Special Issue: Re-membering Oceanic MasculinitiesAbout the Artist: Carl F K Pao, ix
The Pacific Islands, x
Moving Masculinities: Memories and Bodies Across Oceania
Margaret Jolly, 1
Categories: The Contemporary Pacific
About the Artist: Ralph Regenvanu, p. ix
Images
The Story of the Eel, p. 357
told by Elder Mark of Emil Potun
The Pacific Islands, p. 364
A Fishy Romance: Chiefly Power and the Geopolitics of Desire, p. 365
Heather E Young Leslie
Categories: The Contemporary Pacific
21. Songs from the Second Float: A Musical Ethnography of Takū Atoll, Papua New Guinea, by Richard Moyle (2007)
20. Imagining the Other: The Representation of the Papua New Guinean Subject, by Regis Tove Stella (2006)
Categories: The Contemporary Pacific
About the Artist: Shigeyuki Kihara, vii
The Pacific Islands, viii
ARTICLES
Nemesis, Speaking, and Tauhi Vaha‘a: Interdisciplinarity and the Truth of “Mental Illness” in Vava‘u, Tonga
Michael Poltorak, 1
the people of Vava‘u, Tonga, manage to deal with most incidences of “mental illness” without resorting to institutionalization or overt stigmatization. The terms used to describe unusual behavior, though pejorative in the eyes of psychiatrist Dr Mapa Puloka, are contestable and negotiable. Through the creative use of a multiplicity of explanations, people have influence over the potential stigma to suffering relatives. People’s sensitivity to attributions of “mental illness” is born of Vavauan use of language to tauhi vaha‘a (evoke and intensify relatedness). This socially constitutive use of language contrasts with the referential language in much of the social science and medical literature that informs mental health policy. Revealing its origin in the experience of vā (relatedness) is key to creating an interdisciplinary space to discuss the late presentation of Tongans to mental health services in Tonga and New Zealand. This paper answers the widely recognized need for more qualitative, epistemologically sensitive, and interdisciplinary work on Tongan experience of mental illness through focusing on the particular case of an eccentric in Vava‘u known as ‘Ahiohio. As this man shares remarkable similarities with Manu (Epeli Hau‘ofa’s subversive mouthpiece of anti-absolutism), the responses to and theories of ‘Ahiohio’s behavior enable discussion on the contrast and effects of Vavauan and, more broadly, medical and positivist ideas of truth.
Keywords: mental illness, Tonga, indigenous psychiatry, language ideologies, Pacific epistemologies, relatedness, modernity
Categories: The Contemporary Pacific
About the Artist: Larry Santana, p. ix
Images
The Pacific Islands, p. x
Grass Roots and Deep Holes: Community Responses to Mining in Melanesia, p. 215
Colin Filer and Martha Macintyre
This introduction contextualizes the discussion of community responses to mining in Melanesia by looking first at the policies of minerals extraction and the shift of academic interest from economic development to the social effects of mining. As this collection concentrates on Papua New Guinea, an analysis of the sector and its problems in that country is briefly contrasted with the situation in other Pacific Island nations, canvassing the idea that the economic “resource curse” might have a social dimension. The varying interpretations of local impact and anthropological studies have challenged notions of unified interest or consensus at the local level, revealing ambivalence and contradictions. An overview of the contributions made in this special issue to current debates about stakeholder interests and economic sustainability is presented, showing that understandings of mining and its social consequences at each stage of the process are always inflected by the cultural conceptions of change, wealth, and resources that obtain in a community.
Keywords: mining, Melanesia, Papua New Guinea, minerals policy, social change
Categories: The Contemporary Pacific
About the Artist: Albert Wendt, p. vii
Images
The Pacific Islands, p. viii
“Got Race?” The Production of Haole and the Distortion of Indigeneity in the Rice Decision, p. 1
Judy Rohrer
This paper is part of a larger project that explores haole (white people, foreigners) as a colonial form of whiteness in Hawai‘i—as a dynamic social assemblage. Haole was forged and reforged in over two centuries of colonization, and it must be understood through that history. I use the recent Supreme Court decision in Harold F Rice v Benjamin J Cayetano, 528 US 495 (2000), as an entry point into the interrogation of haole. Framed by the dominant discourse, the case appeared to be about Native Hawaiians (asking questions about who they are and what rights they have), and not about haole (assuming there are no questions as to who they are and what rights they have).
The Rice case illustrates how Western law renders indigenous claims inarticulable by racializing native peoples, while simultaneously normalizing white subjectivity by insisting on a color-blind ideology. The inherent contradiction in these two positions—race matters /race does not matter—is played out in the frictions surrounding the Rice decision and is evidence of the cracks in the hegemony of Western law that complicate any easy binary of colonizer–colonized. Through an analysis of Rice, I explore how the Western legal framework is set up to accept the teleological narrative of the development, to problematize native identity, and to naturalize white subjectivity. I then broaden the lens to explore the ways Rice points to an epistemological disconnect between Western notions of the production of knowledge and indigenous articulations of the same.
