BOOK REVIEWS 239

treat either American or Haluk con­ Press, I988. ISBN 952I-26877-X, xvii cepts as underlying entities. Basically, + 323 pp, illustrations, tables, notes, she argues that her explanation is appendix, references, index. US$49.50. richer, not that Spiro's is necessarily wrong. Few works of scholarship, especially Lutz goes on to distinguish among those resulting, as this does, from the several varieties ofemotion theories. multiple endeavors of a large team of These concluding remarks make ex­ researchers over many years, have plicit what the preceding anecdotes and about them so refreshing a sense of analysis made vivid: theories of emo­ humility as this useful volume. It is the tions as things separate from human publicly available fruit of a project that moral activity presuppose alienation of began in I974 under the auspices of the the individual or the body from experi­ Man and the Biosphere (MAB) program ence and relatedness. Lutz argues that initiated by UNESCO in I97I. It draws emotional activity and talk illuminate together the most important aspects of social life in both Haluk and American research on the islands ofLomaiviti worlds, so academic emotion theory and Lau in eastern Fiji that were previ­ must be considered a product ofWest­ ously published in a difficult-to-obtain ern ideas, rather than a reflection of series ofproject working papers, island experience. reports, and general reports (obtain­ Lutz has largely succeeded in pre­ able from the Australian National Uni­ senting Ifaluk lives and discourse as versity). having meaning apart fromWestern The distillation benefits, however, preconceptions ofthem. She has identi­ from a return visit to eastern Fiji in fied ways in which Americans are apt I983 by the chief investigators and their to reduce others' communications to decision to write a book "about what natural behaviors or drives and proce­ has happened in Eastern Fiji, and what dures to resist such reduction. She pro­ this might add to the sum ofknowledge vides a model of self-conscious and about the colonial and post-colonial other-respecting ethnography that, I experience of the developing world" devoutly hope, will be followed and (xv). It also benefits from their conclu­ amended by anthropologists in the sion, as a result ofthe military coups of next few years. I987, that their analysis had been more JOHN KIRKPATRICK culturally conditioned than they had University ofHawaii at Manoa realized. "Even when a real effort is made to 'understand' the minds of a people being studied," the editor ::. * writes, "social scientists inevitably find Islands, Islanders and the World: The themselves asking questions which Colonial and Post-Colonial Experience derive from their own disciplinary sys­ a/Eastern Fiji, by T. P. Bayliss-Smith, tems of theory, and moreover reason­ Richard Bedford, Harold Brookfield, ing from the norms oftheir own soci­ Marc Latham, and Muriel Brookfield. ety" (IO). The team was fascinated by Cambridge: Cambridge University young people who had experienced the THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING 1991 conveniences and stimulations of lages, islands, regions, and wider urban society yet returned willingly to world in which individual Islanders the harsh material environment of an participate. Patterns ofpopulation island like Kabara in Southern Lau and growth, age structure, and migration spoke around the yaqona bowl in the are selectively tabulated, mapped, and evenings ofthe deeply satisfying sense analyzed. Comparisons are made of autonomy and self-esteem that they between energy expended and nutri- enJOyed. Like many orhe-r vIsitors, the -- tiona} value obtained through partici­ team was also initially puzzled by the pation in subsistence, local market, ambivalence of Fijians who exercised and export economies, and the relative their prerogative ofprivate criticism of importance ofwage-labor opportuni­ the authority ofthe chiefs yet humbled ties and remittances from Suva and themselves in their presence. They overseas is quantified. In spite of Ratu believed they had discerned the increas­ Sukuna's advice that hurricane relief ing dependence of the periphery on the was unnecessary in southern Lau­ natioQal economy and saw the perpetu­ "The people affected are about the ation of the "Fijian way oflife" in the hardiest in Fiji and no distress is antici­ outer islands as the result of the pated" (I43)-the increasing impor­ imposition of central authority that tance ofhurricane relief in subsidizing succeeded only in the absence of some­ the mixed economy ofthe outer islands thing better. They had seen the begin­ is demonstrated. nings of a new politics in which class The conclusions that might be might soon become more important drawn from this mass of information than race. "The fact that we were about "the colonial and post-colonial wrong," writes editor Tim Bayliss­ experience of the developing world" Smith"... throw-sinto question all are different now from what they our interpretations in this book" (6). would have been when the study com­ However, being wrong does nothing menced. The context then, as Gisbert to diminish the value of the detailed Glaser indicates in his introduction, research that the book contains, and it was that created