Introduction to the Peoples of the Pacific

Syllabus for Peoples and Cultures of Oceania Joshua A. Bell

People and Cultures of Oceania

Anthropology 6302.10 CRN 11043 Spring 2014

Instructor: Dr. Joshua A. Bell Time: Thursday 5.15 – 7.45 pm Location: Cooper Room, National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) 10th and Constitution Avenue Instructor Email: [email protected] Phone: 202.633.1935 Office Location: NMNH Rm 318 Office Hours: Thursday 3-5 pm or by appointment

Defined paradigmatically as a swirl of sea and islands, by indigenous exchanges and cosmologies, and by European, American, Asian and Australasian colonial, and academic interventions the culturally diverse realms of Oceania occupy an intriguing place within anthropology’s genealogy and popular imagination. Focusing on Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, this seminar examines these regions’ diverse life-worlds, intersecting histories, and contemporary problems faced by Oceania’s inhabitants. Doing so we will explore the following topics: nature of historical contact, exchange, personhood and gender, political authority, politics of culture, development, environmental degradation, out-migration, urbanism and contemporary arts. Examining these locally articulated processes will contribute to a better understand of Oceania, as well as wider theoretical trends and concerns in anthropology.

This seminar is an interdisciplinary investigation of societies engagement and consumption of natural and cultural resources cross-cultural, and the values generated through these activities. The Smithsonian Institutions’ research collections and exhibits are central to the seminar. Seminars will involve engagement with anthropological collections and museum displays to understand the topics at hand.

Learning Outcomes By the end of this seminar students will  be conversant in the major theories in anthropology about art and material culture: functional, symbolic/semiotic/structuralist, aesthetic, economic, historical, political and post-structural  be conversant in key topics involved in the examination of art and material culture: agency, art worlds, colonial economies, cultural biography, iconoclasm, materiality, primitive art, objectification, regimes of value, repatriation, and tourist art.  understand the ways in which these theories and key topics have been developed and applied in different settings and times

1 Syllabus for Peoples and Cultures of Oceania Joshua A. Bell

 be able to apply these anthropological theories to understand any art work of object of material culture.  have developed more critical speaking and writing skills

Assignments 1. Class Participation and Attendance – 15% Students will participate in each seminar discussion. This means speaking in class, saying reasonably well thought-out things that demonstrate that you have done the assigned readings. Non-participation will result in a lower final grade in the course. My suggestion to you all is to come to the seminar with at least 3 questions written out which you can raise in the seminar. If you have difficultly speaking in a group setting, I recommend writing three questions before the seminar to then ask.

2. Leading Seminar Discussion – 15% Each student will lead a seminar discussion. This does not mean that you will summarize the readings for the seminar, rather you will prepare a set of discussion questions that will be the basis for the seminar discussion. These questions are to be e-mailed to the entire seminar no later than noon on the day of seminar. Please feel free to involve us looking at something in NMNH as part of the seminar, bring hand-outs and or a power-point to help lead the discussion. I encourage you to be creative and critical.

3. Film Responses – 20% Each student will write 2 two-page responses to the films listed in the syllabus. They will be due – XXX and by XXX. I am open to which film you decide to engage with, but you will need to analyze the film in light of the readings for the seminar and our discussion. Here I am specifically interested in your engagement about what the film says about social life in the Pacific.

4. Paper – 50% Each of you will do a research paper on a topic of your choice within the broad remit of art and material culture. This can be anything from a particular object (bicycle, iPhone 5, a Rothko painting, totem pole, the giant squid, Washington monument), an exhibit (Earth Matters, NMAA; Before and After the Horizon: Anishinaabe Artists of the Great Lakes, NMAI, etc.) or a wider phenomenon (instagram, book collecting, DYI shows, the politics of twerking, etc.). I am happy to work with you to select a topic. Having chosen a topic, using the readings for the seminar, as well as other sources, you will research and write a paper that explores the various aspects this thing along one or more of the theoretical lines we have explored.

