Pacific Islands Languages and Societies Commons^™

Margaret Mead And Gregory Bateson In The Sepik, 1938: A Timely Polemic From A Lost Anthropological Efflorescence, Eric Kline Silverman

Pacific Studies

Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson's 1938 study of a Iatmul-speaking village in the middle Sepik River, Papua New Guinea, remains an anthropological efflorescence. At the very least, this collaboration resulted in a well-known fieldwork photo: Mead and Bateson in the famous "mosquito room." Ironically, little is actually known about the 1938 undertaking, which remains, however famous, sadly obscure. Towards correcting this misjudgment, I have two objectives. First, I want to provide a selective overview of the 1938 project, focusing on its unique outlook, tone, voices, morality, and theoretical perspectives. But my objective is not merely historical and descriptive. Hence, my …

Using And Abusing The Works Of The Ancestors: Margaret Mead, Mary Catherine Bateson

Pacific Studies

Because early-twentieth-century anthropologists worked under very different circumstances from those of anthropologists today, they have become easy to criticize and hard to use fruitfully. Finding the appropriate use of Margaret Mead's work today is a goal she would have felt at home with. Criticism and correction are essential, but opportunistic uses of Mead's work, legacy, and persona, like the attack by Derek Freeman that made him famous, are essentially wasteful and exploitative. By focusing attention on Mead's earliest work, Freeman obscured her lifelong contribution and undermined concepts she helped embed in American thinking, like the indispensable (if vague) concept of …

Introduction: The Essentialization Of Margaret Mead, Nancy Mcdowell

Pacific Studies

Margaret Mead and her contributions to Pacific anthropology play a large role in the discipline, and anthropologists need to consider her work carefully and in context. Evaluators of Mead are often guilty of simplifying her work rather than assessing its full complexity. The reasons for this phenomenon are examined here: several commentators have not read the work carefully, while others select only some aspects of it to support their analyses. Many misrepresentations are the result of a failure to consider her work in its appropriate historical context, and a few employ Mead as a symbol or trope for broader phenomena, …

Tales From The Internet: Margaret Mead's Legacy In American Culture, Merrily Stover

Pacific Studies

This essay explores the importance of Margaret Mead for American society as revealed through the cultural domain of the Internet. By examining sites accessible through popular search engines, the essay analyzes Mead's life using Joseph Campbell's myth of the hero's journey. Mead's legend emphasizes her journey to far places and her return with important gifts of knowledge for society. Mead is also a distinctly American hero by representing values of pioneering, defense of personal freedom, and commitment to bettering society. The recognition of the importance of culture on human behavior, Mead's own life as a role model for people, the …

Freedom House In The Pacific: Democratic Advancement In Fourteen Island States, Dag Anckar

Pacific Studies

The Freedom House surveys of political rights and civil liberties in the countries of the world show that the small Pacific island states perform remarkably well as democratic units. A further analysis of the surveys identifies two characteristic traits of democracy Pacific style. First, the general trend over time is one of improvement and advancement. Second, this fortunate development is promoted by betterments in political rights rather than civil liberties. This probably reflects efforts in the region to introduce concessions to traditional authority. However, the Freedom House conception of democracy does not include considerations of policy. Less than prosperous and …

Expressions Of Interest: Informal Usury In Urban Papua New Guinea, Michael Goddard

Pacific Studies

This article examines the nature and practice of small scale usury in a "grassroots" urban community in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. In this environment the moneylenders are people of limited financial resources, barely richer than their clients. The latter are often self-employed in informal occupations. Using examples from cases where usurers have taken defaulting debtors to urban "village courts," I show how debt is negotiated by usurers and clients, and I indicate differences between local attitudes toward usury and those that are generally held in Western societies. I discuss prevalent views in social science literature about the influence of …

Neville Proof Fence, Antonio De Paulo Buti

Pacific Studies

The separation of Aboriginal children from their families formed a central plank of Aboriginal affairs policy in Australia for at least the first six decades of the twentieth century. In no state was the separation policy more pervasive than in Western Australia. And no one individual stands out more in the planning and implementation of the removal or separation policy than Auber Octavius Neville, chief protector of Aborigines in Western Australia from 1915 until 1940. This article focuses on Aboriginal affairs in Western Australia during the Neville era and also on the influence his views and ideas attained on the …

Vol. 28 Nos. 1/2 (2005): Pacific Studies Front Matter, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Front Matter for the Vol. 28, Nos. 1/2-Mar 2005 edition of the Pacific Studies Journal.

