|
|
|
|
Anthropology 2P03E Peoples of the Pacific McMaster University Fall Term, 2003
Dr. Bill Rodman Wednesday, 7 - 10 pm
rodman@mcmaster.ca
Objectives of the Course Anthropology 2P3 is a course designed to introduce students to the peoples
of the islands of the Pacific - their history, traditions and current ways of
life, and their responses to contact, colonialism and cultural change. We will concentrate equally upon the past
and the present in Oceania. Some
lectures and readings focus upon the ways of life and thought that Pacific
peoples represent to outsiders and to themselves as "customary". However, kastom
and rapid change coexist in the Pacific today, and we will spend much of the
course discussing how Pacific islanders are adapting to life at the beginning
of the new millennium. Specific topics
relating to the “new” Pacific that we will examine include the roots of
dependency and underdevelopment in Pacific island societies, the status of
women in Oceania today, tourism in “the last paradise” and Pacific island
traditions in an era of globalization. We will discuss many
varieties of anthropological experience in the South Pacific and also Pacific
islanders' reactions to outsiders who come to study their ways of life. By the end of the course, I hope you will
have a better understanding of life in Pacific island societies. I also hope
you will have gained deeper insight into anthropology as a way of life - the reasons why anthropologists do what they
do, how they conduct fieldwork, what they hope to achieve, how they reach their
conclusions, and the many and subtle ways in which the process of fieldwork
transforms both their lives and the lives of the people they study. The Scope of the Course 2P3E will focus on Pacific islanders who live in Melanesia, Polynesia and
Micronesia, a part of the world that is often called "Oceania" or
“The Island Pacific”. The course does
not cover Japan or the countries on the Pacific rim, the Philippines,
Indonesia, Malaysia or Australia. Prerequisites This course is "Open" and requires no prerequisites. However,
before you decide to take 2P03E, I must underline the obvious: this is a second year course in anthropology that
will be taught on a more advanced level than that of our introductory
courses. In order to proceed at a
reasonable pace, I must assume that members of the class have an understanding
of basic concepts in social and cultural anthropology. Required Readings This course has a single required text: Rodman, W. 2003 Readings on Pacific Island
Societies. Available from the
Bookstore. I designed this collection
of readings on Pacific societies especially for students taking 2P03E. The articles in the reader relate directly
to the content of lectures and come from a wide variety of sources. You should acquire the
required text as soon as possible. Not
only is it important to begin reading the assigned articles; the text also
contains maps of the Pacific that we will be using intensively in the first few
weeks of class. I
also would like to recommend to you a non-required (but interesting and useful)
text: Stanley, David 2000 South Pacific Handbook. 7th
edition. Moon Travel Handbooks. This handbook is a goldmine of interesting and useful information on most of
the inhabited islands in the Polynesia and Melanesia. If you ever plan to visit some of the places we will discuss in
2P03E, this is far and away the best book to buy. Mode of Evaluation Your grade for the course will be based on the results of two exams and an
essay:
The in-class mid-term and the university-set final exam both will consist
of questions that are designed test your understanding of course materials
presented in lectures, films and those parts of the required readings that
relate to class discussion. The midterm will be an hour in length, and the
final will be two hours in length. Both exams will consist of essay-type
questions. Term Essay Cultural Diversity in Pacific Island
Societies in the Age of Globalization Value: 35% of your final grade Your aim is to write an essay on
some aspect of the problems and prospects of maintaining cultural diversity in
the era of globalization in the island Pacific. How can Pacific Islanders best
maintain their identities as Pacific
Islanders in an age of mass communications and aggressive marketing of Western
goods and ideas? What role will “tradition” play in Pacific societies in the 21st century? What
actions are Pacific islanders taking to resist homogenization of their
cultures? You are encouraged to take
the initiative to find your own areas of interest within the broad framework of
the essay. In other words, you can’t discuss in depth the whole problem
of cultural diversity and globalization throughout the Pacific in 8 to 10
pages, so I expect to narrow the problem you address to a particular problem (or
set of problems) in a particular society (or group of Pacific societies). If you search the Internet
creatively, you can find all the information you need to write the essay. To start your search, and as a source of
possible ideas for your essay, I want you to visit the web-site of an
international conference that was held in February, 2003, at the University of
Hawaii on Cultural Diversity in a
Globalising World. http://diversity-conference.com/
The most important document at the site is the post-conference report,
available in either PDF or RTF formats. To search for specific
information on the internet on topics relating to your essay, I recommend use
“Google” http://www.google.ca/ or, perhaps, the very useful search
engine called “WebFerret”. WebFerret Version 5.0 is available for
download free at http://www.ferretsoft.com/download.htm. In searching the Internet,
remember that “globalization” also is spelled “globalisation”. You may receive
different sets of references, depending on which spelling you choose. A second major source of
information for the essay is the journal, The
Contemporary Pacific, available as an electronic resource from Mills
Library. Many of the articles published in The
Contemporary Pacific since 2000 have a bearing on the topic of the essay. Researching and Writing your Essay For some really good
advice on how to write the best possible essay - not just in this course but in
all your courses - see David
Gauntlett’s Web article “Essay Writing: The Essential Guide” <http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ics/study3.htm> You can find a wealth of additional
information on how to write essays for anthropology courses in Douglass St.
