Pacific Islands Languages and Societies Commons^™

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 …

On The Location Of The Proto-Oceanic Homeland, John Edward Terrell, Terry L. Hunt, Joel Bradshaw

Pacific Studies

The linguist Malcolm Ross has advanced a series of inferences pointing to somewhere in the Bismarck Archipelago as the probable "homeland" in the Pacific of the Oceanic or Eastern Austronesian languages. This conclusion is not the only one that can be reached based on current linguistic evidence and inference. Reviewing why he has singled out the Bismarck Archipelago as the homeland is advisable, for Ross's deductions have been seen as substantial support for associating proto-Oceanic with what some archaeologists have characterized as the "Lapita cultural complex." We find, however, that social-network models based on alternative assumptions about linguistic variation and …

Review: Barry Craig, Bernie Kernot, And Christopher Anderson, Eds. , Art And Performance In Oceania, Jehanne Teilhet-Fisk

Pacific Studies

Barry Craig, Bernie Kernot, and Christopher Anderson, eds. , Art and Performance in Oceania. Bathurst, N.S.W.: Crawford House Press and Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999. Pp. vii, 318, illus., bib., index. A$65.95 and US$65 cloth.

Reviewed by Jehanne Teilhet-Fisk, Florida State University

Review: Andrew Strathern And Pamela J. Stewart, Arrow Talk: Transaction, Transition, And Contradiction In New Guinea Highlands History, Michael Wesch

Pacific Studies

Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart, Arrow Talk: Transaction, Transition, and Contradiction in New Guinea Highlands History. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2000. Pp. 216, illus., bib., index. US$19 paperback.

Reviewed by Michael Wesch, University of Virginia

Review: Paul Sillitoe, Social Change In Melanesia: Development And History, Paul B. Wohlt

Pacific Studies

Paul Sillitoe, Social Change in Melanesia: Development and History. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xx, 264, illus., index. US$6S cloth; $24 paperback.

Reviewed by Paul B. Wohlt, Ball State University

Books Noted: Recent Pacific Islands Publications: Selected Acquisitions, July 2001-January 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, University of Nijmegen's Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies, and the 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. 25 No. 3 (2002): Pacific Studies Front Matter, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Front Matter for the Vol. 25, No 3-Sep 2002 edition of the Pacific Studies Journal.

Preserving Colonial Heritage In Postcolonial Micronesia, Jon G. O'Neill, Dirk Hr Spennemann

Pacific Studies

Micronesia has a long history of colonial occupation: Spanish, German, Japanese, and finally American. Each power left tangible remains of its occupation and each has influenced the preservation of Micronesian culture. This essay explores the nature of historic preservation of colonial sites and property in a postcolonial world. What are the priorities and what are the constraints for Micronesian countries to manage their colonial past at a time when cultural self-determination has become reality?

Review: Mervyn Mclean, Weavers Of Song: Polynesian Music And Dance, Mary E. Lawson Burke

Pacific Studies

Mervyn McLean, Weavers of Song: Polynesian Music and Dance. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1999. Pp. 556, illus., bib., index, CD. NZ$79.95 cloth.

Reviewed by Mary E. Lawson Burke, Framingham State College

Research Notes: Marijuana Use Among High-School Students In Guam, Thomas K. Pinhey, John W. Carpenter Jr., Michael P. Perez, Randall L. Workman

Pacific Studies

This study aimed to provide an estimate of the prevalence of marijuana use among Guam's high-school youth and to explore the potential protective and risk factors associated with its use. Using a probability sample (n = 589), our findings revealed that 51 percent of respondents said that they had used marijuana at least once during their life. Males reported using marijuana more frequently than did female respondents. Higher grades and being female were each associated with significantly lower levels of marijuana use. Contrary to predictions, students that discussed their problems and worries with adults, and students that participated in high-school …

Postcolonial Politics And Colonial Media Representations In New Caledonia, Alaine Chanter

Pacific Studies

The signing in 1998 of the Noumea Agreement on the political future of New Caledonia was of great significance in conferring a limited form of nationhood on New Caledonia prior to a vote on independence in fifteen to twenty years' time. The agreement itself argues that the emergence of a " new sovereignty" requires affirmation of the formative place of Kanak identity and culture in the society. This requirement is particularly apparent within the European community, which has based its opposition to independence on a denigration of Kanak claims to an affirmative identity and peoplehood. This article interrogates whether there …

Vol. 25 No. 3 (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, …

Whangarei Stake Center

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

Monsey Anaru: We have a saying in New Zealand among the Maori people, which goes something like this: Kia poto tonu te okou to paipa kie maha nai waha. Translated: we're happy to see you, extremely happy. Especially when you're handed some candy and things like that. Literally, that means: have a short stalk on your pipe to retain the warmth closer to your mouth. So, I hope that I'm not going to speak for too long. I have all my notes with me. The first meeting place in Whangarei was a street by the central Baptist Church there where …

Takapuwahia Marae, Porirua

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

Taku Parai: Well, we've come to the part of the program where I guess a lot of questions and answers are going to be shared between us all, but I think we should start of on the right note, and that is that we'll have an opening song, which we'll ask Aunty Cissy to conduct. And we'll ask Hrother Pierce to give the opening invocation to this part of the program.

Mphs New Zealand Trip: Daily Diary, April 16-28, 2002

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

Tuesday, 16 April

We left Honolulu at 12:30 a.m., 5 long hours after leaving Laie. At some point the 6 ½-hour flight to Nadi we crossed the International Dateline and lost a day, arriving at Nadi at 5:30 a.m. on April 16th.

Judea Marae, Tauranga

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

A. Watene: They belong to the Church for two generations before I was born. My mother was a Morrison Meha from Gisborne. Actually she was a Salvation Army person before she met my father, and it wasn't long after she met him that she joined the Church. My mother was a very spiritual woman, and her name was Ani Morete.

Front Matter

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

No abstract provided.

Duncan Home, Tahoraiti, Dannevirke

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

Richard Marsh: I'll go back till I was round about ten. Matthew Cowley came here to live. He brought a little boy. I do believe he adopted a little boy that was brought from up Nuhaka way somewhere. Tony was his name. The first thing he told Tony was, don't you mix with that man he was bad company. That was me, but anyway. That was one of my first introductions with Matthew Cowley.

Awarua Chapel

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

(Who?): Brothers and sisters and friends, I acknowledge our Heavenly Father for the blessings that bring you people here to Awarua. Now, I have just arrived back from Wellington and I heard that this Hawaiian group was coming from Hawaii.

Papakura Marae. Auckland

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

Brian Joyce: There's a picture up on the wall of a world renowned lady for her skills in making korowai in particular. And her name was Dame Rangimarie Hetet. And so we built that center to commemorate her and we did that while she was alive. And when we opened the building we invited her to the opening and she opened it and she was 100 years old then.

Maromaku Chapel

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

Les Going: The Church in the Valley here goes back to 1910 when my grandfather moved into the valley. His life in the church began way back in 1890 and he lived in a different area at the time, but when he moved here then he began the Church in this area.