The geo‐classifications of colonial statelessness: The anthropology of Kastom,land and citizenship in the decolonisation of Vanuatu

Anthropological accounts of Vanuatu's independence have emphasised both the materiality of land alienation and the importance of kastom (custom) as a symbol of cultural practice, political resistance and national unity in accounts of decolonisation and postcolonial nation‐making. For 74 years indigenous ni‐Vanuatu were stateless and lacked all forms of citizenship and nationality in the Anglo‐French Condominium of the New Hebrides (1906–1980). This article situates anthropological accounts of land, kastom and the state in Vanuatu's transition to independence in relation to statelessness, citizenship and hierarchies of ethnographic authenticity within the geo‐classificatory frameworks of colonial rule established by the condominium. The embodiment of citizenship and demands to end the cumulative humiliations of statelessness that ni‐Vanuatu experienced in the condominium illuminate both tensions and continuities in idealist and materialist accounts of Melanesian nationalisms evident in kastom and land as they were mediated by the emancipatory claims and promises of postcolonial citizenship.     

The Social Life of Rights: ‘Gender Antagonism’, Modernity and Raet in Vanuatu

In the northern Vanuatu town of Luganville a small group of men have responded to social and legal changes engendered by women's rights activists by forming a male support group called ‘Violence Against Men’. Members of this ‘backlash’ movement argue that the insidious promotion of Western‐style ‘women's rights’ is leading to discrimination against men in divorce proceedings, child custody battles, and in domestic violence and rape cases. They directly oppose recent and ongoing legal changes aimed at protecting women from domestic violence, such as Domestic Violence Protection Court Orders, and the repeatedly tabled (but long‐delayed) ‘Family Protection Bill’. Such interventions, they argue, undermine Vanuatu's ‘natural’kastom and Christian patriarchal gender order and, in doing so, pose a serious threat to the socio‐economic productivity of the nation‐state. For other men, however, rather than opposing women's rights activism, such challenges have raised questions about how men might successfully negotiate their identities in ways that are sensitive to contemporary issues of gender equality without undermining existing paradigms. Thus, this paper addresses the value accorded to universalism and relativism in gender activism in Vanuatu, and especially in terms of the linked discourses of kastom, church and modernity. It therefore explores gender relations in terms of the contemporary entanglement of indigenous and exogenous epistemologies, and in doing so argues that the contextual analysis of ‘rights’ should consider the specific historical, political and socio‐cultural circumstances in which they are put to use.     

Woven World: Neotraditional Symbols of Unity in Vanuatu

The importance of kastom to national identity in Vanuatu has been recognized. In this paper I identify plaiting technology in general and basketry in particular — which once served to distinguish ethnic groups in Vanuatu — as emerging symbols of ni-Vanuatu unity. I argue that unlike these kastom traditions often discussed in the literature, plaiting and basketry need not be reinvented. Plaiting is a customary practice which has rich contemporaneous expressions. Plaited products may be fully elaborated in local detail and yet, as shared productions of a technology with common features, can simultaneously represent ni-Vanuatu identity.     

Overriding Semiosis: The Catastrophe of the Ambrym Eruption of 1913

ABSTRACT

The 1913 volcanic eruption on the island of Ambrym (Vanuatu) struck both groups composing the island’s population at the time, the Islanders and the British Presbyterians who had come to ‘civilise’ them. Through the lens of Peirce’s semiosis, particularly his notion of the ‘indexical sign’, this article examines the chronological development of the two groups’ divergent, and also at times convergent interpretations of the eruption as a sign. This semiotic analysis is then extended into the island’s socio-historical context, from the Presbyterians’ first attempts at missions to the catastrophic upheaval that decimated the island’s population until the 1940s, to study how the two groups interpreted themselves, each other, Western Christianity and the traditional Ambrymese belief and authority system.     

