Reviewed by: Possessing Polynesia: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawai‘i and Oceania by Maile Arvin Joy Lehuanani Enomoto Possessing Polynesia: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawai‘i and Oceania, by Maile Arvin. Durham,nc: Duke University Press, 2019. isbn paper: 9781478006336, ix + 328 pages, photos, maps, figure, notes, index. Paper, us$27.95 Maile Arvin’s Possessing Polynesia: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawai‘i and Oceania is a refreshing approach to settler colonial, Pacific Islands, and gender studies. Arvin is willing to broach the subject of anti-Blackness within Oceania among Pacific Islanders and challenge Polynesian exceptionalism, topics that few Pacific Island scholars are willing to address. In this way, her work comes into conversation with scholars such as Teresia Teaiwa, Alice Te Punga Somerville, Tracey Banivanua-Mar, and Aileen Moreton Robinson. Arvin also discusses heteropatriarchy as a central component of settler colonialism and applies an Indigenous feminist framework to her analysis, setting her work apart from previous settler colonial texts. Although Possessing Polynesia primarily centers on Hawai‘i and is not universally applicable throughout Oceania, it opens a dialogue within Oceania scholarship that has been long overdue. The book is divided into two parts: “The Polynesian [End Page 275] Problem: Scientific Production of the ‘Almost White’ Polynesian Race” (35–124) and “Regenerative Refusals: Confronting Contemporary Legacies in Hawai‘i and Oceania” (125–239). Throughout the work, Arvin attempts to disentangle the very insidious and racist logics of the social sciences, such as eugenics, anthropometry, and social Darwinism, as they have been applied not just to Polynesia but throughout Oceania. Arvin also interrogates white explorers’ creation of Polynesia and of the Polynesian and their need to place Polynesians in proximity to whiteness—to make them a distant Aryan ancestor to justify white settlers’ “natural” possession of Polynesian lands. She introduces the ways in which Polynesians themselves have internalized these discourses in order to create racial hierarchies throughout Oceania. Arvin’s central theme throughout each chapter is the “logic of possession through whiteness.” She states, this “logic is possession through (not by whiteness) because whiteness is not an agent in and of itself” (65). Arvin opens the book with the question “What is a Polynesian?” (1). Establishing from the outset that Polynesia is “a settler, scientific project” and not a place (5). The first section focuses on the anthropological “Polynesian Problem” (35) and European explorers’ and white social scientists’ need to racially map Oceania, marking so-called Polynesians as almost white and closer to civilized while simultaneously marking so-called Melanesians as distinctly Black and savage. Throughout this first section, Arvin engages with the nineteenth-century racial theories of the Aryan Polynesian (50) and the belief that Polynesians descended from Aryans or the ancient Greeks or Romans, as promoted by Abraham Fornander (54) and Edward Treager (56). Arvin also discusses how King David Kalākaua utilized these racial theories and conducted his own studies as a tool to promote and maintain Hawaiian nationalism and sovereignty, rather than ascribing to anti-Blackness. However, Arvin also goes on to point out that “undoubtably Kalākaua and other Native Hawaiians did internalize many ideas about their own racial superiority” (63). This was evident in Kalākaua’s attempt to use Hawai‘i as a model for a Samoan confederacy, as Hawaiian delegates to Sāmoa clearly viewed “themselves as superior to Sāmoans because they believed ‘that Hawai‘i had the greatest na‘auao of Polynesian peoples,’ meaning that they had achieved the most progress in mastering Euro/American political structures” (63). However, without a deeper understanding of the political relationship between Hawaiians and Samoans prior to Western contact, it is hard to know to what extent European racial theories influenced Hawaiian ideas of superiority over Samoans or served to enhance an already embedded sense of superiority through genealogy held by Hawaiians. In either case, Arvin’s willingness to name examples of Polynesian exceptionalism is vital to understanding relationships among the peoples of Oceania today and how those relationships were formed. Arvin concludes the first section by explaining to the reader the ways in which Hawaiians are often framed as conditionally white and how anthropological theories...

