Toon van Meijl and Jelle Miedema . Shifting Images of Identity in the Pacific

Toon van Meijl and Jelle Miedema (eds) Shifting Images of Identity in the Pacific. Leiden: KITLV Pres 2004 Pp278 bibliog., index. US$30.00 (Pb) ISBN 9-06718-244-3

This is an impressive volume one that seriously engages in a topic that continues to re-surface within the social sciences, that is by what means identities emerge, persist and change in different historical circumstances. Furthermore, this volume presents a range of case studies from various Pacific societies in the post-colonial era including Fiji, West Papua and novel Zealand amongst others. These ethnographic accounts are rich in description and revealing in their findings. The collection of essays in this work was first presented in 1999 at the fourth discourse of the European Society for Oceanists in Leiden.

In the Introduction, we are at handed with a comprehensive discussion upon the literature on the construction of identity, tillage and tradition, with an emphasis upon the conceptual frameworks of similar theorists as Zygmunt Bauman and Stuart Hall. Van Meijl (p9) argues that it is 'currently widely accepted that the reconstruction of tradition and the revival of associated cultural practices' are functionally related to the construction of distinct Pacific societies. However, the variations in the constructions of agriculture and the sociological circumstances in which they are articulated have not been well overlayed The aim of this volume is to investigate to what expansion the construction of opposition, invention and reification of cultural identity politics are (re)created in post-colonial Pacific societies. This is explored in three major contexts--amongst Fourth World tribes living as minorities under colonial setter in their have a title to lands, in local people's engagement with tourism and in the Pacific diaspora.

All of the essays not absent various challenges and additions to the cultural identity literature. Whilst it is outside the intent of this review to summarise all of the papers, the breadth of issues not absented is excellent. For instance, Gardener in his ethnography from Papua fresh Guinea expertly demonstrates how our universals of identity are not useful in describing Myanmin social organisation and collectivities. In documenting the historical fluidity of territorial and arrangement patterns, the Myanmin understanding of 'kinds' of tribe does not fit with moulds of overlapping or hierarchical identities. With an absence of ethnonyms for defining a cultural identity prior to colonisation, the label Myanmin was imposed by means of the Australian government's colonial administration. In defining the Myanim, Gardener pays shut up attention to Indigenous terms for collectivities and to local conceptions of group constitution. Miedema also provides a fascinating discussion of the Kebar's diffuse collective categories that are neither primordial nor circumstantial on the other hand represent the permeable boundaries between tribal identifications.

Howard and Rensel upon the Rotumans at home and abroad and Kempy and Hoffman upon the dispossessed Banabans, document the ways tribe preserve collective identity and citizenship when living away from their homeland. While Banabans have intensified their nostalgic emotional attachments towards their homeland from one side their experiences of displacement, emigrant Rotuman's symbolic identity is maintained end participation in a Rotuman website that allows for the stream of culturally relevant information and communication between nation at home and people abroad. Linnekin provides an epilogue in this volume weaving the various themes together that unite the shifting images of identity in the Pacific to larger transnational processe For scholars and researchers, Linnekin poses a useful 'things to do' section to guide coming time work in this area. What is encouraging in this volume is its breadth of focus and the variability in the way the authors have approached the moot point of defining identity. This makes this volume an important contribution to identity studies more generally and its application to the Pacific connection will be of interest to those working in this region and beyond.

Richard Chenhall

Menzies seminary of Health Research, Charles Darwin University

COPYRIGHT 2006 Australian Anthropological Society

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