Upcoming Colloqium and Seminar


The Center for Pacific Islands Studies has announced two upcoming events:


1: Anthropology Colloquium Series

Merging Archaeology with the Local Community: The Molokai Archaeological Training Program and Wailau Research Project, Molokai Island, Hawaii
byWindy McElroy
Senior Archaeologist, Garcia & Associates

Date: Thursday, 11 March 2010
Time: 3 p.m.
Place: UH-M Crawford Hall 115

(click on flier at right for more information)

2. Pacific Islands Occasional Seminar

The Origins of Maori in Parliament: The 1867 Maori Representation Act in New Zealand
by Ilana Gershon, Indiana University

Date: Monday, 15 March 2010
Time: 12 pm
Place: UHM Moore Hall 319

Why did the settler New Zealand parliament decide in 1867 to pass a bill that set aside four seats in the House of Representatives for Maori representatives? This unique British colonial legislative act supporting indigenous rights has allowed subsequent Maori members of parliament to help transform New Zealand's politics of recognition and advocate for indigenous rights. This paper will examine the political debates surrounding this 1867 legislation, and, in particular, how New Zealand settler politicians' ideologies of political performance and oratory underpinned the debates over whether to grant indigenous people self-representation. It is largely about how settlers perceive indigenous political performances and address how these perceptions, or ideologies of performance, influenced the ways legislative structures were established in the early stages of New Zealand's settler nation building to include indigenous actors.

Ilana Gershon is a cultural anthropologist in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University. Her previous research compared Samoan migrant experiences in New Zealand and the United States, focusing on the contrasts between how governments and migrants understand what it means to have a culture. In her current research project, she is looking at Maori members of the New Zealand parliament, exploring how indigenous self-representation in the national legislature has contributed to the current Maori renaissance.

The seminar is cosponsored by the UHM Center for Pacific Islands Studies, the UHM Department of Anthropology, and the Maori Language and Culture Program in the UHM Department of Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures. For information, and disability access, please call 808-956-7700.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jack Tobin Papers

Image
--> Pacific Collection librarian Eleanor Kleiber recently finished processing the Jack Tobin Papers , and they are now available for public use. Jack Adair Tobin, Ph.D. (June 15, 1920-June 18, 2010) was an anthropologist who worked in the Marshall Islands, beginning in 1950. This manuscript collection, which comprises roughly six linear feet of material and covers the bulk of Dr. Tobin's professional life, is extremely important in that it contains primary source documentation of numerous aspects of Marshallese life during a period of intense change. In addition to the physical materials in the collection, nearly 2,000 photographs have also been digitized and are available online . A finding aid for the collection is also available online . The Jack Tobin Collection is one of more than 60 Pacific manuscript collections -- because these collections are comprised primarily of unpublished material, they are an important tool when searching for primary source docume
Read more

Bidding a fond Aloha to Joan Hori

Hawaiian Collection curator Joan Hori retired on December 28, after 44 years of service at the University of Hawai'i. In addition to her position as curator, at the time of her retirement Joan also served as department head of the Hawaiian and Pacific Collections.  Joan began working at UHM's Sinclair Library in 1968, eventually taking on responsibility as head of Sinclair. In 1993 she transferred to Hamilton Library, and in 1995 she joined the Hawaiian Collection. She became curator of the collection after Chieko Tachihata's retirement in 1999.  Joan's better known projects include Hawai'i's first Hawaiian language digitization project in the late 1990s, and the English language digitization project which has brought us free online access to pre-1923 issues of the  Hawaiian Gazette ,  Garden Island ,  Maui News , parts of  Hilo Tribune , the  Honolulu Star-Bulletin  and its predecessors, and a number of other titles. The project is ongoing and through
Read more

On Display: Snitch

Image
The Hawaiian & Pacific Collections are currently exhibiting a sculpture titled "snitch," by Aotearoa-based artist Brett Graham. The sculpture is on loan from the UH Art Gallery, which provided the below description: Brett   Graham   (Aotearoa/New Zealand)  snitch, 2014 foam, tar, feathers Different manifestations of binding can involve alienation, appropriation and misappropriation that may result in an integration of sorts. But even when relevant facts are known, integration with a partial or total disconnect can also occur. As a character, Stitch has an alien origin—that is, alien to Earth. The creators of the animation film  Lilo and Stitch originally intended the narrative to be set in Kansas. But the plot was shifted to Hawai‘i where a Hawaiian family adopts Stitch. The family was portrayed as dysfunctional and impoverished by a failing American economy. The long-standing reasons for these conditions—the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, colonization
Read more