These papers must be between 10 pages (double spacing and without bibliography included). On October 24 at the beginning of class an outline of the final paper is due. This outline will provide in two pages of text a sketch of the aim, scope, and method of your intended paper and include a working bibliography of relevant sources. While you can draw on materials from this syllabus, I expect that you will have done research as to what exists on the given topic. This is worth 15% of your

final grade on the paper. No late outlines will be accepted. To have a successful paper I strongly advise you meeting with me to discuss your project as the semester unfolds.

For our final seminar (December 5) each member will give a short (7-10 minute) presentation of their paper. While I don’t expect your paper to be finished at this point, I do expect a coherent and well-argued presentation. These presentations are designed to create a forum for group feedback about your topic, which will improve your papers. Due to the number of people I expect us to run over during this session, please be prepared to stay a bit longer then the two hours.

The final paper is due on December 19 (before 12 midnight).

General guidelines for written assignments: Please submit assignments on time. Late work will not be accepted. All written assignments should be typed in standard fonts (12 point Times, Palatino, or Courier are recommended) with 1-inch margins. Please staple & paginate papers and put your name on each page. Please follow the citation/bibliographic format used in Current Anthropology.

I strongly advise you to read Orwell’s 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language” before you begin this and the other written assignment. Good writing takes time and thought: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

5. Attendance to this seminar is mandatory and absences must be accompanied with a valid excuse (e.g. death in the family, documented illness, natural disaster).

Other Information Email Policy: Email is a necessary evil, but it creates a false sense of social relations and allows us to become increasingly alienated from our colleagues and students. Please make every effort to call me or come by my office hours if you have questions about this seminar, and its assignments.

Required texts are available for purchase at GWU bookstore and will be made available in the GWU library. Assigned articles and chapters will be available via e-mail as PDFs on blackboard. The readings are divided between required and further reading. Further readings are intended to help provide further context for the assigned reading, and should be read by those of you leading a seminar discussion.

Teaiwa, Katerina Martina. 2014. Consuming Ocean Island: stories of people and phosphate from Banaba. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Street, Alice 2014 Biomedicine in an Unstable Place: Infrastructure and Personhood in a Papua New Guinean Hospital. Durham: Duke University Press. Deger, Jennifer. 2006. Shimmering Screens: Making Media in an Aboriginal Community.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Kirksey, Eben. 2012. Freedom in entangled worlds: West Papua and the architecture of global power. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Tengan, Ty P. Kawika. 2008. Native men remade: gender and nation in contemporary Hawaiʻi. Durham: Duke University Press.

Expectations: I expect you to come to the seminar having done the readings and ready to actively discuss the topics at hand.

Week 1 (Sept 3) Orientations – Sea of Islands During this initial meeting we will discuss the syllabus and seminar’s goals.

Further Reading  Bonnemaison, J. 1996. 'The metaphor of the tree and the canoe.' In Arts of Vanuatu (eds) J. Bonnemaison, C. Kaufmann, K. Huffman & D. Tryon, Pp. 34-38. Bathurst: Crawford Publishing House. 5 pages

Week 2 (Sept. 10) Oceanic Cosmologies and Histories I: Banaba Looking at the case of Banaba as discussed by Teaiwa, we will examine the intersections of cosmologies and histories that have helped to make the Oceania what it is. Doing so we will explore how history and cosmology are conceived, and what the ongoing legacy of colonialism is regionally.

 Teaiwa, Katerina Martina. 2014. Consuming Ocean Island: stories of people and phosphate from Banaba. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Read 1-118

Film  First Contact (Bob Connolly & Robin Anderson, color, 54 min, 1983) (https://vimeo.com/51548963)

Further Reading  Strathern, M. 1990. 'Artefacts of History: Events and the Interpretation of Images.' In Culture and History in the Pacific (ed.) J. Siikala. Helsinki, pp. 25-44.  Campbell, J.R. 2014. “Climate-Change Migration in the Pacific.” 26(1): 1-28.