One family: defining kinship in the neighbourhoods of Kumasi,Ghana

This article investigates how the concept that ‘people from one place are one family’ creates an a priori category of relatedness among otherwise unrelated neighbours in Kumasi, Ghana. A connection between spatial and kinship relations is indicated in the common saying, but unlike similar connections elaborated in other locales, residents often do not share activities such as cooking or cultivating prior to making claims to being ‘one family’. Through interviews and the resolution of a neighbourhood dispute, I show that the assumption that co‐residents are family can precede – and instantiate – the practices that indicate shared family. I argue that the equivalence between place and family is a fundamentally ethical equivalence that renders the actions of selves and others evaluable according to a common understanding of what is good for communities.     

The Politics of Tradition: Toward a Generic Culture in Vanuatu

The paper examines the role of the elite in generating constructions of tradition in present-day Vanuatu. While stopping short of postulating a ‘conspiracy theory’ interpretation, the paper does argue that the proto-bureaucratic 'class' is attempting to gain control over a symbolic code derived from traditional practices (kastom) so as to promote social cohesion and establish a civil polity. The negative case of kava, a symbol of traditional culture which was significantly not included in this corpus is discussed at length.     

When snails inform about geology: Pliocene emergence of islands of Vanuatu indicated by a radiation of truncatelloidean freshwater gastropods (Caenogastropoda: Tateidae)

The South Pacific archipelago Vanuatu has a very complex geological history including three major phases of volcanism creating island belts and phases of repeated submergence and re‐emergence. An important issue for the evolution of the biota of Vanuatu ambiguously discussed in the geological literature is the question whether the entire archipelago has been submerged until the early Pleistocene or if at least parts of the island of Espiritu Santo have remained subaerial throughout the Pliocene. We used a time‐calibrated phylogenetic analysis of freshwater gastropods of the family Tateidae based on COI, 16S rRNA and ITS2 to infer the colonization history of Vanuatu. Our analyses suggested that Espiritu Santo was colonized c. 3 Mya. Espiritu Santo was probably the place of origin for the subsequent colonization of the island of Erromango (2 Mya) and the Pleistocene radiation across the remaining archipelago. We describe 10 new species largely based on morphological and anatomical data. The genetic data in particular of the species from the young islands are taxonomically incongruent probably due to incomplete lineage sorting typical for young radiations. In contrast, the paraphyly of Fluviopupa espiritusantoana appearing in three distant clades indicates either the existence of cryptic species or the long survival of the stem species of almost the entire radiation.     

Traders,Kinsmen and Trading Counterparts: The Rise of Local Politicians in North‐western Thailand1

This paper focuses on local traders and their political activities and networks in north‐western Thailand. Most town residents are engaged in trade, full‐time and part‐time. A few well‐off traders have become involved in local politics. However, getting political support, especially the votes, is no easy task. The paper attempts to demonstrate that local traders acquire support through the co‐operation of their bilateral kinsmen, trading counterparts, peers and neighbours. They form a complex network that overlaps with temple organisations and business relationships. As a result, such networks often successfully draw in political support from many townspeople, ranging from regular customers to temple‐goers and elderly religious devotees.     

Making the Baruya great again: From glorified great men to modern suffering subjects?

This paper explores avenues for prestige‐making now available to and championed by the Baruya, the archetypal ‘Great Man’ people of Papua New Guinea, who I recently studied following previous work by Maurice Godelier. Amid critiques by Robbins and Ortner of anthropologists’ drive to document and empathise with “suffering subjects”, I suggest that being ‘left behind’ and ‘forgotten’ is an important part of Baruya social life that reinterprets previous ways of ‘making great men.’ Baruya exposure to material and institutional modernity remains very limited. Local rhetorics of being ‘last place’ (las ples) are both concomitant and discordant with Baruya assumptions and assertions of being ‘the greatest people’ of their region. Unable to revive traditional contexts for producing great men through warriorship, shamanism, cassowary hunting, and salt‐making, Baruya turn to the very modernity they cannot quite reach for their own pursuit of masculinity and prestige—which paradoxically now lies within domains also open to women. Desirous to both establish continuity with their glorified past and to depart from it, Baruya's local modernity itself constrains their newly‐shaped desire for prestige—and dramatically changes gender relations in the process. Though the concrete impossibility to ‘be great’ reinforces Baruya perceptions of enduring what we might call a ‘suffering slot’, the larger issue is how concrete experiences sediment into socio‐cultural change over time. This process is informed by a tension between a quest for modernity and its larger failure, resulting in a drive to reignite longer standing values of morality, spirituality, and ultimately, greatmanship.     