Christian’s Nexus Handbook: Research and
Style Guide, available in the Bookstore or on the Web at http://publish.uwo.ca/~stchri/nexuswebindex.html.
Use the Nexus Handbook as
your guide to how to cite text references (such as printed books and
articles). When you cite or reference
electronic communications, you should use the basic format found in the “Style, Formatting and Referencing” section
of the Nexus Guide. When in doubt about how to cite something, remember that the point of citation is to allow
readers to trace your sources. Ask
yourself: “Is my citation or reference contain sufficient information of the
right to allow the instructor or a marker/adviser to find the same written text
- or web site - easily?” This essay can be written
on the basis of information available to all students in the class on the
Internet, through Mills Library electronic resources, and in articles in the
Coursepack, Readings on Pacific Island
Societies, 2003. If you wish, you also can use library resources relevant
to your essay, but this is not necessary, nor will it necessarily gain you
extra points. It always is a good idea to define - at least informally - the key
variables in an essay. In the case of
this essay, all students are expected to show an understanding of the what the
terms “cultural diversity” and “globalization” mean. This task can be
accomplished most productively in the introductory section to your essay, when
you are setting out the problem you will discuss in your paper. For
such a short paper, an abstract is not required. However, a good, clear abstract will impress your grader. Your paper must be
double-spaced. It should be typed or
printed. Do not under any
circumstances exceed ten pages of text in your essay. I expect most papers to
be around 8 pages. If you find your
paper is too long, then find ways to express yourself more concisely. Making the Grade Your grade will be based on the
following criteria: 1. the extent to which you have
found and used well resources relevant to the topic you have chosen. 2. the overall quality of your analysis,
including your ability to make a concise but thorough argument 3. the originality of your insights
into the topic you have selected 4. your use of evidence in support
of your arguments 5. the degree to which your essay is
well-organized and well-written 6. how well you have followed the
guidelines concerning format in the Nexus
Handbook. Anthropology 2P3E Schedule of Topics, Readings and
Films First Week: September 10th An Island
World: Unity Within Diversity in Oceania Topics: Introduction to the course A Visual Introduction to the Pacific (slides) The Physical Environment: Atolls, Volcanos and High Islands The Question of "Culture Areas" in
the Pacific The Importance of Studying Pacific Island
Cultures Readings: Please Study the Maps of the Pacific in the Coursepack Deryck Scarr, "Islands and an Ocean" Margaret Mead, "A Day in Samoa" David Stanley, from the "Introduction" to South
Pacific Handbook (7th Edition) Neil Levy, from the “Introduction” to Micronesia Handbook (5th
Edition) Second Week: September 17th In Search
of Islands: The Peopling of the Pacific Topics: Whodunit? The Origins of Pacific Peoples
How Did They Do It?: Theories of Pacific Exploration
Why Did They Do It? The Rediscovery of Pacific Voyaging
Readings: Peter Bellwood, “The Origins of Pacific Peoples” Bronwen Douglas, “Pre-European Societies in the
Pacific Islands” John Terrell, “Adaptation” “History of
the Polynesian Voyaging Society” Film: The