Reviewed by: Wantok Meri by Peter Warren David Lipset Wantok Meri. Documentary film, 50 minutes, color, 2018. Directed by Peter Warren; produced by Richard Savage. Distributed by Meadow Media. In contemporary Papua New Guinea, rural women still carry the majority of the daily load, literally and figuratively. The traditional division of labor prevails across great swaths of the country, regardless of social structure and location. That is to say, both urban and rural women, whether from matrilineal, patrilineal, or cognatic societies, are expected to cook, look after children, clean the house and do laundry, manage the finances, and so forth, while men, who formerly had political and military responsibilities in the wider community, struggle to make their way in modernity. At the same time, since Papua New Guinea became independent of Australia in 1975, the nation has slowly become more stratified, roughly between a middle-class, an urban working- and under-class, and subsistence-based villagers, who have also begun to show inequalities in various kinds of capital accumulation. However, stratification in urban settings is gendered in ways that are surprising and novel, given the cultural background of the country. The middle class, in other words, includes both men and women. Among the many great accomplishments of Wantok Meri, Peter Warren and Richard Savage’s fascinating new documentary, is how it portrays and gives voice to a stratified selection of Papua New Guinean women who live, for the most part, in and around Goroka town in the Eastern Highlands and in the coastal city of Lae. As the film begins, we see expansive images of dense forests and men dancing in full regalia. Meanwhile, in voice-overs spoken in English, middle-class women attest to the beauty and great natural wealth of the country, as well as to its tribal diversity. Calling for change in terms of gender roles, they also bitterly protest that men spend too much time on their mobile phones and fail to take responsibility for their wives and children. We see men sitting idly or playing darts while women sell crafts or hike across town to fill containers with water from a spring. The government fails to provide basic services, a businesswoman complains, to under- and working-class people in both urban and rural settings. A cock crows, and in a pre-dawn scene set within a family’s house in the Highlands, a woman named Betty lights kindling to start cooking breakfast for two school-age kids whom she encourages in Tok Pisin to wake up. Her husband, Nelson, appears, apparently having slept elsewhere, and orders his wife to go to their garden to fetch sweet potatoes to cook for the children. After the family sips their tea, Betty takes the kids and goes off to harvest carrots, a big bag full of which she hauls home on her back, and then onto a bus to go sell in the town market. Later in the day, she returns home to prepare dinner for about five or so children and her husband. A daughter blesses the meal. Betty allows to the camera that she has to work hard, buying food, paying bills, and saving for school fees. But, she adds, the family is a happy one. Images of urban modernity trudge across the screen: We see campaign posters from the 2017 national elections, [End Page 285] big trade stores, and crowded streets through which pedestrians, trucks, and buses plod along. Men vend betel nuts from street corners or, not having enough money to buy lunch, politely try to haggle for a cheaper price. Men are also seen lining up to sell big, white bags full of coffee beans—or aimlessly bike around town. As women make their ways with toddlers or other loads on their backs, we hear from Sarah Haoda Todd, who owns a cleaning company, a restaurant, and a salon in Lae town and employs two hundred women. Todd, together with several other insightful middle-class women—a school inspector, a handicrafts manager who is also a manager of a Goroka hotel, a pediatric nurse, and a police woman in Goroka, among others—narrate the movie. Reflecting on the causes of domestic violence; denouncing...

Over the past two decades, foreign discourses of climate change have envisioned the demise of the tropical island as a tragic metaphor for the fate of the world. Oceanians have indeed borne the brunt of the age of climate change; however, not all have submitted to the colonial trope of passive victims on the frontline of global forces beyond their control. While political, legal, and cultural forms of resistance have been well documented in the scholarship of Oceania, there remains a largely unexplored field of academic inquiry concerning the role of Oceanian activist art-story. This article seeks to redress this shortfall by examining the central importance of Tongan artist Latai Taumoepeau’s body-centered performance art within the settler-colonial context of Australia. Given the historical failings of successive Australian governments to address climate change, since 2013 Taumoepeau has consistently used embodiment-driven art performance to confront the apathy of Australia’s leadership and settler public and to highlight the importance of Indigenous Pacific environmental stewardship and leadership in addressing these issues. Weaving talanoa-based interviews with critical analysis, I examine several of her artistic works, including i-Land X-isle (2012); Repatriate (2015); Ocean Island, Mine! (2015); War Dance of the Final Frontier (2018); Archipela_GO . . . . this is not a drill (2017); and hg57 (Human Generator 57) (2016–2020). These projects illuminate the power of diasporic Pacific arts not only to solidify an enduring regional identity vested in Oceania but also to engage the broader Australian public around the ongoing environmental concerns of Oceania.

