Pacific Islands Languages and Societies Commons^™

Celebrating Mother's Day In A Melanesian Village Church, Deborah Van Heekeren

Pacific Studies

Christianity dominates village sociality in the Hula villages of Papua New Guinea's southeastern coast to the extent that the United Church has appropriated and indigenized the Western custom of setting aside a day to celebrate motherhood. In the process Mother's Day has been transformed into an expression of local Christian values to which women should aspire. In many ways the events that take place invert gender roles, but we also find that certain things are always left to women. The events related here, through the perspective of the United Church Women's Fellowship (UCWF), also comment briefly on Adventism in Irupara …

Offshore Gambling In Pacific Islands Tax Havens, Anthony B. Van Fossen

Pacific Studies

This article analyzes offshore (including Internet) gambling in Oceania-particularly its uneven development in Vanuatu, the Cook Islands, Norfolk Island, and Palau. Offshore gambling's evolution and future prospects are examined in terms of tensions between (1) the drive by entrepreneurs and regional taw-haven promoters to increase the volume and variety of gambling among the array of services that Pacific Islands tax havens provide and (2) the growing moves by metropolitan countries to curb taw avoidance and evasion, economic loss, money laundering, and other forms of crime and deviant behavior associated with offshore gambling.

Vol. 26 Nos. 3/4 (2003): Pacific Studies Front Matter, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Front Matter for the Vol. 26, No 3/4-Sept./Dec. 2003 edition of the Pacific Studies Journal.

The Church As Embodiment And Expression Of Community On Ujelang And Enewetak, Marshall Islands, Laurence Marshall Carucci

Pacific Studies

The church as a culturally constructed location is constantly "unmade and remade" on Ujelang and Enewetak Atolls (Marshall Islands) with semantic values tied to wider social and historical changes. Stories about the original church represent it as a sacred site forming the physical, moral, and cosmogenic center of the Enewetak community. During World War II, Japanese military rule transformed the church into a location of resistance. During postwar exile to Ujelang Atoll, the village-centered church became a site where solidarity-enhancing practices allowed the community to confront isolation and suffering. A new church, built in 1978 as a symbol of reinvigorated …

Vol. 26 Nos. 3/4 (2003): 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, …

Review: John Overton And Regina Scheyvens, Editors, Strategies For Sustainable Development: Experiences From The Pacific, Norman S. Wright

Pacific Studies

John Overton and Regina Scheyvens, editors, Strategies for Sustainable Development: Experiences from the Pacific. London and New York: Zed Books, 1999. Pp. 306, bib., index. US$15.50 paper.

Reviewed by Norman S. Wright, Brigham Young University-Hawai'i

Books Noted: Recent Pacific Islands Publications: Selected Acquisitions, May 2002-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.

Review: Francis X. Hezel, S.J., The New Shape Of Old Island Cultures: A Half Century Of Social Change In Micronesia., Donald H. Rubinstein

Pacific Studies

Francis X. Hezel, S.J., The New Shape of Old Island Cultures: A Half Century of Social Change in Micronesia. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001. Pp. xi, 198, illustrations, bibliography, index. US$49 cloth; $21 paper.

Reviewed by Donald H. Rubinstein, University of Guam

Vol. 26 Nos. 1/2 (2003): 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, …

Accounts Of Fighting And Cannibalism In Eastern New Guinea During The Missionary Contact Period, 1877-1888, As Told To Charles Abel, David Wetherell

Pacific Studies

Field notes by missionary Charles W. Abel of the London Missionary Society, contained in two little-known handwritten documents, describe traditional warfare customs, including treatment of captives and cannibalism among the peoples of the Milne Bay/China Strait region of southeastern New Guinea, as told to him by Paulo Dilomi and other informants. The editor transcribes these notes here and theorizes that Abel's knowledge of these activities provides context for the missionary's derogatory attitude toward the "savage" Papuan, in contrast to the perspectives of later observers including other missionaries and anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski.

Special Supplement: Index, Volumes 21-25: Authors, Robert S. Means, Russ Clement

Pacific Studies

Compiled by Robert S. Means & Russell T. Clement

Includes Vol. 21 (1998): nos. 1/2 (Mar./Jun.), no. 3 (Sept.), no. 4 (Dec.); Vol. 22 (1999): no. 1 (Mar.), no. 2 (Jun.), nos. 3/4 (Sept./Dec.); Vol. 23 (2000): nos. 1/2 (Mar./Jun.), nos. 3/4 (Sept./Dec.); Vol. 24 (2001): nos. 1/2 (Mar./Jun,), nos. 3/4 (Sept./Dec.); Vol. 25 (2002): nos. 1/2 (Mar./Jun.), no. 3 (Sept.), no. 4 (Dec.).

