Five Paths for a History of the Pacific Islands

This essay deals with some aspects of the history of anthropology in the Pacific Islands. It analyses in particular four points. The first one is the early presence in Oceania of ‘native’ anthropologists, such as Sir Peter Buck and Sir Apirana Ngata. The second one is the idea, originally proposed by Epeli Hau'ofa, that social sciences can only be decolonised through the adoption of a narrative communicative style (novellas, novels, theatre). The third one outlines that the word ‘anthropology’ has often been charged with a colonial meaning in the Pacific: many researchers in Oceania prefer to call themselves ‘sociologists’ or frame their work in Pacific or Native Studies, although they work on bibliographies and genealogies of authors well rooted in the Anglophone or Francophone anthropological tradition. Finally, the relationship between insiders and outsiders in the contemporary context is analysed. With the Malinowskian figure of the solitary outsider researcher mostly gone, today's research’s style lies on a continuum of forms, from the politically engaged native anthropologist intolerant of the presence of outsiders, to shared and collaborative fieldwork.