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Coral and Concrete

Coral and Concrete PDF Author: Greg Dvorak
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824855213
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
Coral and Concrete, Greg Dvorak’s cross-cultural history of Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands, explores intersections of environment, identity, empire, and memory in the largest inhabited coral atoll on earth. Approaching the multiple “atollscapes” of Kwajalein’s past and present as Marshallese ancestral land, Japanese colonial outpost, Pacific War battlefield, American weapons-testing base, and an enduring home for many, Dvorak delves into personal narratives and collective mythologies from contradictory vantage points. He navigates the tensions between “little stories” of ordinary human actors and “big stories” of global politics—drawing upon the “little” metaphor of the coral organisms that colonize and build atolls, and the “big” metaphor of the all-encompassing concrete that buries and co-opts the past. Building upon the growing body of literature about militarism and decolonization in Oceania, this book advocates a layered, nuanced approach that emphasizes the multiplicity and contradictions of Pacific Islands histories as an antidote to American hegemony and globalization within and beyond the region. It also brings Japanese, Korean, Okinawan, and American perspectives into conversation with Micronesians’ recollections of colonialism and war. This transnational history—built upon a combination of reflective personal narrative, ethnography, cultural studies, and postcolonial studies—thus resituates Kwajalein Atoll as a pivotal site where Islanders have not only thrived for thousands of years, but also mediated between East and West, shaping crucial world events. Based on multi-sited ethnographic and archival research, as well as Dvorak’s own experiences growing up between Kwajalein, the United States, and Japan, Coral and Concrete integrates narrative and imagery with semiotic analysis of photographs, maps, films, and music, traversing colonial tropical fantasies, tales of victory and defeat, missile testing, fisheries, war-bereavement rituals, and landowner resistance movements, from the twentieth century through the present day. Representing history as a perennial struggle between coral and concrete, the book offers an Oceanian paradigm for decolonization, resistance, solidarity, and optimism that should appeal to all readers far beyond the Marshall Islands.

Coral and Concrete

Coral and Concrete PDF Author: Greg Dvorak
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824855213
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
Coral and Concrete, Greg Dvorak’s cross-cultural history of Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands, explores intersections of environment, identity, empire, and memory in the largest inhabited coral atoll on earth. Approaching the multiple “atollscapes” of Kwajalein’s past and present as Marshallese ancestral land, Japanese colonial outpost, Pacific War battlefield, American weapons-testing base, and an enduring home for many, Dvorak delves into personal narratives and collective mythologies from contradictory vantage points. He navigates the tensions between “little stories” of ordinary human actors and “big stories” of global politics—drawing upon the “little” metaphor of the coral organisms that colonize and build atolls, and the “big” metaphor of the all-encompassing concrete that buries and co-opts the past. Building upon the growing body of literature about militarism and decolonization in Oceania, this book advocates a layered, nuanced approach that emphasizes the multiplicity and contradictions of Pacific Islands histories as an antidote to American hegemony and globalization within and beyond the region. It also brings Japanese, Korean, Okinawan, and American perspectives into conversation with Micronesians’ recollections of colonialism and war. This transnational history—built upon a combination of reflective personal narrative, ethnography, cultural studies, and postcolonial studies—thus resituates Kwajalein Atoll as a pivotal site where Islanders have not only thrived for thousands of years, but also mediated between East and West, shaping crucial world events. Based on multi-sited ethnographic and archival research, as well as Dvorak’s own experiences growing up between Kwajalein, the United States, and Japan, Coral and Concrete integrates narrative and imagery with semiotic analysis of photographs, maps, films, and music, traversing colonial tropical fantasies, tales of victory and defeat, missile testing, fisheries, war-bereavement rituals, and landowner resistance movements, from the twentieth century through the present day. Representing history as a perennial struggle between coral and concrete, the book offers an Oceanian paradigm for decolonization, resistance, solidarity, and optimism that should appeal to all readers far beyond the Marshall Islands.

Marshall Islands Legends and Stories

Marshall Islands Legends and Stories PDF Author: Daniel A. Kelin
Publisher: Bess Press
ISBN: 9781573061414
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Book Description
Preserving the qualities of oral storytelling - in fifty stories recorded from eighteen storytellers on eight islands and atolls - the tales in this collection relay the importance of traditional Marshallese values and customs. The collection includes profiles of the storytellers, a glossary, and a pronunciation guide.

Life in the Republic of the Marshall Islands

Life in the Republic of the Marshall Islands PDF Author: Anono Lieom Loeak
Publisher: [email protected]
ISBN: 9789820203648
Category : Marshall Islands
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
"A joint publication with the USP Centre in Majuro, this book recounts peopleOs experiences and reflections on life in their country. Among the accounts are chapters dealing with specific legends and traditions, memories of growing up in the Marshals, and more contemporary issues such as off-island adoption and the ongoing struggle of Rongelap survivors."--Publisher's description.

Tattooing in the Marshall Islands

Tattooing in the Marshall Islands PDF Author: Dirk R. Spennemann
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781573062893
Category : Clothing and dress
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
"The first scholarly compilation on the history, progression and demise of the traditionally intricate art of Marshallese tattooing. This book richly documents this type of tattooing as an art, describing its incredible ornamental and elaborate execution. In addition, the text also portrays the conventional social context in which tattooing needs to be seen, along with where and why tattoos are specifically placed."--Publisher description.

