Australian Journal of Anthropology最新文献

This article examines how the use of mobile phones and associated software creates and sustains regionally diverse urban communities. There is an interdependent connection between music that is highly participatory and locally relevant, and processes involved in sustaining key social relationships across a variety of groupings. Increasingly ubiquitous technologies such as mobile phones are used for musical purposes in ways that specifically put certain processes to work to sustain these social phenomena. This connects people with transnational software-based commerce through social media, local telecommunications companies and phone manufacturers. That results in the navigation of ecologies and economies of data, hardware and software that work in local urban circumstances. In the case of data, we demonstrate how modes of exchange and reciprocity tied to social relationships exhibit similarities with informal economies of tobacco and betelnut. With social groups, the church-based community perspective provides urban examples of communities that cross regions, and extended family networks. This ethnographic perspective shows how increasingly global technologies are used in urbanite Melanesia in ways that sustain longstanding values and practices, while also incorporating identities and associations around changing urban, national and international circumstances.

Vanuatu sand drawing has been listed by UNESCO since 2006 and has both fascinated and puzzled researchers from various disciplines for over a century. The inherent multi-dimensionality of the practice makes analysis complex, and until very recently developing a systematic methodology to study this intangible art form was difficult. This paper aims to contribute to filling this gap with the analysis of a corpus of sand drawings documented on the island of Paama in 2019. A detailed methodological toolkit is proposed to better understand the complex morphology of the drawings and their multi-layered meaning and function. This paper offers the first few steps along a journey toward designing integrated comparative methods of analysis that can not only potentiate unprecedented insights into the cultural practice of Vanuatu sand drawing, but also more broadly help us understand how worldviews, beliefs and societal structures spread across time and space.

This article shows that although Pacific arts began to be largely recognised in Australia in the 1990s, Pacific artists based in Australia remained mostly invisible in the contemporary art scene until the mid-2000s. I aim to demonstrate how Pacific artists and curators—who in some cases collaborated with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and curators—have made visible myriad Pacific identities and social trajectories in Australian cities. Exhibitions reveal and highlight multiple experiences of Pacific people residing in Australia, for whom Pacific cultures are partly mediated by the experiences of their relatives, popularised by museum collections and coloured by the gaze of non-Pacific people. This article is built around two cultural events that have not previously received scholarly attention, a group show curated in Sydney by Māori artist and cultural worker Keren Ruki and a triennial in Brisbane imagined and organised by Bundjalung Yugambeh (Aboriginal Australian) artist and curator Jenny Fraser. It addresses how narratives in the 2000s were often connected to objectives of empowerment and the necessity to build a future for Pacific peoples in Australian society.

Mobile phone usage has increased at an unprecedented rate across the Pacific over the past 10–15 years, radically transforming the way communication takes place. The catalyst for this transformation is generally attributed to the breakdown of monopolies previously held by national telecom corporations over their own domestic markets, and the entrance of one particular new provider, Digicel. This paper examines the strategies through which Digicel has managed to insert itself into the visual landscape of the urban spaces of Vanuatu, Samoa and Tonga. Through multimodal analysis of digital photographs from the landscapes of these countries' capital cities, the paper shows how the global company makes use of a range of techniques to establish its own place and identity as a local network. These techniques include the demonstration of largesse and dominance over competitors, slogans that stake a claim to belonging, and the use of local language terms and images that juxtapose the local with the global. Through these techniques, Digicel manages to position itself simultaneously as the provider both of fast and reliable global communication technologies and of a truly local, national service, while also radically transforming the physical spaces of our cities as it has made itself at home here.

Since independence, Solomon Islands schools have aimed to establish a national identity and unity among Solomon Islanders; however, ethnic ties to ‘home’ remain strong. This is particularly evident in Honiara, the densely populated and multi-ethnic capital of Solomon Islands, when urban youth who have grown up in Honiara claim their home is in a province. This paper argues that the ‘unity in diversity’ narrative taught in schools emphasises the importance of an ethnic identity tied to one's province. As a result, students must find ways to build connections to home, even if they have spent little time there, creating a nostalgia for home. Two ways this occurs is through the dances they perform and the kastom jewellery they wear. I argue that the emphasis of their unique ethnic identities is necessary for youth to stake a claim in the multi-ethnic urban landscape and within the panethnic identity of Solomon Islander.

In this paper, I explore approaches in establishing cross-cultural relations between indigenous people and internal migrants in the district of West Seram (Maluku, Indonesia). According to current data, the number of people from other islands exceeds the local population but the district government neglects the ethnic issues. Emerging inequalities are becoming a challenge for internal migrants, especially in the areas of leadership and land tenure. I argue that the sense of exclusion among ‘outsiders’ impacts on growing social tensions and creates immobility within the social structures, giving less room for negotiations and dialogue.

In Vanuatu, the popularity of reggae music has been on the rise since the late 1980s. Today, reggae music and reggae culture is ubiquitous. For many young people in Port Vila, Vanuatu's capital city, it is a fundamental component of their sense of belonging to the city. Their attraction to reggae derives from its messages of camaraderie, equality and justice. This paper argues that for many urban youth, playing, consuming and sharing reggae music and culture instrumentalises their urban place-making activities and helps reterritorialise themselves in urban spaces. Drawing on ethnographic research, we demonstrate the extent to which its lyrics and messages resonate with youth who feel they are unable to express their social, economic and political discontent through other mediums. Furthermore, we show how for many youth, reggae conveys a sense of hopefulness that emboldens them to build a new life or ‘father land’ for themselves and their children.

It is estimated that by 2050, 50% of Pacific peoples will be living out their full lives in cities and towns throughout Oceania and around the world. Over the last 35 years, previous patterns of circular migration have been giving way to permanent urban settlers and to generations born and raised in urban places. These ‘urbanites’ demonstrate a firm commitment to urban living in both the present and the future. In the cities, Pacific people have been building roots and making the city ‘home’. This special issue focuses on some of the diverse practices Pacific urbanites employ in creating ‘home’, which we define as the context where they centre their social, cultural and economic worlds and the place in which they see themselves living out their aspirations and future life course. Practices range from the use of graffiti, sharing music, playing reggae, the role of artists and exhibitions, and mobile phone use. In doing so, this special issue contributes to a growing body of work focused on the ways urban-based Pacific peoples contest essentialising stereotypes that deny their legitimacy and dismiss their urban experiences as less authentic. The collection of papers demonstrates how Pacific peoples are imagining and demonstrating their identities as Pacific urbanites reflecting their commitment to an urban Pacific, national, cultural and political belonging.

Indigenous youth living in Alice Springs are subject to routine forms of surveillance, facilitated by a range of stakeholders, including police, security guards, government agents, business owners and members of their own communities. ‘The problem’ of youth is the subject of much attention in media and community forums as well as Northern Territory specific legislation, resulting in increased levels of policing in town. Drawing on recently collected fieldwork data, this paper explores some of the nuances in the relationships through which these processes of surveillance are enacted. Encounters observed and described by young people themselves are often at once both intimate and oppressive. This paper will first explore recent policy approaches and then focus on some examples of youth experiences with policing to outline some of the ways in which young people navigate and resist surveillance in Alice Springs. Understanding youth experiences of surveillance and policing enables a distinctive perspective on a shifting social world, and offers insight into contemporary forms of disadvantage faced by Indigenous youth.