Suchergebnisse

Résumé Aux Îles Salomon, dans le sud-ouest de l'océan Pacifique, le lagon de Marovo couvre quelque 700 kilomètres carrés et est bordé d'une double chaîne de récifs barrières soulevés unique en son genre, et par les hautes îles volcaniques de l'archipel de Nouvelle-Géorgie. Depuis les années 1980, des sociétés étrangères exploitent les ressources des récifs et des forêts pluviales de Marovo et, dans le même temps, le lagon et les terres environnantes ont acquis une réputation internationale de haut lieu de la biodiversité. Au cours des dernières décennies, les groupes tribaux de Marovo, propriétaires du lagon et des terres en vertu du droit coutumier, ont établi des contacts de multiples manières avec les sociétés de pêche et d'exploitation forestière et les organismes internationaux de protection de la nature, généralement pour conserver les privilèges que donne la maîtrise de ressources exploitées dans le cadre de régimes anciens, mais très adaptables, de propriété des terres et des zones marines. Les chefs et autres notables de Marovo ont également demandé à des spécialistes des sciences naturelles et sociales de faire des recherches dans la région pour recueillir des données sur l'utilisation des ressources, leurs systèmes de gestion et le savoir environnemental traditionnel. L'auteur de la présente étude examine les interactions récentes, dans le lagon de Marovo, entre les programmes locaux de développement et les programmes extérieurs de gestion de la biodiversité, et il préconise une intensification des échanges entre les deux modes (local et scientifique) de connaissance et de classification de la biodiversité. Cette rencontre du savoir local et exogène semble offrir au moins autant de possibilités de convergence que de conflit.

The Marovo Lagoon of the Solomon Islands in the south‐west Pacific covers some 700 square kilometres and is fringed by a unique double chain of raised barrier reefs and by the high volcanic islands of the New Georgia group. Since the 1980s foreign companies have been exploiting the resources of the reefs and rainforests of Marovo, while the lagoon and its surrounding lands have simultaneously attained international status as a hotspot for biodiversity. Over the past decades the tribal groups of Marovo who own the lagoon and the land through customary law have engaged with the fishing and logging companies and international conservation agencies in a multitude of ways, generally aiming to retain the privileges of control over resources embodied in ancient but highly adaptable systems of land and marine tenure. Chiefs and other leaders in Marovo have also initiated and supported academic research in the area by social and natural scientists, with the aim of documenting resource use, management institutions and traditional environmental knowledge. In this article the author discusses recent interactions in the Marovo Lagoon between local development agendas and introduced agendas of biodiversity management, and argues for increased dialogue between local and scientific ways of knowing and classifying biodiversity. The arguments emerge that in this field of encounter between local and non‐local knowledge, there is at least as much potential for convergence as for conflict.

Résumé Dans la présente étude, l'auteur étudie ce qu'il appelle « la mondialisation condensée » dans la région du Pacifique Sud, en particulier dans les îles Salomon. S'appuyant sur une longue expérience du travail ethnographique sur le terrain, notamment sur ce « point chaud » de la biodiversité qu'est le lagon de Marovo, il se penche sur la complexité d'un certain nombre de rencontres, au cours des années 1990, entre le local et le mondial, mettant en jeu des villageois autochtones propriétaires de ressources, des sociétés transnationales d'exploitation forestière et minière et des organisations non gouvernementales ( ong ) écologiques étrangères. L'accent est mis sur le statut contesté des forêts tropicales du lagon de Marovo. Si les sociétés asiatiques d'exploitation forestière désirent au plus vite tirer profit d'importantes réserves de bois, les ong occidentales (et organismes gouvernementaux similaires) souhaitent conserver les forêts au nom de la biodiversité mondiale. Les villageois, propriétaires des forêts aux termes d'un droit coutumier protégé par l'État, louvoient de façon imprévisible entre les types divergents de désirs étrangers (et mondiaux), insistant sur leur propre autonomie dans les conditions modernes de vie villageoise. Ce qui caractérise ces rencontres postcoloniales, c'est l'incertitude mutuelle et l'ignorance des objectifs moraux et politiques de « l'autre partie ». Cependant, le défaut de compréhension réciproque ne freine pas pour autant la collaboration réelle, qu'il s'agisse d'accords d'exploitation forestière de courte durée ou de « projets de conservation à base communautaire » lancés par des ong . Dans ces projets, définis selon des concepts autochtones, les désirs divergents semblent converger, quoique de façon incertaine.

