Gegeo, David Welchman

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    Dialogue  _____________________________________________________________________________           Our Own Liberation: Reflections on Hawaiian Epistemology   MANULANI ALULI MEYER   The Ocean Imaginary  SUBRAMANI   Responses   VILSONI HERENIKO, CAROLINE SINAVAIANA-GABBARD, AND  DAVID WELCHMAN GEGEO   An Interview with Subramani   VILSONI HERENIKO    The Contemporary Pacific, Volume 13, Number 1, Spring 2001, 123–198  © 2001 by University of Hawai‘i Press 178It is a privilege to comment on “The Oceanic Imaginary” by Subramani,a very distinguished Pacific Island writer whose work I have long a d m i re d .His Dialogue article is especially welcome because it raises issues that lieat the core of my own re s e a rch and that point the direction for PacificIsland writers and scholars who want to (re ) c reate Native Pacific Islanderways of understanding and writing about Pacific issues. We Pacific Island-ers have been trying to move in this direction for a long time, and it seemsthat we finally have enough of a critical mass to accomplish our objective.Among the many important points Subramani raises, I will confine mycomments to the issues of decolonizing pedagogies and constructingindigenous,1 native, or local epistemologies.With regard to decolonizing pedagogies and discourses, it seems to mewe take for granted several issues for which we must find solutions. First,as Subramani has pointed out, is the tension between the need to use Eng-lish in order to get published and read by an international audience, andthe desire to write in our own, various local and native language varieties.Subramani himself related his experience with trying to publish in FijiHindi. Yet writing in English undermines our ability to represent ournative, indigenous, or developing meanings and epistemologies (as hasbeen well demonstrated in the applied linguistics research literatures onlanguage and authenticity and language policy). This problem leads out-siders to believe that we Pacific Islanders are not capable of thinking crit-ically and deeply about issues, have nothing original to contribute fromthe basis of our native knowledge of our own culture(s), or that we havenothing new to say—that re s e a rchers and other scholars from the metro p-olis have exhausted all the possibilities. Yet we know when we read workby these researchers and scholars on the Pacific just how very much ismissing.(Re)visioning Knowledge Tr a n s f o rm a t i o nin the Pa c i f ic: A Response to Subramani’s“The Oceanic Imaginary ”David Welchman Gegeodialogue • g e g e o 179Second, Subramani emphasized the need to move away from the visionof Oceania projected by Anglo-European scholars and writers. Surely thismovement away must include a dehierarchizing of what seems to be anincreasing tendency to celebrate a few Pacific Islander writers and tobypass others. Over the years I have often come across excellent work byIslander writers who have been essentially ignored by the Pacific Islandercommunity. The writers who seem to be most recognized in the hierarchyare, ironically, those who sell the best in Anglo-European markets. Theyalso seem to be those who have mastered the discourses of Anglo-Euro-pean writing and scholarship. It is rather hypocritical of us to argue for aPacific Islander voice while we uncritically employ the standards and eval-uations of Anglo-Europeans.Third, we need once and for all to eliminate the Anglo-European cate-gories that still tend to imprison us in outdated, meaningless term i n o l o g i e sthat divide us rather than unite us, as well as determine our discursivepractices. H e re I am thinking especially of category labels such as Mela-nesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, Indo-Fijian, Chinese–New Guinean, and thel i k e. These category labels come with a host of assumptions that are deeplyembedded in colonization. We need to develop a new vocabulary that ismore equalizing and respectful of cultural diversity and gender. Certainlyit is easy to get rid of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, and refer topeople by their islands, that is, by place and space. In fact, we PacificIslanders never use such labels when we meet each other. Maori will saythey are from Aotearoa, someone from the Cook Islands will say “I amfrom Rarotonga,” or another island of the group. We never say, “I’m aPolynesian” or “I’m a Micronesian” or “I’m a Melanesian.” The peoplewho most need to be educated on this point are researchers from the met-ropolitan countries, especially anthropologists, because Anglo-E u ro p e a na n t h ropological scholarship on the Pacific is deeply divided into “Melane-sianists,” “Polynesianists,” and “Micronesianists.”I n a similar vein, we n e ed to w o rk for more i n t e rchange among our insti-tutions of higher education in the Pacific Islands. We seem to hear moreabout the University of the South Pacific than we do about the Universityof Papua New Guinea or the University of Guam, the various colleges