Book Review Forum Response: Cathy A. Small, Voyages: From Tongan Villages To American Suburbs., Cathy Small

Pacific Studies

Response of Cathy Small to Book Review of "Cathy A. Small, Voyages: From Tongan Villages to American Suburbs."

Review: Jack A. Tobin, Stories From The Marshall Islands: Bwebwenato Jān Aelōn̄ Kein., Phillip Mcarthur

Pacific Studies

Jack A. Tobin, Stories from the Marshall Islands: Bwebwenato Jān Aelōn̄ Kein. PALI Language Texts. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. Pp. xvi, 405, maps, notes, references, appendixes, index. US$55 cloth; $19.95 paper.

Reviewed by Phillip McArthur, Brigham Young University-Hawai'i

Books Noted: Recent Pacific Islands Publications: Selected Acquisitions, February-April 2002, 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 Centre for Pacific and 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. 26 Nos. 1/2 (2003): Pacific Studies Front Matter, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Front Matter for the Vol. 26, Nos 1/2-Mar/Jun 2003 edition of the Pacific Studies Journal.

Book Review Forum: Cathy A. Small, Voyages: From Tongan Villages To American Suburbs., Steve Francis

Pacific Studies

Cathy A. Small, Voyages: From Tongan Villages to American Suburbs. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997. Pp. xi, 252, tables, figures, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. US$48.50 cloth; $16.95 paper.

Review: Steve Francis, University of Melbourne

Fisheries Development In Kiribati: Sustainability Issues In A "Mirab" Economy, Frank R. Thomas

Pacific Studies

Fisheries development has long been recognized as a means of achieving greater economic independence for Pacific "microstates." The Republic of Kiribati is particularly well endowed in marine resources, largely due to its extensive Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). However, the extraction of those resources rests mainly with distant-water fishing nations (DWFNs) who pay a license fee. This feature of a "MIRAB" economy, which encompasses elements of migration, remittances, aid, and bureaucracy, only marginally benefits Kiribati. Government has therefore looked to develop its own fishery' industry and begun to focus on inshore fisheries and aquaculture projects to diversify Kiribati's meager exports. In …

Book Review Forum: Cathy A. Small, Voyages: From Tongan Villages To American Suburbs., Heather Young Leslie

Pacific Studies

Cathy A. Small, Voyages: From Tongan Villages to American Suburbs. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997. Pp. xi, 252, tables, figures, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. US$48.50 cloth; $16.95 paper.

Review: Heather Young Leslie, University of Hawai'i

Book Review Forum: Cathy A. Small, Voyages: From Tongan Villages To American Suburbs, Ernest Olson

Pacific Studies

Cathy A. Small, Voyages: From Tongan Villages to American Suburbs. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997. Pp. xi, 252, tables, figures, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. US$48.50 cloth; $16.95 paper.

Review: Ernest G. Olson, Wells College

Special Supplement: Index, Volumes 21-25: Subjects, Robert S. Means, Russ Clement

Pacific Studies

Compiled by Robert S. Means & Russell T. Clement

Includes Vol. 21 (1998): nos. 1/2 (Mar./Jun.), no. 3 (Sept.), no. 4 (Dec.); Vol. 22 (1999): no. 1 (Mar.), no. 2 (Jun.), nos. 3/4 (Sept./Dec.); Vol. 23 (2000): nos. 1/2 (Mar./Jun.), nos. 3/4 (Sept./Dec.); Vol. 24 (2001): nos. 1/2 (Mar./Jun,), nos. 3/4 (Sept./Dec.); Vol. 25 (2002): nos. 1/2 (Mar./Jun.), no. 3 (Sept.), no. 4 (Dec.)

