Feeling “Superstitious”: Affect and the Land in the Marquesas Islands

For many Indigenous peoples, ancestral lands are a source of nourishment, strength, and sovereignty that counteracts colonial legacies of violence and hegemony. However, the feelings associated with place and the land can also be complicated by embodied fear and ambivalence. What happens when the remnants of colonialism feed feelings of ambivalence, shame, or fear of the land? How do these lasting emotional scars on Indigenous minds and bodies impact Native place-making, today? This paper problematizes the role of ancestral lands and affective place-making in shaping Indigenous identity, sovereignty, resource management, and sustainability. In the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia, ancestral places are felt as much as seen, and the spirits that dwell there can be dangerous. The active concealment of these Marquesan reactions and relationships to place illustrates the blending of colonial and Indigenous histories and values in ambivalent, affective experiences on the land. Thus, even as islanders work to revitalize their traditional culture and build a sustainable future based on ancestral places, reticence complicates local relationships to the land and the vital hopes they represent. As global sustainability efforts emphasize the conservation of lands inhabited by Indigenous communities, recognizing the conflicted, emplaced emotions and experiences of local peoples will be a key part of understanding such areas and how to preserve them.