Wayfinders Third Week: September 24 The Point
of Contact: Strangers in Paradise Topics: European Exploration of the
Pacific:
Cross-Cultural Encounters
The Search for the Noble Savage The Death of Captain Cook Colonization of the Pacific and the
Beginnings of Colonialism Readings: Greg
Dening, “Possessing Tahiti” Bernard Smith, “Constructing Pacific
Peoples “ Fourth Week: October 1 A Plague
of Cannibals: Death, Disease and the European Imagination of the “Primitive” Topics: An Epidemic in the New Guinea Highlands Fore as Cannibals/The White Cannibals Carleton Gajdusek Wins A Nobel Prize
Kuru, CJD, and “Mad Cow” Disease: Alternative Explanations “The Cannibal Smile”: Consuming Cannibalism Reading: B. Connelly and R. Anderson, "What is Beyond?" “Virtus, Bacteria, Perhaps Sorcery...” NIDS Kuru Information Page PowerPoint Presentation on the Fore and Kuru Film: First
Contact Fifth Week: October 8 The Tusks
of the Boar: Pigs and Politics in a South Pacific Society Topics: Performing Fieldwork in a South Pacific
society
Doubling Up: Why Ambaeans Get Married Twice, Buried Twice and Have
Ten Wakes
Pigs, Politics and Change in Vanuatu Readings: Lissant Bolton, “Ambae: On Being a Person of the
Place” Bill Rodman: “The Boars of Bali Ha’i: Pigs in
Paradise” “Pigs
and Politics in Ambae, Vanuatu/Pigs and Politics: A Game of Strategy” PowerPoint presentation of fieldwork in Vanuatu Sixth Week: October 15th Mid-Term
Exam, first hour of class Big Men
of Small Lands: Tradition and Leadership in Oceania Topics: Major Features of Leadership in
Melanesia and Polynesia “Big
Men” and “Chiefs” The Melanesian Entrepreneur Political Change and the Leveling of
Chiefs Readings: “Some
Major Features of Leadership in Melanesia” Bill Rodman, “Sorcery and the
Silencing of Chiefs...” Roger
Keesing, “‘Elota: A Personal Portrait” Seventh Week:
October 22nd Decolonization
and Postcolonialism in the Pacific: Problems and Prospects Topics: Disentangling:
“The Government has Gone!” Legitimating
the New State Official
and Unofficial Histories The
Last Pacific Colonies, Today Readings: Laurence Carucci and Lin Poyer, from “...the West
Central Pacific” Stewart Firth, “Decolonization” Bill Rodman, “Outlaw Memories...” Andrew Strathern and Pamela Stewart, “An Overview of
Political Problems...” Eighth Week: October 29 The
Transformations of Tradition in the Postmodern Pacific Topics: Transformations
of Tradition Within Anthropology The
Quest for the Authentic and The Invention of Tradition Observing
Tradition: The Case of the Wala Kalja Club “Everything
Old is New Again”: Cultural Renewal and the Shaping of Identity Cargo
Cults, Identity and Development Readings: Mike Jay, “The Last Cargo Cult” Stephen Leavitt, “Cargo Beliefs and Religious
Experience” T.D Webb, “Highly Structured Tourist Art...” Ninth Week: November 5th "Sun,
Sex, Sights, Savings and Servility": Tourism in “The Untouched Paradise” NB: Essay
due in class today Topics: The Case in Favor of International Tourism The Costs of Tourism: What We've Learned The
Marketing of ” Bali Ha'i” Readings: Konai Helu-Thaman, "Beyond
Hula, Hotels and Handicrafts..." Amanda Stronza, “Anthropology of
Tourism...” “Tourism in the Pacific” (2000) Tenth Week: November 12th The New Pacific: Alcohol, Drugs and
Development Topics: Weekend Warriors on Truk (Micronesia) The Colonial Hangover Beer and Business: The Role of Alcohol in Economic Development Chill
Pill: The Marketing of Kava in North America The Problems with Kava as Drug of
Choice Readings: Tom
