Center for Pacific Island Studies

people

Jan Rensel

Managing Editor, Center for Pacific Islands Studies; PhD University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (1994)

Jan Rensel, a cultural anthropologist, joined the center as editor in late 2001. Prior to her doctoral research on the island of Rotuma, in Fiji, she worked for several years in environmental education curriculum development and teacher training, drawing on her undergraduate studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington (BA 1974). In addition to a co-edited book on the social implications of housing change, Dr Rensel has published several articles on socioeconomic change and migrant communities, including many with her husband, Professor Emeritus Alan Howard. They have worked closely with Rotuman elder and retired teacher Elizabeth Inia to publish her books about Rotuman proverbs and ceremonies; they are currently writing a history of the Rotuman people. Besides serving as managing editor of the Pacific Islands Monograph Series and The Contemporary Pacific: A Journal of Island Affairs, Dr Rensel enjoys working with students to improve their writing skills.

Selected publications

In press	Contextualizing Histories: Our Rotuman Experience (with Alan Howard). In Back in the Field Again: Long-term Fieldwork in Oceanic Anthropology, guest edited by John Barker and Alan Howard. Special Issue of Pacific Studies.
2004	Rotuman Identity in the Electronic Age (with Alan Howard), in Shifting Images of Identity in the Pacific, edited by Toon van Meijl and Jelle Miedema, 219–236. Leiden, The Netherlands: KITLV Press.
2001	Where Has Rotuman Culture Gone? And What is it Doing There? (with Alan Howard). Pacific Studies 24 (1/2): 63–88.
1998	A New Rotuman Dictionary (with C M Churchward, Elizabeth K Inia, Sofie Arntsen, Hans Schmidt, and Alan Howard). Suva: Institute for Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific.
1998	Rotuman Culture as Reflected in its Sayings (with Alan Howard). In Faeag ‘es Fuaga: Rotuman Proverbs, compiled and translated by Elizabeth K. Inia, edited by Alan Howard and Jan Rensel, 212–250. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific.
1998	Une profondeur qui s’arrete à surface de la peau: Ordre social et corps à Rotuma (Only skin deep: The body and social order on Rotuma) (with Alan Howard). In La production du corps: Approaches anthropologiques et historiques, edited by Maurice Godelier and Michel Panoff, 187–201. Edition des archives contemporaines. Amsterdam: OPA (Overseas Publishers Association).
1997	The Place of Disabled Persons in Rotuman Society (with Alan Howard). Pacific Studies 20 (3): 19–50.
1997	Ritual Status and Power Politics in Modern Rotuma (with Alan Howard). In Chiefs Today: Traditional Pacific Leadership and the Postcolonial State, edited by Geoffrey M. White and Lamont Lindstrom, 119–149. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
1997	Rotuma (with Alan Howard). In Fiji in Transition, edited by Brij V. Lal and Tomasi R. Vakatora, 153–177. Vol 1: Research Papers of the Fiji Constitution Review Commission. Suva: School of Social and Economic Development, The University of the South Pacific.
1997	Home in the Islands: Housing and Social Change in the Pacific, edited by Jan Rensel and Margaret Rodman. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
1997	Introduction. In Home in the Islands, edited by Jan Rensel and Margaret Rodman, 7–26. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
1997	From Thatch to Cement: Social Implications of Housing Change on Rotuma. In Home in the Islands, edited by Jan Rensel and Margaret Rodman, 27–54. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
1994	For Love or Money? Interhousehold Exchange and the Economy of Rotuma. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa.
1994	Rotuma in the 1990s: From Hinterland to Neighborhood (with Alan Howard). Journal of the Polynesian Society 103 (3): 227–254.
1994	Rotuma: Interpreting a Wedding (with Alan Howard). In Portraits of Culture: Ethnographic Originals, edited by Melvin Ember, Carol Ember, and David Levinson. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
1993	The Fiji Connection: Migrant Involvement in the Economy of Rotuma. Pacific Viewpoint 34 (2): 215–240.
1991	Animals as Metaphors in Rotuman Sayings (with Alan Howard). In Man and a Half: Essays in Pacific Anthropology and Ethnobiology in Honor of Ralph Bulmer, edited by Andrew Pawley. Auckland: Polynesian Society.