Mobility and emplacement in north coast Papua New Guinea: Worlding the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone

On the north coast of Papua New Guinea, the construction of the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone is catalysing movements of people, capital and things, as well as of the ideas and imaginings which accompany and make them meaningful. Drawn from literary and postcolonial studies, the concept of worlding offers a narrative framework through which to think through these movements and the ways in which they complicate prevailing narratives of globalisation. At the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone, the neoliberal worldings that inform the project do not simply catalyse movements, but also act to impose barriers to movement. Local communities assert connection to place, but also generate new circuits of mobility, and rearticulate ideas of kastom (custom) that have movement at their core. An emphasis on worlding—drawing particularly on Heidegger's distinction between world and earth—allows for a more complex reflection on the relationship between mobility and emplacement, one that more fully illuminates the complexity of the relationship itself, and the way it is experienced at the PMIZ site.     

Melanesian Kastom and Its Transformations

Editorial Board Note: In 2006, the Discipline Group of Anthropology and Sociology at The University of Western Australia hosted a symposium, ‘Anthropology in the West: 1956–2006’, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the then Department of Anthropology by the late Ronald Berndt and his wife, Catherine, whose contributions to anthropology were a major focus of the symposium. Symposium participants also documented contributions made by UWA staff and students from Anthropology and Sociology within and beyond Australian social science. A notable theoretical focus on kastom in the work of Robert Tonkinson, who in 1984 succeeded Professor Berndt in the Departmental Chair, was the topic of Lamont Lindstrom's paper, published here in a fuller, revised and fully refereed version. We intend to publish further papers from the symposium in later issues of Anthropological Forum.

If Ronald and Catherine Berndt are ancestral spirits haunting Anthropology and Sociology at The University of Western Australia some 50 years after the founding of the Department of Anthropology, their student, Bob Tonkinson, still happily with us, is their intellectual descendant and institutional heir. As in the case of the Berndts, issues relating to social change, religion and values, and, in particular, the politics of tradition have loomed large in Tonkinson's career. I trace, in this retrospective essay, the rise to prominence of an anthropology of Melanesian tradition and, more specifically, Tonkinson's contribution, notably his analyses of tradition's ‘symbiotic’ relations with Christianity, its identity functions, its local versus its national significance, and its relations with evolving anthropological theories of culture in a shrinking world. Tonkinson's Vanuatu research, which began among Ambrym Island emigrants, has spanned, over the past forty years or so, many notable transformations: from New Hebrides to Vanuatu; from modernisation theory to world systems and globalisation; and from tradition to kastom.     

Longin and GAF Domains: Structural Evolution and Adaptation to the Subcellular Trafficking Machinery

Endomembrane trafficking is one of the most prominent cytological features of eukaryotes. Given their widespread distribution and specialization, coiled‐coil domains, coatomer domains, small GTPases and Longin domains are considered primordial ‘building blocks’ of the membrane trafficking machineries. Longin domains are conserved across eukaryotes and were likely to be present in the Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor. The Longin fold is based on the α‐β‐α sandwich architecture and a unique topology, possibly accounting for the special adaptation to the eukaryotic trafficking machinery. The ancient P er A RNT S im (PAS) and cG MP‐specific phosphodiesterases, A denylyl cyclases and F hlA (GAF) family domains show a similar architecture, and the identification of prokaryotic counterparts of GAF domains involved in trafficking provides an additional connection for the endomembrane system back into the pre‐eukaryotic world. Proteome‐wide, comparative bioinformatic analyses of the domains reveal three binding regions (A, B and C) mediating either specific or conserved protein–protein interactions. While the A region mediates intra‐ and inter‐molecular interactions, the B region is involved in binding small GTPases, thus providing an evolutionary connection among major building blocks in the endomembrane system. Finally, we propose that the peculiar interaction surface of the C region of the Longin domain allowed it to extensively integrate into the endomembrane trafficking machinery in the earliest stages of building the eukaryotic cell.     

