"Since independence in January 1962, several constitutional court cases have exposed the dilemma which the Western Samoa Government is facing balancing fa'a Samoa (Samoan customs and traditions) with Western legal systems of authority. This book traces the clash between Samoan and Western notions of government and law from the 1830s to the 1980s emphasizing the hitherto neglected interpretation of events from a Samoan perspective. As a critical reinterpretation of the literature on Western Samoa, drawing on oral sources and material from the archives of the Land and Titles Court of Western Samoa, the book provides important new insights into pre-colonial regimes, racial issues and the contemporary political problems of the independent state of Western Samoa."--Back cover.

This book considers how Samoans embraced and reshaped the English game of cricket, recasting it as a distinctively Samoan pastime, kirikiti. Starting with cricket’s introduction to the islands in 1879, it uses both cricket and kirikiti to trace six decades of contest between and within the categories of ‘colonisers’ and ‘colonised.’ How and why did Samoans adapt and appropriate the imperial game? How did officials, missionaries, colonists, soldiers and those with mixed foreign and Samoan heritage understand and respond to the real and symbolic challenges kirikiti presented? And how did Samoans use both games to navigate foreign colonialism(s)? By investigating these questions, Benjamin Sacks suggests alternative frameworks for conceptualising sporting transfer and adoption, and advances understandings of how power, politics and identity were manifested through sport, in Samoa and across the globe.

"Samoan Art and Artists is a wide-ranging survey of both the traditional and contemporary arts of Samoa. The author has drawn on an extensive research base to present a contemporary and accessible picture of a vibrant culture. The book has a broad sweep, covering all facets of the Samoan arts, including canoe and house building, siapo (tapa) weaving, tattooing, oratory, adornment, all forms of performance art, the visual arts, and literature. An important feature of the book is the inclusion of profiles of living practitioners, both from Samoa and the large Samoan communities in other Pacific countries."--Publisher description.

Pacific Islander Americans constitute one of the United States' least understood ethnic groups. As expected, stereotypes abound: Samoans are good at football; Hawaiians make the best surfers; all Tahitians dance. Although Pacific history, society, and culture have been the subjects of much scholarly research and writing, the lives of Pacific Islanders in the diaspora (particularly in the U.S.) have received far less attention. The contributors to this volume of articles and essays compiled by the Pacific Islander Americans Research Project hope to rectify this oversight. Pacific Diaspora brings together the individual and community histories of Pacific Island peoples in the U.S. It is designed for use in Pacific and ethnic studies courses, but it will also find an audience among those with a general interest in Pacific Islander Americans. Contributors: Keoni Kealoha Agard, Melani Anae, Kekuni Blaisdell, John Connell, Wendy Cowling, Vincente M. Diaz, Michael Kioni Dudley, Dianna Fitisemanu, Inoke Funaki, Lupe Funaki, Karina Kahananui Green, David Hall, Jay Hartwell, Craig R. Janes, George H. S. Kanahele, Davianna Pomoaikai McGregor, Brucetta McKenzie, Helen Morton, Dorri Nautu, Tupou Hopoate Pauu, A. Ravuvu, Carol E. Robertson, Joanne Rondilla, E. Victoria Shook, Paul Spickard, Haunani-Kay Trask, Debbie Hippolite Wright.

Much literature on non-Western traditions celebrates the renaissance of indigenous cultures. Others have been more critical of this renaissance, especially with respect to its political implications. This study analyses the assertion of 'tradition' by indigenous elites, looking especially at the way it is used to differentiate 'the West' from the 'non-West'. This is important to contemporary discussion about the validity of democracy outside the West and problems concerning universalism and relativism. The discussion of Fiji focuses on constitutional development and the traditionalist emphasis on chiefly legitimacy. The rise of the Pro-Democracy Movement in Tonga is considered against the background of a conservative political order that has so far resisted pressure for reform. The move to universal suffrage in Western Samoa is seen not as a rejection of traditional ways in favour of democratic norms, but as a means of preserving important aspects of traditional culture.

The contrast between the temperate and the tropical is one of the most enduring themes in the history of the Western geographical imagination. Caught between the demands of experience and representation, documentation and fantasy, travelers in the tropics have often treated tropical nature as a foil to the temperate, to all that is civilized, modest, and enlightened. Tropical Visions in an Age of Empire explores images of the tropical world—maps, paintings, botanical drawings, photographs, diagrams, and texts—produced by European and American travelers over the past three centuries. Bringing together a group of distinguished contributors from disciplines across the arts and humanities, this volume contains eleven beautifully illustrated essays—arranged in three sections devoted to voyages, mappings, and sites—that consider the ways that tropical places were encountered, experienced, and represented in visual form. Covering a wide range of tropical sites in the Pacific, South Asia, West Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, the book will appeal to a broad readership: scholars of postcolonial studies, art history, literature, imperial history, history of science, geography, and anthropology.

This book is a researched study of land issues in American Sāmoa that analyzes the impact of U.S. colonialism and empire building in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Carefully tracing changes in land laws up to the present, this volume also draws on a careful examination of legal traditions, administrative decisions, court cases and rising tensions between indigenous customary land tenure practices in American Sāmoa and Western notions of individual private ownership. It also highlights how unusual the status of American Sāmoa is in its relationship with the U.S., namely as the only “unincorporated” and “unorganized” overseas territory, and aims to expand the U.S. empire-building scholarship to include and recognize American Sāmoa into the vernacular of Americanization projects.

This book charts the previously untold story of the mobility of Indigenous peoples across vast distances, vividly reshaping what is known about decolonisation.

An important new analysis of Native Hawaiian efforts to construct relationships with other Oceanic peoples as missionaries, diplomats, and tourists.

Subject: Samoa became an independent state on 1 January 1962. In moving toward independence, Samoans made it clear that they wanted a political structure that reflected custom and tradition as well as democracy. The post-independence period demonstrated the practical difficulty of reconciling the two. The author examined the co-existence of the two systems of governance. He concludes that, while there has been signficant progress towards democracy (with positive and negative impacts for indigenous institutions, values and practices), it has been restricted by the persistence of customary ideals. The mixing of tradition and democracy is seen as a phase in the process of continuous social and political change, in which practices and values that no longer fit current circumstances are discarded for more relevant and appropriate ones