International Cultural Studies Certificate Program Spring 2005 Speaker Series

January 26, 12:00pm - 1:30pm
Mānoa Campus, Burns 2118

The Last Polynesian Monarchy: Sovereign but "Not-Indigenous" Tonga, by Heather Young Leslie, Anthropology Department.

Abstract -- The United Nations' description as to who are "Indigenous People" is now in use throughout the world. This definition features several key elements, including: historical continuity with pre-invasion societies, a distinct, non-dominant status within the society, intention to pass on their ancestral territories to descendents, and desirous of preserving their own ethnic identity, cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems. The emphasis is on encapsulated, disenfranchised, yet determined groups of peoples struggling to retain self-determination within a wider nation-state. This definition works very well in most post-colonial states, but not in Tonga. Tonga experienced the same colonial-era contacts and effects of most other aboriginal Pacific peoples, but unlike their neighbours (i.e.: Aotearoa, Samoa, Hawai`i, Tahiti or Fiji), Tongans have never lost indigenous governance, have not lost land or language, nor have they been dominated in their own territory. Tonga may be unique for it's ability to have evaded the destruction suffered by so many during the colonization era. Yet according to the widely accepted UN definition, rather than standing as an example of what indigenous societies can achieve when allowed to be self-determining, Tongans, despite being able to demonstrate historical and cultural continuity and self-determination for some 3000 years, despite having protected their language, identity, cultural patterns and social and legal institutions, do not fit the general stereotype of "indigenous people." The Tongan situation, and in particular the nascent democracy movement and competing ideas about 'indigeneity' among Tongans at home and in the diaspora demonstrates the complexity of the emerging notion of indigeneity and the pitfalls in the unilateral codification of political identities.


Ticket Information
Free and open to the public

Event Sponsor
UHM/EWC International Cultural Studies Certificate Program, UHM Department of Anthropology

More Information
Program Manager, 944-7243, culture@hawaii.edu, http://www2.hawaii.edu/~culture/

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