“Even if one is not always in agreement with the authors’ analyses, the contributions in this collection are so explicitly and empirically argued, that it furthers novel thinking. For that achievement alone this volume is a little gem, it is full of interesting case material, and at the same time it encourages new ways of thinking about Pacific realities.” • Anthropos
“The edited book is a collaborative effort by independent researchers who each respectively crafts their case study to elucidate ‘the possibilities for resilience and for loss, abandonment, and dramatic change,’ thereby illuminating the ‘interaction between a past that can be imagined as holistic and virtuous and an envisaged future that fulfills contemporary desires.’ This ‘constant flux’ calls for a vision beyond a simplistic judgment of cultural loss and cultural continuity. As an Oceanic academic concerned with the self-determination and well-being of the locals, I appreciate the insight towards the delicate and nuanced stance that the authors suggest we, as researchers, take, when we face each case in its specific context.” • Pacific Affairs
“…an important contribution to a better understanding of life worlds in Oceania (with a slight overrepresentation of Melanesia). Although this volume is a poignant reminder of the challenges indigenous people face in the current global condition, it also aptly demonstrates the agency of these social actors to resist these challenges and act resiliently. Presumably, Pacific Realities will mainly draw attention from scholars interested in Oceania. However, it should be read well beyond this limited circle because it offers rich ethnographic insights and a handy theoretical framework to better grasp contemporary island societies and cultures and their respective place in the world today.” • Island Studies Journal
Throughout the Pacific region, people are faced with dramatic changes, often described as processes of “glocalization”; individuals and groups espouse multilayered forms of identity, in which global modes of thinking and doing are embedded in renewed perceptions of local or regional specificities. Consequently, new forms of resistance and resilience – the processes by which communities attempt to regain their original social, political, and economic status and structure after disruption or displacement – emerge. Through case studies from across the Pacific which transcend the conventional “local-global” dichotomy, this volume aims to explore these complex and interwoven phenomena from a new perspective.
Laurent Dousset is Professor at the EHESS (School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences) and member of the CREDO (Centre for Research and Documentation on Oceania, Marseilles). His publications include Assimilating Identities: Social Networks and the Diffusion of Sections (Oceania Monographs, 2005), The Scope of Anthropology (with S. Tcherkézoff, Berghahn 2012).
Mélissa Nayral holds a PhD in Anthropology from the French University of Aix-Marseille (2013). She currently is a postdoctoral fellow of the CREDO (Centre for Research and Documentation on Oceania, Marseilles) and teaches anthropology at Toulouse Jean Jaurès University. Her interests are political anthropology, New Caledonia and ethnography.
LC: JZ1318 .P3144 2019
BISAC: SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; SOC015000 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Human Geography; POL000000 POLITICAL SCIENCE/General
BIC: JHMC Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography; GTF Development studies
