The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 14, no. 2 (2002)

TCP logoEditor’s Note

The Pacific Islands

ARTICLES

Seattle Fa‘a Samoa, p. 307
Barbara Burns McGrath

The paper reviews the concept of community as it has been used by social scientists to describe groups of people, and explores how it might be developed to understand the experience of diasporic communities. Although community avoids some of the essentializing tendencies that are inherent in the concept of culture, the classic use of community fails to acknowledge the reality of travel, and the transcultural, transnational movement of people and ideas. Four Samoan individuals who live in Seattle are portrayed using the method of “ethnography of the particular” to illustrate the cross-cutting influences of their lives and the fluid nature of the boundaries that surround their multiple communities. Shared values of the importance of family ties and church connections help to define what it means to be Samoan in Seattle.
Keywords: Samoa, diaspora, fa‘a Samoa, culture, identity

Maori Retribalization and Treaty Rights to the New Zealand Fisheries, p. 341
Steven Webster

By the end of the 1980s Maori had regained a treaty right to a share of New Zealand’s lucrative commercial fisheries. The case history of the continuing struggle to distribute its benefits among factions of retribalized and urban Maori, through a Maori commission set up as a state-owned enterprise, raises issues of cultural renaissance and identity politics in capitalist differentiation. After more than a century of Crown disregard of commercial and restriction of customary fishery rights, Maori court actions in 1986 regained recognition of both aspects of the treaty right in what appeared to be the advent of a new legal pluralism and economic independence. However, by 1992 legislation promoting tribes and other traditionalist concepts, and finalizing a settlement with a half partnership in a large fishing corporation, also radically narrowed customary and extinguished commercial fishery treaty rights while locking the settlement into the restructured economy. Over the next decade a Maori Fisheries Commission attempted to devise a formula for allocation of assets to qualifying tribal organizations pressing for conflicting criteria, while urban and other Maori organizations lacking recognition as tribes remained precluded from the formula. Major shifts in political power in both the government and the commission since 1999 show promise of a compromise out of court. Meanwhile, increasing wealth and influence of a Maori elite contribute to widening social class differences among Maori, obscured by an ideology of traditionalism and modernity.
Keywords: Maori, political economy, indigenous rights, ethnic identity, retribalization, traditionalism

Whose Knowledge? Epistemological Collisions in Solomon Islands Community Development, p. 377
David Welchman Gegeo and Karen Ann Watson-Gegeo

We show in this article how modernization, disguised as “community development,” continues to fail rural villages in Solomon Islands despite the supposed movement toward a more people-centered, bottom-up philosophy in development education and practice. We focus on the case study of a Kwara`ae (Malaita island) rural, locally owned and operated project aimed at giving unemployed male youth a stake in the community and preventing their off-island migration. Successful for a decade, the project was destroyed by the intervention of a retired government official who, because of his education, training, and work with outside development agencies, imposed a modernization framework, including centralization of leadership and the valuing of Anglo-European knowledge over indigenous knowledge. While agreeing with the theoretical argument for indigenous knowledge in development, we argue that it is equally important that development be guided by people’s indigenous epistemology/ies and indigenous critical praxis for (re)constructing and applying knowledge.
Keywords: rural development, community development, youth, indigenous epistemology, Kwara`ae, Solomon Islands

DIALOGUE

Crime and Criminality: Historical Differences in Hawai`i, p. 412
Sally Engle Merry

POLITICAL REVIEWS

The Region in Review: International Issues and Events, 2001, p.426
Karin von Strokirch

Melanesia in Review: Issues and Events, 2001, p. 439
Chris Ballard, David Chappell, Anita Jowitt, David Kavanamur, Sandra Tarte

BOOK AND MEDIA REVIEWS

The Domestic Politics of International Relations: Cases from Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, by Roderic Alley, p. 478
Reviewed by Stewart Firth

Encompassing Others: The Magic of Modernity in Melanesia, by Edward LiPuma, p. 480
Reviewed by Deborah Gewertz