Harrisson, “Kava negatives the legs...” (Savage Civilization) Lamont
Lindstrom, “Kava, Cash and Custom in Vanuatu” Linda
Pennells, “The Kava Boom: Will the Pacific Benefit?” Dahn
Batchelor, “A Drunk is Responsible for
His Actions” Mac
Marshall, “Men, Women and Booze” “Alcohol
and Kava: Some Points of Comparison” Eleventh Week: November 19th Issues and Problems in the New Pacific: Health, Youth and Women Readings: Nand E. Hart Nibbrig, “Rascals, the
State and Civil Society in PNG” Ellen Shell, “New World Syndrome” Sharon Tiffany, “Women in Oceania” Film: Kilim Taem Twelfth Week: November 26th The Island Pacific: Some Concluding Possibilities “Island
countries are like a school of sardines facing a number of hungry sharks. Like the sardines, if they do not swim
together they will be eaten.” Roger
Ward, 1993. Readings: Robert Foster, “The Commercial
Construction of New Nations” Epeli Hau’ofa, “The Ocean in Us” JoAnn Wypijewski, “This is only a Test...” Anthropology 2P3E Required Readings on Pacific Ethnology
2003 Coursepack Bibliography Anonymous 1998 “History of the Polynesian Voyaging Society:
1973 - 1998" Polynesian Voyaging Society Web Site
<http://leahi.kcc.hawaii.edu/org/pvs/aboutpvs.html#briefhistory> Anonymous 2000 “Tourism in the Pacific”. Pacific
Islands Monthly, April 2000: 17-18. Anonymous 2001 “Virus?
Bacteria? Perhaps Sorcery? A Look at the Very Rare Kuru” Xviral Web Site <www.xviral.co.uk/disease/kuru.htm> Batchelor, Dahn 1994 “A
Drunk is Responsible for His Actions” Globe
and Mail, October 6, 1994. Bellwood, Peter 1993 “The Origins of Pacific Peoples” in Culture Contact in the Pacific, edited by Max Quanchi and R. Adams
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bolton, Lissant 2003 “Ambae: On Being a Person of the Place” in
Bolton’s Unfolding the Moon: Enacting
Women’s Kastom in Vanuatu. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, pp. 78
- 105. Carucci, Laurence and Lin Poyer 2002 from “The West Central Pacific” in Andrew Strathern, Pamela Stewart et.al. Oceania: An Introduction to the Cultures
and Identities of Pacific Islanders Durham, NC: Carolina University Press,
pp. 211-220. Connelly, B. and R. Anderson 1988 First Contact: New Guinea's Highlanders Encounter the
Outside World. New York: Viking
Penguin. Dening, Greg 2000 “Possessing Tahiti” in Remembrance of Pacific Pasts: An Invitation to Remake History,
edited by Robert Borofsky. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Pp. 112 - 132. Douglas, Bronwen 1993 “Pre-European
Societies in the Pacific Islands” in Culture
Contact in the Pacific, edited by Max Quanchi and R. Adams Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. Foster, Robert 2002 “The Commercial Construction of ‘New’
Nations” in Foster’s Materializing the
Nation: Commodities, Consumption and Media in Papua New Guinea. Bloomington,
IN: Indiana University Press. Gale, Maradel 1998 “ Self-Sufficiency and Sustainability:The
Pacific Islands Challenge”” Micronesia
and South Pacific Program, University of Oregon
<darkwing.uoregon.edu/~mspp/sustainability.htm> Harrisson, Tom 1937 Savage Civilization. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Hau’ofa, Epeli 1998 “The Ocean in Us” The Contemporary Pacific 10: 392-409. Helu-Thaman, Konai 1993 "Beyond
Hula, Hotels and Handicrafts: A Pacific Islander's Perspective of Tourist
Development." The Contemporary Pacific 5(1):
104-111. Jay, Mike 2001“The
Last Cargo Cult” The Mighty Organ Web
Site <www.themightyorgan.com/travel_cargo.htm> Keesing, Roger 1983 “‘Elota: A Personal Portrait” from Keesing’s Elota’s Story: The Life and Times of a