Week 3 (Sept. 17) Oceanic Cosmologies and Histories II: Banaba Continuing our focus on Banaba, we will discuss the intersecting cosmologies of the Oceania but with a focus on what indigneous strategies have emerged to deal with these articulations. 4 Syllabus for Peoples and Cultures of Oceania Joshua A. Bell

 Teaiwa, Katerina Martina. 2014. Consuming Ocean Island: stories of people and phosphate from Banaba. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Read 118-202.

Further reading  Hau'ofa, E. 1993. 'Our sea of islands.' In A new Oceania: rediscovering our sea of islands. (eds) V. Naidu, E. Waddell & E. Hau'ofa. Pp. 2-16. Suva: School of Social and Economic Development, USP. 14 pages  Kahn, M. 2000. 'Tahiti Intertwined: Ancestral Land, Tourist Postcard, and Nuclear Test Site.' American Anthropologist 102, 7-26.

Film  Pear ta Ma On Maf: The Land Has Eyes (V. Hereniko, color, 87 minutes, 2005) (https://vimeo.com/112031380)

Week 4 (Sept. 24) Personhood, Gifts & Biomedicine I: Papua New Guinea Though Street’s ethnography of a Papua New Guinean hospital we will consider the articulation of biomedicine in Oceania, which involves topics central to the region: personhood, gifts and morality. Within this seminar we will focus on how personhood and relationships are conceived.

 Street, Alice 2014 Biomedicine in an Unstable Place: Infrastructure and Personhood in a Papua New Guinean Hospital. Durham: Duke University Press. Read 1-114

Further reading  Strathern, Marilyn. 1979. ‘The Self in Self-Decoration.’ Oceania 49:241-57. 16 pages  Taylor, J. P. (2015) “Sorcery and the Moral Economy of Agency: An Ethnographic Account.” Oceania 85: 38–50. 12 pages

Film  The Bad Sickness in Papua New Guinea (W. Zakiewicz, color, 23 min., 2011) (https://vimeo.com/90791769)

Week 5 (Oct. 1) Personhood, Gifts & Biomedicine II: Papua New Guinea Continuing our discussion of biomedicine we will shift focuses slightly to consider the the role of gifts in the formation of the person, relationships and community.

 Street, Alice 2014 Biomedicine in an Unstable Place: Infrastructure and Personhood in a Papua New Guinean Hospital. Durham: Duke University Press. Read 115-236

Further reading  Weiner, A. B. 1985. 'Inalienable Wealth.' American Ethnologist 12:210-227.  Harrison, S. 1993. 'The commerce of cultures in Melanesia.’ Man 28: 139-158. ARTICLE ON DEATH

Film  Ngat is Dead: Studying Mortuary Traditions (C. Suhr & T. Otto color, 59 min, 2009)

Week 6 (Oct. 8) Making Media I: Australia Art has and continues to play a central role in the constitution of Oceanic communities despite transformations in the medium used. Through a reading of Deger’s ethnography, we will consider the role of media in helping to alternatively transform and preserve cultural expressions.

 Deger, Jennifer. 2006. Shimmering Screens: Making Media in an Aboriginal Community. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Read 1 – 116

Further reading  Morphy, H. 1992. ‘From Dull to Brilliant: The Aesthetic of Spiritual Power Among the Yolungu.’ In J. Coote and A. Shelton (eds.) Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics, Pp. 181- 208. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 27 pages

 Wanga Watangumirri Dharuk (The Mulka Project, color, 16 min 2012) https://vimeo.com/38957867  Ngandi Dhawu (Mother's Story) (The Mulka Project, color, 12 min 2012) https://vimeo.com/37213419  Baywara Manda (The Mulka Project, color, 28 min 2013) https://vimeo.com/65120933

Week 7 (Oct. 15) Making Media II: Australia Continuing our discussion we will consider how the cultural expressions through video and other media has allowed communities to creatively grabble with structural inequalities in Oceania.

 Deger, Jennifer. 2006. Shimmering Screens: Making Media in an Aboriginal Community. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Read 117-226

Further Reading  Gershorn, Illana, and Joshua A. Bell. 2013. "Introduction: The Newness of New Media.". Culture, Theory and Critique 54 (3): 259-264.

