Culture and History in the Pacific

Abstract

Culture and History in the Pacific, originally published by the Finnish Anthropological Society in 1990, has had a reputation among anthropologists studying the Pacific of being an excellent volume, but notoriously hard to get hold of.Around 2012, during a conference in Aarhus, Tuomas met a Danish anthropologist conducting research in Papua New Guinea and ended up in a conversation because of their shared research interests.After learning Tuomas came from Finland, the Danish anthropologist asked if Tuomas could access a copy of Culture and History in the Pacific, as it was, according to the Dane, "impossible to find".There was a small stash of the books in the storage of the Finnish Anthropological Society.When this space had to be emptied, Matti Eräsaari, also a scholar of the Pacific, saved the remaining copies, aware as he was of the value of the volume.Copies of the book were given as gifts or sent to institutions, such as the National Research Institution of Papua New Guinea, but otherwise, the volume remained difficult to come by outside Finland.Heikki had noticed the book being cited often in material culture studies, especially Marilyn Strathern's article "Artefacts of History".So, we had both come to the conclusion that the book enjoyed continuing interest, but was not readily available for readers.In 2016, one spring afternoon at our shared office space, we started talking about the book and Heikki came up with the idea of republishing it as an open access version.We asked The Finnish Anthropological Society what they thought of the idea, and the board gave us a thumbs-up.Next step was to contact the original authors (or estates), who graciously gave their permission for the project.Finally, after a scientific evaluation on the merits of a re-publication, Helsinki University Press agreed to be the publisher of this new edition, available now as print and open access digital version.