Time geography paradigm to represent and to analyze gender mobility differences in Chuuk, Micronesia

Space in Chuuk is differently experienced by women and men. Gender appears as an unavoidable criterion for defining tbe restrictions and the zoning of the space in Chuuk. This 'genderization' of the space is mostly issued from the sex segregation and the strong restrictions that shape the sister-brother relationship characteristic of Micronesian societies. Our intention is to have a better understanding of the relation between the genders and the spaces to which they are allowed or forbidden. The first step is to map the accessibility and mobility that men and women enjoy or lack. For this, we consider that the combination of time geography and anthropology is the most suitable method to visualize the management of this gendered space

High and Mighty: Implicit Associations between Space and Social Status

Figurative language and our perceptuo-motor experiences frequently associate social status with physical space. In three experiments we examine the source and extent of these associations by testing whether people implicitly associate abstract social status indicators with concrete representations of spatial topography (level versus mountainous land) and relatively abstract representations of cardinal direction (south and north). Experiment 1 demonstrates speeded performance during an implicit association test (Greenwald et al., 1998) when average social status is paired with level topography and high status with mountainous topography. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrate a similar effect but with relatively abstract representations of cardinal direction (south and north), with speeded performance when average and powerful social status are paired with south and north coordinate space, respectively. Abstract concepts of social status are perceived and understood in an inherently spatial world, resulting in powerful associations between abstract social concepts and concrete and abstract notions of physical axes. These associations may prove influential in guiding daily judgments and actions

Eating empire, going local: Food, health, and sovereignty on Pohnpei, 1899-1986

Eating Empire, Going Local centers the island of Pohnpei, Micronesia in a global story of colonial encounter and dietary change. It follows Pohnpeians and Pohnpei’s outer Islanders in their encounters with Spain, Germany, Japan, and the United States, negotiating, adapting to, and resisting empire through food and food production. In the process, Pohnpei extended food’s traditional role as locus of political influence and used it to navigate deceptively transformative interventions in ecology, consumption, the market, and the body. Food became Pohnpei’s middle ground, one that ultimately fostered a sharp rise in rates of non-communicable diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension. The chapters draw on global commodity histories that converge on the island, of coconuts, rice, imported foods, and breadfruit. These foods illuminate the local and global forces that have delivered public health impacts and new political entanglements to the island. Eating Empire uses food and the analytic lenses it enables – from ecology and race to domesticity and sovereignty – as a tool to reimagine Pohnpei’s historical inter-imperial and contemporary political relationships from the bottom up.Ope

Being in front is good—but where is in front? Preferences for spatial referencing affect evaluation

Speakers of English frequently associate location in space with valence, as in moving up and down the “social ladder.” If such an association also holds for the sagittal axis, an object “in front of” another object would be evaluated more positively than the one “behind.” Yet how people conceptualize relative locations depends on which frame of reference (FoR) they adopt—and hence on cross‐linguistically diverging preferences. What is conceptualized as “in front” in one variant of the relative FoR (e.g., translation) is “behind” under another variant (reflection), and vice versa. Do such diverging conceptualizations of an object's location also lead to diverging evaluations? In two studies employing an implicit association test, we demonstrate, first, that speakers of German, Chinese, and Japanese indeed evaluate the object “in front of” another object more positively than the one “behind.” Second, and crucially, the reversal of which object is conceptualized as “in front” involves a corresponding reversal of valence, suggesting an impact of linguistically imparted FoR preferences on evaluative processes.publishedVersio

A PACIFIC ISLAND DIASPORA: A CASE STUDY OF CHUUKESE WOMEN MIGRATION AND ADAPTATION STRATEGIES IN URBAN HONOLULU

Ph.D

“Tobi (or Not) Tobi” Climate change, cultural heritage and community agency: an ethnographic case-study of Tobi Island in the Republic of Palau

This thesis is based on a long-term relationship with the Hatohobei community in the Republic of Palau and involved 12-months of ethnographic fieldwork in 2012 and 2013. The thesis privileges indigenous Pacific values, principles and approaches while highlighting historical and contemporary interpretive frameworks that inform a deeper understanding of how this relocated community continues to nurture and maintain an empowering connection to the remote island of Hatohobei through its natural resource management and a collective imaginary