Levisen, Carsten & Priestley, Carol (2017). Social keywords in postcolonial Melanesian discourse: Kastom ‘traditional culture’ and tumbuna ‘ancestors’. In Carsten Levisen & Sophia Waters (Eds.), Cultural keywords in discourse (pp. 83-106). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.277.04lev
In postcolonial Melanesia, cultural discourses are increasingly organized around creole words, i.e. key words of Bislama (Vanuatu) and Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea). These words constitute (or represent) important emerging ethnolinguistic world views, which are partly borne out of the colonial era, and partly out of postcolonial ethnorhetoric. This chapter explores the word kastom ‘traditional culture’ in Bislama and pasin bilong tumbuna ‘the ways of the ancestors’ in Tok Pisin. Specific attention is paid to the shift from “negative “ to “positive” semantics, following from the re-evaluation of ancestral practices in postcolonial discourse. Social key words in postcolonial discourse form a fertile ground for understanding how speakers in Melanesia conceptualize the past as a vital part of the present.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
