Breaking the Frames

CHAPTER 2

Change

AbstractChange is a complex concept, but change is normal in the history
of societies. Synchronic accounts do not preclude paying attention to
change. Cargo cults result from historical factors of relative deprivation.
Explaining these requires that we understand why they take a ritual form.
The Red Box cult movement in Papua New Guinea is adduced, arguing that
its rituals were invented as a way of shortcutting the pathway to obtaining
wealth, when there was swift political change and rapid exposure to the
outside world. Neither structural-functionalism nor Jarvie’smethodological
individualism is adequate to grasp the phenomenon. Comparison between
cases in Papua New Guinea helps to show similarities and differences.
A mindful approach helps to steer a pathway through the construction
and deconstruction of theories.

KeywordsHistory
Methodological individualism
Papua New Guinea

Red box cult
Ritual
Wealth

The primary charge that Jarvie brought against the structural-functional
approach was that the theory which informed it is incapable of dealing
with the explanation of change. He himself modified this charge at a later
point in the discussion of cargo cults, suggesting ways in which structural-
functional models could in fact be used to explain change.

© The Author(s) 2017
P.J. Stewart, A.J. Strathern,Breaking the Frames,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-47127-3_2

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