Place, Destabilized: Ambivalent Heritage, Community and Colonialism in the Marquesas Islands. Issue 1 (5th February 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Donaldson, Emily C.
• Other Names: Coupaye Ludovic guestEditor.; Pitrou Perig guestEditor.
• Is Part Of: Oceania. Volume 88:Issue 1(2018:Mar.)
• Page Start: 69
• Page End: 89
• Publication Date: 2018-02-05
• Subjects: place -- place‐making -- community -- livelihoods -- ambivalent heritage -- indigenous peoples -- colonialism -- tapu -- phenomenology -- French Polynesia -- Marquesas; Ethnology -- Periodicals; Ethnology -- Oceania -- Periodicals; Oceania -- Civilization -- Periodicals; 919
• DOI: 10.1002/ocea.5182
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0029-8077

Abstract

Abstract : Increasingly marked by ethnic resettlement, large‐scale development and the destruction of cultural places, today's world challenges the essential bond between indigenous peoples and the land. Popular ideas about the supportive role of long‐term, phenomenological links to place and heritage appear to be losing their relevance. Yet, a closer look at the complexity of human connections to place reveals how painful memories and discomfort can also generate strong bonds that affirm community and cultural cohesiveness. Place‐making in indigenous heritage landscapes marked by colonialism is often ambivalent, evoking Ruth Benedict's observation that the sacred 'may be a source of peril or it may be a source of blessing' (1934:28). Though the actual meaning of places may be fraught, a shared approach to such heritage can bind communities together, overcoming historic silences and a violent past. With specific reference to ethnographic research in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia, I illustrate the contingency of indigenous processes of place‐making that are based in personal belief, discomfort and colonialism as much as affirmative interaction with the physical world.