Solomon Islands Big Man. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Pp. 3-13. Leavitt, Stephen 2000 “Cargo Beliefs and Religious Experience” in
James Spradley and David McCurdy’s Conformity
and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, pp. 341-350. Levy, Neil 2000 “Introduction” to Micronesia Handbook (Fifth Edition). Moon Travel Handbooks. Emeryville, Ca: Avalon Travel
Publishing. Pp.13-28 Lindstrom, Lamont 1991 “Kava,
Cash and Custom in Vanuatu” Cultural
Survival 15: 28-31. Marshall, Mac 1979 “Men, Women and Booze” from Marshall’s Weekend Warriors: Alcohol in a Micronesian
Culture. Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield
Publishing Company. pp. 82-97. Mead, Margaret 1928 Coming of Age in Samoa. New York:
William Morrow and Company. National Institute of Neurological
Disorders and Stroke 2001 NINDS Kuru Information Page <www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/disorders/kuru.htm> Nibbrig, Nand E. Hart 2002 “Rascals, the State and Civil Authority in
Papua New Guinea”. Pacific Studies 25 (3): 37-56. Pennells, Linda, ed. 1999 “The Kava Boom: Will the Pacific
Benefit?” Tok Blong Pacific 52 (4): 16-17. Rodman, William 2000 “Outlaw Memories: Biography and the
Construction of Meaning in Postcolonial Vanuatu” in Identity Work: Constructing Pacific Lives, edited by Pamela Stewart
and Andrew Strathern. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Pp. 139-156. 1996 “The Boars of Bali Ha’i: Pigs in
Paradise” in Arts of Vanuatu, edited by Joel Bonnemaison, Kirk Huffman, Christian
Kaufmann, and Darrell Tryon. Bathhurst:
Crawford House Publishing. Pp. 158-167 1993 "Sorcery and the Silencing of
Chiefs: 'Words on the Wind' in
Postindependence Ambae." Journal of Anthropological Research 49
(3): 217-235. Shell, Ellen 2001 “New World Syndrome” The Atlantic Monthly, June 2001: 50-53. Smith, Bernard 2000 “Constructing Pacific Lives” in Remembrance
of Pacific Pasts: An Invitation to Remake History, edited by Robert
Borofsky. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Pp. 152-168. Stanley, David 2000 South Pacific Handbook.
Seventh Edition. Chico, CA: Moon Travel
Publications. Stewart, Pamela and Andrew Strathern 2002 “An Overview of Political Problems: The
Legacies of Colonial and Postcolonial Practices in the South-West Pacific in
Andrew Strathern, Pamela Stewart et.al. Oceania:
An Introduction to the Cultures and Identities of Pacific Islanders Durham,
NC: Carolina University Press, pp. 75 - 78. Stronza, Amanda 2001 “Anthropology of Tourism: Forging New Ground
for Ecotourism and Other Alternatives”.
Annual Review of Anthropology 30:
261-283. Terrell, John Edward 1999 “Adaptation”. Text of a Paper Given in the Symposium, “Key Concepts in
Evolutionary Archaeology”, 64th Meeting of the Society for American
Archaeology, Chicago, 1999.
<www.fmnh.org/candr/anthro/anthro_sites/ngrp/SAA_1999.htm> Tiffany, Sharon 1998 “Women in Oceania” in Women in the Third World: An Encyclopedia of Contemporary Issues, edited
by Nelly Stromquist. New York: Garland
Publishing, Inc. Pp. 637-645. Webb, T.D. 1994 “Highly Structured Tourist Art: Form and
Meaning of the Polynesian Cultural Center”. The Contemporary Pacific 6(1): 59-85 Wypijewski, JoAnn 2001 “This is Only a Test...” Harper’s Magazine, December: 41-51. Upload: 1/13/2004 | ||||||
|
oceania | academic
programs | people
| outreach | resources | publications © 2005, UHM, Center for Pacific Island Studies. | Site Credits |
|||||||