inSmoa, Tonga, and elsewhere. Yet some of the upcoming writers andscholars are located in these seemingly less-celebrated institutions.Subramani has also correctly alluded to the need to change the educa-tional systems in the Pacific Islands. There is a growing research literatureon schooling in the islands, much of it produced by native or indigenous180 the con t e mpor a ry pacific • spring 2001scholars. An essential issue is the medium of instruction, which continuesto be English almost everywhere in the Pacific Islands beyond first or sec-ond grade. The issues of language of instruction, curriculum design, ped-agogical strategies, and so on are still inextricably tied to the colonial tra-dition, the new form of which is the global capitalist system to whichSubramani pointed. The issue of language of instruction is also tied to thecomplex local language situations in many Pacific Island nations (eg, theSolomons, where there are at least seventy indigenous languages, a linguafranca, and several immigrant languages, in a population of about400,000). What can we do about such complexities? We need to be work-ing on this issue seriously, as Subramani has argued.An educational issue we most need to deal with, according to Subra-mani, is the classroom as one of the most undemocratic spaces in thel e a rning process in the Pacific Islands. Of course this issue is not unique tothe Pacific, but has been written about extensively in re g a rd to classro o m sworldwide (and has generated a large educational research literature). Animportant approach for us is to draw from our native or indigenous cul-t u res ways of reconfiguring classroom organization and pedagogical prac-tices. Most important, teachers must be transformed. Doing so is not easy,because Pacific Islander teachers themselves have been educated and thentrained in Anglo-European classroom practices, and often resist change.They often want to preserve the very power structure that must be dehier-archized. One strategy to assist change is holding classes in venues otherthan the traditional classroom. Another is to use modes of instructionderived from traditional strategies for teaching (eg, see Watson-Gegeo andGegeo 1992, 1994).With regard to epistemologies, we need to investigate and understandthe epistemologies already in use among Pacific populations, as well asthink about constructing new Pacific epistemology(ies).When we think of existing epistemologies, it is useful to make a dis-tinction between native or indigenous epistemologies and local epistemol-ogies. By native or indigenous epistemologies, I mean ways of theorizingand constructing knowledge that are part of native or indigenous culturesin the Pacific (see Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo, and Meyer, this issue). Suchcultural ways of theorizing knowledge date back to precolonial times andcontinue today, whatever changes they may have undergone in the inter-vening period. By local epistemologies, I mean ways of theorizing andconstructing knowledge that reflect the hybridity of cultures and ethnici-ties living together in local spaces in the Pacific Islands. An example fromdialogue • g e g e o 181the Solomons is the ways of knowing and theorizing knowledge that areemerging in the urban context of Solomon Islands Pijin–speaking hybridpopulations; contributions come not only from various Solomons indige-nous cultures, but also from the immigrant populations of Chinese, I-Kiri-bati, Anglo-Europeans, and others.Today there is a groundswell of work by scholars and writers in thethird world on native or indigenous epistemologies and knowledge sys-tems. By doing this work, we in the third world are demonstrating thatwe are on the threshold of decolonization at the level of dehegemoniza-tion. To achieve dehegemonization, we must question our own knowl-edge, to understand its sources and its impacts on our everyday life. Weneed to understand through critical eyes the ontology that this knowledgehas defined and continues to define for us. Attendant on colonization isan ontology that defines Pacific Islanders as incompetent when measuredagainst Anglo-European values and expectations. Such assumed qualitiesof incompetence have come to be seen as something within us—s o m e t h i n gwe accept, believe, and take as a given—such that we are dependent onA n g l o - E u ropean ontology and epistemology to function in contemporaryPacific societies and the larger world community. We “otherize” ourselveson the basis of this ontology. Native or indigenous and local epistemolo-gies are viable avenues through which we can interrogate this artificialontology with the aim of building ontologies that are more genuinely “us.”How do we interrogate this ontology? Through epistemological ques-tioning. We ask, What can we know? How do we know what we doknow? Which beliefs can be justified and which cannot? What are wegoing to take as “justification”? What is the difference between “know-ing” and “true beliefs”? What kinds of information constitute knowledge,and what kinds constitute mere opinion? What is the