The Baruya are a classless and stateless tribe in the Independent State of Papua New Guinea. First discovered by the West in 1951, the Papuans were then colonised by Australia. Papua New Guinea gained autonomy in 1975.
The Baruya society is based on the principle of male domination over women. Maurice Godelier conducted in-depth studies on this society over several trips.
Senior lecturer at the Institut d’ethnologie of Marc Bloch University in Strasbourg from 1994 to 2005, and then Professor of Anthropology at François Rabelais University in Tours from September 2005.
Professional activities: Member of the National Evaluation Committee of the CNRS French National Centre for Scientific Research - section 38 (2004-2008).
Expert at the DGRI French General Office for Research and Innovation since September 2006.
Expert at the scientific commission of the IRD Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, (Institute of research for development) from 2009 to 2012.
Term of which the origin remains contested (derived from "Djenné", "Guinea", "Ghana" or the Berber equivalent of the Greek "barbarian").
Also spelled Gnaoua. Generic term for the members of the brotherhood, the moqadma, the moqaddem, the erqsou, the maalem and the krakeb (qarqabu) players. A distinction should be made between "Gnawa" (noun) and "Gnawi music" (adjective). (Some consider "Gnawa" as the plural form of "Gnawi"°.
Born in 1934, Maurice Godelier graduated with an associate degree in philosophy and a degree in psychology and modern literature, and was the assistant lecturer of Claude Lévi-Strauss.
His encounter with the Baruya left a deep impression on him, and he went on to observe the transformation of this classless society that had found itself integrated in a state imposed by the West, and exposed to the proselytism of Christian churches. In addition to his fieldwork, he broke new ground in the necessary distinction between the imaginary and the symbolic, as well as in the "ideal" components of social relations.
A series of works ensued from his research, including La production des Grands Hommes. Pouvoir et domination masculine chez les Baruya de Nouvelle Guinée ou encore L’idéel et le matériel. In 1985, he was appointed Research Director at EHESS. He is regarded as one of the founders of economic anthropology.
In 1982, he created the Human Sciences Department at the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) of which he was director until 1986. Today he is director of the French Centre for Research and Documentation on Oceania (Credo). One of his most prominent collaborations was his participation as scientific advisor in several films, including Planète Baruya in 1976 directed by Ian Dunlop. He has also written some 200 articles for various journals.
Link to the Credo website (Centre for Research and Documentation on Oceania).
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A "Saint" of popular Islam whose sanctuary is situated south of Marrakesh in Moulay Brahim.
Mawlid (also spelled: mevlid, mevlit, mulud) is a celebration of the birth of the prophet Muhammad. It corresponds to the Christian Christmas, but changes date every year by approximately 11 days in keeping with the Islamic calendar.
Papua New Guinea is a country in Oceania that makes up the eastern half of the New Guinea Island (the western half forms part of Indonesia) situated in the south west part of the Pacific Ocean, north of Australia.
New Guinea was given its name in the 16th century by a Spanish explorer who found that its inhabitants resembled those of Equatorial Guinea in Africa.
Viviana Pâques was born in Genoa in 1920. She read for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Paris, but changed vocation after meeting Marcel Griaule. She began to study anthropology at the Sorbonne and did a two-year research traineeship under the supervision of Leroi-Gourhan. She left on an expedition to Mali, then joined the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) in 1953 under the mentorship of Griaule, and supported by Claude Lévi-Strauss. She research moved into the rest of West Africa as far as Chad. She completed her PhD thesis in 1965.
Conscious of the important to further the research methods taught by Marcel Griaule, she accepted a position as professor at the University of Strasbourg where she directed the Institut d'ethnologie from 1968 to 1983.
The eighth lunar month of the Islamic calendar, before the month of Ramadan. Sha'aban is an important month of celebration for the Gnawa. They must be celebrated by the moqadma and all the members of the brotherhood. During this period, the Gnawa renew their allegiance with the "genie spirits".
Anthropologist Deborah Kapchan, who participates in this programme, spells it asshaâban.)
(Also spelled Tameslohte.) This small town of 17.000 inhabitants is located about 20 kilometres to the South of Marrakesh. It emerged during the 13th Century and is an integral part of the history of Morocco. In the 15th century, the region experienced economic and social collapse as a result of the struggle against the occupation of the Atlantic coast by the Portuguese, of internal conflicts and of a series of famines. In the 16th century, Tamesloht was associated with the great school of thought represented by the religious brotherhood, the “Jazoulya”, whose master was Abu Mohammed Abdallah al-Ghazwani, one of the Seven Holy Patrons of Marrakesh, who is considered to be a pioneering monk. To carry out his social and economic recovery plan in Tamesloht, he called on Abd Allah Ibn Houssain (Moulay Abdallah Ben H’ssayn) one of his favourite disciples, a descendant of a line of Moroccan “Sufis”.
Thus the Tamesloht zawiya, a centre of popular culture linked to the person of the founder, came into being.
The Gnawa brotherhood, which comprises the descendants of African slaves brought into Morocco in huge numbers during the 16th and 17th centuries, also chose the Tamesloht zawiya as its centre.
This zawiya reflects the different facets of popular Arabic, Berber, Saharan and African faith and culture, which are an important component of the culture and religious practices and beliefs of traditional Moroccan society.
Director, operator and/or producer of over 40 long, short and medium-length films between 1968 and 1976. These films have been distributed in 17 different countries.
In 1975, he created the magazine Impact, revue du cinéma direct and then founded in the same year the film festival L’homme regarde l’homme in Créteil. The festival, hosted in 1978 by the Georges Pompidou Centre, was later renamed Cinéma du réel by a new team.
A passionate early enthusiast of the potential interaction between the worlds of audio-visual and information technology, he wrote and directed some 22 multimedia, multi-format programmes for a variety of audiences.
He recently finished a film, set in a working-class and peasant environment, about the May 1968 uprisings in France, L'autre mai: Nantes, mai 68, a film and a DVD on the prehistoric caves of Lascaux, Lascaux, un nouveau regard, distributed in France and the United States, and a film related to the subject of this programme, Gnawa, au-delà de la musique.
In 2013, he created the sequence shot festival CRIS DU MONDE at La Ciotat with the support of “Marseille-Provence: the 2013 European Capital of Culture”.