Yam cultivation and display are central and very contemporary concerns amongst the Abelam of Papua New Guinea. Long yams, especially, have been interpreted as phallic symbols, images of ancestors and valuables. Describing the processes from which these ‘artefacts’ emerge, gives some importance to local interpretations, i.e. the reasons rather than the causes driving local technical processes. This analysis of the notion of operational sequences, or chaînes opératoires, proves very useful in unravelling the interlacing of practices and discourses that leads to the ‘coming-into-being’ of yams. Using a selection of operational sequences, the author discusses the methodology and investigates some aspects that have come out of his own use of the chaîne opératoire. Through its potential for describing the relations actively created between long yam cultivation and other domains of experience, the chaîne opératoire contributes to repositioning the study of techniques and technology in contemporary anthropological discussions of material culture.
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