by the early work of suggests that the implications of what Paul Ehrlich and the Club ofRome, in has happened in eastern Fiji for our which the environmental crisis was understanding of "the colonial and perceived as the product primarily of post-colonial experience of the devel­ overpopulation, mostly in the Third oping world" may be different from World. Inequalities, both international what it might have been, but no less andwithin rich and poor countries, important. were not yet seen as relevant to the Chapters on the historical geogra­ environment, and economic growth phy ofeastern Fiji, derived largely from was seen as a universal panacea for the secondary sources, are followed by ills ofthe world. Population, re­ detailed work on externalities such as sources, and environment were the droughts and hurricanes, physical components ofthe vital equation that resources of the reefs and islands, and was up to social scientists to solve so the interlocking economies ofthe vil- that "rational" decisions could be taken BOOK REVIEWS

by fully informed politicians and plan­ Given such constraints, a degree of ners. Islands were seen as having spe­ subjectivity was inevitable. Bayliss­ cial advantages for research because of Smith points out that geographers have their small size and isolation, the long wanted to establish their expertise nearest thing to a laboratory the social in the integrated study of population scientist was ever likely to get. and environment problems and have One consequence of this was that therefore made the implicit claim that eastern Fiji became something of a their work produces "value-free" . magnet ofresearch in the 1970s. Apart insights that possess universal "scien­ from the sixteen foreign scholars who tific" status. He confronts the problem were associated with the MAB project, of inescapable subjectivity in this pro­ there was a group of medical students ject by a discussion of the methodologi­ from the University of Cambridge, cal debate between Winch (American Stephen Hooper living for two years on Philosophical Quarterly 1964; 1970) Kabara, A. C. Reid on Lakeba, Bruce and Jarvie (in Explanation in the Beha­ Knapman on Vanua Balavu, and vioural Sciences, 1970). myself on every island south as far as Winch argued that it was necessary Ono-i-Lau. Simon and Rosemary Best for the researcher who wished to worked for several successive years on understand the institutions of a primi­ Lakeba as well as other islands, and tive (sic) society to accept the internal Garth Rogers both supported Simon rationale ofthat society, a principle Best and did three months ofindepen­ that has long been accepted by most dent work on Ono-i-Lau in 1982. Pacific historians. It means, usually, a Another expedition was led by Gilbert period ofprolonged fieldwork and S. Grosvenor ofthe US National Geo­ learning the language well. Jarvie graphic magazine in 1974. argued, on the other hand, that the use In retrospect, it seems extraordinary of the norms of one's own society (pre­ as well as unfortunate that there was sumably industrial society) as a neces­ no formal collaboration. Though there sary instrument or sounding board is were some incidental contacts and "the principle way in which sociologi­ plenty ofgossip from our tolerant cal understanding of alien societies is hosts, our subsequent theses, papers, reached." While no one can work in Fiji and publications take little account of for any length oftime without coming our common experiences. Transport is to believe they are a successful disciple a major problem ofresearch in areas of ofWinch, the anxiety ofgeographers this kind and one that collaboration to achieve the status of objective scien­ might have solved. As it was, the MAB tists makes them vulnerable to the project was, ofnecessity, focused on arguments ofJarvie. It was consistent those islands that could be reached at with an inclination toward Jarvie's the opportune time by commercial or point of view, to which Bayliss-Smith government shipping, and the time retrospectively confesses (8), to discern spent on anyone island was deter­ in the Islanders' rejection ofwhat Su­ mined often by the logistics of shipping kuna called "the octopus ofthe modern rather than academic judgment. world" evidence oftheir irrationality. THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING 1991

For example, in one ofthe early freight subsidies, and agricultural reports (1978), Bedford concluded that extension officers-that supports the the people ofKabara had by then lost copra industry. the optional relationship with the mar­ Analysis of food energetics produces ket economy that Laura Thompson similar results. While copra returns to had recorded in 1940 and Hooper was the producer have generally been low, to confirm again in 1982. Migration to fluctuating, and beyond the control of Suva had become, Bedford thought, individual producers, the subsistence the preferred response to natural disas­ sector has usually been dependable and ter rather than a revival ofthe subsis­ more rewarding. tence culture. In spite of this evidence, a gradual Similarly, on the island ofKoro, the Westernization is both perceived and, word stagnation rather than stability is at times, applauded. Thus, "Wage used to describe a