Hawai‘i ‘Umi Perkins (bio) The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic dominated the latter part of the period under review. The State of Hawai‘i entered a lockdown that was stricter and more protracted than those in many parts of the United States, thereby achieving the lowest rate of infection in the nation before reopening in June 2020 (Hawaii News Now 2020). After the reopening, Hawai‘i experienced a faster rate of growth of covid-19 cases than any other US state. Developments in politics, culture, and the economy were to some extent overshadowed by covid-19. The economy was severely impacted by the coronavirus-induced shutdown of businesses and schools, with unemployment soaring from under 3 percent to 39 percent in a period of weeks. In tourism-dependent Hawai‘i, hotel room occupancy reached a low of 8.4 percent before rebounding in June 2020 to 15.7 percent (Schaefers 2020a). This represented a 68 percent decrease from June 2019, when occupancy was 83 percent. To put the unemployment numbers in perspective, this was higher than the peak unemployment level (25 percent) during the US Great Depression in the 1930s (Schmitt 1976). Hawai‘i was the recipient of federal aid through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (cares) Act. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser noted: “The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations reported total unemployment filings in March of 160,929. While that number, reflects some claim duplication, it shows the magnitude of what the agency has been dealing with since covid-19 lockdowns disrupted many facets of the state’s economy” (Schaefers 2020b). According to the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (dbedt), economic indicators in the third quarter of 2019 were “mostly positive,” including general labor market, construction jobs, and visitor arrivals. Tax revenues were up (dbedt 2019). In contrast, the major [End Page 200] economic indicators by the second quarter of 2020 were “mainly negative,” with visitor arrivals plummeting by 98 percent. General tax revenues, jobs, salaries, and construction were all in the red (dbebt 2020). Data showed that the most vulnerable in Hawai‘i—Pacific Islanders—were hardest hit by covid-19 (Grube 2020a). Before the advent of the pandemic, it was the movement to cease the development of the Thirty Meter Telescope (tmt) on Hawai‘i Island’s Mauna Kea that dominated headlines in 2019. Buoyed by tentative victories and the slogan “Kū Kia‘i Mauna” (Stand and Protect the Mountain), an encampment was erected at Pu‘uhuluhulu, surrounding the gate that leads to the summit of Mauna Kea, and activists chained themselves to the cattleguards, blocking the road in an act of civil disobedience. When measured from the seafloor, Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain on Earth. Decades ago, a new telescope was proposed for the summit. There are already a dozen telescopes there, but the construction of the tmt on a summit that Hawaiians consider sacred has provoked the largest protest movement in recent years, rivaling the mass movement in the 1970s to stop the US Navy’s target practice on the island of Kaho‘olawe. In July 2019, Kānaka ‘Ōiwi (Native Hawaiians) began to make US national news over their efforts to block the construction of the tmt. nbc News covered the emergence of a school at the encampment, which seemed to rise out of the lava rock. Called Pu‘uhuluhulu University, it offered free classes, taught mainly by Kānaka ‘Ōiwi. nbc’s headline read that protestors (who call themselves “protectors”) started the school to teach “local culture and values” (Broder Van Dyke 2019). After the arrests of kūpuna (elders) and thousands of visits by supporters, the activists, the Hawai‘i County Sheriff’s Office, and the Department of Land and Natural Resources reached a truce that would temporarily halt development of the tmt. Organizations opposing the tmt included many Indigenous nations, Amnesty International (Hawaii Independent 2019), and the Hawai‘i chapter of the Sierra Club, which issued a statement supporting kia‘i mauna: “For Hawaiians, there is only one Hawai‘i, one homeland, and only one Mauna Kea. There is no replacement, no alternative, for this particular mountain. As Amnesty International highlights, proceeding with the...

