Pitcairn Island: Heritage of Bounty Descendants
Keywords:
Pitcairn Island, folklife,Abstract
This article adopts the method ‘tensed ethnography’ to describe aspects of Pitcairn Island folklife and the symbolic meaning of community. Such meanings emerge in the empirical field whereby ‘community’ is viewed as a cluster of embodied dispositions and practices. Described as one of the most isolated islands in the world and accessible only by sea, Pitcairn is the last remaining British Overseas Territory in the Pacific, notable as the home of Bounty mutineers and Tahitians who settled the island in 1790. It is from this unique heritage and present-day fieldwork that the collective manifestations of social life and folk expression are herewith discussed.
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