relationship betweenseeing and knowing? These questions are universal epistemological ques-tions, of course. The important point for us Pacific Islanders is that whenwe ask these questions, we do so from the context and standpoint of ourindigenous or native and local e p i s t e m o l o g i e s. M o re c r i t i c a l l y, we ask thesequestions in the interest of epistemic transformation, which facilitatesdehegemonization in the Pacific.To examine our indigenous or native and local epistemologies them-selves as epistemologies, we need to ask, What constitutes the process ofknowing in this epistemology? Who can be the knower? What can beknown? What is knowledge? What are the epistemological strategies foracquiring knowledge? What strategies of argumentation, inferencing, and182 the con t e mpor a ry pacific • spring 2001justification are employed in this epistemology? What are the discoursep r a c t i c es i n v o l v e d? H ow do diff e re n t w a ys of ( re) c re a t i n ga nd ( re ) c o n s t ru c-ting knowledge within an epistemology and among varying epistemolo-gies help us move toward the new ontology(ies) we want to imagine inthe Pacific?In addition to work on ontology and epistemology, we need to writeabout our indigenous or native philosophies. Toward this effort we mustbegin by deconstructing prior work on our Pacific cultures, which for themost part has lumped our native philosophies under the rubrics of “reli-g i o n,” “magic,” “sorc e ry,” “ancestor worship,” and other sweeping labels.We need to do this, first, to set the record straight that Pacific Island cul-t u res, like other human societies, engage in philosophy. S e c o n d, our indige-nous or native philosophies are indispensable to our indigenous or nativeand local epistemologies and ontologies.All this will no doubt read as being anti Anglo-European scholarship.Some will feel that we Pacific Islanders are simply trying to find excusesto slam the door shut in the face of researchers from the metropolis. Butit’s not about them. It’s about us. It’s about us Pacific Islanders ourselvesand who we want to become. It’s about our ontology, and what we wantto create for our future generations. What good is political independenceif we remain colonized epistemologically? if we remain unable to thinkoutside Anglo-European frameworks? So much about our Pacific cultureshas been (re)presented to us by researchers and scholars from outside ourregion that we sometimes doubt our own cultural knowledge. We havebeen charged with having only our lived experience to hold up against theprivileged simulations from these outside scholars. That is why it is indis-pensable that we Pacific Islanders ourselves do this epistemological work.Subramani has urged us to work together to create a Pacific voice. Inmy interpretation of his meaning, ontology would be that unified voice.However, a Pacific voice raises new questions. Are we going to develop asingle Pacific voice? Or an umbrella sort of voice that embraces a multi-plicity of Pacific voices? Surely it must be the second. To opt for a singlevoice simply replaces one hegemony with another and repeats our colonialexperience. On the other hand, we all sense that there are unifying con-nections among us. This sense was reflected in the blossoming of publi-cations on “the Pacific Way” in the 1970s. That work, however, turnedout to be overly generalized and less helpful than we had hoped. The newwork beginning now on indigenous or native and local epistemologiesholds the promise of moving us closer to identifying converging perspec-dialogue • g e g e o 183tives and understandings that transcend sociocultural and sociolinguisticboundaries in our islands, and that are meaningful to us as Pacific Island-ers. The new work has the power to do this because it springs from within—within ourselves, both individually and collectively.Note1 Indigenous now has two meanings among Pacific Island scholars andactivists. First, it refers to fourth-world people such as Mori, Hawaiians, andA b o r i g i n es—people who were colonized and are still colonized in their own soci-ety; this is a political definition. Second, someone who is not of mixed blood.Native now means people who are of mixed ancestry living in the place of one orother parent. For example, persons of part-Hawaiian ancestry who were born andlive in California can call themselves “native Hawaiian” but not “indigenous.”ReferencesWatson-Gegeo, Karen Ann, and David Welchman Gegeo1992 Schooling, Knowledge, and Power: Social Transformation in the Solo-mon Islands. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 21 (1): 10–29.1994 Keeping Culture Out of the Classroom in Rural Solomon IslandsSchools: A Critical Analysis. Educational Foundations 8 (2): 27–55.

(Re)visioning Knowledge Transformation in the Pacific: A Response to Subramani's "The Oceanic Imaginary"

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(Re)visioning Knowledge Transformation in the Pacific: A Response to Subramani's "The Oceanic Imaginary"

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