ABSTRACT
The reason for the problem with comparativism in anthropology is the subjective quality of social phenomena whose description, captured on the basis of participant observation, requires so-called facts to exist only within a frame of reference that will ultimately need to be self-reflexive. This chapter describes and analyzes complex models inherent in many non-Western social systems and argues that the comparative method is essential to enable people to ask the big questions that such models demand. It also argues that image-making practice across Oceania overtly exploits topological perception to construct rotational, movable, and generative images that are capable of inviting a polyphony of possible perspectives on singular entities. The hylomorphic model evokes two related assumptions, Firstly, objects are prototypical in that they are situated in space in relation to one another and in relation to human actors, and secondly, objects reference such relations in their design.
