Table Of ContentMonster Anthropology
in Australasia and Beyond
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Monster Anthropology
in Australasia and Beyond
Edited by Yasmine Musharbash and
Geir Henning Presterudstuen
monster anthropology in australasia and beyond
Copyright © Yasmine Musharbash and Geir Henning Presterudstuen, 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-47279-3
All rights reserved.
First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—
a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this
is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, regis-
tered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and
has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the
United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-50219-8 ISBN 978-1-137-44865-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137448651
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the
Library of Congress.
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by SPi Global.
First edition: November 2014
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction: Monsters, Anthropology, and Monster Studies 1
Yasmine Musharbash
2 Cave Men, Luminoids, and Dragons: Monstrous
Creatures Mediating Relationships between People
and Country in Aboriginal Northern Australia 25
Joanne Thurman
3 Monstrous Transformations: A Case Study from
Central Australia 39
Yasmine Musharbash
4 Specters of Reality: Mamu in the Eastern
Western Desert of Australia 57
Ute Eickelkamp
5 A Murder of Monsters: Terror and Morality
in an Aboriginal Religion 75
John Morton
6 Burnt Woman of the Mission: Gender and Horror in an
Aboriginal Settlement in Northern New South Wales 93
Mahnaz Alimardanian
7 Demons Within: Maleficent Manifestations
in the Hare Krishna Movement 109
Malcolm Haddon
8 Ghosts and the Everyday Politics of Race in Fiji 127
Geir Henning Presterudstuen
9 Entanglements between Tao People
and Anito on Lanyu Island, Taiwan 143
Leberecht Funk
vi Contents
10 When Goblins Come to Town: The Ethnography of Urban
Hauntings in Georgia 161
Paul Manning
11 The Workings of Monsters: Of Monsters and Humans
in Icelandic Society 179
Helena Onnudottir
12 Afterword: Strangerhood, Pragmatics, and Place
in the Dialectics of Monster and Norm 195
Rupert Stasch
Notes on Contributors 215
Index 219
List of Figures
1.1 Monstrous Body In-Between Categories (a),
and Being More or Less than One Category (b). 9
1.2 Monsters Close to Humans Capable of Change. 14
1.3 Geographical Locations of Chapters. 17
12.1 Flip-Flop Sandals and Floatplane, Danowage Village,
West Papua, July 2011, Photo by Wayap Dambol. 206
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Acknowledgments
After a long day of conferencing, at a bar in Montreal, drinks with Tanya
King sparked the idea for the Monster Panel (eventually held at the
Australian Anthropological Society’s annual conference in Brisbane, 2012),
which in turn led to this book. First and most heartfelt thanks, therefore,
go to Dr. King. Next, we would like to thank the speakers and attendees of
the Monster Panel for a thought-provoking day in Brisbane, so exciting
that we happily took on the task of editing this book. It has been an exhila-
ratingly stimulating process, and for that we thank the contributors to the
volume. Regrettably, not all panel participants were able to contribute but
fortuitously, other contributors found us (or we them): thank you all!
At Palgrave Macmillan, we would like to thank Robyn Curtis, Erica
Buchman, and the team for their enthusiastic, caring, and efficient sup-
port in getting this book to see the light of day. Chris Marcatili provided
expert research assistance and copy-editing, and was a sea of calm in the
midst of coordinating final submissions across three continents: well done
and thank you! Thanks also to Dr. Awais Piracha for creating the map that
locates our respective chapters in the world.
Financially, we are each indebted to our institutions. Yasmine received
generous support from the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, the School
of Social and Political Sciences, and the Department of Anthropology at
the University of Sydney, and final work on this project was made pos-
sible under an ARC Future Fellowship FT130100415. Geir received vital
support and financial assistance from the School of Social Sciences and
Psychology at the University of Western Sydney.
Artist Rebecca Dagnall graciously gave permission to use her haunting
image on the front cover—it is the first thing prospective readers see when
they look at this book, and we feel it captures perfectly the quotidian pres-
ence of the monstrous contained in these pages. Thank you very much!
Our final and deep gratitude goes to our ethnographic interlocutors who
continue to enrich our lives and work with their stories and insights.