situation in which labour offers a secure and regular "the vast majority ofvillage producers income, and wherever that income is do not seem to perceive any advantage perceived as adequate it is widely in a commitment to greater dependence sought. With it has come the unofficial on any particular cash crop, let alone but clear beginnings of a 'market' in the market sector as a whole" (206). Fijian land, and the emergence of trade Yet, in view ofthe figures for calorie in food among rural Fijians The and protein intake from subsistence formation of a class structure . (66.2% and 70.8% respectively on would perhaps be accelerated by such a Kabara in 1975) compared with that trend" (263). derived in return for cash (33.8% and Despite the rhetoric of development 29.3% respectively), the rationality of the writers occasionally employ, much less than full commitment to the cash ofthe research points to the conclusion economy is self-evident. that if the World Bank, UNESCO, hurri­ The "rationality" that has led to an cane relief, and the procession of aca­ emphasis on copra production for the demics that the Islanders have encoun­ benefit ofthe national economy on tered in the last two decades had which the "pampered periphery" osten­ passed them by, they would probably sibly depends is belied by the compara­ be no worse offthan they are. In dis­ tive returns from copra production for cussing this realization, Bayliss-Smith export and the production of yaqona asks, "Is not the real weakness ofthe for the local market. The 7,250 tonnes coconut industry the growing unsuita­ of copra produced by the whole East­ bility of an export-based approach to ern Division in 1981 were worth F$I.98 development? ... if so, is there any million to producers. On the other point in trying to replace one export hand, 850 tonnes of yaqona, an out­ base with another? Might not any real growth of the subsistence economy and hope for future economic growth in the of ceremonial and social importance, eastern region lie in another direction brought in F$3 million in 1982. This in altogether?" (266). What might this spite of an expensive superstructure­ direction be? And what might this "add of Coconut Board, grading stations, to the sum ofknowledge about the BOOK REVIEWS 243 colonial and post-colonial experience have wisely continued to exercise. As of the developing world"? Bayliss-Smith observes, the people of In 1971, when the MAB project the eastern islands have stubbornly began, the continued growth ofthe resisted efforts to convert them to global economy seemed assured. The wholly cash-crop producers. They problem, in spite of the minority mis­ have retained control over their own givings of those on the left, was how means of subsistence "whilst selecting the undeveloped nations, among them among the available alternatives for Fiji, were to be enabled to catch up ways of earning money in a rational with the industrialized world. How manner." Tim McNaught's conclusion dated that perception seems now. In that "in a world running out ofeasy spite of three decades of scholarship answers, no one will be surprised if the and advice, pilot projects, conferences, entire nation looks to its Fijian heritage aid, research, and copious government for some of the arts of living well on reports and development plans, the islands" (81) can also be extended, in poor are poorer and the rich are richer the context ofthe 1990S, to the wider in both poor countries and rich, and world. As industrialized society, both the gap between poor and rich coun­ east and west, reaches the limits of eco­ tries has grown. logical tolerance and abandons its The early successes in east Asia are claims to control ofthe global periph­ unlikely to be repeated in Africa or the ery, the kind ofrational opportunism Pacific. The current buzzword that that this book documents so well may reflects that realization, sustainable have lessons for the rest ofus. development, will soon dissolve into its JOHN YOUNG two inherently contradictory compo­ University ofAdelaide nents, and the choice between the mirage of development, as we have ~:- understood that word in the past, and sustainability, which may yet be within Towards a Pacific Island Community. our grasp, will become apparent. Report of the South Pacific Policy The value of such studies as this will Review Group. Wellington: Govern­ then be not what their ambivalent con­ ment Printer, 1990. ISBN 0-477-01547­ clusions can teach planners and politi­ 6, xv + 300 pp, map, tables, graphs, cians about development, but what the appendixes. NZ$35.95. research that went into them can teach us about sustainability. Richard Bed­ In September 1989 the New Zealand ford et al (The Small Islands and the Labour government, headed by Geof­ Reefs 1978, 33), quoting M. C. frey Palmer, took a controversial deci­ Howard, point out that the people of sion to join Australia in a major and Kabara have cause to sympathize with long-term naval-frigate construction those in the industrialized world, who project. Part ofthe rationale for this have only one way oflife to choose decision was that it would enhance from. Kabarans "not only have yours, New Zealand's capacity to playa secu­ but our own as well," a choice they rity role in the South Pacific. Since this