M.A. - Pacific Islands Studies

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10125/2130
SEE ALSO
M.A. Plan A - Pacific Islands Studies [http://hdl.handle.net/10125/20085]
and
M.A. Plan B - Pacific Islands Studies [http://hdl.handle.net/10125/20086]

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Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 10 of 187
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    MĀTAURANGA MOANA: CONSERVATION AND MĀORI EPISTEMOLOGY IN TĪKAPA MOANA AND ACROSS AOTEAROA
    (2023) Vinson, Kallie Lou; Mawyer, Alexander D.; Pacific Islands Studies
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    Exploring the Depths: Yapese Musicality in Contemporary Spaces
    (2023) Shansey, Sydney; Mawyer, Alexander; Pacific Islands Studies
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    RECLAIMING LOLOMA: (RE) FOCUSING ITAUKEI INDIGENEITY AS AN ACTION BASED FRAMEWORK AGAINST GENDERED VIOLENCE
    (2023) Cagivanua, Ulamila Monica; Mawyer, Alexander D.; Pacific Islands Studies
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    The Blue Continent In The Eyes Of The Dragon: Chinese News Media And Academic Representations Of Pacific Island Countries
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2021) Luan, Shuo; Wesley-Smith, Terence; Pacific Islands Studies
    China has ramped up its engagement with Pacific Island countries and established itself as a major cooperative partner and assistance provider in the region. However, the Pacific Islands remain a blind spot for many Chinese people, and their perceptions of island countries are inevitably shaped by prevalent and dominant discourses at home, which further influences subsequent actions in the Pacific. While Pacific Island countries are aware of China’s growing presence, accompanied by opportunities and uncertainties, they are largely uninformed about the image of Pacific nations that circulates in China. This thesis seeks to fill this real-world and research gap by exploring Chinese news media and academic representations of Pacific Island countries, drawing on frameworks of Critical Discourse Analysis. After reviewing Western and historical Chinese representations, this thesis provides an overview of Chinese news and research articles about Pacific Island countries between 2015 and 2019 and then focuses on publications in 2019. A sample of 212 news articles and 43 research articles are then examined to extract, categorize, and dissect relevant discourses. This thesis argues that Chinese central news media paint a broad and superficial portrait of island countries because of the great caution exercised in political news and the intention of promoting China’s image and contributions. By comparison, Chinese academia presents a more multifaceted and complex profile of island countries, investigating their characteristics across various scholarly spheres. Pivoting around the ideas of development and progress, Chinese representations, whether from the perspectives of China, geopolitics, or the Pacific, mainly manifest as the projection of Chinese values and interests onto foreign and insular places.
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    Hawaiian Enough: Insecure Identities, Racialization, and Recognition among Kānaka Maoli
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Hennessey, Shannon Pōmaikaʻi; Tengan, Ty P.; Pacific Islands Studies
    Many Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) carry insecure cultural identities, or feel they are not “Hawaiian enough.” In recent decades, scholars have agreed that accusations of “inauthentic” Indigenous people and cultures are relics of settler colonialism. However, authenticating measures of “Hawaiianness,” including racialized criteria based on blood quantum and phenotype, have been internalized and imposed within our community. To address the gap in scholarship that directly confronts this insecurity, I facilitate in-depth interviews with eight Kanaka Maoli participants. Validating felt knowledge from the naʻau (gut, source of feeling and instinct), I employ what I call “naʻauao as methodology” during interviews, encouraging participants to name their emotions, thus elucidating emotional realities and creating spaces for healing. Instructed by these responses, as well as my own lived experience as a Hawaiian, I draw from the ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi term “ʻike” (to see, to know, to feel) to suggest a relationship between feeling, knowing, and seeing in insecure Kanaka Maoli identities. Not feeling Hawaiian enough is deeply connected to a lack of knowledge (real or perceived) about what it means to be Hawaiian. For Kānaka who do not code as Hawaiian, not feeling adequately Hawaiian can be fundamentally linked to not being seen as Hawaiian. In particular, Kānaka who code as white or Asian might not know their community, nor will they be seen as Hawaiian, by virtue of their racial and socioeconomic privilege. Rooted in an intellectual moʻokūʻauhau (genealogy) of Indigenous resurgence and relationality, I propose we refuse state-based logics of identity and protect our relationality through reciprocal kōkua (help, support, work) and reciprocal recognition to affirm that we are Hawaiian enough.
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    Mapping Contemporary 'Ori Tahiti Dance in Virtual Formats
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Cabrera, Krystine Ann; Mawyer, Alexander; Pacific Islands Studies
    This thesis seeks to contribute to understanding how 'Ori Tahiti (Tahitian dance) occupies particular online spaces and fosters particular imaginaries of Tahiti and Oceania more broadly. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the presence and role of online platforms in creating and maintaining specific communities and imaginaries are more visible than ever. In the context of this present, highly digital cultural moment, this thesis seeks to explore the dynamic place of Tahitian dance groups online and connections made between the participants of this space and how it has transformed. It will investigate representations of Tahitian dance circulating through multiple social platforms, particularly within the United States, and the emergence of Tahitian dance competitions worldwide in an online format during the COVID-19 pandemic. This thesis concludes that digital platforms have become contemporary sites for mediating Tahitian dance communities, including for Mā'ohi practitioners in their home islands, for Mā'ohi in diaspora, and diversely positioned non-Mā'ohi practitioners also engaged in these spaces
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    The Chamoru Language Is [not] Dead: Language Revitalization In The Online Space
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Franquez Garrido, Heather Ann; Mawyer, Alexander; Pacific Islands Studies
    This thesis explores Chamorro language revitalization and perpetuation in the 21st century. Chamorro is the native language of Taotao Mariånas (people of the Mariåna Islands) and is repetitively claimed to be a dying language. The current state of the Chamorro language directly results from American colonization and their manipulative teachings of English as a superior language. Despite an increase in the usage of English, Chamorros remained resilient in their language creating Chamorro language resources for their people. This thesis documents these vital resources focusing on those resources found within the internet, termed the online space. The online space is a part of our daily lives and Chamorros are utilizing it to perpetuate and revitalize their language. Through an ecological analysis of Chamorro found within websites, blogs, Zoom, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, this thesis documents that Chamorro is primarily utilized to educate language seeking learners in hopes of perpetuating the language. Utilizing YouTube as a case study, the Chamorro language is mainly created and consumed for the purpose of education and music. More importantly, this platform revealed language ideologies of Chamorro pride in identity and language as well as agency to perpetuate and learn the Chamorro language in the 21st century.
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    The history of the Pacific Islands Studies Program at the University of Hawaii
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1986) Quigg, Agnes; Pacific Islands Studies
    In the immediate post-war years, when colleges and universities across America were establishing area study programs, the University of Hawaii (UH) inaugurated a program to promote Pacific awareness. For more than thirty-five years this program has contri