Public Policy and Globalization in Hawai`i. Special issue of Social Process in Hawai`i (40), guest-edited by Ibrahim G Aoudé, p. 482
Reviewed by Karl Kim

A Compensation Claims Procedure for Papua New Guinea: Report to the Institute of National Affairs, Port Moresby, by Deborah Dwyer, Terence Dwyer, Graham Ellis, Michael Ward, and Daniel Fitzpatrick, p. 484
Reviewed by Richard Scaglion

Salote, Queen of Paradise, by Margaret Hixon, p. 486
Reviewed by Kerry James

Tagi Tote E Loto Haaku—My Heart is Crying a Little: Niue Island Involvement in The Great War 1914–1918, by Margaret Pointer; Niuean translation by Kalaisi Folau, p. 488
Reviewed by Betty Ickes

The New Shape of Old Island Cultures: A Half Century of Social Change in Micronesia, by Francis X Hezel, p. 491
Reviewed by Linda Allen

Unity of Heart: Culture and Change in a Polynesian Atoll Society, by Keith Chambers and Anne Chambers, p. 492
Reviewed by Nancy J Pollock

The Pattera of Guam: Their Story and Legacy, p. 494
Reviewed by Barbara Burns McGrath

An Historical Perspective of Helping Practices Associated with Birth, Marriage and Death Among Chamorros in Guam, by Lilli Perez Iyechad, p. 496
Reviewed by Barbara Burns McGrath

Isles of Refuge: Wildlife and History of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, by Mark J Rauzon, p. 499
Reviewed by Lynn M Hodgson

Distance Education in the South Pacific: Nets and Voyages, edited by Richard Guy, Toshio Kosuge, and Rieko Hayakawa, p. 501
Reviewed by Merrily Stover

Weavers of Song: Polynesian Music and Dance, by Mervyn McLean, p. 503
Reviewed by Barbara B Smith

Staging Tourism: Bodies on Display from Waikiki to Sea World, by Jane C Desmond, p. 505
Reviewed by Heather Diamond

Hembemba: Rivers of the Forest, by Steven Edmund Winduo Cook Islands. Special Issue of Mana: A South Pacific Journal of Art and Culture, Language and Literature (12:2), edited by Jean Tekura Mason and Vaine Rasmussen
From the Spider Bone Diaries: Poems and Songs, by Richard Hamasaki, p. 508
Reviewed by Rob Wilson

Houses Far From Home: British Colonial Space in the New Hebrides, by Margaret Critchlow Rodman, p. 514
Reviewed by Michèle D Dominy

An American Anthropologist in Melanesia: A B Lewis and the Joseph N Field South Pacific Expedition, 1909–1913, edited and annotated by Robert L Welsch, p. 516
Volume I: Field Diaries; Volume II: Appendixes
Reviewed by Eric Silverman

Hunting the Gatherers: Ethnographic Collectors, Agents and Agency in Melanesia, 1870’s–1930’s, edited by Michael O’Hanlon and Robert L Welsch, p. 518
Reviewed by Larry Lake

Emplaced Myth: Space, Narrative, and Knowledge in Aboriginal Australia and Papua New Guinea, edited by Alan Rumsey and James F Weiner, p. 521
Reviewed by Edward L Schieffelin

Love 3 Times, p. 523
Reviewed by Paul Lyons

Ka`ililauokekoa, p. 525
Reviewed by Michelle M Kamakanoenoe Nelson Tupou

In the Name of Growth—Fiji: A Story of Fisheries Development, Indigenous Women and Politics, p. 527
Reviewed by Christy Harrington

Where the Rivers Meet—Fiji: A Divided Community and its Struggle for Peace, p. 529
Reviewed by Katerina Teaiwa

Bosavi: Rainforest Music from Papua New Guinea, 2001, p. 532
Reviewed by Yoichi Yamada

CONTRIBUTORS