Reviewed by: Island Time: New Zealand's Pacific Futures by Damon Salesa Masami Tsujita Levi Island Time: New Zealand's Pacific Futures, by Damon Salesa. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2017. isbn 978-1-988533-53-7; 256 pages, notes, acknowledgments, about the author, about bwb texts. Paper, nz $14.99; e-book, nz $4.99. Lō'ihi, an active, submerged volcano off the southern coast of Hawai'i Island, is generating powerful forces from the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Although not yet visible above water, it will one day break through the surface to become the newest Hawaiian island. Lō'ihi is an apt metaphor for Damon Salesa's assertion that a similar break will emerge shortly from the depths of Aotearoa/New Zealand society, where strong Pacific communities have been forming. Their power and energy are now a bubbling magma ready to erupt into a new era. Unfortunately, some New Zealanders refuse to acknowledge this predictable future, instead turning a blind eye to the growing presence and influence of Pacific peoples. The bottom line, Salesa argues, is that New Zealand's future will be a Pacific one, whether or not the country is ready for it. Island Time: New Zealand's Pacific Futures is a farsighted examination into how New Zealand's future will be shaped by its past and present. Salesa begins by describing how New Zealand is in "Island time"—a future that is in clear sight—regarding its demographic transitions. In Auckland, for example, 1 in every 4 babies born is of Pacific descent, 1 in 4 is Asian, and nearly 1 in 5 is Māori, signifying that "Auckland and New Zealand are becoming more Pacific by the hour" (7). According to Salesa, this changing demography is the result of several historic waves of migration, stretching back to the arrival of Europeans in New Zealand. This transition, Salesa argues, implies that Europeans will no longer remain the dominant ethnic group in power; the future of New Zealand's economy will increasingly rest in the hands of persons of Pacific, Asian, and Māori descent. Although this is not a future that New Zealanders who believe in the continuity of the long-standing power hierarchy might expect, it reflects today's realities. Despite this, Salesa points out that New Zealand has yet to change its course for the future. This inaction is due partly to New Zealanders, particularly those of European descent, adamantly refusing to see themselves as Pacific Islanders. Instead, they continue to perceive Pacific peoples in New Zealand solely as marginalized labor migrants. This is a view that has been constructed through a regional economic hierarchy and a sense of white supremacy rooted in the colonial history that separates New Zealand settlers from Pacific peoples. It is used to justify the centrality of European descendants in New Zealand society and allows the continued segregation of Pacific Islanders through residential location, education, occupation, homeownership, health care, and political representation. According to Salesa, the term "racial segregation" is not used commonly among New Zealanders, and many may find it offensive. Unfortunately, however, it describes the realities of Auckland. This book is a timely publication, as New Zealand is experiencing rising tensions among its diverse population. [End Page 285] It reveals Salesa's deep sense of responsibility as a New Zealand citizen and a scholar to explore this sensitive issue through a critical examination of statistical data and his own experience, which together indicate that New Zealand—Auckland in particular—is a racially segregated space. The 2006 census, for example, identified 477 neighborhoods located in Auckland that were predominantly Pacific, while only 61 neighborhoods were Asian, even though eighty thousand more Asians than Pacific Islanders live in the city (46). This suggests that more Pacific peoples live in racially concentrated areas, isolated and segregated, particularly from Aucklanders of European descent. Ironically, racial segregation is widening in a city whose citizens are ostensibly set against it (54). Furthermore, racially segregated neighborhoods mirror segregation in schools. Some schools located in certain areas have no Pacific students, while others have no students of European descent. This is also a result of choice; some parents of European descent prefer to...

Women across Oceania are social justice champions and advocates for Indigenous rights, political independence, anti-militarism, a nuclear-free Pacific, climate change justice, and gender equality. Recent studies have shown that Pacific women are empowered by their maternal responsibility to take a leadership role in protecting people, their resources, and the environment. To further expand on women's leadership role, I look into a deep Oceanic understanding of women and the environment, showing that Indigenous stories across Micronesia esteem the environment as sacred and maternal. Drawing on Indigenous stories of creation, I argue that Micronesian women historically held powerful status and prestige in their societies and that understanding maternal responsibility can be empowering and can advance gender equality, community resilience, and women's leadership in the contemporary Pacific.

