Subject
catastroph, Ambrym, semiosis, volcanic eruption, colonialism, [SPI]Engineering Sciences [physics], [SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences, [SHS.ANTHRO-SE]Humanities and Social Sciences/Social Anthropology and ethnology

Domains
Histoire, Volcanologie, Sciences Sociales, Sciences de la Terre, Génie (sciences de l'ingénieur), Sciences humaines

Description

International audience The 1913 volcanic eruption on the island of Ambrym (Vanuatu) struck both groups composing the island’s population at the time, the Islanders and the British Presbyterians who had come to ‘civilise’ them. Through the lens of Peirce’s semiosis, particularly his notion of the ‘indexical sign’, this article examines the chronological development of the two groups’ divergent, and also at times convergent interpretations of the eruption as a sign. This semiotic analysis is then extended into the island’s socio-historical context, from the Presbyterians’ first attempts at missions to the catastrophic upheaval that decimated the island’s population until the 1940s, to study how the two groups interpreted themselves, each other, Western Christianity and the traditional Ambrymese belief and authority system.

Keywords

Language
English (en-GB)

Creators
Moreau, Yoann, , Aurora, Vincent

Contributors
Centre de recherche sur les Risques et les Crises (CRC) ; Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) ; Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL), Colombia University

Sources
ISSN: 1469-2902, EISSN: 0066-4677, Anthropological Forum: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Comparative Sociology, https://hal-mines-paristech.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02409228, Anthropological Forum: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Comparative Sociology, 2019, pp.1-15. ⟨10.1080/00664677.2019.1647827⟩

Relation
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1080/00664677.2019.1647827

Coverage
Vanuatu

Name of newspaper