Pacific Islands Languages and Societies Commons^™

Book Review Forum: A Preface For Natives, Teresia K. Teaiwa

Pacific Studies

A Preface for Natives

Review: Teresia K. Teaiwa

Victoria University, Wellington

The Sustainable, The Expendable, And The Obsolete, Michael D. Lieber

Pacific Studies

This is a preliminary exploration of the concept of sustainability and its potential usefulness to anthropologists. “Sustainable” is distinguished from “stable” and “viable” in terms of its implications of directionality of time, pointing both backward and forward. Given the time implications, the contexts of “sustainable Xs” (technology, activity, development, etc.) are crucial to explaining what happened to X in the past and prognosticating its future. The argument is illustrated by analyzing data on obsolete fishing practices on Kapingamarangi Atoll (Federated States of Micronesia), focusing on the contexts of change in political /religious organization in the twentieth century. Changing access to …

Development, Sustainability, And The Deforestation Of Samoa, Paul Shankman

Pacific Studies

The forests of Samoa (formerly Western Samoa) are rapidly disappearing. This article reviews the history of Samoan deforestation, particularly during the last four decades, in the context of ideas about development and sustainability. It also examines the role of village agriculturalists in the process of deforestation. Recent economic, technological, and organizational changes have increased village agricultural expansion and, consequently, deforestation.

Taking Over What Belongs To God: The Historical Ecology Of Tonga Since European Contact, Charles J. Stevens

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Accounting For Change: Bringing Interdependence Into Defining Sustainability, Karen L. Nero

Pacific Studies

“Sustainability,” the key word of international development bodies currently intervening in the restructuring of the Marshall Islands economy, is defined within Western economic conceptualizations. I argue that such characterizations are incomplete: they fail to capture the full nature of the ongoing Marshallese economy by focusing too narrowly on transfers related to the Compact of Free Association and by their partial understanding of Marshallese food systems and easy dichotomies between imported and local foods. The segregation of external interventions by sector further distorts their possible impact. Structural imbalances within the Marshallese and other Pacific nations’ economies have been exacerbated by the …

Artisanal Coral Reef Fisheries And Sustainable Development: The Arno Atoll Fisheries Association, Jim Hess

Pacific Studies

The concept of sustainable development is inexact, requiring additional specification in application. How the subject of analysis is bounded will have consequences for understanding what is being sustained as well as for determining whether something is sustained. Here I examine a fisheries development project in the Marshall Islands. Shifting boundaries, I create three accounts of the project. In the first account, which focuses on resources and monetary cost and benefits, the project is clearly unsustainable. In the second account, focusing on international relations, the project sustains the relations of power and dependency. In the third account, I suggest that evaluation …

Is Tonga's Mirab Economy Sustainable? A View From The Village And A View Without It, Mike Evans

Pacific Studies

The development implications of the now-classic MIRAB economic pattern for South Pacific microstates (with economies dominated by overseas remittances and foreign aid) have attracted considerable attention. Some scholars argue the MIRAB pattern is well entrenched and can be sustained with a minimum of undesirable social and economic outcomes. Others decry the acceptance of the dependency of South Pacific nations and argue for renewed effort toward the development of self-sustaining economies. I argue that the debate must directly address the underlying social relations that facilitate and shape migration and remittances. In Tonga, the movement of people from rural areas has wide-ranging …

Ethnic Intercession: Leadership At Kalaupapa Leprosy Colony, 1871–1887, Pennie Moblo

Pacific Studies

Western notions of leadership can obscure the complexity of colonial history. This article examines ethnic relations in Hawai‘i via its Hansen’s disease colony during the years immediately preceding the overthrow of the monarchy. Popular accounts of Kalaupapa portray a nineteenth-century prison of iniquity where native Hawaiians, sequestered from the controls of civilization, degenerated to a state of “savagery” until a European priest saved them. This image is challenged by letters and reports to the Board of Health, which invoke an alternative history focused on the dialogue between native patients and foreign advisors in government. It is argued here that the …

Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard's Review Of John Kneubuhl's Think Of A Garden And Other Plays, Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Suzanne Falgout And James West Turner's Review Of Lieweila: A Micronesian Story, Suzanne Falgout, James West Turner

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Marta Rohatynskyj's Review Of Advertising Missionaries And Pacific Passages, Marta Rohatynskyj

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

J. Kehaulani Kauanui's Review Of Nâ Maka O Ka ‘Âina's Act Of War—The Overthrow Of The Hawaiian Nation And E Ola Ka ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘I, J. Kēhaulani Kauanui

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Contributors: Vol 22 No. 2, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Contributors list of Vol. 22 (1999): Pacific Studies Full Issue 2

Nicholas J. Goetzfridt's Review Of Richard Feinberg's Seafaring In The Contemporary Pacific Islands: Studies In Continuity And Change, Nicholas J. Goetzfridt

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Books Received And Book Notices, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Book Listing for the Vol 22, No 2 Edition of the Pacific Studies Journal

Cosmologies, Cities, And Cultural Constructions Of Space: Oceanic Enlargements Of The World, Wolfgang Kempf

Pacific Studies

This is a commentary on Epeli Hau‘ofa’s vision of an extended Oceania. By contrasting a widening “sea of islands” with the current discourse of an ever-shrinking world, I draw attention to a heterotopic terrain of incompatible spaces. I intend to show that the widely accepted narratives and maps of a shrinking world encompass and assure the image of an ever-extending Western sphere. This rhetoric of global shrinkage as a result of an expanding West is denying others the capability to create their own enlarged world. Hau‘ofa’s critique of a reductionist and diminutive view of Oceania can be seen as a …

Changing Contours Of Kinship: The Impacts Of Social And Economic Development On Kinship Organization In The South Pacific, Cluny Macpherson

Pacific Studies

The incorporation of microstates into the capitalist world-system sets the stage for profound transformations of kinship organization. This article argues that, while ideologies of kinship may remain largely intact, the actual organization of kinship is changing. It explores the roles of social, demographic, political, and economic factors in the transformation of the structure of kinship and family in the South Pacific in the period since continuous contact with the West commenced some 170 years ago. The case of Western Samoa is offered as an example of the process of change that is occurring at varying rates throughout Pacific Island societies.

