Change and Ambivalence on the Periphery (Book).

This paper examines a maritime community currently undergoing change as it has increased contact with mainstream institutions. Based on participant observation techniques, it concentrates on the interplay of change pressures and resistance mechanisms, which results in tension on the institutional level and ambivalence on the individual level. Vertical ties to mainstream institutions are becoming more important than community horizontal ones, calling into question the power of the sole decision-making institution on the Island, the church, and overloading existing mechanisms of social control. Questions are raised concerning how the community will become more tightly linked into mainstream society. Two outcomes--"seasonal autonomy" and "museum community"--are viewed as possibilities, depending on whether control of the linkage is with development capital or the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]