A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea of Islands

THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING I996 A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our The collection not only "rediscovers Sea ofIslands, edited by Eric Waddell, our sea of islands," but resituates that Vijay Naidu, and Epeli Hau'ofa. Suva, university at critical crosscurrents of Fiji: The University of the South Pacific intellectual inquiry. School of Social and Economic Devel In "Our Sea of Islands" Hau'ofa is opment, in association with Beake writing against a social, historical, eco House, I993. ISBN 982-0I-020o-6, nomic, political, academic climate at xvi + I44 pages, tables, notes, bibliog the university in which dependency raphy. Paper, US$9.9S. theories predominate; where "small" island-states are perpetually con Epeli Hau'ofa's "Our Sea of Islands," structed as subject to or neglected by is an already well-traveled thesis: it continental desires. He proposes that debuted at two University of Hawai'i students of the Pacific might yet claim campuses in I993; was published in alternative futures, presents, and pasts The Contemporary Pacific Spring by reimagining the space they inhabit. I994 issue; was cited by Cultural Instead of seeing ourselves as separated Studies guruJames Clifford (University and isolated by the vast Pacific Ocean, of California, Santa Cruz) in a recent Hau'ofa takes inspiration from what essay; and has been solicited by Arif he observes as the ancient and contem Dirlik (University of California, porary reciprocity between islands and Berkeley) and Marshall Sahlins (Uni their migrant kin. In "Our Sea of versity of Chicago) respectively for Islands" he reinscribes us as intimately separate republications. "Our Sea of connected by the ocean. Instead of Islands" has also become the title for being small Islanders, we become a South Pacific ocean resources news OCEANIC peoples. Hau'ofa's theoriz letter, and the theme of at least one ing is an explicit rejection of a peda Pacific Islands studies conference. gogy of hopelessness: Several factors contribute to the trans-Pacific currency of "Our Sea of What kind of teaching is it to stand in Islands"; these include Hau'ofa's repu front of young people from your own tation as a quixotic writer and scholar, region, people you claim as your own, who have come to the university with the site of enunciation for the thesis high hopes for the future, and to tell (Hawai'i), and its resonance with "the them that their countries are hope west's" burgeoning market for scholar less?(s) ship on diaspora and postcoloniality. A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea In general, the responses to ofIslands is a collection of essays Hau'ofa's proposal in A New Oceania responding to Hau'ofa's thesis which fall into three categories: the celebra necessarily anchors the discussion in tory, the cautionary, and the critical. a very particular set of pedagogical Waddell's introduction to the volume, concerns. Edited by Eric Waddell, and his essay, "The Power of Positive Vijay Naidu, and Hau'ofa, the essays Thinking," are the most unapologeti in A New Oceania are all by academics cally celebratory of all the responses. at the University of the South Pacific. An intimate spirit of friendship per- BOOK REVIEWS 21 5 vades his writing, as he reflects on the alized, and that myths, legends, and significance of Hau'ofa's oceanic iden oral traditions can shed little light on tity-the product of roots that span the contemporary problems of Island Tonga, Papua New Guinea, and Fiji ers. With a "realist" sense of urgency, and his own complex Canadian Pacific Veitayaki suggests that "Our Sea of positionality. Waddell offers Hau'ofa Islands" muddies the waters and dis the suggestive words of Gabrielle Roy, tracts Islanders and scholars from find "that nowhere in this world is the cen ing practical solutions to managing tre" (35). Reifying neither homeless their resources. ness nor rootlessness, Waddell is But rather than dismissing celebrating decentered notions of Hau'ofa's poetic theorizing out of "home" and a redefinition of "roots." hand, the majority of essays in A New (Black British scholar, Paul Gilroy, Oceania simply call for practical sup evocatively uses the term roots/routes.) plements to his vision, their tones While this sort of postmodern/post tinged with a mixture of celebration colonial interrogation and reinvention and caution. A number of the essays of identities has developed into an endorse Hau'ofa's call to construct industry of its own in metropolitan supra- or transnational identities for universities, it has yet to seduce many the contemporary Pacific, while high scholars at the University of the South lighting his problematic retention of Pacific. the hierarchical categories Melanesia, Douglas Borer's essay "Truth or Micronesia, Polynesia. Many of the Dare" and Joeli Veitayaki's "Balancing responses invoke EF Schumacher's the Book: How the Other Half