Afterword: Habemus (Im)Material

Abstract

I revisit Tylor’s animism to survey these assessments of (im)materiality in Pacific religious movements. Spirit remains central in island constructions of the person and the community. Although in these movements religious leaders and followers deploy new materials (mobile phones, rosaries, chairs, statues) and evoke new immaterials (ghostly priests, Win, Wang, and Wong, and others), they express enduring desire for transformed persons and tightly unified communities. In so doing, they find power, support, and sometimes dread in materialized spirit and inspirited material. These analyses attest that many in the Pacific, as elsewhere, remain stubbornly enchanted.