DESCRIPTIONS
OF WORKING PAPERS - No 8
Flowers,
Fale, Fanua and Fa'a Polynesia
Transnational
communities have become the focus of considerable
attention in recent years as one of several manifestations of
globalisation (see, for example, Castles and Davidson 2000, Cohen 1997,
Spoonley 2001, van Heer 1998). UNESCO 's Management of Social
Transformations (MOST) programme has picked up the theme of
transnationalism as a dimension of globalisation in several of its
major international research networks. The Asia-Pacific Migration
Research Network (APMRN), with its focus on processes of change in
multicultural and multi-ethnic societies, has been encouraging research
on four themes associated with international migration and social
transformation (Bedford 2001). These are: the issue of migration and
identity, the roles of migrant entrepreneurs and 'business migration ',
illegal migration, and the implications of migration for environmental
transformation. This volume contains papers presented at a
UNESCO-sponsored workshop exploring aspects of the latter theme.
Issues of
migration and identity for Pacific peoples have been explored in a
collection of essays entitled Tangata O Te Moana Nui: The Evolving
Identities of Pacific Peoples in Aotearoa/New Zealand (Macpherson et
al. 2001a). As the editors note in their introduction, this book:
É
is about the diverse identities that result from the various
experiences of being a Pacific person in the many places in which
Pacific people are now found. It avoids the essentialising of elements
of 'culture ' and the suggestion that those who do not share all of
these suffer from some degree of deprivation. Instead it celebrates
this increasing diversity in given cultural identities as a
demonstration of the creative responses to the increasingly diverse
circumstances in which Pacific peoples have chosen to settle and live
(Macpherson et al. 2001b: 13-14).
The papers
commissioned for and presented at the UNESCO-sponsored workshop,
"Flowers, fale, fanua and fa 'a Polynesia" are all about 'diverse
identities that result from the various experiences of being a Pacific
person in the many places in which Pacific people are now found '. A
distinctive focus for the papers was the implications of migration for
environmental transformation in both the island homes and the 'homes
abroad ' for Pacific peoples. Following Au 'oaf 's (1998: 401-402)
generous definition of 'Pacific peoples ', the workshop included
presentations on New Zealand 's Maori and pakeha (European descent)
peoples as well as Samoans, Tongans and Cook Island Maori. For the
latter groups, the implications of migration for environmental
transformation were examined in both their island homes as well as in
Aotearoa/New Zealand.
A decision
was taken to focus attention on the domestic environment Ñ
houses, flower and vegetable gardens, and the < land used for
residential purposes. This was because the literature on transnational
communities has tended to highlight cultural, economic, political and
social dimensions of their structures and dynamics. Little attention
has been given to the way in which domestic environments reflect
'creative responses to the increasingly diverse circumstances in which
Pacific peoples have chosen to live and settle ' (Macpherson et al.
2001b: 14). Yvonne Underhill-Sem, the co-ordinator of the workshop and
of most of the research reported in the following papers, sums up the
local context for the particular focus on domestic environments in her
summary of the rationale for the study. She observes in the second part
of the Introductions that the project examines aspects of place that
have been taken-for-granted in Pacific Islands identities and economies
Ñ the domestic environments associated with residences and their
associated flower and vegetable gardens in both island homes and homes
abroad.
In essence
the project represents a partial response to a challenge issued by
Findlay and Hoy (2000), in a special issue of Applied Geography, for
researchers with an interest in migration and social transformation to
examine environmental issues and health problems amongst transnational
communities. They point out that "Globalising tendencies suggest
greater freedoms for some ethnic groups, not only in terms of their
residential geographies, but more significantly in the flexibility of
their negotiated identities" (Findlay and Hoy 2000: 212). Quoting
Zelinsky and Lee (1998: 294) they go on to observe that:
... a
substantial portion of those populations that have been crossing and
re-crossing international boundaries É are capable of retaining
or reinventing much of the ancestral culture, while devising original
amalgams of their cultural heritage with what they find awaiting them
in their new, perhaps provisional, abodes.
These
papers all demonstrate that 'ancestral cultures ' are being reinvented
in different ways in the residential environments of both 'old ' and
'new ' abodes for Pacific peoples who have a long history of 'crossing
and < re-crossing international borders '. As Epeli Au 'oaf (1994:
156) reminds us in his evocative essay "Our Sea of Islands ':
É
much of the welfare of ordinary people of Oceania depends on informal
movement along ancient routes drawn in bloodlines invisible to the
enforcers of the laws of confinement and regulated mobility É
[Pacific peoples] are once again enlarging their world, establishing
new resource bases and expanding networks for circulation.
There is
nothing new about transoceanic mobility amongst Pacific peoples. The
Maori population of Aotearoa is descended from Polynesian seafarers,
and the more recent waves of immigrants from the eastern Pacific have
come to a land inhabited by their ancestral kin.
The
physical environment of Aotearoa/New Zealand is very different from
that found in their island homes. However, the knowledge that a
Polynesian people has successfully lived in this different environment
for over 1000 years has, no doubt, facilitated the adaptation process.
As the papers by Ieti Lima and Robyn Longhurst in this volume show,
some familiar signs of the tropical Pacific can be found in the gardens
of Maori, pakeha and Pacific Island New Zealanders, especially those
living in the North Island.
Flowers,
fale, fanua and fa 'a Polynesia
The
workshop organised by Underhill-Sem to report on the initial findings
of the research into migration and the transformation of domestic
environments in Pacific communities in the islands and abroad explored
three key themes in the islands, and three in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The
papers by Ruta Fiti-Sinclair, Asenati Liki and Yvonne Underhill-Sem all
examined aspects of the changing roles of flowers in Samoan and Cook
Island society. Flowers have always played an important role in the
social life and identities of Polynesians but, as Fiti-Sinclair shows,
there were some significant transformations in the ways flowers were
used for personal decoration as well as in ceremonies and buildings
following the establishment of Christianity in Samoa and other parts of
the Pacific.