This paper examines what the author terms "compressed globalisation" in the South Pacific region, with a focus on the Solomon Islands. Building on long‐term ethnographic fieldwork in the biodiversity "hot‐spot" of Marovo Lagoon, the author addresses the complexity of a variety of local–global encounters during the 1990s, involving indigenous resource‐owning villagers, transnational logging and mining companies, and foreign conservationist initiatives by non‐governmental organisations (NGOs). Emphasis is given to the contested status of rainforests around the Marovo Lagoon. While Asian logging companies desire quick exploitation of large timber reserves, Western NGOs (and similar governmental agencies) desire the conservation of the forests in the name of global biodiversity. The villagers who own the forests through state‐backed customary law follow unpredictable paths between the diverging types of foreign (and global) desire, emphasising their own autonomy over conditions for contemporary village life. These postcolonial encounters are characterised by mutual uncertainty and unawareness about the moral and political agendas of the "other party". However, lack of shared understanding far from inhibits actual collaboration, whether it be short‐term logging deals or NGO‐initiated "community‐based conservation projects". In these projects, defined through indigenous concepts, diverging desires appear to converge, however unsteadily.

In this paper, I critically examine a number of notions about
interdisciplinary research approaches to the challenges posed by the world
today. I juxtapose this critique with a discussion of interdisciplinary
developments in Pacific studies, raising questions as to how deeper
dialogues between academic disciplines and the worldviews of Pacific
Islanders may be reached. While interdisciplinarity is widely seen as
a politically correct agenda for contemporary research on processes of
globalization and development, caution is needed against prevailing
optimism about the potential for solving multidisciplinary problems
through interdisciplinary innovation. Such optimism may overrate
the potentials of broad (as opposed to deep) research approaches
and may reflect disregard, if not arrogance, toward the complexity
of the matters addressed. The drive in some European countries for
research on "sustainable development" indicates close ties between
interdisciplinary aspirations and the bureaucratic ambitions of
research administrators. Under such circumstances interdisciplinarity
becomes an object of institutional conflict and internal debate
between institutions, as well as between bureaucrats and scientists,
more than a question of creative epistemological contact between
plural knowledges in and beyond academic disciplines in a search for
increased knowledge more generally. The avoidance of such pitfalls in
the further development of Pacific studies requires close attention to
and appreciation of initiatives from within Oceania, coming from beyond
the domains of conventional disciplines. In this paper, such paths toward
interdisciplinarity are exemplified in a discussion of epistemological
encounters between Oceanic and western knowledges, and with reference
to the emerging currents of "Native Pacific Cultural Studies."

Pacific Alternatives provides fresh perspectives on the ways cultural heritage serves to engage the modern state and global non-state actors. It showcases the strongest features of contemporary Pacific Studies: new insights in analyses of Islander life, and Indigenous voices in dialogue on land, politics, culture, tradition, custom, and identity

In 1908, Arthur Maurice Hocart and William Halse Rivers Rivers conducted fieldwork in the Solomon Islands and elsewhere in Island Melanesia that served as the turning point in the development of modern anthropology. The work of these two anthropological pioneers on the small island of Simbo brought about the development of participant observation as a methodological hallmark of social anthropology. This would have implications for Rivers' later work in psychiatry and psychology, and Hocart's work as a comparativist, for which both would largely be remembered despite the novelty of that independent fieldwork on remote Pacific islands in the early years of the 20th Century. Contributors to this volume-who have all carried out fieldwork in those Melanesian locations where Hocart and Rivers worked-give a critical examination of the research that took place in 1908, situating those efforts in the broadest possible contexts of colonial history, imperialism, the history of ideas and scholarly practice within and beyond anthropology