Timor-Leste Michael Leach (bio) On 30 August 2019, Timor-Leste hosted a major celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the 1999 popular consultation that saw it secure its independence from Indonesia. This significant date was also chosen for the exchange of notes between the East Timorese and Australian prime ministers, bringing the 2018 Australia–Timor-Leste maritime boundary treaty into effect. Meanwhile, Timor-Leste’s first experience of semi-presidential “cohabitation” saw the political impasse over the president’s refusal to appoint ministers continue throughout the year. The year 2018 had ended with a presidential veto of changes to the Law on Petroleum Activities, which was designed to lift the legislated 20 percent limit on state ownership and allow the East Timorese government to become a major joint venture partner. President “Lu Olo” Guterres—a senior figure of the opposition Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (fretilin) party—expressed concerns over the financial sustainability of the nation’s now us$17.7 billion petroleum fund (La‘o Hamutuk 2020b). For their part, some local nongovernmental organizations argued that changes to the law were actually aimed at preventing Timor-Leste’s Audit Court from reviewing large contracts—an accusation the government denied (La‘o Hamutuk 2018). Parliament successfully reversed the presidential veto on 10 January 2019, as the fretilin opposition staged a parliamentary walkout, allowing the government a rare opportunity to assemble the two-thirds supermajority required to reverse the veto. President Guterres then vetoed the 2019 budget on 23 January, arguing that it was gravely unsustainable and drew too heavily on the principal reserves of Timor-Leste’s sovereign wealth fund. This action placed the Greater Sunrise joint-venture payment in jeopardy, as the fretilin opposition has twenty-three seats— enough in normal circumstances to deny the government a parliamentary reversal of the veto. However, this tension was soon resolved on 31 January, when Parliament revised the 2019 budget to us$1.4 billion by removing the us$650 million joint-venture payment. The government was confident it could use the petroleum fund itself as the source of the payment, having altered the fund’s investment rules in the Law of Petroleum Activities amendments. Though opposition members of Parliament referred the legislation to the Court of Appeal, the changes were soon found to be constitutional, and the us$650 million was paid to Conoco Philips and Shell on 16 April (La‘o Hamutuk 2018–2020), making the government of Timor-Leste a 56 percent stakeholder in the Greater Sunrise joint venture. The revised 2019 budget was promulgated by the president on 7 February 2019, to the relief of business groups concerned about the economic impact of a possible return [End Page 605] to the reserve “duodecimal” budget system, which issues monthly installments of one-twelfth of the previous year’s budget and was widely blamed for economic contraction in 2017 and 2018. This particular fear would recur eleven months later as the year turned to 2020. Wider problems beset the Alliance for Change and Progress (amp) government throughout 2019 and came to a head spectacularly early in 2020. These tensions started in mid-2018, with President Lu Olo’s refusal to install nine ministerial nominees from the largest party in the alliance, the National Congress of the Timorese Reconstruction (cnrt), citing judicial inquiries into misconduct or “poor moral standing” (Leach 2018). The president’s stance produced a political standoff that persisted throughout 2019 and was in its eighteenth month as the year closed. This resulted in an executive government dominated by ministers from the two smaller amp parties, Popular Liberation Party (plp) and Kmanek Haburas Unidade Nacional Timor Oan (khunto), despite cnrt being the largest party of the parliamentary coalition. cnrt was frustrated by its lack of access to ministries and had not been satisfied that Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak—the leader of plp—had adequately pursued this issue with the president. The disjunction between cnrt’s dominance of the parliamentary alliance and its limited presence in executive government was made worse by other tensions internal to amp itself: most notably the general absence from government decision-making of cnrt chairman and former independence movement leader Xanana...

