Decolonisation and the Pacific
Indigenous Globalisation and the Ends of Empire

This book charts the previously untold story of the mobility of Indigenous peoples across vast distances, vividly reshaping what is known about decolonisation.

Tracey Banivanua Mar (Author)

9781108705783, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 February 2019

277 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.4 cm, 0.4 kg

'The book is beautifully written. Chapter titles include words like currents and churn, saltwater and flight and reflect the oceanic geography essential to the book. Story is artfully deployed, creating interest as new chapters begin, yet skilfully opening lines of analysis.' Steve Taylor, Mission Studies

This book charts the previously untold story of decolonisation in the oceanic world of the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, presenting it both as an indigenous and an international phenomenon. Tracey Banivanua Mar reveals how the inherent limits of decolonisation were laid bare by the historical peculiarities of colonialism in the region, and demonstrates the way imperial powers conceived of decolonisation as a new form of imperialism. She shows how Indigenous peoples responded to these limits by developing rich intellectual, political and cultural networks transcending colonial and national borders, with localised traditions of protest and dialogue connected to the global ferment of the twentieth century. The individual stories told here shed new light on the forces that shaped twentieth-century global history, and reconfigure the history of decolonisation, presenting it not as an historic event, but as a fragile, contingent and ongoing process continuing well into the postcolonial era.

Introduction: sailing the winds of change: decolonisation and the Pacific
1. Borders: the colonisation of mobile worlds
2. Currents: the well springs of decolonisation
3. Churn: restlessness and world government between the wars
4. Saltwater: the separation of people and territory
5. Flight: territorial integrity and dependent decolonisation
6. Black: internalising decolonisation and networks of solidarity
Conclusion: procedural decolonisation and indigenous philosophies of un-colonising
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Indigenous peoples [JFSL9], Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Australasian & Pacific history [HBJM]