Crossing Borders: Changing Contexts of This Book

Abstract

Culture and History in the Pacific was first published in 1990 by a small scholarly society in a remote European country. The original edition of the book was not particularly accessible elsewhere, least of all in the region it discusses, Oceania. The volume has now been republished digitally and in open access to ensure with the hope that it will reach a wider audience. The aim of this preface is to place this book into perspective – or rather, some perspectives – in the hope that by contextualizing the book, it is possible for the reader to separate that which has withstood time or is of value to him or her. It will be doing so particularly with reference to the borders and divisions referred to in the original preface but also going beyond them. Firstly, the preface briefly describes one context in which the original papers were presented: the era approaching the end of the Cold War, and its effect on academia in general and anthropology in particular. Secondly, it will comment on a scholarly context within Pacific anthropology which is explicitly present in the book. This is the context of areal discussions, and the division of the Pacific into the culture areas of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. Thirdly, it looks at a further framework which is only partly visible in the book, namely the division between an outsider researcher and his or her topic and how this has been challenged and transformed in the decades following the original publication.