Polynesian Studies Commons^™

Fa'amatagi: From Whence The Wind Blows, Annette Roberts

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Fa’amatagi: From Whence the Wind Blows is a love letter to the people and culture of my parents. This is a documentary poetics project that draws upon research of the Mau Movement, archives from the New Zealand government, and personal ethnographies with my own parents who are both of Samoan descent. I curated several pieces of art from book collector Alexander Turnbull and photographer Alfred J. Tattersall. This project delves into the effects of colonialism on a previously isolated people. It explores the act of civil disobedience and what comes of it versus the long-lasting damage of compliance towards a …

Property Laws, White Settler Power And The Kingdom Of Hawai’I, Martin Rakowszczyk

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Hawai’ian property laws in the 19^th century, while intended to provide for the transition of the islands to a European mode of commerce and allow for greater prosperity, weakened the power of Native Hawai`ian subjects and ultimately contributed to European planter power and the eventual annexation of the islands. Prior to European contact, land in the Kingdom of Hawai`i was communally owned and not treated as a tradable commodity. However, forced to settle foreign debts, the Hawai’ian government instituted land reform intended to raise money and maintain Hawai’ian sovereignty. Given the constant threat of annexation by Western powers and …

Unraveling Paradise: Colonialism And Disguise In German Language Literature, Brigita Kant

Honors Projects

For centuries, the Pacific Islands have been disguised by Europeans through the trope of “island paradise." Despite Europe’s role in bringing colonization and racial oppression to Oceania, the dominant narrative has been that Pacific Islanders lead simple lives, untouched from the complicated aspects of the “modern world.” This narrative has enabled White outsiders to fantasize about the Pacific Islands as a place for personal denial of Western social conventions, simultaneously allowing White European men to fetishize and possess Pacific Island culture and identity. My honors project will closely examine three fictional German language texts- Haimotochare (1819), Der Papalagi (1920) …

002 Transcription Notes, Bill Donner Dr

Sikaiana Oral Stories

Notes about transcription and translation for the Sikaiana oral and recorded material.

01 Traditional Songs Introduction, William Donner

Sikaiana Traditional Songs

This is an introduction to Sikaiana songs. It includes a discussion of the social cultural context of song composition and singing. There is a discussion of the different features of song production and a list of different song genres. Most of the discussion is concerned with traditional song expression that are part of derived form changes associated with colonialism and modernization.

Malay Minorities In The Tenasserim Coast, Ma Tin Cho Mar, Pham Huong Trang

ASEAN Journal of Community Engagement

This paper discusses the Malay Minorities of the Malay Minorities in the Tenasserim Coast. And Tanintharyi Division is an administrative region of Myanmar at present. When we look closely at some of the interesting historical facts, we see that this region is “Tanao Si” in Thai, or Tanah Sari in Malay. This region belonged to Tanah Melayu, or Malay Peninsula, which was part of the Sultanate of Kedah. It was occupied first by the Ayutthaya Kingdom and later by Burma. Moken people of the Austronesian-speaking tribes who live on the coast and on the islands of the Andaman Sea up …

Desegregation Through Entertainment: Rodgers And Hammerstein’S South Pacific As An Instrument Of Military Policy, Leana Sottile

Voces Novae

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific became a staple of mainstream popular culture. However, the musical also served a specific function within the American military where its usage by the United Service Organizations and Department of Defense was widespread. This case study examines how South Pacific arguably served a way to ease the blow of desegregation on the military by other means, in this case, entertainment. This was achieved by combining the show’s progressive views on racial tolerance with the prevalent wartime nostalgia and romanticism in the piece. All of …

Chapter 10, Life In Town In Intimacy And Community In A Changing World: Sikaiana Life 1980-1993, William Donner

Sikaiana Ethnography

A description of emigration to towns, mainly Honiara, among the Sikaiana people of the Solomon Islands from 1980 to 1993. The migrants maintained and developed many ways to express their solidarity and community.

A related website can be found here,

Preface, In Intimacy And Community In A Changing World: Sikaiana Life 1980-1993, William Donner

Sikaiana Ethnography

This preface describes the process of writing and developing this ethnography about Sikaiana. It explains why I am publishing in this format. It also contextualized this ethnography in terms of how anthropology has changed over the past 40 years and also a brief discussion of how the Sikaiana people have changed since my research from 1980-1993.

