Pacific Perspectives: Studies of the European Society for Oceanists. New York; Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2019. viii, 170 pp. (Tables, maps, B&W photos.) US$110.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-78920-040-9.
As the sixth volume in the book series on Pacific perspectives by studies of the European Society for Oceanists, Pacific Realities focuses on the agencies and efforts Pacific Islanders embody in their everyday lives towards the social and political challenges accompanying globalization and local economic development. Following a theoretical discussion of resilience and resistance, the diversified, localized, specific modes of reactions and coping tactics of six cases have been represented, interpreted, and analyzed along with an introduction and enlightening afterword.
The word “realities” conveys a sense of revealing—an unveiling of a mask, a facade, or an old-fashioned mindset. The two keywords for this volume are resilience and resistance, and the impact of exogenous and endogenous factors has been discussed and depicted at length. Although cultural change is hardly an emerging topic for anthropological studies on the Pacific Islands, the dichotomy between past and present, local and global, inevitably endows the discussion with an air of a battlefield conflict. And so, this book aims to “go beyond the ‘local-global’ dichotomy and investigate phenomena from a somewhat different but complementary perspective” (2). “If resistance is a diagnostic of power, resilience is a diagnostic of endogenously or exogenously imagined ‘systems’” (18); the mechanism of interaction has been understood through the framework of integration, dialogue, confrontation, and conflict.
The chapters in this volume thus discuss “to what and by whom resistance takes place” (6), and resistance and resilience are centred as relevant and transformative analytic tools: “resistance is a form of resilience and resilience is a capacity for resistance” (11). Yasmine Musharbash depicts the Warlpiri people’s resistance against a sign erected on their land. Christian Ghasarian’s work deals particularly with land tenure and its associated psychological and cognitive implications. Sina Emde approaches the issue of gender politics in Fiji with consideration on both ethnicity and colonial administration. Mélissa Nayral reconsiders the implications of gender equity under the implementation of parity law. Laurent Dousset ponders the grassroots power operation mingled with history through the Lamap Cité project in Vanuatu. John Burton pushes us to ask again “who the subaltern really is” (141) by examining mining income in Papua New Guinea. Martha Macintyre reminds us to be careful of the variability and flux of values and strategies in each case.
In short, the locals’ “choices about resistance and resilience, their capacity to adapt and to incorporate new ways of being and living in a globalized economy” (162) is what concerns these authors. Change and development, both as discourse and practice, are the focus of the discussions in this volume, yet how to present and represent all these forms and shapes, and how to discuss the divergence and commonality among the chapters, clearly involves delicacy, nuance, and challenges. The locals are not a static entity, yet the nostalgia here might be the local knowledge of the anthropologists who are holding onto the legacy of the discipline, rather than the imagination of Melanesians themselves who are embracing the future with all its changes. How to situate each resistance and resilience both locally and globally without overlooking its interactive dynamic is the key of this volume. The “dealing with” part regarding the Melanesians—meaning their agency as expressed in reactions and tactics—matters for understanding local political dynamics. Since resilience is not merely a stance, resistance does not always lead to justice. Yet, as the title of the book indicates, resilience and resistance are the present reality, and could become the future one, and therefore demand reflection. There are complexities, versatilities, and ironies in the process of confrontation and resistance. As such, each of the narratives and case studies helps us understand the social changes beyond a static framework, and as interactive processes with the involvement of multiple players and sometimes contradictory rules.
The critique towards “the fetishizing of custom in contemporary political discourse” (144) has been raised. Burton successfully makes us ponder the operability, practice, and tension of universal values such as “good conscience,” “fairness,” and “equity” in the specific local world of the Pacific Islands.
Suffering, aspiration, effort, and hope are alive in this book, and cannot be simplified to fit any theoretical conclusions, but instead will undoubtedly provoke our reflections and broaden our imaginations. While the process of glocalization seems inevitable, such encounters retain a certain amount of suspense until the actual interaction is revealed.
Though certain objectification might be inevitable throughout the process of interpretation and understanding, we as researchers shall never overlook the fluidity and resilience of the people that we are working with, embracing the view that, “rejecting the nostalgic moral opposition between primordial primitivism and industrial modernity, anthropology acknowledge[s] change and transformation. But we too work within our conditions of modernity and in doing so through our current theoretical concerns we need to attend to the hopes of Pacific people in order to comprehend their choices about resistance and resilience” (162). The authors also remind us to be critical of the fetishization of the agony of Oceania towards the outside world as they might in fact feel quite comfortable embracing modernity and the outside world: “People in the Pacific have often welcomed change and incorporated new ways, new values and new institutions” (157).
The edited book is a collaborative effort by independent researchers who each respectively crafts their case study to elucidate “the possibilities for resilience and for loss, abandonment, and dramatic change,” thereby illuminating the “interaction between a past that can be imagined as holistic and virtuous and an envisaged future that fulfills contemporary desires.” This “constant flux” (162) calls for a vision beyond a simplistic judgment of cultural loss and cultural continuity. As an Oceanic academic concerned with the self-determination and well-being of the locals, I appreciate the insight towards the delicate and nuanced stance that the authors suggest we, as researchers, take, when we face each case in its specific context.
Wenzhen He
Shandong University, Jinan, China
Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA