Pacific Possessions
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A Haole
A01=Chris J. Thomas
anthropology
At Home in Fiji
Author_Chris J. Thomas
British authors
cannibal fork
cannibalism
Category=DSBF
Category=WTLC
colonial intervention
Constance Gordon-Cumming
cultural exchange
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eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_travel
European identity
Fiji
Fijian cannibal fork
George Vason
George Washington Bates
Gilbert Islands
Hawaii
Hawaiian culture
hula
In the South Seas
Kiribati
literary canon
literary criticism
literary studies
Melanesia
missionaries
Oceanian peoples
Pacific
Pacific Islands
Pacific markers of authenticity
Pacific studies
photography
Polynesian culture
pre-colonial Pacific culture
Robert Louis Stevenson
romanticized South Seas cliches
Sandwich Island Notes
South Pacific
South Seas
tattoos
Tonga
Tongan tattooing
tourism
travel writing
travelers' accounts
western perspectives
western possessions
What is American Pacificism?
Product details
- ISBN 9780817320942
- Weight: 420g
- Dimensions: 160 x 231mm
- Publication Date: 25 May 2021
- Publisher: The University of Alabama Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Reframes Polynesia and Melanesia through analysis of nineteenth-century travel writing
In Pacific Possessions: The Pursuit of Authenticity in Nineteenth-Century Oceanian Travel Accounts, Chris J. Thomas expands the literary canon on Polynesia and Melanesia beyond the giants, such as Herman Melville and Jack London, to include travel narratives by British and American visitors. These accounts were widely read and reviewed when they first appeared but have largely been ignored by scholars. For the first time, Thomas defines these writings as a significant literary genre.
Recovering these works allows us to reconceive of nineteenth-century Oceania as a vibrant hub of cultural interchange. Pacific Possessions recaptures the polyphony of voices that enlivened this space through the writing of these travelers, while also paying attention to their Oceanian interlocutors. Each chapter centers on a Pacific cultural marker, what Thomas refers to as each writer's 'possession' the Tongan tattoo, the Hawaiian hula, the Fijian cannibal fork, and Robert Louis Stevenson's cache of South Seas photographs.
Thomas analyzes how westerners formed narratives around these objects and what those objects meant within nineteenth-century Oceanian cultures. He argues that the accounts served to shape a version of Oceanian authenticity that persists today. The profiled traveler-writers had complex experiences, at times promoting exoticized exaggerations of so-called authentic Polynesian and Melanesian cultures and at other times genuinely engaging in cultural exchange. However, their views were ultimately compromised by a western lens. In Thomas's words, 'the authenticity is at once celebrated and written over.'
In Pacific Possessions: The Pursuit of Authenticity in Nineteenth-Century Oceanian Travel Accounts, Chris J. Thomas expands the literary canon on Polynesia and Melanesia beyond the giants, such as Herman Melville and Jack London, to include travel narratives by British and American visitors. These accounts were widely read and reviewed when they first appeared but have largely been ignored by scholars. For the first time, Thomas defines these writings as a significant literary genre.
Recovering these works allows us to reconceive of nineteenth-century Oceania as a vibrant hub of cultural interchange. Pacific Possessions recaptures the polyphony of voices that enlivened this space through the writing of these travelers, while also paying attention to their Oceanian interlocutors. Each chapter centers on a Pacific cultural marker, what Thomas refers to as each writer's 'possession' the Tongan tattoo, the Hawaiian hula, the Fijian cannibal fork, and Robert Louis Stevenson's cache of South Seas photographs.
Thomas analyzes how westerners formed narratives around these objects and what those objects meant within nineteenth-century Oceanian cultures. He argues that the accounts served to shape a version of Oceanian authenticity that persists today. The profiled traveler-writers had complex experiences, at times promoting exoticized exaggerations of so-called authentic Polynesian and Melanesian cultures and at other times genuinely engaging in cultural exchange. However, their views were ultimately compromised by a western lens. In Thomas's words, 'the authenticity is at once celebrated and written over.'
Chris J. Thomas is lecturer in communication skills at Kelley School of Business, Indiana University.