Fiti-Sinclair
and Underhill-Sem both stress the importance of flowers
in the construction of contemporary Pacific identities; part of the
process of post-colonialism in Polynesia has been re-establishing the
place of flowers in cultural and social life. This does not mean a
return to practices of the past, however. As Underhill-Sem argues, the
flowers and combinations of plant materials used for ceremonial and
decorative purposes in the 1990s are often different from those used in
the past reflecting the poly-ethnic character of contemporary
Polynesian communities.
Liki 's
study of contemporary responses to commercial flower production
opportunities in Samoa indicates that there is a new dimension to this
post-colonial revival of interest in and the significance of flowers in
Samoan life. Flowers are also a commercial proposition and a
differentiated market in the production and consumption of flowers in
Samoa is emerging. Most of the flowers for sale are still grown in
domestic garden situations rather than nurseries of the kind that
Longhurst discusses in her examination of sub-tropical gardening in New
Zealand.
Peggy
Fairbairn-Dunlop and Wendy Cowling examine developments with regard to
fanua and fale respectively in Samoa and Tonga. Fairbairn-Dunlop
develops an argument about the trend towards acquisition of a quarter
acre section of freehold land in Samoa, especially by migrants
returning from New Zealand or Australia. The demand for freehold land,
the title to which can be held by the family without reference to the
matai (chiefs), is increasing rapidly, according to <
Fairbairn-Dunlop 's research into land transactions in Apia in recent
years. This trend reflects changing perceptions of the place of land in
Samoan domestic environments, especially the domestic environments of
Samoans who have lived for many years in rental and ownership property
in New Zealand.
Cowling 's
examination of trends in housing styles in Tonga, and some of the
environmental implications of the sorts of housing that the elites
especially are building, reveals some interesting tensions within one
of the most active Polynesian transnational communities. Tongan housing
has been greatly transformed by styles imported from New Zealand
especially and there is very little so called 'traditional ' housing
left in the country. Migration has had, and continues to have, a very
profound impact on this dimension of Polynesian domestic environments.
However, the movement of ideas is not all one-way. It is not just a
question of importing overseas designs and kit-set houses into the
islands. As Cluny Macpherson (1997) shows in a fascinating analysis of
the way Samoans adjusted to urban living in New Zealand, the humble
garage gained a whole range of new uses and meanings as its potential
was realised for overcoming major space restraints in the small
three-bedroomed State houses in Auckland.
Lima
reports on an exploratory study of gardening amongst Samoans resident
in Auckland. His case studies are drawn from several suburbs and he
reveals considerable diversity in both the enthusiasm for and the
realisation of domestic gardens in urban residential spaces. One of the
major constraints facing would-be Samoan gardeners is the fact that the
majority of Pacific peoples in Auckland still rent their houses. They
are reluctant to invest much time or money in establishing gardens in
places that are not their own. Where people have established gardens,
Lima finds evidence of both considerable continuity in the choices of
plants and the roles of flowers especially in Samoan social and
cultural life, especially amongst older people. He also finds evidence
of considerable change related to the impact of local climatic
conditions on plant species as well as the impact of a wage economy on
the division of labour in the gardens.
Longhurst
's examination of domestic gardens "as texts that raise questions about
migration, entanglements of culture, and constructions of diasporic
identities" charts a brief history of colonial gardens in New Zealand,
before describing current gardening trends in temperate New Zealand and
exploring what the shift towards subtropical gardening might mean in
relation to post-colonial identities and cultural difference. She
focuses on the gardens of urban, middle class pakeha New Zealanders,
and the extent to which they are taking elements of Pacific
environments, filtering them through their own cultural experiences and
building them into a new post-colonial identity.
In the
final paper, Pania Melbourne brings the perspectives of a Maori
researcher to bear on some issues that are of critical importance to
the tangata whenua of Aotearoa in the contemporary contexts of
commercialisation of indigenous plants and knowledge about plants.
There is considerable interest both within Crown Research Institutes as
well as within Maoridom in the possibilities for commercialisation of
non-domesticated indigenous plants. However, the very different
cultural values that underpin Maori society on the one hand, and the
world of commerce that dominates the political and economic life of New
Zealand 's majority pakeha population, create complex situations both
for researchers as well as for the actors seeking to test the
commercial viability of particular propositions. Melbourne talks of the
interplay of power between two different worlds, and how these worlds
manage to co-exist.
While her
discussion relates to a particular situation within Maoridom, the
issues Melbourne raises about research into aspects of the use of
plants within contemporary society has wider relevance for Pacific
peoples in both their island homes and their homes abroad. The
circulation of plant materials within the transnational networks of
Pacific peoples is leading to new opportunities for domestic gardening
in both the islands and in New Zealand. There have been no substantive
studies of Pacific gardening in New Zealand cities, but it is clear
from Lima 's preliminary inquiries that the cultivation of vegetables,
flowers and a range of plants with medicinal value is an integral part
of Auckland 's established Pacific communities, reflecting cultural
values that remain important in the islands.
A
final comment
Research on
the implications of migration for environmental transformation in
Pacific transnational communities is still in its early stages.
However, the original research reported at the Apia meeting, and
detailed in the papers in this volume, has made it clear that "we must
radically rethink the relationships between person, community, culture
and place for all of us, not just for immigrants and ethnic groups"
(Zelinsky and Lee 1998: 294) if we are to understand better the
development of transnational communities and their implications for
social change and environmental transformation.
Richard
Bedford, October 2001
