The Changing Anthropological Enterprise: A Century of Ethnographic Research in Rotuma

Abstract

In this paper we review the accounts of seven individuals who have provided what we consider to be ethnographic accounts of Rotuma beginning in the 1890s through the twentieth century. We aim to assess the purposes for their research, the methods that they used, their intended audiences, and the nature of their resulting products. In chronological order by dates of initial research, the researchers are J. Stanley Gardiner, A. M. Hocart, Gordon Macgregor, Elizabeth K. Inia, Alan Howard and Jan Rensel, and Vilsoni Hereniko. The backgrounds of these individuals are also considered, including their ethnicity and prior education. As two of them, Elizabeth K. Inia and Vilsoni Hereniko, are Rotumans, we pay especial attention to detectable differences between insider and outsider accounts.