Pacific Answers to Western Hegemony

Jürg Wassmann University of Heidelberg

• Contents: Jürg Wassmann, Introduction -- Part One: Constituting Historical Knowledge -- Jonathan Friedman, Knowing Oceania or Oceanian Knowing: Identifying Actors and Activating Identities in Turbulent Times -- Bronwen Douglas, Inventing Natives/Negotiating Local Identities: Postcolonial Readings of Colonial Texts on Island Melanesia -- Ben Burt, Writing Local History in Solomon Islands -- Gunter Senft, ‘Noble Savages' and ‘the Islands of Love': Trobriand Islanders in ‘Popular Publications' -- Part Two: Ways of Constructing Identities -- Nigel Stephenson, Contrasting Transcripts: Constructing Images and Identities in Mediations among the Wam People of Papua New Guinea -- Berit Gustafsson, The Identity Construction of Ethnic and Social Groups in Contemporary Papua New Guinea -- Gerhard Schneider, Re-Inventing Identities: Re-Defining Cultural Concepts in the Struggle between Villagers in Munda, Roviana Lagoon, New Georgia Is., Solomon Islands for the Control of Land -- Phillippe Peltier, ‘Alas! And on we go' -- Ton Otto, Resource Management in Lavongai and Tigak Islands: Changing Practices, Changing Identities -- Thomas K. Fitzgerald, Metaphors, Media and Social Change: Second-Generation Cook Islanders in New Zealand -- Jens Pinholt, Identity Construction as a Cooperative Object: Anthropological Film-Making with the Vaiakau and Fenualoa Peoples, Reef Islands, Temotu Province, Solomon Islands -- Part Three: Australia after Mabo -- Robert Tonkinson, National Identity: Australia After Mabo -- Ad Borsboom, Knowing the Country: Mabo, Native Title and ‘Traditional' Law in Aboriginal Australia -- Barbara Glowczewski-Barker, ‘All One but Different': Aboriginality: National Identity versus Local Diversification in Australia -- John Morton, Essentially Black, Essentially Australian, Essentially Opposed: Australian Anthropology and its Uses of Aboriginal Identity -- Part Four: Questioning Western Democracy? -- Toon van Meijl, Culture and Democracy among the Maori -- Serge Tcherkézoff, Is Aristocracy Good for Democracy? A Contemporary Debate in Western Samoa

'This collection conveys in an exemplary manner the many diverse (sometimes confusing) strands of current anthropological research in Europe ... Pacific Answers to Western Hegemony is a complex volume, and a brief review cannot do full justice to the richness and breadth of the empirical case presented ... this book gives valuable insights into the social and cultural dynamics of today's Oceania.The Contemporary Pacific'A valuable contribution to better understanding some of the difficulties faced by Pacific communities.'The Journal of Pacific Studies