Lives" "small is beautiful" thesis to moder are the most critical of Hau'ofa's ate what seems to be perceived as vision. Borer interprets "Our Sea of Hau'ofa's "big dreams"-the argu Islands" as an "old and tired" claim to ment commonly made is that small a "natural destiny of greatness." He economies are more sustainable and even goes on to say that "Marx's false less likely to draw the restrictive scru dream of an international class con tiny of big powers. sciousness has been resurrected in the There are also those who assert form of Epeli's vision of an intra that islands should not get lost in this Pacific cultural consciousness" (85). oceanic vision, because land continues Veitayaki accuses Hau'ofa of pander to remain the principal site for human ing to his students: after years of telling activity in the Pacific. Several writers them "the painful truth" (they're gently remind Hau'ofa of the sad or small, underdeveloped, and dependent) ugly visions of rural poverty and urban he tries to please them with a new per deprivation in the Pacific that he has spective that is "mostly superficial and suppressed in "Our Sea of Islands"; unrealistic, certainly severed from the others warn against waking the dead situation in the Pacific.... Epeli is "Pacific Way." Given the historical romanticizing the past" (rr6). and contemporary complexity of the Veitayaki goes on to say that the Pacific, given the multiplicity of inter notion of diaspora has been sensation- nal rivalries and the intensity of exter- 216 THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING 1996 nal pressures, the one thing these ocean resources management, planning writers from the University of the and development, and sociology. Most South Pacific agree on is that the of these departments are part of the region needs vision-but Hau'ofa can School of Social and Economic Devel offer only one of the necessary per opment, with which the editors are all spectives. In his essay, Sudesh Mishra affiliated in different capacities: Eric uses the term "celebratory resistance" Waddell was professor of geography at to describe a position in relation to the the time, but has since returned to his neocolonial west, but it seems that home in Canada; Vijay Naidu is a most of the academics in A New reader in sociology as well as a pro Oceania are also taking up such a vice chancellor; and Hau'ofa is head of position vis-a.-vis Hau'ofa. the school. The diversity of fields from The volume closes with an "open which academics have been willing to ended" essay, a response by Hau'ofa to engage bodes well for the ever-chal the responses. Here, more than in lenging task of interdisciplinary dia "Our Sea of Islands," the specifically logue. We should now also look university-(de)centered engagements of forward to responses from the depart his work are clarified. "Our Sea of ment of education and psychology, Islands"-and certainly A New Oce University Extension, and the Institute ania-must be read in both the light of Pacific Studies, for whom the "sea and the shade of the University of the of islands" thesis would seem to have South Pacific's history: in the light of particular resonance. the euphoria and vigor of anticolonial Unfortunately, even though there independence movements, and student are a significant number of women in life that overwhelmed the university's key academic positions at the Univer inaugural years and produced some of sity of the South Pacific, women are the region's premier scholars, artists, underrepresented in the volume. Jenny politicians, and activists; in the shade Bryant and Vanessa Griffen, however, of neocolonial dependency, "post bear the burden of representation well, coup" trauma, and postcolonial tribal and provide some of the more engag ism, which has the ability to turn the ing and thoughtful critical essays. Cer university into what Hau'ofa has tainly "Our Sea of Islands" and A New called "a beautiful cemetery." Oceania's neglect of or obligatory What is most appealing about the attention to Pacific women's physical collection is its effort at interdiscipli and conceptual relationships calls into nary dialogue. While "Our Sea of question the "our-ness" and the "new Islands" is traveling almost exclusively ness" of such spaces. among cultural studies and postcolo The editors of A New Oceania, nial scholars abroad, A New Oceania however, made a sincere attempt at is the product of the essay's circulation broadly distributing "Our Sea of among departments of administrative Islands" and published all the studies, business studies, economics, responses that they received. A New geography, history and politics, litera Oceania signifies the willingness of ture and language, marine studies, scholars at the University of the South BOOK REVIEWS 217 Pacific to reconsider the philosophical The Pearl-Shellers ofTorres Strait: foundations of their shared pedagogi Resource Use, Development and cal practices.

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