Sniffing Oceania’s Behind

Abstract

Part tribute to the late Epeli Hau‘ofa and part reflective historiography, this essay examines the figure of the anus in Hau‘ofa’s short story Kisses in the Nederends in order to open up an inquiry into an olfactory history of Oceania. My broader goal is to augment if not challenge canonical methods still heavily reliant on literacy and visuality, and realist modalities that I believe are inadequate to the task of apprehending subaltern aspects of Oceania’s ongoing past.