Social change in the Pacific islands

About this book

This important work introduces a critical theoretical perspective to the study of social change in the Pacific islands, a subject which has long been dominated by ethnographic studies. The islands covered are Hawai'i, French Polynesia, American and Western Samoa, Tonga, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Kiribati (Gilbert, Phoenix, and Line Islands), the Marshall and Caroline Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana islands. The papers in this volume, by international experts in many fields of Pacific studies, present substantive descriptions of social change in the Pacific islands; locate change in the social institutions in which the language of social transition arises; examine the fact that social change and its rhetoric are culturally limited; consider how the discourses of capitalism, individualism, and the bureaucratic state are building a new social order; and present a critical political economy of contemporary social change in the Pacific islands. These larger issues are considered with reference to specialized topics that include the growth of dependence upon French nuclear testing cash flows and public sector employment in French Polynesia; resource extraction in Papua New Guinea; conflict between French settlers and Kanaks in New Caledonia; ethnic politics in Fiji; the use of tradition in Vanuatu nation building; economic ecology of atolls in Kiribati; the social function of the aloha shirt in Hawai'i; and the militarization of Guam. This highly significant and substantial work will attract a readership with interests in political economy, post-modern social theory and general social theory as well as Pacific specialists.