The Western Samoan Kinship Bridge


Book Description




Historical Dictionary of Polynesia


Book Description

The term Polynesia refers to a cultural and geographical area in the Pacific Ocean, bound by what is commonly referred to as the Polynesian Triangle, which consists of Hawai'i in the north, New Zealand in the southwest, and Easter Island in the southeast. Thousands of islands are scattered throughout this area, most of which are currently included in one of the modern island states of American Samoa, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Hawai'i, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Tokelau, Tuvalu, and Wallis and Futuna. The third edition of the Historical Dictionary of Polynesia greatly expands on the previous editions through a chronology, an introductory essay, an expansive bibliography, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries on significant persons, events, places, organizations, and other aspects of Polynesian history from the earliest times to the present. Appendixes of the major islands and atolls within Polynesia, the rulers and administrators of the 13 major island states, and basic demographic information of those states are also included.




Writing Across Worlds


Book Description

International migration has long been a dominant feature of world literature from both post-industrial and developing countries. The increasing demands of the global economic system and continued political instability in many of the world's region have highlighted this shifting map of the world's peoples. Yet, political concern for the larger scale economic and social impact of migration has effectively obscured the nature of the migratory nature of the migratory experience itself, the emotions and practicalities of departure, travel, arrival and the attempt to rebuild a home. Writing Across Worlds explores an extraordinary range of migration literaturesm from letters and diaries to journalistic articles, autobiographies and fiction, in order to analyse the reality of the migrant's experience. The sheer range of writings - Irish, Friulian, Italian, Jewish and South Asian British, Gastarbeiter literature from Germany, Pied noir, French-Algerian and French West Indian writing, Carribbean novels, Slovene emigrant texts, Japanese-Canadian writing, migration in American novels, narratives from Australia, South Africa, Samoa and others - illustrate the diversity of global migratory experience and emphasise the social context of literature. The geographic and literary range of Writing Across Worlds makes this collection an invaluable analysis of migration, giving voice to the hope, pain, nostalgia and triumph of lives lived in other places.




No Family Is an Island


Book Description

Government bureaucracies across the globe have become increasingly attuned in recent years to cultural diversity within their populations. Using culture as a category to process people and dispense services, however, can create its own problems and unintended consequences. In No Family Is an Island, a comparative ethnography of Samoan migrants living in the United States and New Zealand, Ilana Gershon investigates how and when the categories "cultural" and "acultural" become relevant for Samoans as they encounter cultural differences in churches, ritual exchanges, welfare offices, and community-based organizations. In both New Zealand and the United States, Samoan migrants are minor minorities in an ethnic constellation dominated by other minority groups. As a result, they often find themselves in contexts where the challenge is not to establish the terms of the debate but to rewrite them. To navigate complicated and often unyielding bureaucracies, they must become skilled in what Gershon calls "reflexive engagement" with the multiple social orders they inhabit. Those who are successful are able to parlay their own cultural expertise (their "Samoanness") into an ability to subtly alter the institutions with which they interact in their everyday lives. Just as the "cultural" is sometimes constrained by the forces exerted by acultural institutions, so too can migrant culture reshape the bureaucracies of their new countries. Theoretically sophisticated yet highly readable, No Family Is an Island contributes significantly to our understanding of the modern immigrant experience of making homes abroad.




Pacific Diaspora


Book Description

Pacific Islander Americans constitute one of the United States' least understood ethnic groups. As expected, stereotypes abound: Samoans are good at football; Hawaiians make the best surfers; all Tahitians dance. Although Pacific history, society, and culture have been the subjects of much scholarly research and writing, the lives of Pacific Islanders in the diaspora (particularly in the U.S.) have received far less attention. The contributors to this volume of articles and essays compiled by the Pacific Islander Americans Research Project hope to rectify this oversight. Pacific Diaspora brings together the individual and community histories of Pacific Island peoples in the U.S. It is designed for use in Pacific and ethnic studies courses, but it will also find an audience among those with a general interest in Pacific Islander Americans. Contributors: Keoni Kealoha Agard, Melani Anae, Kekuni Blaisdell, John Connell, Wendy Cowling, Vincente M. Diaz, Michael Kioni Dudley, Dianna Fitisemanu, Inoke Funaki, Lupe Funaki, Karina Kahananui Green, David Hall, Jay Hartwell, Craig R. Janes, George H. S. Kanahele, Davianna Pomoaikai McGregor, Brucetta McKenzie, Helen Morton, Dorri Nautu, Tupou Hopoate Pauu, A. Ravuvu, Carol E. Robertson, Joanne Rondilla, E. Victoria Shook, Paul Spickard, Haunani-Kay Trask, Debbie Hippolite Wright.




Migration and Transnationalism


Book Description

Pacific Islanders have engaged in transnational practices since their first settlement of the many islands in the region. As they moved beyond the Pacific and settled in nations such as New Zealand, the U.S. and Australia these practices intensified and over time have profoundly shaped both home and diasporic communities. This edited volume begins with a detailed account of this history and the key issues in Pacific migration and transnationalism today. The papers that follow present a range of case studies that maintain this focus on both historical and contemporary perspectives. Each of the contributors goes beyond a narrowly economic focus to present the human face of migration and transnationalism; exploring questions of cultural values and identity, transformations in kinship, intergenerational change and the impact on home communities. Pacific migration and transnationalism are addressed in this volume in the context of increasing globalisation and growing concerns about the future social, political and economic security of the Pacific region. As the case studies presented here show, the future of the Pacific depends in many ways on the ties diasporic Islanders maintain with their homelands.




Gridiron Capital


Book Description

Since the 1970s, a “Polynesian Pipeline” has brought football players from American Sāmoa to Hawaii and the mainland United States to play at the collegiate and professional levels. In Gridiron Capital Lisa Uperesa charts the cultural and social dynamics that have made football so central to Samoan communities. For Samoan athletes, football is not just an opportunity for upward mobility; it is a way to contribute to, support, and represent their family, village, and nation. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, and media analysis, Uperesa shows how the Samoan ascendancy in football is underpinned by the legacies of US empire and a set of imperial formations that mark Indigenous Pacific peoples as racialized subjects of US economic aid and development. Samoan players succeed by becoming entrepreneurs: building and commodifying their bodies and brands to enhance their football stock and market value. Uperesa offers insights into the social and physical costs of pursuing a football career, the structures that compel Pacific Islander youth toward athletic labor, and the possibilities for safeguarding their health and wellbeing in the future. Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient




Migration and Development


Book Description

Over the past two decades, studies on the migration-development nexus often portray small states as one homogeneous group, ‘developing countries’, without considering their critical and peculiar challenges or inherent vulnerabilities, due mainly to their size. This book explores key dynamics of migration and development in a small states setting. It includes case studies from small states in Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific that will help policy-makers to embrace migration as an inevitable phenomenon and devise policies that will maximise the benefits from migration at a minimal cost.




Saili Matagi


Book Description

An exploration of the practice of fa'a-Samoa among migrants, of the nature of the politics of traditionn within their communities and of the search for opportunities in new environments.




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