Tanna Times: Islanders in the World

Item Summary

Title:	Tanna Times: Islanders in the World
Authors:	Lindstrom, Lamont
Date Issued:	31 Oct 2020
Publisher:	University of Hawaii Press
Description:	This book introduces the culture and history of Tanna Island (Vanuatu), reflected off the life experiences of a dozen Islanders living from 1774 to the present day. Tanna features a vibrant culture and a fascinating history, the details of which illuminate broader ethnographic, linguistic, and historical issues. Each of twelve core chapters opens with a telling life story and then contextualizes that biography with pertinent ethnographic background. Islanders since 1774 have participated in a series of events and projects that have captured extensive anthropological attention. These include welcoming British explorer James Cook (whose 250 anniversary celebrations are upon us); one small girl’s voyage to London; troubled relations with early Christian missionaries; engagement in overseas plantation labor; innovation of the John Frum Movement, a so-called Melanesian “cargo cult”; service in American military labor corps during the Pacific War; agitation in the 1970s for an independent Vanuatu; urban migration to seek work in Port Vila squatter settlements; the global kava business; juggling arranged versus love marriages (as featured in the 2015 film Tanna); and now Islander dealings with growing numbers of overseas tourists and international social media. Along the way, the ms. explores issues of island personhood, gender, and leadership. The narrative through-line is globalization with the main argument that all of us, even those living on seemingly out-of-the-way Pacific islands, for many years have been firmly linked into the world’s networks.
Pages/Duration:	200
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/10125/67674
Rights:	CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/
Appears in Collections:	UH Press Publications - Pacific - Misc. Publications

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