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... > social science subjects > politics and international relations > global studies > global governance and world order > global religion > movements and organizations > cargo cults
... > social science subjects > sociology > sociology of religion > global religion > movements and organizations > cargo cults

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cargo cults  

Definition

  • Cargo cults are millenarian and messianic movements that have emerged in the island nations of Melanesia, though with local variations, as a result of cultural contact. They sprang from the 19th-century arrival of Westerners with their ships loaded with what must have appeared as mind-boggling, out-of-this-world cargos on islands whose inhabitants had hitherto lived in cultural isolation. [Source: Encyclopedia of Global Religion; Cargo Cults]

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https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/cargo_cults

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