One Salt Water: The Storied Work of Trans-Indigenous Decolonial Imagining with West Papua

Abstract

Abstract:Scholars have examined West Papuan efforts to gain merdeka, or freedom, from Indonesia through the lenses of political science, history, legal and human rights studies, and anthropology, which has led to many productive analyses of the independence movement. However, while gesturing to the storied manner in which the movement plays out, driven by narrative and symbol both within and outside of West Papua, these frameworks do not go far enough to unpack the implications of the creative literary expressions that shape the movement and drive support for it beyond Indonesia's borders. Activism constructs and depends on narratives—on stories. In this article, I analyze the poems from a special issue of Hawai'i Review titled Wansolwara: Voices for West Papua alongside two Wansolwara Dance short stories to bring a literary lens to storied expressions of Indigenous solidarity with West Papua. I argue that the Tok Pisin term "wansolwara," or "one salt water," offers new vocabulary for understanding Indigenous networks and relations in Oceania expressed through forms of protest. The poems in the special issue use wansolwara as a framework for imagining a resurgent Indigenous-centered model of activism for and with West Papua that envisions the capacious possibilities of stories in their myriad forms for the critical remapping work required to restore Papua's relationships with Oceania. Consequently, they illuminate how Indigenous decolonial imagining with West Papua dilates decolonial possibilities across the Pacific.