Dialectics and Dynamics: The Legacy of Robert Tonkinson's Anthropological Work in Australia and the Pacific

This volume focuses on the ways in which Robert Tonkinson's research has inspired further explorations of issues in the study of kinship, migration, the transformation of tradition, and other contemporary scholarship in the Pacific and Aboriginal Australia. In the Pacific context these influences have stemmed from his provocative contributions upon such issues as the politics of kastom - its symbiotic relationship to Christianity and its local identity functions, as well as the larger context of globalisation in which the transformation of ritual and ideology as kastom has been taking place. Tonkinson's writings on the dynamics of Indigenous agency in contexts of missionisation and governmentalisation have paved the way for continuing conceptualisation of the 'intercultural' in Aboriginal Australia. This collection demonstrates how Tonkinson's pioneering work has enhanced our understanding of core themes constituting anthropological research over the last century.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Anthropological Forum.