Pitcairn Peter Clegg (bio) The islands of Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno (commonly known as Pitcairn) make up a single territory, the last remaining United Kingdom Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean. Much of the period under review (1 July 2018–30 June 2019) followed a similar path to that of the previous twelve months, with the local community exploring various [End Page 256] opportunities for consolidating and strengthening their extremely vulnerable position, while also being constrained by well-entrenched issues, such as population size, economic viability, external perceptions of the local community, and the continuing saga of Brexit. In addition, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (fac) undertook an investigation into the overseas territories (ots), the findings of which had some potentially important implications for Pitcairn. Let us begin this review with a consideration of Pitcairn's extremely small population. The local newspaper, Pitcairn Miscellany, reported that on 24 March 2019 the island's population was only thirty-seven—a near historically low figure. There were fifteen women, nineteen men, and three children (Pitcairn Miscellany 2019b, 9). Although the overall figure is reduced slightly by the fact that at the age of thirteen children continue their schooling in New Zealand, the current workforce is still only about thirty. Pitcairn Councillor Leslie Jaques suggested the number was "too low and which [sic] means things don't happen and don't get done" (Richardson 2019). Commenting on this situation, one observer who had spent some time on the island suggested that the community was "on the precipice of extinction" (Richardson 2019). The tenor of a piece by Nigel Richardson in the Telegraph was highly critical and did not help Pitcairn's cause at all. The article was entitled "Secrets of Pitcairn, the Tropical Island that Covered Up a Child-Sex Scandal," and it focused on the experiences of a photographer who had spent some time on the island. The article began by stating that, "rocked by child-abuse scandals, the locals were hostile and a culture of silence culminated in the worst experience of [the photographer's] life." It suggested that Pitcairn was introverted, that the Islanders disliked outsiders, and that the experiences of the photographer showed "that their ideas about relationships and sex have not come on very far." The alleged response from a leading member of the community was, "If you [make a complaint] you're jeopardising our future" (Richardson 2019). The agenda of the article was quite clear, but it did highlight some of the key issues that Pitcairn is really struggling to overcome. The Islanders tried to draw a line under the sex abuse scandals. On 30 November 2018 the Child Safeguarding Memorial was unveiled (pic 2018b, 2). It read, "To say we're sorry does not seek punishment or blame, it doesn't say they were right and we were wrong, just that we have learnt and understand the error of our ways." Whether a long-delayed plaque with some wording on it that fails to accept full culpability is sufficient is certainly open to debate. Considered within the context of the Telegraph article, one might have to argue that it is not. Nevertheless, the local council remained committed to its new settlers program; it established "The New Settlers Orientation Group" (pic 2019a, 1) and approved long-term visitor visas to aid settlement (pic 2018a, 3). At least two new applications to settle were approved during the period under review, but a recent [End Page 257] arrival departed. This was reported in the Pitcairn Miscellany : "For the past 9 months a Gentleman from Europe has been living upon Pitcairn as an intending resident. It is with sadness to report that his settlement appears to have been unsuccessful, as in late August he chose to depart" (2018c, 4). So it is clear that despite significant investment, time, and promotion, the settler program has not proved to be a success so far. One factor is of course the remoteness of Pitcairn, including the difficulties Islanders face in accessing medical services. This was starkly highlighted in a story in the Pitcairn Miscellany, which described the journey of an Islander who required medical attention (2018d, 8). The trip from...

From cathedrals to dreaming sites, every culture needs its monuments. But the landscape and built culture of southern New Guinea conspire to erase physical memory. In the ever-changing environment of mud, plants, and water, there are no rock formations to serve as durable traces of the past. Wooden houses decay within a decade or two. Garden clearings grow back after a few years. The savannah edge, if not maintained by regular bushfires, is soon recolonized by forest. Against this mutable environment, stability of external memory is given by the coconut trees planted anywhere a plant can grow: beaches, swiddens, old villages, house yards. Almost every coconut palm serves as a tab (sign)—a reminder of stories of garden clearings, resettlements, disputes, pledges, or intentions. For most, there are individuals with the special knowledge needed to tell their stories. These trees form an arboreal history anchored in their durability and in the clear symbolic and practical intentions that accompany each planting. In this paper, I illustrate the trees' mnemonic value, drawing on hundreds of interviews conducted by local interviewers in their own languages—Nen, Nmbo, and Idi. Responding to the flexible interactions between each interviewer and interviewee, they cover many topics, from memories of old gardens, abandoned houses, or temporary periods in other villages, through reconciliations, to girl-abducting teenagers and midlife contraceptives. In presenting this corpus of material, I marry linguistic and anthropological analyses to show how a network of communities, linked by marriage and exchange across language boundaries, uses these living monuments to maintain its histories across a broad range of spokespeople.