Paths of Relationship,Spirals of Exchange: Imag(in)ing North Pentecost Kinship

In Stone Men of Malekula: Vao (1942), a text that was published more than twenty‐five years after he carried out long‐term fieldwork in Vanuatu, John Layard introduced a new technique for rendering kinship data in diagrammatic form. Inspired in part by Gregory Bateson, his ‘circular technique’ was derived from diagrams drawn up according to the genealogical method, and was designed to overcome certain structural problems identified within these. One important implication of the ‘circular technique’ that is not made explicit in Layard's analysis is a resonance with many of the idioms and metaphors that ni‐Vanuatu evoke in talking about relationships of exchange and kinship. Where processes of birth, death, marriage and exchange are conceptualised in terms of a broad flow of departures and returns across discernible trajectories, images incorporating circles and spirals are utilised as key metaphors for understanding social relationships through space and time. Focusing on the Raga‐speaking district of North Pentecost, Vanuatu, this article explores such idioms while presenting a revision of Layard's circular technique.     

Latitudinal variation in the competition‐colonisation trade‐off reveals rate‐mediated mechanisms of coexistence

Theories of species coexistence often describe a trade‐off between colonising and competitive abilities. In sessile marine invertebrates, this trade‐off can manifest as trends in species distributions relative to the size of isolated patches of substrate. Based on their abilities to find available substrate and competitively exclude neighbours, good colonisers tend to dominate smaller patches, whereas better competitors tend to monopolise larger patches. In theory, species with equivalent colonising and competitive abilities should display similar distributions across patch sizes. We used patch size to observe this manifestation of the competition‐colonisation trade‐off over 20° of latitude. The trade‐off was more readily observed at lower latitudes and was proportional to the ‘ecological age’ of communities (i.e. the degree of resource acquisition and likelihood of species interactions). Results suggest that ecological age may mediate the prominence of stochastic or deterministic coexistence mechanisms and will depend on the rate of ecological processes.     

Local endemism and within‐island diversification of shrews illustrate the importance of speciation in building Sundaland mammal diversity

Island systems are important models for evolutionary biology because they provide convenient, discrete biogeographic units of study. Continental islands with a history of intermittent dry land connections confound the discrete definitions of islands and have led zoologists to predict (i) little differentiation of terrestrial organisms among continental shelf islands and (ii) extinction, rather than speciation, to be the main cause of differences in community composition among islands. However, few continental island systems have been subjected to well‐sampled phylogeographic studies, leaving these biogeographic assumptions of connectivity largely untested. We analysed nine unlinked loci from shrews of the genus Crocidura from seven mountains and two lowland localities on the Sundaic continental shelf islands of Sumatra and Java. Coalescent species delimitation strongly supported all currently recognized Crocidura species from Sumatra (six species) and Java (five species), as well as one undescribed species endemic to each island. We find that nearly all species of Crocidura in the region are endemic to a single island and several of these have their closest relative(s) on the same island. Intra‐island genetic divergence among allopatric, conspecific populations is often substantial, perhaps indicating species‐level diversity remains underestimated. One recent (Pleistocene) speciation event generated two morphologically distinct, syntopic species on Java, further highlighting the prevalence of within‐island diversification. Our results suggest that both between‐ and within‐island speciation processes generated local endemism in Sundaland, supplementing the traditional view that the region's fauna is relictual and primarily governed by extinction.     

