Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2015. x, 216 pp. (Tables.) US$58.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-8248-3871-3.
Jared Mackley-Crump draws on his academic background of ethnomusicology to investigate how Pacific festivals are used as sites where diasporic Pacific communities negotiate personal and communal identities, and further perpetuate cultural inclinations that are representative of wider cultural changes in Aotearoa New Zealand (AO, NZ). Beginning with a historical account of Pacific festivals, the book describes how these festivals have emerged and continue to develop alongside the “coming of age” (51) of Pacific peoples in AO, NZ. Mackley-Crump relates these socio-cultural and political processes to the concept of “festivalization.” The second half of the book discusses findings drawn from the author’s PhD fieldwork at two major festivals in AO, NZ: Pasifika Festival in West Auckland and the Positively Pasifika Festival in Wellington. The book portrays Mackley-Crump’s ability to weave together several narratives, including interviews with a range of participants, historical records, and theoretical ideas. The topics and perspectives, as a result, are relatively accessible and have a capacity to reach wider audiences beyond academia.
This book is located within established theoretical debates on authenticity, tradition, cultural change, place, and identity. Beyond these key themes, the book is also situated within Pacific Studies and is pertinent to the research of diasporic communities in Pacific Rim cities. I commend Mackley-Crump for his significant contribution to this field by linking together critical academic works by Pasifika researchers (dispersed in various fields like education, social sciences, and anthropology, to name a few) and to frame a discussion of diasporic Pacific peoples in AO, NZ. The author, for example, employs the notion of “edgewalking,” as discussed in Anne Marie Tupuola’s work, “Pacific Edgewalkers: Complicating the Achieved Identity Status in Youth Research” (Journal of Intercultural Studies, 25, no. 1 [2004]), to theorise cultural agency operating between cosmopolitan and Pacific identities in AO, NZ. He also applies ‘Epeli Hau‘ofa’s profound ideas from the eminent work “Our Sea of Islands” (The Contemporary Pacific, 6, no. 1 [1994]), to frame the fluidity of the diasporic situation. Moreover, Karlo Mila-Schaaf’s concept of “polycultural capital,” presented in “Polycultural Capital and the Pasifika Second Generation: Negotiating Identities in Diasporic Spaces” (PhD diss., Massey University, 2010) encapsulates the diverse resources Pacific people draw on to generate festivals. This book illustrates how Pacific theories can frame, as well as provide depth of meaning to, studies of Pacific communities.
Mackley-Crump does not try to define Pacific culture and identity, but presents the multivalent views of how participants perceive themselves. Mackley-Crump argues these definitions are neither static nor conclusive as binary forms of contemporary and traditional identities. He asserts that the idea of “mooring posts” better represents the fluid and “multilocal” references to island and new homeland identities (170). Through Mackley-Crump’s objective approach, we gain insight into the multifaceted Pacific diasporic identities manifested through festivalization in AO, NZ.
Mackley-Crump contributes to an important discussion about the relationship between Pacific and Māori communities in New Zealand. He reinforces the varied views held by his Pacific participants about their relationships to Tāngata whenua (the Indigenous people of the land), and moreover, how these relationships are acknowledged spatially and ceremonially in the festival space.
A key argument of this book is that festivals provide a space for Pacific communities to define themselves, and reciprocally festivals define these communities. This transactional quality of Pacific festivals and communities in AO, NZ underlines the relationship between place and identity—a complex theme that is alluded to throughout the book, but not fully discussed until the end.
Although it is hard to fault this book, I have some minor criticisms, which raises further queries. Firstly, the book’s structure is reminiscent of a PhD thesis. While this is an inevitable structure of a published thesis, it does tend to delay the critical synthesis of theory and data until later in the book. This can be theoretically disorientating for a reader in the first instance. To his credit however, Mackley-Crump’s syntheses in each chapter’s concluding paragraphs does help to propel and maintain common themes across each chapter.
For a discussion of festivalization, place, and identity, the book does miss images and maps to show readers who are not familiar with AO, NZ or the Pacific region, the cultural materiality and spatial qualities raised in this discussion. Such visualisation would only improve the accessibility of this book.
One other shortcoming I present as an issue for wider debate is the use of certain cultural ideas in a generic or Pan-Pacific way. For instance, Mackley-Crump uses “palagi” (125), which is a Sāmoan Polynesian word referring to a Caucasian, and more recently a foreigner, in the account of a Fijian participant, where the correct word in this context is “kaivalangi.” Furthermore, Mackley-Crump applies the Tongan idea of “tauhi vā” (as presented in the commonly referenced research of Tēvita O. Ka‘ili titled, “Tauhi Vā: Nurturing Tongan Sociospatial Ties in Maui and Beyond,” (The Contemporary Pacific, 17, no. 1 [2005]) to theorise kinship relations in the Pacific diaspora (166). Similar Pacific ideas are presented in wider literature, such as the notion of “teu le va” in the Sāmoan context. Although Mackley-Crump does carefully apply these ideas, what is implied is an assumption that any Pacific group’s concepts are relevant to other Pacific groups, and the tendency of existing scholarship to generalise certain Pacific groups’ notions of self, others, and kinship as universal for all Pacific peoples. This calls for comparative research to understand the appropriate extent to apply one cultural group’s ideas beyond its boundaries.
The book displays such comprehensive and well-crafted research that, regardless of the few shortcomings mentioned, I recommend this book as one of the first sources to read for all students of Pacific diasporic cultures. As a Tongan, born and raised in South Auckland by Tongan parents who migrated to New Zealand in the 1970s, I can trace my life and the lives of others through this book. Mackley-Crump has written a book that is rigorously academic, but as a personal reflection, he has respectfully acknowledged the challenges of my community and how far we have come along this journey of self-realisation in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Charmaine ‘Ilaiū Talei
University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Australia
pp. 207-209