International Postdoctoral Fellows Program: Rapid Change and the Production of Inequality in East Kwaio, Solomon Islands

9504555该奖项是根据国际初级研究员和博士后研究员计划设立的，该计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行3至24个月的研究。该项目的奖项提供了联合研究的机会，并提供了使用国外独特或互补的设施、专业知识和实验条件的机会。该奖项的资金支持来自东亚太平洋项目。该奖项将部分资助David W.Akin与所罗门群岛马莱塔东奎奥文化中心的组织者John Laete‘esafi进行为期15个月的博士后研究访问。这项研究是一项人类学研究，研究在快速社会变革的情况下，基于性别的不平等是如何被创造和延续的。国际和平研究所将审查两性关系与所罗门群岛夸约人民的信仰变化之间的关系。夸伊山是所罗门群岛最后一个主要的非基督教群体，他们继续崇拜他们祖先的灵魂，执行严格的行为准则。然而，夸伊族一直在稳步地重新解释和重塑他们的信仰，以使它们与不断变化的社会条件相适应。阿金将测试并完善一个假设，即这个Chanee的特定方面是如何发生的。这是一项关于人类中介在社会转型过程中的作用的研究。他将研究信仰和实践的渐进式调整如何随着时间的推移而产生重大的社会结构变化。***

9504555 Akin This award is under the International Junior Investigator and Postdoctoral Fellows Program, which enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. Financial support for this award is from the East Asia Pacific Program. This award will partially support a fifteen month postdoctoral research visit by David W. Akin to work with John Laete'esafi, Organizer of the Kwaio Cultural Centre in East Kwaio, Malaita, Solomon Islands. This research is an anthropological study of how genderbased inequality is being created and perpetuated in a situation of rapid social change. The PI will examine the relationship between gender relations and change in belief among the people of Kwaio in the Solomon Islands. The mountain Kwaio are the last major non-Christian group in the Solomon Islands, and they continue to worship spirits of their ancestors, that enforce a strict code of behavior. However, the Kwaio have been steadily reinterpreting and reshaping their beliefs to make them compatible with changing social conditions. Akin will test and refine a hypothesis as to how particular aspects of this chanee are taking place. This is a study of the role of human agency in processes of social transformation. He will investigate how incremental adjustments in belief and practice may, over time, produce significant socio-structural change. ***