THE INDIVIDUATION OF TRADITION IN A PAPUA-NEW-GUINEAN MODERNITY

This essay examines changing ideas about ''culture'' among the Chambri of Papua New Guinea. It focuses on a transnational company's promotio n of Papua New Guinean culture in national advertising and on a Chambr i politician's diatribe against youth for ''prostituting'' their local culture. Whereas some anthropologists see culture as an inalienable r esource invoked by indigenous peoples to resist ''modernity,'' the Cha mbri case suggests that ''traditional'' ideas of culture can be subtly reconfigured to support exogenous interests.