Paper short abstract

Stimulated by the invitation to locate the present beyond the anthropology of time, this returns to certain abstractions found in the ethnography of Old Melanesia, for instance, in the paradox of ‘timeless time’.

Paper long abstract

Stimulated by the invitation to locate the present beyond the anthropology of time, this returns to certain abstractions found in the ethnography of Old Melanesia, for instance, in the paradox of ‘timeless time’. What kind of ‘times’ are such abstractions struggling with? A vivid concretisation of ‘present’-day circumstances in New Melanesia introduces a new terrain of descriptive possibilities. What would it look like to take time out of the past and future as well?