NY BOK: Pacific Alternatives: Cultural politics in contemporary Oceania

At the centre of this collection are the actors and processes referred to by the distinguished Oceania thinker and visionary Epeli Hau‘ofa as ‘ordinary people … who, because of the poor flows of benefits from the top, scepticism about stated policies and the like, tend to plan and make decisions about their lives independently, sometimes with surprising and dramatic results that go unnoticed or ignored at the top’.

The contributors explore innovative social, cultural and political responses to global processes as they influence and unfold in a range of Pacific locations – with a major focus on Island Melanesia and a further range of contributions on Palau, Pohnpei, Rotuma and Australia. A multidisciplinary group, including a number of Pacific Islanders, the authors present contemporary connections between expanding perceptions of cultural heritage and the emergence of new political forms, in the context of challenges posed by the global political economy. At issue in the volume are viable local Pacific alternatives to the institutions and practices commonly advocated in development discourse, but difficult to implement in Pacific settings.

Pacific Alternatives provides fresh perspectives on the ways that cultural heritage serves as a unique source of engaging the modern state and global non-state actors. The volume showcases two of the strongest features of contemporary Pacific Studies scholarship: the ability to find new insights in experience-near analyses of Islander life that have world-enlarging potentials, and the foregrounding of Indigenous voices in the evolving dialogue around land, politics, culture, tradition, custom, and identity.
- Ty Kāwika Tengan, Professor of Anthropology & Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department,
University of Hawai‘i

Edvard Hviding is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. His research in Solomon Islands includes interests in environmental knowledge, social movements, maritime practice and regional systems past and present.

Geoffrey White is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa. His research in Solomon Islands includes interests in Christianity, cultural policy and memory of the Second World War.