ABSTRACT

As I have presented it thus far, the notion of develop-man fits well with the model of the structure of the conjuncture that Sahlins has developed to analyze situations of cultural contact more generally (e.g. Sahlins, 1985). Like that model, it gives local categories and efforts at reproduction a fundamental role to play in non-Western people’s encounter with the West. It is also similar by virtue of the way that it imagines cultural change to be a relatively long-term process resulting from consequences that are largely unintended by local people. Thus, Sahlins (1992, p.23) tells us that at least in the Pacific develop-man is a structure of the longue durée, usually holding on for 100 years, in some places for 200 or 300, before it gives way to a desire for development as understood in Western terms.