point for tensions generated by the contradictory assumptions government system-carriers and Samoan culture-bearers hold about how to relate to social orders.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    https://doi.org/10.1080/00141840601050700
    Publisher:
    Informa UK Limited
    Pub. Date:
    2006-11-30
    Journal:
    Ethnos
    Volume:
    71
    Issue:
    4
    Page Range:
    533 - 558
    ISSN:
    0014-1844,1469-588X
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    3 months ago
    License:
    Attribution
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