Honorary Fellows: Eugene Ogan

I nominate Eugene Ogan, a.k.a. “Ogie,” to become an ASAO Honorary Fellow. In addition to Ogie’s many contributions to the works and thoughts of others, he has produced important publications in his own right. When I think about his work, four publications come immediately to mind: (1) his widely cited article in the American Anthropologist (1966) “Drinking Behavior and Race Relations,” which was a pioneering piece in the anthropology of alcohol (in and out of Oceania) and had considerable influence on my own alcohol research in the Pacific; (2) his 1972 book (published as New Guinea Research Bulletin No. 44), entitled Business and Cargo: Socio-economic Change among the Nasioi of Bougainville;(3) his succinct statement about the Bougainville crisis published by RSPAS at ANU in 1999 (The Bougainville Conflict: Perspectives from Nasioi, Technical Report Discussion Paper 99/3); and (4) his 1974 piece, “Cargoism and Politics in Bougainville,” in the Journal of Pacific History, which I taught in my Oceania course for a number of years. Along with his many other journal articles and book chapters, Ogie also has been an inveterate reviewer; indeed, I am amazed at the number of works he has reviewed in journals concerned with the Pacific as well as the wider discipline.

Gene has been a fixture in ASAO from its inception, and he is one our most loyal members. Among his many contributions to the association, he has served as Chair of the ASAO Executive Board and acted as ASAO Archivist until early in 2006. Gene is generous to a fault in offering sage advice, and this occurs often in the context of ASAO session discussions or over a drink on the terrace at an ASAO annual meeting. Not only has he directly mentored a number of Pacific scholars during their graduate school training at the University of Minnesota, where he taught for many years, but he has informally mentored a great many others of us via lively intellectual engagement. Indeed, the warmth many of us feel for Gene was openly expressed in a Special Session held in his honor at ASAO a few years ago, organized by his former student, Eric Silverman.

EUGENE OGAN