Keywords: indigeneity, whiteness, colonization, Hawai‘i, law, critical race theory
Categories: The Contemporary Pacific
The Pacific Islands, p. vii
About the Artist: Ric R. Castro, p. ix
Images
Australian Foreign Policy and the RAMSI Intervention in Solomon Islands, p. 283
Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka
The Australian government’s decision to lead a Pacific Islands Forum regional intervention into Solomon Islands marked a dramatic change in Australian policy toward the Solomons in particular and the Pacific Islands region in general. It demonstrated Australia’s willingness to play a more assertive role in the domestic affairs of Pacific countries. The decision also reflected fundamental changes in the global security environment following the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States and the perception that international terrorism has made it difficult to separate external and internal security. Canberra was influenced by the idea that terrorists could use “failed states” to pose security problems for Australia (and other western countries). While Australia’s concerns about its own security as well as the influence of Anglo-American security policies have led the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands to concentrate on rebuilding the Solomon Islands state, this paper argues that the post-conflict nation building process must include other institutions besides the state—such as churches, community leaders, nongovernmental organizations, women’s groups—that already have an influence on society. This is particularly important for Solomon Islands, a country where there have always been multiple centers of power, with the state not always the most important. Further, post-conflict nation building must also involve the mending and rebuilding of relationships between peoples while ensuring that foreign assistance does not create a culture of dependency.
Keywords: conflict, peace, intervention, development, security, terrorism, leadership
Categories: The Contemporary Pacific
About the Artist: Meleanna Aluli Meyer, p. vii
Images
The Pacific Islands, p. viii
Precarious Positions: Native Hawaiians and US Federal Recognition, p. 1
J Kehaulani Kauanui
This essay examines the politics of the controversial proposal for US federal recognition for Native Hawaiians. It explores a range of historical and legal issues that shed light on the multiple claims that constitute the complex terrain of Hawaiian sovereignty politics. The article provides a historical overview of the events that impact the current situation and then discusses a particular set of contemporary conditions that serve as key elements in catalyzing widespread support for federal recognition—namely, the implications of the recent US Supreme Court ruling in Rice v Cayetano and subsequent legal challenges to Native Hawaiian programs and funding by the US government. It also highlights difficulties with the promise of federal recognition as a solution to “the Hawaiian problem” by looking at lessons from Indian Country, Native Alaska, and the Pacific—especially the US unincorporated territories. Finally, the essay explores the independence movement as an alternative to domestic dependent nationhood.
Keywords: Native Hawaiians, sovereignty, United States, federal recognition, indigenous politics, land, self-governance
Categories: The Contemporary Pacific
About the Artist: Ake Lianga
Images
Traveling Stories, Colonial Intimacies, and Women’s Histories in Vanuatu, p. 233
Margaret Rodman
The story of the 1937 death of an eighteen-month-old girl named Wilhemina (Mina) Whitford in the care of her ni-Vanuatu nursemaid, Evelyn, frames this article. The Whitford’s version of this story was heard in the course of fieldwork with descendants of settler families. They tie Mina’s accidental death to an affair Evelyn was having with a male settler. What about Evelyn? How could she be located and her version of events recorded? More generally, how can the unwritten histories of women’s experiences be recovered in a Pacific island context? How can indigenous women write their own histories of gender in the contexts of colonial experience? The article offers, first, a theoretically informed descriptive approach, which finds answers in the gendered and racialized content of contemporary descriptions of past experiences, such as the story of the child’s death. A second way of finding Evelyn involves methodological detective work using the network of ni-Vanuatu women fieldworkers trained through the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. A 2001 workshop provided a forum for fieldworkers and women who had worked as housegirls in the colonial (pre-1980) period to discuss work, violence, gender, race, and history. During the workshop, a fieldworker brought Evelyn’s story to light. Conclusions point to new ways of integrating indigenous and expatriate women’s voices in historical and anthropological research in the contemporary Pacific.
Keywords: Gender, subject locations, race, narrative, indigenous methodologies, settlers, Vanuatu
Categories: The Contemporary Pacific
About the Artist: Rongotai Lomas
Images
Whakapapa as a Maori Mental Construct: Some Implications for the Debate over Genetic Modification of Organisms, p. 1
Mere Roberts, Brad Haami, Richard Benton, Terre Satterfield, Melissa L Finucane, Mark Henare, and Manuka Henare
The use of whakapapa by New Zealand Maori is most commonly understood in reference to human descent lines and relationships, where it functions as a family tree or genealogy. But it also refers to an epistemological framework in which perceived patterns and relationships in nature are located. These nonhuman whakapapa contain information concerning an organism’s theorized origins from supernatural beings, inferred descent lines, and morphological and ecological relationships. In this context whakapapa appear to function at one level as a “folk taxonomy,” in which morphology, utility, and cultural considerations all play an important role. Such whakapapa also function as ecosystem maps of culturally important resources. More information and meaning is provided by accompanying narratives, which contain explanations for why things came to be the way they are, as well as moral guidelines for correct conduct.
Renewed interest in the whakapapa of plants and animals has arisen from concerns raised by Maori in regard to genetic modification, particularly the transfer of genes between different species, as this concept is frequently invoked by those who oppose transgenic biotechnology. Informed dialogue on this subject requires an understanding of the structure and function of nonhuman as well as human whakapapa and their underlying rationale, as well as the nature of the relationships among the things included in nonhuman whakapapa. Of additional interest and relevance is the relationship of whakapapa to modern scientific concepts of taxonomy based on phylogeny and the species concept.
In this paper we describe and interpret the whakapapa of an important food plant, the sweet potato or kumara, in terms of its apparent functions and underlying rationale. We also discuss how the whakapapa and its associated narratives might contribute to the current debate on genetically modified organisms in New Zealand.
Keywords: whakapapa, folk taxonomy, ethnobiology, Maori narratives, genetically modified organisms, kumara (sweet potato)
Categories: The Contemporary Pacific
Errata