Reviewed by: Pacific Alternatives: Cultural Politics in Contemporary Oceania ed. by Edvard Hviding and Geoffrey White Cheng-Cheng Li Pacific Alternatives: Cultural Politics in Contemporary Oceania, edited by Edvard Hviding and Geoffrey White. Herefordshire, uk: Sean Kingston Publishing, 2015. isbn cloth 978-1-907774-38-6; isbn paper 978-1-907774-87-4; x + 285 pages, illustrations, maps. Cloth, us $100.00; paper, us $40.00. The unique history of Oceanic mobility comes from the richness of humanity—a far-reaching, interconnected legacy of communication and worldviews over deep time. Together, the contributors to Pacific Alternatives: Cultural Politics in Contemporary Oceania suggest that despite the enduring attention to state-centered academic research about Pacific Islands and the challenges facing Pacific communities in the ever-intensifying era of globalization, there is an alternative path to the future for Pacific peoples and the world, found in the region's cultural heritage. Pacific Alternatives invites readers to pay attention to ordinary community members, unpacking the sociocultural dynamics that academic and consultancy experts tend to overlook or misinterpret and bringing into view an Indigenous discourse of the alternative. The book covers a wide variety of topics, including everyday minutiae, ontology, and community cosmologies, and works to reveal the local intersections of cultural heritage and state policy. Pacific Alternatives is divided into three sections over ten chapters. The first section, "States and Cultural Policies," begins by illuminating the need for local, national, and global dialogue and questions how scholars can re-center their dialogic focus on more localized political forms and perspectives through attention to collectively shared cultural heritages. Anyone interested in revisiting the invention of tradition discussion will find a number of extremely useful and stimulating currents cutting across this section. In chapter one, Rosita Henry illustrates how festivals not only provide Torres Strait communities with opportunities for social effervescence and the refreshing of relationships but also serve as potent sites of decolonial agency, empowering grassroots Yolngu leaders to act as diplomats on behalf of their people, thus transcending contemporary state-to-Indigenouscommunity relations. Chapters two and three explore cultural heritage as a powerful agent of change in and beyond Oceania. Cultural heritage, the authors note, remains one of the most critical and dynamic identity processes across the region. Both chapters shed light on the problem of disjuncture between state-centered policy and local and nongovernmental initiatives. As White argues, "cultural practices are rooted in highly local(izing) oral culture," but the government "often fails to gain traction at the local level for reasons that might be expected" (88). The argument is focalized in the concept of "bricolage," reflecting the "roles and relations in which persons who occupy bureaucratic positions use the imprimatur of institutional sponsorship to organize activities that suit local purposes" (85). Chapter three further opens up a rich narrative for reflecting on how relations between governmental, nongovernmental, and other local agents are being reframed by cultural leaders who agentively draw on funding and support from [End Page 292] "outside" to revitalize cultural heritage programs. The second section, "The Cultural Politics of Land and Sea," asks the reader to think beyond national, ethnic, and class borders—and beyond the sometimes arbitrary geographic boundaries of "subregions"—to reflect on the interconnectivity of local communities and environments and to reimagine, reconfigure, and redefine social life as composed of more-than-human relationships. For instance, Edvard Hviding writes about seascapes as places "where signs of cultural continuity are under and above water, for those whose local knowledge enables them to see" (129). Indeed, if we see the underwater knowledge, we will better understand our dynamic space for contemplating Oceania from the standpoint of Indigenous cultures. In chapter four, Vilsoni Hereniko engages with everyday Rotuman visions to refresh old ways of thinking and advocacy. He begins with a Rotuman proverb, "The land has eyes, the land has teeth, and knows the truth" (95), which serves as a central argument of the chapter and of the Rotuman worldview. Describing his journey as a filmmaker and underlining Rotumans' rooted, woven relationships with land and the natural world Hereniko goes on to discuss the concept of gifted land, which transforms our understanding of the dominant capitalist view of land...