Diaspora, Identity and Incorporation

This was the fourth year that this session met. We anticipated 15 participants (including the session organizers) presenting 11 papers and one discussant. In the first half of the morning part of the session, we had only the Discussant Mike Rynkiewich who led the meeting and four participants (Wolfgang Kempf, Susanne Kuehling, Manuel Rauchholz and Micah Van der Ryn). At break, we added two more (Ping-Ann Addo and Mike Lieber), and in the afternoon we added one more (Laurence Carucci). So, in the end we had the Discussant leading the session, and 7 out of the 15 anticipated participants (missing were Alan Howard, Jan Rensel, Dionne Fonoti, Suzanne Falgout, Wilys Peter, Rosita Peter and Mike Borong, and finally, Sela Panapasa who did not submit a paper).

At this stage, each paper had been reviewed by two readers who provided a critique with the goal of improving the paper. After receiving these critiques, the participants moved on to identify themes again to see what might have changed at this penultimate step in completing the papers. The papers reveal some issues that arise in diaspora, between the diaspora community and the homeland, and between the diaspora community and the larger community where they have settled. The most common concern of the writers was with the many levels of identity that must be negotiated by those in diaspora. What are the sources of identity? Consciously or unconsciously how are traditions, practices and objects reshaped in the new setting? How does identity shift as the “other” shifts? Specifically, the second theme focuses on the way that traditions, practices and objects might be recombined as the culture changes and adapts to the requirements of life in a new setting. The third theme is about the way that family/famili is redefined and thus reshapes relationality in diaspora, as revealed in the domains of exchange, land rights, church and relationships with other kinds of kin and descent groups. The fourth theme is the issue of power, used in a relative sense to expose differential relations between diaspora communities and other levels of governance. Finally, we ended with a caution to be careful about buying into the theories of center/periphery or homeland/diaspora as these concepts seemed to be blurred and sometimes more problematic than helpful. Diaspora itself seems to shift shapes over time. And, that alone is good reason for our last decision, which was to complete our final drafts by August 1st and to move on to publication as a book. --- Submitted by session discussant, Michael A. Rynkiewich

Alan Howard, 2499 Kapiolani Blvd. #1609, Honolulu, HI 96826-5311; <ahoward@hawaii.edu>

Jan Rensel, University of Hawai`i, Center for Pacific Islands Studies, 1890 East-West Road, Moore 210, Honolulu, HI 96822; <rensel@hawaii.edu>

Michael Lieber, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, 1007 Harrison, Chicago, IL 60607-7139 USA; tel (312) 413-3577; <mdlieber@uic.edu>