Living in a tilted world: climate change and geography limit speciation in Old World anchovies (Engraulis; Engraulidae)

Historical changes in the distributions of temperate species in response to Milankovitch climate cycles have been well documented in palaeontological studies and recently evaluated with phylogeographical methods. How these cycles influence biological diversity remains a matter of debate. Molecular surveys of terrestrial and freshwater fauna demonstrate glacial refugia in low latitudes and range expansions into high latitudes, but few genetic studies have assessed the corresponding impact on marine fauna. In the present study, mtDNA sequences (N = 84) are surveyed to understand the impact of long‐term climate oscillations on ‘Old World’ anchovies (genus Engraulis), a monophyletic group occurring in north and south temperate zones of the eastern Atlantic and the western Pacific. The analysis of a 521‐bp sequence of mtDNA cytochrome b indicates a late Miocene or Pliocene dispersal from the north‐eastern Pacific (California–Mexico) to the north‐western Pacific (Japan), followed by Pleistocene dispersal from the north‐western Pacific to Europe. Geography mandates that populations in southern Africa and Australia were stepping‐stones for this dispersal. However, neither population occupies an intermediate position in the mtDNA genealogy; both populations are more recently derived from their northern neighbours. Haplotype diversity is high (h = 0.93–0.97) in European, Australian, and Japanese anchovies, but low (h = 0.22) in the southern African population, where all haplotypes are more closely related to European specimens than to each other. These southern populations occupy a precarious position, lacking north–south coastlines that allow range shifts during climatic extremes. Recurring extinctions and episodic recolonizations from northern hemisphere populations are the likely results. In this case, ocean‐climatic changes retard rather than enhance opportunities for evolutionary radiations. © 2006 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2006, 88 , 673–689.     

Panbiogeography of New Caledonia,south‐west Pacific: basal angiosperms on basement terranes,ultramafic endemics inherited from volcanic island arcs and old taxa endemic to young islands

Aim To investigate areas of endemism in New Caledonia and their relationship with tectonic history. Location New Caledonia, south‐west Pacific. Methods Panbiogeographical analysis. Results Biogeographical patterns within New Caledonia are described and illustrated with reference to eight terranes and ten centres of endemism. The basement terranes make up a centre of endemism for taxa including Amborella, the basal angiosperm. Three of the terranes that accreted to the basement in the Eocene (high‐pressure metamorphic terrane, ultramafic nappe and Loyalty Ridge) have their own endemics. Main conclusions New Caledonia is not simply a fragment of Gondwana but, like New Zealand and New Guinea, is a complex mosaic of allochthonous terranes. The four New Caledonian basement terranes were all formed from island arc‐derived and arc‐associated material (including ophiolites) which accumulated in the pre‐Pacific Ocean, not in Gondwana. They amalgamated and were accreted to Gondwana (eastern Australia) in the Late Jurassic/Early Cretaceous, but in the Late Cretaceous they separated from Australia with the opening of the Tasman Sea and break‐up of Gondwana. An Eocene collision of the basement terranes with an island arc to the north‐east – possibly the Loyalty Ridge – is of special biogeographical interest in connection with New Caledonia–central Pacific affinities. The Loyalty–Three Kings Ridge has had a separate history from that of the Norfolk Ridge/New Caledonia, although both now run in parallel between Vanuatu and New Zealand. The South Loyalty Basin opened between Grande Terre and the Loyalty Ridge in the Cretaceous and attained a width of 750 km. However, it was almost completely destroyed by subduction in the Eocene which brought the Loyalty Ridge and Grande Terre together again, after 30 Myr of separation. The tectonic history is reflected in the strong biogeographical differences between Grande Terre and the Loyalty Islands. Many Loyalty Islands taxa are widespread in the Pacific but do not occur on Grande Terre, and many Grande Terre/Australian groups are not on the Loyalty Islands. The Loyalty Islands are young (2 Myr old) but they are merely the currently emergent parts of the Loyalty Ridge whose ancestor arcs have a history of volcanism dating back to the Cretaceous. Old taxa endemic to the young Loyalty Ridge islands persist over geological time as a dynamic metapopulation surviving in situ on the individually ephemeral islands and atolls found around subduction zones. The current Loyalty Islands, like the Grande Terre terranes, have inherited their biota from previous islands. On Grande Terre, the ultramafic terrane was emplaced on Grande Terre in the Eocene (about the same time as the collision with the island arc). The very diverse endemic flora on the ultramafics may have been inherited by the obducting nappe from prior base‐rich habitat in the region, including the mafic Poya terrane and the limestones typical of arc and intraplate volcanic islands.     