Introduction: Communities In Crisis, Susanna Trnka

Pacific Studies

This introduction sets the stage for a volume of essays exploring the social, political, and cultural upheavals experienced in Fiji during and after the May 2000 coup led by George Speight. While media and political discourse have largely focused on national-level implications and ethnic divisions, this collection shifts attention to grassroots perspectives, highlighting how ordinary citizens experienced and interpreted the crisis. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted during or shortly after the coup, contributors examine local discourses, community reactions, and the reconfiguration of identities and power dynamics. The introduction contextualizes the coup within Fiji's broader history of political instability, including the …

Disjunctures In Discourse: Emerging Identities After The 2000 Coup In Rakiraki, Fiji, Karen J. Brison

Pacific Studies

This essay examines the way the coup of 2000 crystallized a new ethnic identity among Rakiraki villagers based on opposition to dominant groups within the Fijian ethnic community. The most obvious source of support for the coup was fear and resentment of Indo-Fijians, and it was evident that the coup both drew on and catalyzed such resentments. However, listening to villagers' reactions convinced me that they also supported the coup because they saw it as an attempt by a western Fijian (Speight, whose mother was rumored to be a Ra woman) to overthrow a Bauan-Lauan monopoly on government power, as …

Taukei-Vulagi Philosophy And The Coup Of 19 May 2000, Tui Rakuita

Pacific Studies

This essay analyzes how the 19 May 2000 civilian coup in Fiji drew upon an indigenous philosophy of taukei-vulagi (native-foreigner) relations to mobilize support for the antigovernment rebels. Fears of political disempowerment—grounded in the political realities of the Chaudhry government as well as in political propaganda—led many "ordinary" Fijians to support the motives, if not the methods, of the coup. The coup itself, I conclude, can best be understood as a manifestation of the friction between two categories of Fijians—old guards associated with the colonial era and the educated marginalized elite—with Indo-Fijians (contrary to their wishes) dragged in to establish …

Vol. 25 No. 4 (2002): Pacific Studies Front Matter, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Front Matter for the Vol. 25, No 4-Dec. 2002 edition of the Pacific Studies Journal.

Speaking Of Coups Before They Happen: Kadavu, May-June 1999, Matt Tomlinson

Pacific Studies

This essay is an examination of discourse I heard in Kadavu Island, Fiji, immediately after the national elections of May 1999. The election results were distressing to many Kadavuans and propelled the circulation of explicitly political discourse. I examine two related phenomena. First, I consider how Methodists' uses of the Bible did not change during the period of coup discourse circulation. In other words, counterintuitively (and contrary to some themes in the literature on Fiji), political talk of Fijian aboriginality did not increase the citation of Old Testament books with their themes of rightful homelands. This suggests that certain forms …

Chiefly Politics In The First Reactions In Rakiraki To The May 2000 Coup In Fiji, Stephen C. Leavitt

Pacific Studies

This essay describes the rationale behind local leaders' scramble to respond to unfolding reactions to the coup in Fiji. Once word spread across the countryside that there had been a takeover of Parliament, people felt an immediate sense that the country was undergoing "another coup." This perception created a need to assimilate the events in terms of prevailing political orientations. In Rakiraki, the Tui Navitilevu made a widely publicized pronouncement of support that provoked a hurried attempt to contain reactions from other high-status figures in the area. The incident brought out into the open the usually submerged conflicts over legitimate …

Vol. 25 No. 4 (2002): 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, …

Afterword: The Debris, Brij V. Lal

Pacific Studies

This afterword to the collection places the essays in the context of current scholarship and media attention to the 2000 coup. It also provides updated information on the Qarase government and the current political situation in Fiji.

Foreigners At Home: Discourses Of Difference, Fiji Indians And The Looting Of May 19, Susanna Trnka

Pacific Studies

This essay focuses on Fiji Indians' reactions to the property destruction and ethnic violence that followed the 19 May 2000 coup. In particular, it explores why, in the first few weeks following the coup, Indo-Fijians despaired over the looting of downtown shops, rather than over other acts of seemingly more direct anti-Indian violence, such as the burning of Indo-Fijian homes and physical attacks against Indo-Fijian men and women. I analyze how Fiji's Sanatan Hindus discursively posited Indians, on the one hand, as central to the development of Fiji as a "modern," capitalist nation, and Fijians, on the other, as detrimental …

Rascals, The State, And Civil Society In Papua New Guinea, Nand E. Hart Nibbrig

Pacific Studies

This article contends that as conditions worsen in Papua New Guinea's urban areas, it is apparent that the escalating crime and violence associated with rascal gangs are creating new rules of authority. The cumulative effects of criminal activities associated with gangs are negating the existing social order, spreading fear deep within civil society. In so doing, these activities deliver yet another blow to the legitimacy of the state. Continuous migration and the concomitant expansion of the newly urbanized population are defining a new urban landscape. Likewise, the persistent drain of national wealth by pervasive corruption, civil war, or domestic unrest …