Globalization, Stateless Capitalism, And The International Political Economy Of Tonga’S Satellite Venture, Anthony Van Fossen

Pacific Studies

Globalization has led some Pacific Islands countries into ventures that use their sovereignty to advance private interests against regulation by metropolitan states. Tongasat, Tonga’s innovative satellite enterprise, is one such recent initiative in “stateless” capitalism that has deep structural similarities with flags of convenience and offshore tax havens. The microstate has claimed a disproportionate percentage of geostationary slots and succeeded in filling a number of them. Tongasat’s emergence is analyzed in terms of the contemporary world-system, declining U.S. hegemony over the global satellite regime (creating opportunities for independent entrepreneurs), and the end of the cold war (making inexpensive Russian satellites …

Vol. 22 No. 2 (1999): 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$40.00 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, and …

Lin Poyer's Review Of David Hanlon's Remaking Micronesia: Discourses Over Development In A Pacific Territory, Lin Poyer

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Toward Historizing Gender In Polynesia: On Vilsoni Hereniko’S Woven Gods And Regional Patterns, Jeannette Marie Mageo

Pacific Studies

This article considers possible parallels between Rotuman and Samoan gender history through Vilsoni Hereniko’s book Woven Gods. Hereniko draws upon the work of Victor Turner to analyze his Rotuman data, arguing that wedding clowns reverse normative social structures. Wedding clowns are expert female practitioners of Rotuman joking discourse. This discourse is not only ritualized on special occasions but is also an everyday informal discourse and, I argue, is in this sense normative; it counterbalances respect discourse, which is likewise practiced in ritual (ceremonial) contexts but also in everyday polite contexts. In the Samoan precolonial sex-gender system, males and females had …

Vol. 22 No. 1 (1999): 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$40.00 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, and …

Pamela J. Stewart And Andrew Strathern's Review Of D. C. Lewis's The Plantation Dream: Developing British New Guinea And Papua, 1884–1942, Pamela J. Stewart, Andrew Strathern

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Review Of Breaching The Margins: Three Stories Of Aids And Sexuality In The Asian And Island Pacific (Films: Not A Simple Story/Out In Silence; China Dolls; And The Loser), Douglass P. Drozdow

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Andrew Strathern And Pamela J. Stewart's Review Of Donald Tuzin's The Cassowary’S Revenge: The Life And Death Of Masculinity In A New Guinea Society, Andrew Strathern, Pamela J. Stewart

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Environmental Change, Economic Development, And Emigration In Tuvalu, John Connell

Pacific Studies

Growing consensus on the accelerated greenhouse effect indicates that potential increases in both sea levels and tropical storms will pose problems for atoll states, especially Tuvalu. Land areas and water supplies may be threatened by coastal erosion, depleting agricultural and fisheries potential. Tuvalu’s economy is limited and partly reliant on aid and remittances whose sustainability is uncertain. More than a third of the population now lives in overcrowded conditions in the urban center of Funafuti. Population growth has accelerated since independence, despite attempts to implement a population policy, while opportunities for temporary or permanent emigration have not increased. If environmental …

Interracial Marriage And Status Exchange: A Study Of Pacific Islanders In Hawai‘I From 1983 To 1994, Xuanning Fu

Pacific Studies

Intermarriage is one of the most salient demographic features of Hawai‘i. Between 1983 and 1994, 46 percent of all marriages contracted in Hawai‘i were racially exogamous. This article examines socioeconomic status exchange in outgroup marriage and explores the impact this status change has had on the social well-being of four ethnic groups of Pacific Islanders (Hawaiians, part-Hawaiians, Samoans, and other Pacific Islanders). Status homogamy emerges as the most important pattern of mate selection. In a broad sense, people choose their mates on the basis of equal socioeconomic status, either within or across boundaries of race and ethnicity. Gender differences are …

Contributors: Vol 22 No. 1, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Contributors list of Vol. 22 (1999): Pacific Studies Full Issue 1

Kenneth P. Emory And “Herbert C. Shipman Cave”: A Long-Standing Puzzle Solved, Kevin Allred, Stephan Kempe, W. R. Halliday

Pacific Studies

On 13 and 14 September 1945, Kenneth P. Emory of the Bishop Museum investigated what he later termed “Herbert C. Shipman Cave,” twelve miles from Hilo in the northern Puna District of Hawai‘i Island. His typescript of this investigation is frequently cited, but the cave remained unidentified until recently. In 1996 a Hawaii Speleological Survey team located a signature of Emory in the upper part of Keala Cave, at the site of a 1945 newspaper fragment previously found by another Hawaii Speleological Survey team. Other pukas explored and described by Emory as part of “Herbert C. Shipman Cave” unmistakably are …

Books Received And Book Notices, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Book Listing for the Vol 22, No 1 Edition of the Pacific Studies Journal