Category: Melanesia

Pacific Ethnomathematics

Posted on by stephchun

Pacific Ethnomathematics: A Bibliographic Study, a ground-breaking work by distinguished Pacific researcher Nicholas J. Goetzfridt, examines mathematical concepts and practices in Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. It covers number systems, counting, measuring, classifying, spatial relationships, symmetry, geometry, and other aspects of ethnomathematics in relation to a wide range of activities such as trade, education, navigation, construction, rituals and festivals, divination, weaving, tattooing, and music. In compiling nearly five hundred citations, Goetzfridt makes use of the vast resources of writing about the Pacific from the 1700s to the present. In addition to discussing Pacific knowledge systems in general, his introductory chapter includes a helpful overview of the relatively new field of ethnomathematics and important theoretical reflections on the discipline as a research program.

October 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3170-7 / $75.00 (CLOTH)

Challenges in Mental Health for Pacific Peoples

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Penina Uliuli: Contemporary Challenges in Mental Health for Pacific Peoples, edited by Philip Culbertson, Margaret Nelson Agee, and Cabrini ‘Ofa Makasiale, is a diverse collection of essays examining important issues related to mental health among Pacific Islanders through the topics of identity, spirituality, the unconscious, mental trauma, and healing.

September 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3224-7 / $28.00 (PAPER)

“Finally, a volume on mental health and well being of Pacific Island people written from the point of view of their own world view. A rich and substantive contribution for understanding mental health issues, concepts, and interventions within the cultural context of Pacific Islander history, culture, and the emerging challenges posed by rapid social change. This is essential reading for professionals, scholars, and lay audiences seeking to understand better the complex cultural tapestry and way of life of the many different people who inhabit the vast area of the Pacific Ocean and its countless islands.” —Anthony J. Marsella, Emeritus Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Hawai‘i

Interview with Bruce Connew

Posted on by stephchun

New Zealand photojournalist Bruce Connew is the author of Stopover, a book of dutones documenting the Indian-Fijian sugar cane settlement of Vatiyaka and one extended family’s story of migration. Connew discussed his latest project in an interview with New Zealand’s Sunday Star-Times. Read the interview here.

Stopover is published and distributed outside New Zealand by University of Hawai‘i Press.

“The way I see it, their dislocation is less from India, their country of heritage, than Fiji, the country of their birth, where they are second-class citizens. Sometimes, you must cut your losses and move on. Today, we are witness to that migration.”

A Musical Ethnography of Taku Atoll, Papua New Guinea

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Songs from the Second Float: A Musical Ethnography of Takü Atoll, Papua New Guinea, by Richard Moyle, based on fieldwork spanning a decade, gives a comprehensive analysis of the musical life of a unique Polynesian community whose geographical isolation, together with a local ban on missionaries and churches, combine to allow its 600 members to maintain a level of traditional cultural practices unique to the region.

July 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3175-2 / $54.00 (CLOTH)
Pacific Islands Monograph Series, No. 21, published in association with the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai‘i

“Why . . . so much singing on Takü?’ is the compelling, orienting question threaded through [this] volume. . . . One comes away from reading the book with an understanding of music embedded within the fibers of Takü lifeways, constitutive of both indi vidual character and social solidarity.” —Janet Dixon Keller, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Stopover, the Story of Indian-Fijian Migration

Posted on by stephchun

Since 1976 New Zealand artist Bruce Connew has travelled widely, undertaking documentary photography projects around the world. Stopover is a haunting book of photographs from the tiny Indian-Fijian sugar cane settlement of Vatiyaka, taken by Connew during seven visits between June 2000 and November 2003. Connew’s narrative captions and a story by Brij V. Lal take the reader to the heart of an extended family inside the story of migration. The Stopover photographs will be exhibited at PATAKA, Porirua, Wellington, New Zealand, from August 18, 2007.

July 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3198-1 / $39.00 (CLOTH)

“Connew’s work combines haunting images with a text that is poetic, elegant, and moving in its clarity. There is a power and persuasion to his work that even the most scholarly and responsible analyses cannot match.” —David Hanlon, University of Hawai‘i

Brij V. Lal is the author of Broken Waves: A History of the Fiji Islands in the Twentieth Century; editor of Pacific Places, Pacific Histories and The Encyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora; and co-editor of The Pacific Islands: An Encyclopedia (with Kate Fortune) and Plantation Workers: Resistance and Accommodation (with Doug Munro and Edward D. Beechert), all published by Univerisity of Hawai‘i Press.

An Innovative Approach to the History of Colonialism

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Giving voice to the women who worked as maids—known as “house-girls” in the Pacific islands of Vanuatu—is the goal of House-Girls Remember: Domestic Workers in Vanuatu, edited by Margaret Rodman, Daniela Kraemer, Lissant Bolton, and Jean Tarisesei. This innovative work is a unique collaborative project with contributions from twenty-one indigenous and four expatriate women. Although women’s history is a popular topic globally, Pacific island women have had few opportunities to conduct research and publish in this field. House-Girls Remember is contextualized within literature on domestic workers and current anthropological theory, but the focus is on the words of the indigenous women themselves.

June 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3012-0 / $45.00 (CLOTH)

Houses Far from Home: British Colonial Space in the New Hebredies, by Margaret Rodman, and Unfolding the Moon: Enacting Women’s Kastom in Vanuatu, by Lissant Bolton, are both available from University of Hawai‘i Press.

U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the Pacific

Posted on by stephchun

Worldwide supplies of sugar and cotton were impacted dramatically as the U.S. Civil War dragged on. New areas of production entered these lucrative markets, particularly in the South Pacific, and plantation agriculture grew substantially in disparate areas such as Australia, Fiji, and Hawaii. The increase in production required an increase in labor; in the rush to fill the vacuum, freebooters and other unsavory characters began a slave trade in Melanesians and Polynesians that continued into the twentieth century.

The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas after the Civil War, by Gerald Horne, ranges over the broad expanse of Oceania to reconstruct the history of “blackbirding” (slave trading) in the region. It examines the role of U.S. citizens (many of them ex-slaveholders and ex-confederates) in the trade and its roots in Civil War dislocations.

“Horne’s book is impressive in its research and compelling in its history and argument. It pieces together a marvelously suggestive story of the African American presence in the Pacific. . . .This is transnational history at its most ambitious and materially grounded best and includes superb comparative insights.” —David Roediger, Kendrick C. Babcock Professor of History, University of Illinois

May 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3147-9 / $29.00 (PAPER)

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