A related website can be found at www.sikaianaarchives.com

2 Introduction To The Sikaiana Dictionary, Updated 2020, William Donner

Sikaiana Dictionary

An overview and update to the Sikaiana Dictionary.

003 Abbreviations For Sikaiana Dictionary, William Donner

Sikaiana Dictionary

These are the abbreviations for the semantic and grammatical notes for a dictionary of the Sikaiana language in the Solomon Islands.

7 Appendices To Sikaiana Dictionary, William Donner

Sikaiana Dictionary

Appendices to the Sikaiana Dictionary including personal names, place names, English/Pijin borrowings and illustrations.

1 Dictionary Of The Sikaiana Language, William Donner

Sikaiana Dictionary

Full Dictionary of the Sikaiana language including short grammar, list of words with grammatical functions, examples, English glosses, finder list, personal names, place names, English/Pijin borrowings, illustrations.

4 Introduction And Grammar To Sikaiana Language, William Donner

Sikaiana Dictionary

An introductions and brief grammar of the language of the Sikaiana people, Solomon Islands.

6 English Word Finder, William Donner

Sikaiana Dictionary

A finder list of English words to find Sikaiana equivalents.

Indigenous Healing In New Zealand: An Anthropological Analysis Of "Traditional" And "Modern" Approaches To Well-Being, Lillian T. Brice

Honors Theses

Drawing on contemporary anthropological approaches used by scholars of well-being and medical anthropology (i.e. Michael Jackson and Lisa Stevenson), I explore how indigenous healers in New Zealand blend “traditional” and “modern” elements to establish a creative and inclusive system. Specifically, I explore the use of herbal treatments, ritual chanting, and ceremonies that encapsulate Māori cultural values. I also explore the impact of biomedicine and New-Age wellness approaches on indigenous healing. I argue that Māori healing moves beyond the binary of “tradition” and “modern” as healers merge the past and present and combine the foreign and native. My research is based …

Songs, Storytellers, And Science: An Examination Of Long-Distance Interaction In The Cook Islands, Cyrus Hulen

Senior Independent Study Theses

It is widely accepted in Polynesian archaeology that contact between island groups persisted after first peopling but declined over time. However, there is not a clear sense of how the dynamics and directionality of interaction change over time. Archaeological discussions of interaction in the Cook Islands often focus on quantitative materialist data. While this is certainly valuable and critical to archaeology as a scientific discipline, I see this discussion as an opportunity to incorporate more fully more qualitative or ontologically driven data from other fields of anthropology. I intend to explore the geography, chronology, and ontology of long-distance interaction between …

Entire Ethnography, Intimacy And Community In A Changing World: Sikaiana Life 1980-1993, William Donner

Sikaiana Ethnography

This is the entire ethnography of Sikaiana. Separate chapters are also listed at this location.

A related website is www.sikaianaarchives.com

Presénces Polyvalentes: Protean Polynesian Voices In The Works Of Rai Chaze And Titaua Peu, Julia Frengs

French Language and Literature Papers

IN AN INTERVIEW conducted in May 2013, the same month in which French Polynesia was inscribed on the United Nations list of countries to be decolonized, the archipelago's best-known writer, Chantal Spitz, declared:

L'Océanie est une et multiple. Une parce qu'habitée par un méme peuple originel venue d'Asie du Sud-Est, notamment Taiwan, qui s'est installé au fil de voyages océaniques a bord de pirogues à double coque et en suivant les étoiles, sur les îles du Pacifique. Multiple par la variété des adaptations imposées à ce peuple par des environnements géographiques souvent très différents et des colonisations européennes diverses. (19) …

Dignity In Decision-Making: Modernity And Social Navigation Among Rural French Polynesian Youth, Laura Jarvis

Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

This research examines critical questions about the experiences of youth through the lenses of modernity, subjectivity, and the lifecourse. Growing up in a (post)colonial context of shifting definitions of adulthood, youth from the rural island of Rurutu, French Polynesia must navigate various decisions and transformations with little information to base their future aspirations on. This dissertation identifies dignity as the main motivating factor in youth decision-making, one that is constantly redefined as youth navigate shifting social fields. Dignity, as used here, is a target youth strive for in order to contest feelings of social precarity stemming from unaccommodating education systems …