Abstract
Names implicate a number of central issues of anthropological, linguistic, and philosophical concern and it is no surprise that our papers go in a variety of directions. Diversity is further enhanced by our different field sites. A strength of the session is that our case studies come from across the Austronesian language area from Madagascar, to Sarawak, Taiwan, Chuuk, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu. And although the set includes the non-Austronesian Mianmin system, one could hope that such breadth might provide comparative basis for Austronesian system and how this has developed, here and there. Given our diversity, we think the best approach (used also in other ASAO sessions) is to gather papers into clusters, keeping in mind that papers will of course speak to more than one of these topics. Our initial suggestion is to form three clusters around three central topics: 1. Social Reproduction (how naming systems inform the constitution of local groups and personages from one generation to the next): Likely contributions here are Latham, Leblic, Lindstrom. 2. Identity and Personhood (how names both identify and get used by persons and groups in strategic social and political competition; how individuals rename themselves throughout their life cycles or to reposition themselves in significant ways): Bacalzo, Chen, Gardner, Janowski, Ku, MacPherson. 3. Global/Historical Impacts on Local Systems (how naming systems have responded to, and thus also record, historical events during the past several centuries): Marshall, Regnier, Fang.