Cultural Constraints And Corrosive Colonization: Western Commerce In Aotearoa/ New Zealand And The Extinction Of The Huia (Heteralocha Acutirostris), Clark S. Monson

Pacific Studies

Early Maori occupation of New Zealand was marked by profligate use of avian resources and the resultant extinction of numerous species including the archipelago's famed moas. As in other Polynesian cultures, however, Maoris came to adopt conservation strategies. I suggest that the Maori conservation technique of tapu or rahui - chiefly prohibitions governing the harvest of vulnerable biological resources - offers crucial insights for modern managers. The former efficacy of rahui is examined through a detailed case study of an extinct New Zealand bird - the huia. Formerly protected by the cultural and religious potency of tapu, the huia met …

Vol. 28 Nos. 1/2 (2005): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies is published two times a year by The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai‘i #1979, 55–220 Kulanui Street, Lāʻie, Hawai‘i 96762, but responsibility for opinions expressed in the articles rests with the authors alone. Subscription rate is US $26.00 yearly, payable to The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies. The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies (formerly The Pacific Institute) is an organization funded by Brigham Young University Hawai‘i. The Center assists the University in meeting its cultural and educational goals by undertaking a program of teaching, research, …

Changing Perceptions Of A Missionary-Researcher, Philip Gibbs Svd

Pacific Studies

The missionary-researcher might well begin fieldwork after an existence as book-bound as any Ph.D. candidate. However, the motives for going to live with people differ from those of most academic anthropologists. Whether one has an academic qualification or not, the primary motive for the missionary-researcher is to come to know and understand people so as to share a faith message with them in a meaningful way. The key term is "dialogue" and just how long that dialogue might last is often not a major issue. For the neophyte academic anthropologist and the novice missionary-researcher alike, culture and sharing people's lives …

"We Didn't Think You Was Comin' Back": Art, Fieldwork, And History In The East Kimberley, Western Australia, Eric Kjellgren

Pacific Studies

Heracleitus observed that it is impossible to step into the same river, yet the river remains over time. This paradox summarizes the relationship between anthropological fieldwork and ethnography. Entering the field is to experience a culture at one point in time. To write ethnography is to create a general analysis of that culture. Just as one can better understand a river's nature by observing it over time, one gains a more nuanced understanding of a culture through repeated episodes of fieldwork. Using examples from my research in the East Kimberley, Western Australia, I explore how the ongoing history of cultural …

Living A "Convenient Fiction", Anne Chambers, Keith S. Chambers

Pacific Studies

Long-term fieldwork offers a unique perspective on the complex, interactive process of interpretation on which ethnography depends. Through shared experiences, the ethnographer(s) and host community collaborate in constructing reciprocal identities tailored to their respective needs and the local situation. The mutual expectations and assumptions grounding this relationship become more visible as they are defined by subsequent events and encounters over the years. Our article analyzes some significant and turns in our thirty-year relationship with the Tuvaluan atoll community of Nanumea. In initially defining us as "of the island," the community established us in a local category' resonant with key emic …

Contextualizing Histories: Our Rotuman Experience, Alan Howard, Jan Rensel

Pacific Studies

Alan conducted fieldwork on Rotuma in 1959—1960 and did not return until 1987, this time with Jan. Together, we have returned nine times since, for visits ranging from one week to six months. During this period the "field" has changed. About four-fifths of Rotumans now live abroad. We have visited Rotuman communities in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the U.S. mainland, and Europe, and we keep in touch with Rotumans via the Internet. Prolonged involvement has resulted in a shift away from a scientific generalizing viewpoint to one emphasizing context and personal histories. It has also forced us to reexamine our …

Returning To The Field: I'M Older And They're Wiser, Juliana Flinn

Pacific Studies

Several processes of change and of human development affect the process of fieldwork over time. The concerns, issues, interests, relationships, coping strategies, motivations, and even personality of a mature adult are not the same as those of a younger adult. Consequently, fieldwork conducted on Pollap Atoll in Micronesia in 1998—1999 differed from dissertation research conducted in the same place eighteen years earlier. Changes since 1980 in the Pollapese way of life, their relationships with outsiders, and their understandings of anthropology contributed to a different experience, as did my heightened sense of confidence, decreased anxiety, and increased faith in participant observation.