 Gell, Alfred. 1988. “Technology and Magic.” Anthropology Today 4(2): 6-9.

Film  Ringtone () http://miyarrkamedia.com/projects/ringtone/

Week 8 (Oct. 22) Oceanic Soveriegnty I: West Papua Within this seminar we will look at the role of the state and conflict in Oceania through the ethnography of resistence and settler-colonialism by Kirksey. Key topics to be discussed over the two weeks will be what is the role of the state, how do the legacies of colonialism play out into the present and what are the possibilities for communities.

 Kirksey, Eben. 2012. Freedom in entangled worlds: West Papua and the architecture of global power. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Read 1-124

Further Reading  Lattas, A. and Rio, K. M. 2011. “Securing Modernity: Towards an Ethnography of Power in Contemporary Melanesia.” Oceania 81: 1–21.

Film  Land of the Morning Star (M. Worth 56.33 minutes, 2012) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUT6hPRjb6o

Week 9 (Oct. 29) Oceanic Soveriegnty II: West Papua Continuing our focus on West Papua, we will look more closely at the role of the ethnographer as activist and think through what obligations researchers have to the communities they work with, and what role anthropologists have for Oceanic communities.

Kirksey, Eben. 2012. Freedom in entangled worlds: West Papua and the architecture of global power. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Read 125-220.

Further Reading  West, P. 2005. “Holding the Story Forever: The Aesthetics of Ethnographic Labour.” Anthropological Forum 15(3): 267-275

Week 10 (Nov. 5) Oceanic Futures I: Hawai’i

Through the case study of Hawai’i we will look at how communities are seeking to revitalize their cultural traditions

Tengan, Ty P. Kawika. 2008. Native men remade: gender and nation in contemporary Hawaiʻi. Durham: Duke University Press. Read 1-124

Kaho'olawe Documentary - "Mai Ka Piko Mai a Ho'i: Return to Kanaloa"

Diaz, Vicente M. "Voyaging for Anti-Colonial Recovery: Austronesian Seafaring, Archipelagic Rethinking, and the Re-mapping of Indigeneity." Pacific Asia Inquiry 2.1 (2011): 21-32.

Week 11 (Nov. 12) Oceanic Futures I: Hawai’i

Tengan, Ty P. Kawika. 2008. Native men remade: gender and nation in contemporary Hawaiʻi. Durham: Duke University Press. Read 125-228

Mauna Kea – Temple Under Siege, 2005 http://oiwi.tv/oiwitv/mauna-kea-temple-under- siege/ kehaulani kauanui

Week 12 (Nov. 19) No Seminar – American Anthropology Association Meetings Please use this week to catch up your reading and to work on your final presentations.

Week 13 (Nov. 26) Thanksgiving – No Seminar

Week 15 (Dec. 3) FINAL PRESENTATIONS

Week 17 (Dec. 17) Final Papers Due

Attendance Attendance at all sessions of this unit is mandatory. Should you miss a seminar you will need to see the instructor, and should you know in advance that you will have to miss a session you will need to email the instructor.

Malinowski, B. 1920. 'Kula: the circulating exchange valuables in the archipelagoes of eastern New Guinea.' Man 20, 97-105. Mauss, M. 2001. ‘The exchange of Gifts and the Obligation to Reciprocate (Polynesia).’ The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, Oxford. Pp. 10-23. Weiner, A. 1992. ‘Kula: The Paradox of Keeping-While-Giving.’ Inalienable possessions: the paradox of keeping-while-giving. Berkeley. Pp. 131-148.

Strathern, M. (1988) ‘Some Definitions.’ The Gender of the Gift. Berkeley. Pp. 171-190.

Week 8 27 February Film Session Joe Leahy’s Neighbours (B. Connolly and R. Anderson, 1989)

Week 11 19 March Film Session

Week 12 26 March Film Session The Last Navigator (A. Singer 1989)

Trask, H.K. 1991. ‘Natives and Anthropologists: The Colonial Struggle.’ The Contemporary Pacific 3: 159-167.

Week 13 2 April Film Session Cannibal Tours (D. O’Rourke 1988)