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In this article I draw examples from the broader terrain of academic and popular literature, news media, television, and film to explore questions regarding representations of Samoans, and especially Samoan men, in the United States. The mediated accessibility of Samoans, via televised sports and entertainment, combines with their relative geographic and demographic inaccessibility to produce popular images of a population that the vast majority of Americans know very little about. Such representations are gendered in particular ways, such that the archetypal Samoan body in US popular discourse is now masculine, rather than feminine. I discuss how popular representations of Samoan men may be similar to representations of black men—the latter so central to discourses of race in the United States—as well as how are they different, particularly in light of the discursively slippery histories of representing Pacific peoples as both noble and ignoble "savages." The main narrative component of discourses about Samoan men, body size, is critically engaged; additionally, the article argues that the added element of (indigenous) culture—thought to be outside or anterior to Western modernity—grant to Samoans an exoticness not normally granted to black Americans. This essay attempts to expose, engage, and examine these active processes of representation and myth creation—what visual theorist Clyde Taylor might term mythogenesis—to better understand the discursive terrain that Samoans negotiate, often ambivalently in the United States.

This essay discusses Albert Wendt's incorporation of elements of hip hop culture in his literary and dramatic writing, and reflects on the relevance and usefulness of Wendt's work to the author's research on Samoan involvement in hip hop music, dance, and visual art. The widespread popularity of hip hop among diasporic Samoans is noted, as are the tendencies among some in Samoan communities to simplistically dismiss or criticize hip hop involvement as a sign of culture loss or a cause of disruptive behavior. In light of such critiques, the author credits Wendt for his consistent receptiveness to hip hop and the "space-making" gestures his work offers for a nascent Pacific hip hop arts movement.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- List of West Papuan Political Factions -- INTRODUCTION The Morning Star -- 1 WISH UPON A STAR Merdeka as West Papuans' Decolonization Hope -- 2 DREAMS What Does the Future Hold? -- 3 CONSTELLATIONS Cultural Performance as Resistance at Home and Abroad -- 4 WRESTLING IN THE DARK Three Generations of Factions -- 5 STARS ALIGNING West Papua in the Black Pacific and Beyond -- CONCLUSION A New Day Dawning -- Notes -- References -- INDEX -- About the Author

"That Indonesia's ongoing occupation of West Papua continues to be largely ignored by world governments is one of the great moral and political failures of our time. West Papuans have struggled for more than fifty years to find a way through the long night of Indonesian colonization. However, united in their pursuit of merdeka (freedom) in its many forms, what holds West Papuans together is greater than what divides them. Today, the Morning Star glimmers on the horizon, the supreme symbol of merdeka and a cherished sign of hope for the imminent arrival of peace and justice to West Papua. Morning Star Rising: The Politics of Decolonization in West Papua is an ethnographically framed account of the long, bitter fight for freedom that challenges the dominant international narrative that West Papuans' quest for political independence is fractured and futile. Camellia Webb-Gannon's extensive interviews with the decolonization movements' original architects and its more recent champions shed light on complex diasporic and inter-generational politics as well as social and cultural resurgence. In foregrounding West Papuans' perspectives, the author shows that it is the body politic's unflagging determination and hope, rather than military might or influential allies, that form the movement's most unifying and powerful force for independence. This book examines the many intertwining strands of decolonization in Melanesia. Differences in cultural performance and political diversity throughout the region are generating new, fruitful trajectories. Simultaneously, Black and Indigenous solidarity and a shared Melanesian identity have forged a transnational grassroots power-base from which the movement is gaining momentum. Relevant beyond its West Papua focus, this book is essential reading for those interested in Pacific studies, Native and Indigenous studies, development studies, activism, and decolonization"--

The Classroom as a Metaphorical Canoe: Cooperative Learning in Pacific Studies -- For or Before an Asia Pacific Studies Agenda: Specifying Pacific Studies -- Preparation for Deep Learning: A Reflection on "Teaching" Pacific Studies in the Pacific -- Charting Pacific (Studies) Waters: Evidence of Teaching and Learning -- Lo(o)sing the Edge -- AmneSIA -- On Analogies: Rethinking the Pacific in a Global Context -- Microwomen: US Colonialism and Micronesian Women Activists -- bikinis and other s/pacific n/oceans -- Articulated Cultures: Militarism and Masculinities in Fiji during the Mid-1990s -- What Makes Fiji Women Soldiers? Context, Context, Context -- The Articulated Limb: Theorizing Indigenous Pacific Participation in the Military-Industrial Complex -- How Does Change Happen? -- Yaqona/Yagoqu: Roots and Routes of a Displaced Native Scholarship from a Lazy Native -- Te Onauti -- The Ancestors We Get to Choose: White Influences I Won't Deny -- Modern Life, Primitive Thoughts -- Fear of an Estuary.