Life In Dis-Place: Re-Searching Processes Of Imagining With Enewetak-Ujelang People, Laurence Marshall Carucci

Pacific Studies

The current article attempts to outline the way in which ongoing research with the Enewetak-Ujelang community and with other Marshall Islanders over a period of nearly three decades has required the author to reformulate taken for granted ideas about "culture," "the field," and "field research" as well as presuppositions about self/other and about ethnographic writing. Not only has the shape of "the field" shifted substantially during this time period, becoming much more multifaceted and multilocational, so too, the identity of the author has been recontoured many times over by members of Enewetak-Ujelang communities. Therefore, neither "field" nor "fieldworker" are ever …

Vol. 27 Nos. 3/4 (2004): Pacific Studies Front Matter, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Front Matter for the Vol. 27, Nos 3/4-Sept./Dec. 2004 edition of the Pacific Studies Journal.

Films And Other Trials: Reflections On Long-Term Fieldwork Among The Maisin, Papua New Guinea, John Barker

Pacific Studies

This essay is a personal reflection on my developing relationship with the Maisin of Papua New Guinea from December 1981 to the present. I discuss my initial research focus and how my early fieldwork helped me to better understand the ways the Maisin have responded to changes in their community over the past twenty years, particularly in dealing with outsiders. I contrast my understandings of Maisin society with portrayals in two documentary films made in the community, Anthropology on Trial (1983) and Changing Ground (2001). I argue that the relationship between anthropologists and host communities fuses intellectual engagement with a …

Vol. 27 Nos. 3/4 (2004): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies is published two times a year by The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai‘i #1979, 55–220 Kulanui Street, Lāʻie, Hawai‘i 96762, but responsibility for opinions expressed in the articles rests with the authors alone. Subscription rate is US $26.00 yearly, payable to The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies. The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies (formerly The Pacific Institute) is an organization funded by Brigham Young University Hawai‘i. The Center assists the University in meeting its cultural and educational goals by undertaking a program of teaching, research, …

Gender And Cosmos Emplaced: Women's Houses And Men's Houses In Bariai, West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, Naomi Mcpherson

Pacific Studies

In Papua New Guinea, the men's cult houses are dramatic examples of vernacular architecture that have overshadowed the importance and symbolic meanings of the domestic dwelling, or women's houses. This essay is an ethnography of house forms, specifically women's houses and men's cult houses in Bariai, West New Britain. The focus is on relationships of articulation between the built environment and gender concepts within the framework of Bariai cosmology, which show how gender concepts and relations are emplaced and the built environment is gendered.

Books Noted: Recent Pacific Islands Publications: Selected Acquisitions, May 2002 To March 2003, Riley M. Moffat

Pacific Studies

THIS LIST of significant publications relating to the Pacific Islands was selected from new acquisitions lists received from Brigham Young University-Hawai'i, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, University of Auckland, East-West Center, University of the South Pacific, National Library of Australia, Melanesian Studies Resource Center of the University of California-San Diego, Radboud University of Nijmegen's Centre for Pacific Asian Studies, and Secretariat of the Pacific Community Library. Other libraries are invited to send contributions to the Books Noted Editor for future issues. Listings reflect the extent of information provided by each institution.

Vol. 27 Nos. 1/2 (2004): Pacific Studies Front Matter, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Front Matter for the Vol. 27, Nos. 1/2-Mar 2004 edition of the Pacific Studies Journal.

