Kategoria BISAC: History >> Oceania

Mediating Across Difference is based on a fundamental premise: to deal adequately with conflict--and particularly with conflict stemming from cultural and other differences--requires genuine openness to different cultural practices and dialogue between different ways of knowing and being. Equally essential is a shift away from understanding cultural difference as an inevitable source of conflict, and the development of a more critical attitude toward previously under-examined Western assumptions about conflict and its resolution.

To address the ensuing challenges, this book...

In early Hawai'i, kua'aina were the hinterlands inhabited by na kua'aina, or country folk. Often these were dry, less desirable areas where much skill and hard work were required to wrest a living from the lava landscapes. The ancient district of Kahikinui in southeast Maui is such a kua'aina and remains one of the largest tracts of undeveloped land in the islands. Named after Tahiti Nui in the Polynesian homeland, its thousands of pristine acres house a treasure trove of archaeological ruins--witnesses to the generations of Hawaiians who made this land their home before it was abandoned...

Tobacco kills 5 million people every year and that number is expected to double by the year 2020. Despite its enormous toll on human health, tobacco has been largely neglected by anthropologists. Drinking Smoke combines an exhaustive search of historical materials on the introduction and spread of tobacco in the Pacific with extensive anthropological accounts of the ways Islanders have incorporated this substance into their lives. The author uses a relatively new concept called a syndemic--the synergistic interaction of two or more afflictions contributing to a greater burden of disease in...

Painstakingly constructed by hand of plant fiber and precious feathers from endemic birds of Hawai'i, feather cloaks and capes provided spiritual protection to Hawaiian chiefs for centuries while proclaiming their royal status. Few of the artworks known as na hulu ali'i, or royal feathers, survive today except in museums and private collections. Through photographs and scholarly essays, Royal Hawaiian Featherwork highlights approximately seventy-five rare examples of the finest featherwork capes and cloaks ('ahu'ula) extant, as well as royal staffs of feathers (kahili), feather lei (lei...

Tupaia was the brilliant Polynesian navigator and translator who sailed with Captain James Cook from Tahiti, piloted the "Endeavour" across the South Pacific, and interceded on behalf of the European voyagers with the warrior Maori of New Zealand. As a man of high social ranking, Tupaia was also invaluable as an intermediary, interpreting local rituals and ceremonies. Joseph Banks, the botanist with Cook's expedition, is famous for describing the manners and customs of the Polynesian people in detail. Much of the credit for this information rightfully belongs to Tupaia--indeed, he could...

Ambitious in its scope and scale, this environmental history of World War II ranges over rear bases and operational fronts from Bora Bora to New Guinea, providing a lucid analysis of resource exploitation, entangled wartime politics, and human perceptions of the vast Oceanic environment. Although the war's physical impact proved significant and oftentimes enduring, this study shows that the tropical environment offered its own challenges: Unfamiliar tides left landing craft stranded; unseen microbes carrying endemic diseases disabled thousands of troops. Weather, terrain, plants,...

The sociopolitical climate of Hawai'i has changed substantially in recent decades, and archaeologists working to decipher the islands' past are increasingly faced with a complexity of issues involving Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) concerns. Among these are the push for sovereignty; cultural perpetuation and revitalization; legal challenges to Kanaka Maoli programs, such as Hawaiian Home Lands and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs; and compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). In Kuleana and Commitment, Kathleen L. Kawelu examines the entangled...