Pacific Islands Languages and Societies Commons^™

Omengeredakl: Aesthetics Of Sound And Vocal Music In Palau, Birgit Abels

Pacific Studies

Omengeredakl are group chants sung on the islands of Palau, West Micronesia. They stand out from the rest of the repertoire of Palauan vocal music because of certain musical features nor found in other extant Palauan songs. The distinctly Palauan sound of this song type, and how this "audible locality" is manifested in song, has at times been used extensively in the localization of Self, and at times less so. The article argues that this has led to changes in the popularity of omengeredakl over the course of the last century.

Land Agendas Vis à Vis A Makani (Wind) Discourse: Deconstructing Space/Place Political Agendas In Hawai'i, Sydney Lehua Iaukea

Pacific Studies

This paper analyzes conservation and tourism agendas in Hawai'i as they progressed together in the late 1950s. The two are interconnected and positioned land, people, and culture in particular ways. The silencing of other ways of knowing and interpreting 'āina were intrinsic in the promotion of industry. This paper discusses a "wind discourse" with The Wind Gourd of La'amaomao to interject indigenous readings of space and place in Hawai'i. A reorientation to native recollections of 'āina breaks contemporary social constructs and encourages the resurgence of other ways of knowing self and environment. Herein a Hawaiian wellbeing and identity is strengthened …

Book Review Forum: Eric Kline Silverman. Masculinity, Motherhood, And Mockery: Psychoanalyzing Culture And The Iatmul Naven Rite In New Guinea, Stephen Leavitt

Pacific Studies

Book review of "Eric Kline Silverman. Masculinity, Motherhood, and Mockery: Psychoanalyzing Culture and the Iatmul Naven Rite in New Guinea" by Stephen Leavitt

Book Review Forum: Eric Kline Silverman. Masculinity, Motherhood, And Mockery: Psychoanalyzing Culture And The Iatmul Naven Rite In New Guinea., Diane Losche

Pacific Studies

Book review of "Eric Kline Silverman. Masculinity, Motherhood, and Mockery: Psychoanalyzing Culture and the Iatmul Naven Rite in New Guinea." by Diane Losche

Book Review Forum: Eric Kline Silverman. Masculinity, Motherhood, And Mockery: Psychoanalyzing Culture And The Iatmul Naven Rite In New Guinea, Paul Roscoe

Pacific Studies

Book review of "Eric Kline Silverman. Masculinity, Motherhood, and Mockery: Psychoanalyzing Culture and the Iatmul Naven Rite in New Guinea" by Paul Roscoe

Book Review/Response: Eric Kline Silverman. Masculinity, Motherhood, And Mockery: Psychoanalyzing Culture And The Iatmul Naven Rite In New Guinea., Eric Kline Silverman

Pacific Studies

Book review/response to "Eric Kline Silverman. Masculinity, Motherhood, and Mockery: Psychoanalyzing Culture and the Iatmul Naven Rite in New Guinea." by Eric Kline SIlverman

Book Review: Ron Crocombe. Asia In The Pacific Islands: Replacing The West, Evan Lampe

Pacific Studies

Ron Crocombe. Asia in the Pacific Islands: Replacing the West. Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific IPS Publications, 2007. Pp. 644. ISBN 9789820203884. US$49.00 paper, B/W illustrations.

Reviewed by Evan Lampe, Endicott College

Books Noted: Recent Pacific Islands Publications: Selected Acquisitions, January 2008-June 2008, Riley Mofatt

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 South Pacific, National Library of Australia, Melanesian Studies Resource Center, Center for Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Nijmegen, University of California San Diego, Secretariat of the Pacific Community Library, Center for South Pacific Studies, University of New South Wales, Macmillan Brown Library at University of Canterbury, and the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau's Center for the Pacific Development Training. Other libraries …

Vol. 32 No. 1 (2009): Pacific Studies Front Matter, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Front Matter for the Vol. 32, No 1-Mar 2009 edition of the Pacific Studies Journal.

Vol. 32 No. 1 (2009): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Omengeredakl are group chants sung in the islands of Palau, West Micronesia. They stand out from the rest of the repertoire of Palauan vocal music because of certain musical features not found in other extant Palauan songs. The distinctly Palauan sound of this song type, and how this "audible locality" is manifested in song, has at time been used extensively in the localization of Self, and at times less so. The article argues that this has led to changes in the popularity of omengeredakl over the course of the last century.