Crowd Scenes: Pacific Collectivity And European Encounter, Vanessa Smith

Pacific Studies

This essay looks at the phenomenon of the Pacific crowd as registered within eighteenth-century voyage accounts. The experience of the crowd on the beach-an experience of being overwhelmed-was integral to European encounters with Pacific islanders. However, the impact of the crowd has been neglected within Pacific scholarship, which has not accessed the insights of crowd theory within analyses of contact. Concomitantly, crowd theory ignores the peripheral crowd scene. The crowd has been theorized as a predominantly metropolitan phenomenon and historicized in the context of (primarily industrial) urbanization. Through close textual analysis of a number of European voyage texts, particularly Bligh's …

Vol. 27 Nos. 1/2 (2004): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies is published two times a year by The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai‘i #1979, 55–220 Kulanui Street, Lāʻie, Hawai‘i 96762, but responsibility for opinions expressed in the articles rests with the authors alone. Subscription rate is US $26.00 yearly, payable to The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies. The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies (formerly The Pacific Institute) is an organization funded by Brigham Young University Hawai‘i. The Center assists the University in meeting its cultural and educational goals by undertaking a program of teaching, research, …

Elections On Guam, 1970-2002, Donald R. Shuster

Pacific Studies

Guam, taken as a spoil of the 1898 Spanish-American War, has since been an unincorporated U.S. territory in the western Pacific. Although U.S. citizenship was conferred on the island people by the 1950 Organic Act, the chief executive was not popularly elected until 1970. This article describes electoral politics and parties on Guam: candidates, campaigns, results, and analyses. The first seven gubernatorial elections are surveyed, and the contests of 1998,2000, and 2002 are described in detail. The 1998 race, an especially contentious one, was finally settled by a U.S. Supreme Court decision. The 2002 governorship contest pitted media power and …

Research Notes: Empty Nests And Parental Well-Being In An Asian-Pacific Population: An Exploratory Test, Thomas K. Pinhey

Pacific Studies

Guided by theories of role loss and role stress, this study explores mental health outcomes for parents in Guam's Asian-Pacific community whose last offspring has left the family "nest." In contrast with findings reported in studies of U.S. mainland populations, the results of analyses of data from Guam's 1991 Behavioral Risk Factor Survey (N = 398) indicate that the launching of the last offspring from family homes results in role loss and significantly greater emotional trauma for Asian-Pacific women, thus suggesting that parenting may be less stressful for women in Guam. I present a discussion of the implications of the …

Review: Ron Crocombe, The South Pacific, Eugene Ogan

Pacific Studies

Ron Crocombe, The South Pacific. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 2001. Pp. 790, illus., bib., index. A$130 (about US$85) cloth.

Reviewed by Eugene Ogan, Honolulu, Hawai'i

Review: Sean Mallon, Samoan Art And Artists: O Measina A Sāmoa, Teri Sowell

Pacific Studies

Sean Mallon, Samoan Art and Artists: O Measina a Sāmoa. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. Pp. 224, illus., bib., index. US$29.95 paper.

Reviewed by Teri Sowell, San Diego State University

Review: Andrew Strathern, Pamela J. Stewart, Laurence M. Carucci, Lin Poyer, Richard Feinberg, And Cluny Macpherson, Oceania: An Introduction To The Cultures And Identities Of Pacific Islanders., Judy Flores

Pacific Studies

Andrew Strathern, Pamela J. Stewart, Laurence M. Carucci, Lin Poyer, Richard Feinberg, and Cluny Macpherson, Oceania: An Introduction to the Cultures and Identities of Pacific Islanders. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 2002. Pp. 280. US$30 paper.

Reviewed by Judy Flores, Micronesian Area Research Center, University of Guam; Gef Pa'go Chamorro Cultural Village, Inarajan, Guam

"Where Will You Sleep Tonight?" The Samo Longhouse, A Metaphor Of Spatial And Social Structure, R. Daniel Shaw

Pacific Studies

The juxtaposition of physical space and social interaction among the precontact Samo people of Papua New Guinea's east Strickland Plain is analyzed through a rich cultural metaphor reflecting on where people habitually sleep. Where a person sleeps establishes individual status within the collectivity of a household, which is identified as both a dwelling and an interactive group of family-oriented people. A longhouse was typically built on a ridgetop amid gardens, sago-lined swamp, and surrounding forest, together creating an economic environment that, in effect, fed the community. Similarly, social space was created through the reciprocal exchange of female siblings that enabled …