Islands And Cultures

A uniquely collaborative analysis of human adaptation to the Polynesian islands, told through oral histories, biophysical evidence, and historical records Humans began to settle the area we know as Polynesia between approximately 3,000 and 800 years ago. Bringing with them both material culture, including plants and animals, and ideas about societal organization, settlers had to adapt to the specific biophysical features of the islands they discovered. The authors of this book analyze the formation of their human-environment systems by using oral histories, biophysical evidence, and historical records, arguing that the Polynesian islands can serve as useful models for how human societies in general interact with their environments. The islands' clearly defined (and relatively isolated) environments, comparatively recent discovery by humans, and innovative and dynamic societies allow for unique insights not available when studying other cultures. Kamana Beamer, Te Maire Tau, and Peter Vitousek have collaborated with a dozen other scholars, many of them Polynesian, to show how these cultures adapted to novel environments in the past and how we can draw insights from these cultures and their adaptations for global sustainability today.

The years since World War II have brought unprecedented social change to Micronesia. Now, drawing on over four decades of experience living and working in the region, the author assess the most striking changes to have swept over the islands since the 1950s.

The islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia are steeped in diverse musical traditions that reach far beyond the expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Music in Pacific Island Cultures is the first brief, single-volume text to provide a thematic, succinct introduction to the music of the Pacific Islands--a region of the world that has long been underrepresented in ethnomusicological studies. Based on the authors' extensive fieldwork and experiences in Pacific Island cultures, the text draws on interviews with performers, eyewitness accounts of performances, vivid illustrations, and insights gained from ongoing participation in Pacific music. The authors use four themes--colonialism, belief systems, musical flows, and the re/presentation of Pacific cultures--to survey the region and draw parallels and contrasts between its various musical traditions [Publisher description]

Even before Western contact, the Pacific Islanders inhabited nearly every island north and east of Australia - a thousand distinctive peoples. This overview of the cultures of the Pacific Islands treats their physical setting, prehistory, activities, and social relations before European influences subjected them to radical changes. It is intended mainly for college-level students in courses dealing with the region, but Native Cultures of the Pacific Islands will also be enjoyed by those interested in the Pacific Islands and by visitors to the Pacific. The book is an abridgement of the author’s larger, two-volume work, Oceania: The Native Cultures of Australia and the Pacific Islands. Native Cultures of the Pacific Islands contains a number of maps and illustrations from the larger work.

"This book provides the first overall survey of the peoples and cultures of Micronesia since the anthropological information explosion on the area began in the 1950s. It attempts to summarize these studies in a logical and coherent fashion. Ten island societies of Micronesia have been selected and discussed in some detail; these societies reflect a range of cultural adaptations to the varying microenvironments of the region. An attempt is made throughout to emphasize similarities in organizational patterns, where such exist, without losing sight of individuality."--Preface.

In 1941 the Japanese military attacked the US naval base Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of O‘ahu. Although much has been debated about this event and the wider American and Japanese involvement in the war, few scholars have explored the Pacific War’s impact on Pacific Islanders. Cultures of Commemoration fills this crucial gap in the historiography by advancing scholarly understanding of Pacific Islander relations with and knowledge of American and Japanese colonialisms in the twentieth century. Drawing from an extensive archival base of government, military, and popular records, Chamorro scholar Keith L Camacho traces the formation of divergent colonial and indigenous histories in the Mariana Islands, an archipelago located in the western Pacific and home to the Chamorro people. He shows that US colonial governance of Guam, the southernmost island, and that of Japan in the Northern Mariana Islands created competing colonial histories that would later inform how Americans, Chamorros, and Japanese experienced and remembered the war and its aftermath. Central to this discussion is the American and Japanese administrative development of "loyalty" and "liberation" as concepts of social control, collective identity, and national belonging. Just how various Chamorros from Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands negotiated their multiple identities and subjectivities is explored with respect to the processes of history and memory-making among this "Americanized" and "Japanized" Pacific Islander population. In addition, Camacho emphasizes the rise of war commemorations as sites for the study of American national historic landmarks, Chamorro Liberation Day festivities, and Japanese bone-collecting missions and peace pilgrimages. Ultimately, Cultures of Commemoration demonstrates that the past is made meaningful and at times violent by competing cultures of American, Chamorro, and Japanese commemorative practices.

Polynesian Cultures in Perspective is an in-depth look at the different regional cultures of the large number of Polynesian islands and countries, with an emphasis on current culture. The young reader is presented with an overview of a variety of regional cultures that developed historically and analyzes how the cultural History shapes the Polynesian region s current culture. The book is written in a lively and interesting style and contains the Polynesian region s languages, foods, music/dance, art/literature, religions, holidays, lifestyle, and most importantly contemporary culture in the country today. The book has been developed to address many of the Common Core specific goals, higher level thinking skills, and progressive learning strategies from informational texts for middle grade and junior high level students.

Offering insight into the major changes that are taking place in the context of increasing globalization in Pacific Island societies, the authors seek to "ground" globalization in concrete real life cases of communities that are dealing with specific processes of globalization and formulating their own responses in their own cultural terms. The case studies presented reflect the many different cultural contexts of island societies as they deal with: global politics, nation states, and ethnic conflict; global economic integration and transnationalism; evolving identities and cultural representations; changes in patterns of social and community relations; and increasing integration into global religions. For anyone interested in the effects of globalization on the peoples and cultures of the Pacific.

The years since World War II have brought unprecedented social change to Micronesia. Now, drawing on more than four decades of experience living and working in the region, Francis X. Hezel assesses the most striking changes to have swept over the islands in the past fifty years. His careful and comprehensive reading of Micronesian anthropology and history allows him to present insights into patterns of change touching the lives of not only Micronesians but people in other parts of the Pacific as well. The broad range of topics covered include family structure, land, gender roles, cultural treatment of life events (birth, marriage, death), sexuality, political authority, and demography and migration. Hezel argues that the primary engine of social change in Micronesia has been the dramatic shift from subsistence fishing and gardening to salaried employment in a cash economy. He makes the case that this fundamental change has fragmented the extended family, changed the way land is viewed, revolutionized gender roles, and paved the way for an ethics of individualism.