The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 10, no. 2 (Fall 1998)
Contents
Articles
"Indigenous Knowledge and Empowerment: Rural Development Examined from Within," pp. 289-315
David W Gegeo
Abstract: The argument that rural development serving the needs of rural villagers in the third world should be based on indigenous knowedge is not new. In practice, however, development projects continue to be based on Anglo-European models. In this paper I examine what development anchored in indigenous knowledge and indigenous epistemology entails as seen from the perspective of an indigenous Pacific Islander. I show that the Kwara`ae of Malaita, Solomon Islands, have a rich and complex conception, body of knowledge, and discourse about development, much of which precedes western contact.
Keywords: indigenous knowledge, indigenous epistemology, Kwara`ae, modernization, rural development, Solomon Islands
"Grassroots, Rock(s), and Reggae: Music and Mayhem at the Port Moresby Show," pp. 317-343
Karl Neuenfeldt
Abstract: An important facet of popular music in Papua New Guinea is public performance at cultural shows, which provide opportunities for musicians to develop occupational skills, sell their recordings, and reach large and diverse audiences. Cultural shows are also opportunities for the celebration of society, and sites for sociocultural and political contestation. This article explores the 1996 Port Moresby Show in Papua New Guinea as an example of a cultural show that featured popular music but also intermittently included mayhem, violence that threatened at times to endanger musicians and members of the audience and overwhelm the music. The description and analysis provide a case study of the multifaceted uses and functions of music in cultural shows and celebrations of society in Papua New Guinea, the perspectives of musicians on the violence that occurred at the 1996 Port Moresby Show, and the nature of the public discourse about the moral panic that resulted.
Keywords: moral panics, musicians, Papua New Guinea, performance arts, popular music, Port Moresby Show
"Sleights of Hand and the Construction of Desire in a Papua New Guinea Modernity," pp. 345-368
Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington
Abstract: This paper is a case study of processes at work to deflect the anger and jealousy many grassroots Papua New Guineans felt toward an indigenous urban middle class that had increasingly monopolized positions of influence and affluence. We focus on the activities of Sepik Women in Trade, a private organization begun by middle-class women whose explicit objective was to assist poor women living primarily in Wewak's squatter settlements to market their handicrafts. Through this organization's activities, individual accumulation came to appear not only practically feasible but also morally justified. These processes, reflecting middle-class expectations, were based on a modernist claim that almost everyone could gain access to a certain quality of life. Almost everyone had the potential opportunity and capacity--indeed the right and virtual obligation--to work and save to consume self-evidently desirable goods and services. Correspondingly, those unable or unwilling to accumulate and thereby acquire these goods and services would have primarily themselves to blame. Any ensuing--and persisting--inequality would be understood as less the product of unfair exclusion or repudiation of kin obligations than of personal failure to fulfill reasonable expectations. Such a perspective, focusing on personal responsibility for failure in (what was being defined as) an open and just system, undercut the idea that categorical exclusion was even a systemic possibility. Through virtual sleights of hand, what were the slights of class exclusion were being presented as reflecting less social injustice than individual failure.
Keywords: capitalism, class, individualism, inequality, modernity, Papua New Guinea, women
"Nationalism and Interdependence: The Political Thought of Jean-Marie Tjibaou," pp. 369-390
Alban Bensa and Eric Wittersheim
Abstract: The publication of the writings and speeches of Jean-Marie Tjibaou (1936-1989) allows us to sketch the main directions of his political thinking, which aimed to reintegrate New Caledonia into the cultural, political, and economic Pacific framework. The apparent originality of the Kanak example might be illuminated by a comparative approach to the pan-Pacific ideology known as the Pacific Way. But when nationalisms lead to the emergence of new states, new difficulties arise--economic interdependence, and the necessary invention of new models, both regional and national, local and universal.
Keywords: interdependence, leadership, Melanesian Way, nationalism, nation-state, New Caledonia, Tjibaou
Dialogue
"The Ocean in Us," pp. 391-410
Epeli Hau`ofa
Keywords: autonomy, culture, environment, identity, Oceania
Political Reviews
"The Region in Review: International Issues and Events, 1997," pp. 411-423
Karin von Strokirch
"Melanesia in Review: Issues and Events, 1997," pp. 424-455
Fiji, Sandra Tarte
Irian Jaya, Chris Ballard
New Caledonia, David A Chappell
Papua New Guinea, Terence Wesley-Smith
Resources
"From Photons to Electrons: The Film Guide, Moving Images of the Pacific Islands," pp. 457-465
Alexander Mawyer