Durham: Duke University Press, 2024. US$27.00, paper. ISBN 9781478030041.
This potent and beautiful book by Anaἳs Maurer is a much-needed bridge connecting communities, the imperial outsourcing of destruction, and the arts-based activism of Pacific Islanders over generations. Drawing on her upbringing in Puna’auia, Tahiti, and her ability to traverse French, English, and Mā’ohi, Maurer ignites new conversations between communities often separated by the linguistic barriers of colonialism; there is precious little access to the literature, arts, or political statements of French-speaking communities in areas of Oceania colonized by English speakers.
In her introduction, “We Are Not Drowning—We Are Fighting,” Maurer centres Pacific Islanders’ reframing of climate narratives positioning communities as active fighters rather than helpless victims. This refrain is a structural thread Maurer weaves throughout the book as she decries the overlooking of Oceanic artists and their roles as leaders in global environmental movements despite savvy leadership addressing nuclear and carbon imperialism. Chapter 1, “Isletism,” boldly identifies colonial patterns of denial that result in people dying from inadequate health care; this denial of responsibility, as Maurer underscores, is a political decision not to act. Examples from Rapa Nui and the Marshall Islands (despite some small inaccuracies about the nuclear legacy in the Marshall Islands) illustrate the presence of both slow and ongoing violence exacerbated by colonial militarism. Maurer attunes the reader to the voices of epistemologies of Oceanic leaders in “Oceanitude,” the second chapter, named from Paul Tavo’s (ni-Vanuatu) term “to refer to literary, political, and philosophical movement uniting decolonial writers, orators, and activists across Oceania” (53). Maurer applies Tavo’s concept to her framework throughout, connecting Indigenous storytellers’ demands for accountability, and a different future. She grounds Tavo’s call to unite decolonial efforts in the literary activism of numerous artists, such as Pua Case’s (Kanaka ‘Ōiwi) articulation of the struggle to protect Mauna Kea. Exquisite phrasing by Maurer causes the reader to pause and appreciate her wording, strongly evident in chapter 3, “Atomic Animals,” where she provides examples of how “Indigenous communities were the first to be thrust into the Anthropocene and to develop the tools and language to process this era’s lethality” (80). Maurer shines a spotlight on an array of Oceanic voices who describe the ways that nuclear imperialism violently separates relationships with all living creatures, evident in the writing of Rei Chaze (Mā’ohi), and Witi Ihimaera (Ma’ori), Albert Wendt (Samoan), and the poetry of Craig Perez Santos (CHamoru) and others. In chapter 4, “The H-Bomb and Humor,” Maurer unites the subversive and bold artwork of Bobby Holcomb (Kanaka ‘Ōiwi/Black) with fale aitu comedy sketches from Samoa along with André Marere’s parodies of Gaugin’s artwork. This chapter is structured to revel in the ability of Pacific Islanders to “survive and laugh in … apocalyptic setting[s]” (124) as a coping mechanism enabling leaders to remain immersed in the difficult work of political struggle. The final chapter beyond the conclusion, “Radiation Refugees,” links the work of Samoan spoken-word performer Terisa Tinei Siagatonu, with Marshallese poet Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner and the writing of Teresia Teaiwa (i-Kiribati/Black). In this chapter, Maurer adeptly connects historical documents with contemporary and ongoing storytelling to ensure that the experiences of Pacific Islanders are not sidelined or erased. Precious little information exists, for example, about the British government’s relocation of entire communities from Kiribati to the Solomon Islands for British nuclear weapons tests, which Maurer describes using historical documents. Maurer enables readers to reckon with the vast, collective, and ongoing displacement emerging from nuclear imperialism by the British, French, and Americans in Oceania.
Maurer gives the reader a tool to see both the local realities and the collective response of Pacific Islander cultural and political leaders to address the impacts of intersected colonial violence. The Indigenous political and artistic responses to nuclear imperialism provide experience and a foundation to respond to the newest, carbon-based threat to planetary survival, climate change. Within the Pacific region, Maurer’s book heeds Tavo’s call to build unity between decolonial efforts while simultaneously building awareness outside the region for the ways that Pacific Islanders serve as “a global moral compass—or start path—for the rest of the world” (10).
Maurer’s book reflects the beauty and hope of Oceanic artists, even while delving into imperial abuses of “apocalyptic” or genocidal scales. Maurer documents how Pacific artists and “storytellers draw inspiration and strength from older and deeper Indigenous customary practices” (28) to counter colonial narratives and to “ridicule the colonizers’ tropes and myths in traditional artforms transmitted for generations” (132) in forms as diverse as Ata’s fictional depictions of burlesque-themed anti-nuclearism, fale aitu from Samoa, or Kathy Jetñnil-Kijiner’s laying of white coral onto the gravesite of an island consumed by imperial priorities. Art fills the spaces silenced by colonial political passivity and joins the chorus of Oceanic voices charting new pathways of global leadership. The trauma of displacement is transgenerational, but, as Maurer underscores, the storytelling provides permanence and continuity.
Unquestionably, the region carries the scars of unwittingly hosting the majority of nuclear weapons tests on the planet, yet Oceanic artists “search for love and beauty even in nuclear ruins” (30).As Maurer notes in a Mā’oli example, “songs, dances, and arts celebrate how life always continues after death through one’s descendants, via unbreakable links created across generations by expanding genealogies” (166). Life continually emerges from destruction, evident in the works of Oceanic leaders as well as Maurer’s scholarship. And perhaps because life is indeed so precarious, Maurer reminds her global audience that “now is always the right time to mourn and to love more fiercely than ever” (168). Maurer’s celebration of Pacific Islander global leadership in nuclear and carbon imperialism fittingly concludes with the resolute search for beauty framed by Chamoru artist, lawyer and activist, Julian Aguon: “insist on life, no matter the hour, even at the time of death” (167).
Holly M. Barker
University of Washington, Seattle