Vol. 32 No. 2-3 (2009): Pacific Island 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, …

The Making And Nurturing Of Relationships: An Ujelang/Enewetak Model In The Context Of Change, Laurence Marshall Carucci

Pacific Studies

Pacific adoption has long served as a prototypical contrary case that complicates the ethnocentric and simplistic kinship logics of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology—logical approaches which themselves project and perpetuate Euro-American ideas about relatedness. Yet, at the same moment the Pacific adoption literature has confronted the biases of Euro-American categories of kinship and interpersonal relatedness, it also has perpetuated certain stereotypic contours of those categories by shadowing the outlines of their very existence. Escaping those contours in an English publication is, ultimately, impossible. Nevertheless, more finely rendered accounts are attainable. In this paper, I attempt to fashion one such account, a …

Introduction, Judith Schachter

Pacific Studies

An introduction article to this special issue of the Pacific Studies journal focused on adoption and fosterage.

Adopting Change: Relational Flexibility As Vice And Virtue On Mota Island, Vanuatu, Thorgeir Storesund Kolshus

Pacific Studies

On the island of Mota in the Banks Islands, children and adults frequently have their matrilineal and even matrimoiety affiliation, and consequently kin relations, altered and multiplied through various forms of adoption. Most of the 850 Motese count themselves as belonging to several kin groups. This creates personalized kin inventories for each individual. Consequently, an element of choice concerning which relation to emphasize is intrinsic to the Motese kinship system. In this paper, some of the reasons and motivations for these choices are outlined. The traditional flexibility of social relations, with their associated transfer of rights and obligations, also proves …

Preface, Mac Marshall

Pacific Studies

This article is a preface to this special issue on fosterage and adoption.

Changing Concepts Of Chief And Hierarchy On A Polynesian Outlier, William W. Donner

Pacific Studies

Sikaiana is a Polynesian society with a legend of a powerful, centralized chief or aliki. However, Sikaiana is also a very egalitarian society, and it has resisted efforts by Protectorate and national government administrators to establish a local chief. This article examines the legendary and modern history of Sikaiana chiefs to show how power and authority became and remained decentralized. The ideology of Sikaiana egalitarianism is supported by familiarity and face-to-face experience with personally known others. This egalitarianism faces new challenges as Sikaiana society both differentiates internally and becomes incorporated into larger, regional, and international social systems. There is …

Ethnic Representations And Social Integration Of Contemporary French Migrants In Tahiti, French Polynesia, Laura Schuft

Pacific Studies

This study analyzes the discourse on social integration and ethnic representations of French civil servants working short and long term in Tahiti, French Polynesia. Appointed to positions in education, public administration, and law and order by the mainland authority, the attitudes and social interactions of this community compose a dynamic element of ethnic identity formation in Tahiti. Habitually the literary and academic voice on Tahitian culture and history, the discourse of this dominant socioeconomic category is herein redefined as the object of sociological study.

Analysis reveals three principal ideal-type attitudes toward ethnic representations and relations, each positioned differently around reactions …

Book Review Forum: Tree Leaf Talk: A Heideggerian Anthropology By James F. Weiner, Andrew Moutu

Pacific Studies

Reviewed by Andrew Moutu, University of Cambridge.

James F. Weiner’s Tree Leaf Talk: A Heideggerian Anthropology explores the metaphor of a “firebreak” as a form of ethnographic writing that resists the unchecked spread of semantic associations and theoretical assumptions. Drawing on the Foi concept of irisae-medobora—a metaphorical, concealing speech used by high-status men in Papua New Guinea—Weiner parallels this with Heidegger’s Holzwege, suggesting that concealment can be a productive anthropological strategy. The book critiques the aestheticization of social relations and the uncritical embrace of non-Western media as ethnographic tools, arguing that social constructionism, rooted in Western metaphysics, may …

Vol. 31 No. 1 (2008): Pacific Studies Front Matter, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies Brigham Young University–HawaiʻI

Pacific Studies

Front Matter for the Vol. 31, No 1-March 2008 edition of the Pacific Studies Journal.

Japan's Industrial Development Of A U.S. Territory: Guam, 1941-1944, Wakako Higuchi

Pacific Studies

Guam's long-unsettled wartime reparations act-now sitting in the U.S. House of Representatives-concerns, among other things, forced-labor mobilization by the Japanese military. This issue has not been systematically studied from written sources of the war years. Based on official documents, this article examines the Japanese Navy's .industrial development policies and activities on Guam during the Pacific War, which inevitably involved forced labor. This article substantiates the Japanese Navy's attempt at economic exploitation and its failure, considering Guam's two characteristic features: its status as a former U.S. territory and its location in Japan's Mariana Islands .. Under the so-called "organic integration" policy, …

Books Noted: Recent Pacific Island Publications: Selected Acquisitions, January 2006-June 2006, Riley 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 South Pacific, National Library of Australia, Melanesian Studies Resource Center, Center for Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Nijmegen, University of California San Diego, Secretariat of the Pacific Community Library, Center for South Pacific Studies, University of New South Wales, Macmillan Brown Library at University of Canterbury, and the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau's Center for the Pacific Development Training. Other libraries …

Books Noted: Recent Pacific Island Publications: Selected Acquisitions, July 2006-May 2007, Riley Moffat

Pacific Studies

THIS Iist 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 South Pacific, National Library of Australia, Melanesian Studies Resource Center, Center for Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Nijmegen, University of California San Diego, Secretariat of the Pacific Community Library, Center for South Pacific Studies, University of New South Wales, Macmillan Brown Library at University of Canterbury, and the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau's Center for the Pacific Development Training. Other libraries …

Faiva Fakaouli: The Tongan Performance Art Of Humor, 'Okusitino Māhina

Pacific Studies

This essay will critically examine faiva fakaoli, literally translated as "the art of funny things, in a number of separate but connected unique and universal contexts. I wish to make clear right from the outset that this essay is not an exercise in theoretically and practically reviewing the existing literature on humor, nor an attempt to make a comprehensive examination of what humor is, i.e., its form and content, nor, for that matter, what humor does, i.e., its social function.' While the theoretical and practical, ontological; and epistemological, or qualitative and utilitarian questions are extremely important, my …

Mangaia In The Colonial World, 1863-1899, Michael Reilly

Pacific Studies

This paper analyzes letters written between 1863 and l899 from the island of Mangaia in the Cook Islands. Collectively, they provide insights into how the people of Mangaia managed their relationships with the outside world, especially with British authorities in the Pacific. These letters are discussed in conjunction with other documents from the colonial archives in order to achieve a more balanced understanding of the way Mangaians acted upon the cultural values inherited from their ancestors in the context of an increasing assertion of foreign control over their island. These vernacular letters articulate a long-hidden subaltern history of Mangaia.

Vol. 31 No. 1 (2008): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies Brigham Young University–HawaiʻI

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, …

Vol. 30, No. 3/4 (2007): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies Brigham Young University–HawaiʻI

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, …

Grandparenting Styles In An Urban/Rural Borderland In New Zealand, Sally Keeling

Pacific Studies

This paper on grandparenting styles draws on ethnographic interviews with old-old (80 and older) Anglo-Europeans living in a small-town community in New Zealand. The interviews were collected as part of the social content of a lon tudinal study of the epidemiology of a ng in an urban/rural borderland setting. Analyses indicate that grandparent status and role are both central to and contingent upon how old-old people negotiate and sustain independence and autonomy in the context of family and friendship networks. Diversity is examined using a typology developed from research on American Indian grandparents in an urban/rural situation as a framework, …

Changing Contexts For Grandparent Adoption On Raivavae, French Polynesia, Jeanette L. Dickerson-Putnam

Pacific Studies

This paper examines change in grandparent adoption and care of grandchildren on the Austral island of Raivavae in French Polynesia. The focus is on how Raivavaens have utilized the flexible, negotiable, and contingent institution of grandparent adoption as a strategy for coping with changing global/local linkages, out-migration for employment, and introduction of nonindigenous institutions and processes. The inherent flexibility of the adoptive relationship is apparently enabling Raivavaens to mold it in ways that serve a new set of needs and circumstances, most of which reside with the grandchild's parents rather than the grandparents. Grandparents appear to have extended and otherwise …

Introduction: The Practice And Prospects Of Grandparenting In The Pacific, Dorothy Ayers Counts

Pacific Studies

The contributors to this special issue represent the orientations and approaches of several social science disciplines and are variously involved in interdisci­ plina1y endeavors. However, anthropology is the primary discipline and ethno­ graphy a shared methodology. It is a main task of any ethnography to make the exotic familiar and to treat the familiar as though it were exotic. The papers in this special issue achieve this for grandparenthood in the Pacific. The familiar concept of grandparenthood is shown to have multiple meanings in close examinations of how the status is achieved, for example, what it means for a person's …

Grandparenting Among The Chamorros Of Guam, Vicki Torsch

Pacific Studies

For the Chamorros of Guam, contemporary grandparenting reflects the cultural tension between the forces struggling for continuity with cherished traditions and values centered on caring and sharing, and those requiring adaptation, cultural change, and expanding lifestyle choices. Descriptions and analyses draw on data collected in 60 life-history inte1views and participant observation research. The paper focuses on an emerging duality in grandparenting styles and contrasts the gendered perspectives on grandparenting roles and attitudes. The diversity of styles is embedded in personalities, gender, educational level, and lifestyle choices, and reflects different responses to dramatic change in sociocultural and economic conditions.