ABSTRACTThis study examines traditional fisheries‐related resource management through a case in which local communities, from a basis of customary, 'common property' control over the sea and its resources, handle a multitude of development issues. Presenting first some important issues relating to people's role in fisheries management and to the 'common property' debate, the article then describes a traditional system for management of land and sea resources in a Pacific Islands society; that of Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands. Emphasis is given to fisheries resources, with a view to explaining in practical terms how a system of customary marine tenure operates under the wider social, political, economic and ecological circumstances of change arising from development pressures. Against this background, assessments are made of the viability of this traditional fisheries management system under present conditions of state control and of both external and internal pressures for large‐scale resource development enterprises.

Throughout the Pacific, cultural heritage is both a powerful idiom in post-colonial state-making, and a potent mobilizing force in diverse grassroots social movements, many of which have been misunderstood as 'cargo-cults' or 'inventions of tradition' in anthropological analyses. This collection recognizes cultural heritage as a ground for creativity and experimentation with social forms, and pin-points both the conflicting values at play and their potentially subversive power. Describing key social processes in Hawaii, Tahiti, Pohnpei, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Australia, it explores alternative ways of configuring authority and organizing the state, as well as highlighting the potential in local social movements to influence culture and politics at the national level. Taking the pulse of important contemporary social movements in the region, this volume is key for understanding the development of the modern nation-state in the Pacific

From early explorers to contemporary scientists, naturalists have examined island flora and fauna of Oceania, discovering new species, carefully documenting the lives of animals, and creating work central to the image of Oceania. These "discoveries" and exploratory moves have had profound local and global impacts. Often, however, local knowledge and communities are silent in the ethologies and histories that naturalists produce. This volume analyzes the ways that Indigenous and non-Indigenous naturalists have made island natures visible to a wider audience, their relationship with the communities where they work, as well as the unique natures that they explore and help make. In staking out an area of naturalist histories, each contributor addresses the relationship between naturalists and Oceanic communities, how these histories shaped past and present place and practices, the influence on conservations and development projects, and the relationship between scientific and indigenous knowledge. The essays span across colonial and postcolonial frames, tracing shifts in biological practice from the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century focus on taxonomy and discovery to the twentieth-century disciplinary restructurings and new collecting strategies, and contemporary concerns with biodiversity loss, conservation, and knowledge formation.The production of scientific knowledge is typically seen in ethnographic accounts as oppositional, contrasting Indigenous and western, local and global, objective and subjective. Such dichotomous views reinforce differences and further exaggerate inequities in the production of knowledge. More dangerously, value distinctions become embedded in discussions of Indigenous identity, rights, and sovereignty. Contributors acknowledge that these dichotomous narratives have dominated the approach of the scientific community while informing how social scientists have understood the contributions of Pacific communities. The essays offer a nuanced gradient as historical narratives of scientific investigation, in dialogue with local histories, and reveal greater levels of participation in the creation of knowledge. The volume highlights how power infuses the scientific endeavor and offers a distinct and diverse view of knowledge production in Oceania. Combining senior and emerging international scholars, the collection will be of interest to researchers in the social sciences, history, as well as biology and allied fields

Norwegians in colonial Africa and Oceania had varying aspirations and adapted in different ways to changing social, political and geographical circumstances in foreign, colonial settings. They included Norwegian shipowners, captains, and diplomats; traders and whalers along the African coast and in Antarctica; large-scale plantation owners in Mozambique and Hawai'i; big business men in South Africa; jacks of all trades in the Solomon Islands; timber merchants on Zanzibar' coffee farmers in Kenya; and King Leopold's footmen in Congo. This collection reveals narratives of the colonial era that are often ignored or obscured by the national histories of former colonial powers. It charts the entrepreneurial routes chosen by various Norwegians and the places they ventured, while demonstrating the importance of recognizing the complicity of such "non-colonial colonials" for understanding the complexity of colonial history