Lack of genetic polymorphism among peregrine falcons Falco peregrinus of Fiji

We compared levels of genetic diversity and isolation among peregrine falcons Falco peregrinus from two South Pacific island complexes (Fiji and Vanuatu: F. p. nesiotes), relative to other island and mainland populations. Fragment data from 12 microsatellite loci and sequence information from the control region of the mitochondrial DNA indicated levels of genetic variation in the South Pacific populations were lower than other island and mainland populations. Indeed, diversity varied from extremely low (Vanuatu) to completely absent (Fiji). We find little support for a hypothesis that populations on Fiji or Vanuatu were colonized via Australia. The complete lack of polymorphism in peregrine falcons of Fiji is remarkable, and to our knowledge has not been observed in a natural avian population. This lack of polymorphism, and the inability to test for decrease in polymorphism using museum samples, precludes testing whether the lack of genetic diversity in the population on Fiji is due to a recent bottleneck, or sustained isolation over evolutionary time. Increased fertility in eggs of Fiji peregrines upon outbreeding with males from other areas is consistent with inbreeding depression within a population typified by heterozygote deficiency.     

DISCUSSIONS AROUND A SAND-DRAWING: CREATIONS OF AGENCY AND SOCIETY IN MELANESIA

This article considers the social circumstances of making a marriage diagram, on the island of Ambrym in Vanuatu. It offers a reconsideration of the rather famous case of the 'six-section marriage system' as demonstrated by Cambridge anthropologist Bernard Deacon. It relates this idea of a system to the indigenous practice of making figurative drawings in the sand. The argument is that the marriage diagram drawn for Bernard Deacon was merely an instance of Vanuatu people's institutionalized capability of totalizing social flows and making them into aesthetic shapes.     

Glacial survival or late glacial colonization? Phylogeography of the root vole (Microtus oeconomus) in north‐west Norway

Aim It has been proposed that the root vole subspecies, Microtus oeconomus finmarchicus, survived the last glacial period on islands on the north‐west coast of Norway. The Norwegian island of Andøya may have constituted the only site with permanent ice‐free conditions. Geological surveys and fossil finds from Andøya demonstrate that survival throughout the last glacial maximum was probably possible for some plants and animals. In this study we aim to infer the recent evolutionary history of Norwegian root vole populations and to evaluate the glacial survival hypothesis. Methods DNA sequence variation in the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene was studied in 46 root voles from 19 localities. Location Northern Fennoscandia and north‐west Russia with a focus on islands on the north‐west coast of Norway. Results The phylogeographical analyses revealed two North European phylogroups labelled ‘Andøya’ and ‘Fennoscandia’. The Andøya phylogroup contained root voles from the Norwegian islands of Andøya, Ringvassøya and Reinøya and two localities in north‐west Russia. The Fennoscandian phylogroup encompassed root voles from the three Norwegian islands of Kvaløya, Håkøya and Arnøya and the remaining specimens from Norway, northern Sweden and Finland. Nucleotide diversity within the Andøya and Fennoscandian phylogroups was similar, ranging from 0.5% to 0.7%. Main conclusions Both our genetic data and previously published morphological data are consistent with in situ glacial survival of root voles on Andøya during the last glacial maximum. However, the level of genetic diversity observed in the extant island populations, the past periods of severe climatic conditions on Andøya and the ecology of the root vole are somewhat difficult to reconcile with this model. A biogeographical scenario involving late glacial recolonization along the northern coasts of Russia and Norway therefore represents a viable alternative. Our results demonstrate that complex recolonization and extinction histories can generate intricate phylogeographical patterns and relatively high levels of genetic variation in northern populations.