Domination and Resistance

Domination and Resistance PDF Author: Martha Smith-Norris
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824847628
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
Domination and Resistance illuminates the twin themes of superpower domination and indigenous resistance in the central Pacific during the Cold War, with a compelling historical examination of the relationship between the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. For decision makers in Washington, the Marshall Islands represented a strategic prize seized from Japan near the end of World War II. In the postwar period, under the auspices of a United Nations Trusteeship Agreement, the United States reinforced its control of the Marshall Islands and kept the Soviet Union and other Cold War rivals out of this Pacific region. The United States also used the opportunity to test a vast array of powerful nuclear bombs and missiles in the Marshalls, even as it conducted research on the effects of human exposure to radioactive fallout. Although these military tests and human experiments reinforced the US strategy of deterrence, they also led to the displacement of several atoll communities, serious health implications for the Marshallese, and widespread ecological degradation. Confronted with these troubling conditions, the Marshall Islanders utilized a variety of political and legal tactics—petitions, lawsuits, demonstrations, and negotiations—to draw American and global attention to their plight. In response to these indigenous acts of resistance, the United States strengthened its strategic interests in the Marshalls but made some concessions to the islanders. Under the Compact of Free Association (COFA) and related agreements, the Americans tightened control over the Kwajalein Missile Range while granting the Marshallese greater political autonomy, additional financial assistance, and a mechanism to settle nuclear claims. Martha Smith-Norris argues that despite COFA's implementation in 1986 and Washington's pivot toward the Asia-Pacific region in the post–Cold War era, the United States has yet to provide adequate compensation to the Republic of the Marshall Islands for the extensive health and environmental damages caused by the US testing programs.

Breaking the Shell

Breaking the Shell PDF Author: Joseph H. Genz
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824873416
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
On the atoll of Rongelap in the northern seas of the Marshall Islands, apprentice navigators once learned to find their way across the ocean by remotely sensing how islands transform the patterning of swell and currents. Renowned for their instructional stick charts that model and map the interplay of islands and waves, these students of wave piloting techniques embarked on trial voyages to ruprup jo̧kur, a Marshallese expression roughly translated as “breaking the shell” of the turtle, which would confer their status as navigators. These traditional practices, already in decline with imposing colonial occupations, came to an abrupt halt with the Cold War–era nuclear weapons testing program conducted by the United States. The residents and their descendants are still trying to recover from the myriad environmental, biological, social, and psychological impacts of the nuclear tests. Breaking the Shell presents the journey of Captain Korent Joel, who, having been forced into exile from the near-apocalyptic thermonuclear Bravo test of 1954, has reconnected to his ancestral maritime heritage and forged an unprecedented path toward becoming a navigator. Paralleling the Hawaiian renaissance that centered on Nainoa Thompson learning from Satawalese navigator Mau Piailug, the beginnings of the Marshallese voyaging revitalization—a collaborative, community-based project spanning the fields of anthropology, history, and oceanography—involved blending scientific knowledge systems, resolving ambivalence in nearly forgotten navigational techniques, and deftly negotiating cultural protocols of knowledge use and transmission. Through Captain Korent’s own voyaging trial, he and a group of surviving mariners from Rongelap are, against one of the darkest hours in human history, “breaking the shell” of their prime identity as nuclear refugees to begin recovering their most intimate of connections to the sea. Ultimately these efforts would inaugurate the return of the traditional outrigger voyaging canoe for the greater Marshallese nation, an achievement that may work toward easing ethnic tensions abroad and ensure cultural survival in their battle against the looming climate change–induced rising ocean. Drawing attention to cultural rediscovery, revitalization, and resilience in Oceania, the Marshallese are once again celebrating their existence as a people born to the rhythms of the sea.

Stories from the Marshall Islands

Stories from the Marshall Islands PDF Author: Jack A. Tobin
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824820190
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 426

Book Description
Among Marshallese the ri-bwebwenato (storyteller) is well known and respected, a living repository and transmitter of traditional history and culture. Here are ninety folktales and stories of historical events, collected and translated into English during the third quarter of the twentieth century. They include tales of origins, humanlike animals, ogres, and sprites--some malevolent, some playful. Many are presented in the original language and are amplified by extensive commentary.

Blown to Hell

Blown to Hell PDF Author: Walter Pincus
Publisher: Diversion Books
ISBN: 1635768020
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 523

Book Description
A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist exposes the sixty-seven US nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands that decimated a people and their land. The most important place in American nuclear history are the Marshall Islands—an idyllic Pacific paradise that served as the staging ground for over sixty US nuclear tests. It was here, from 1946 to 1958, that America perfected the weapon that preserved the peace of the post-war years. It was here—with the 1954 Castle Bravo test over Bikini Atoll—that America executed its largest nuclear detonation, a thousand times more powerful than Hiroshima. And it was here that a native people became unwilling test subjects in the first large scale study of nuclear radiation fallout when the ashes rained down on powerless villagers, contaminating the land they loved and forever changing a way of life. In Blown to Hell, Pulitzer Prize–winnng journalist Walter Pincus tells for the first time the tragic story of the Marshallese people caught in the crosshairs of American nuclear testing. From John Anjain, a local magistrate of Rongelap Atoll who loses more than most; to the radiation-exposed crew of the Japanese fishing boat the Lucky Dragon; to Dr. Robert Conard, a Navy physician who realized the dangers facing the islanders and attempted to help them; to the Washington power brokers trying to keep the unthinkable fallout from public view . . . Blown to Hell tells the human story of America’s nuclear testing program. Displaced from the only homes they had known, the native tribes that inhabited the serene Pacific atolls for millennia before they became ground zero for America’s first thermonuclear detonations returned to homes despoiled by radiation—if they were lucky enough to return at all. Others were ripped from their ancestral lands and shuttled to new islands with little regard for how the new environment supported their way of life and little acknowledgement of all they left behind. But not even the disruptive relocations allowed the islanders to escape the fallout. Praise for Blown to Hell “A shocking account of the destruction wrought by atomic bomb testing in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958 . . . . Pincus makes a persuasive case that in “seeking a more powerful weapon for warfare, the U.S. unleashed death in several forms on peaceful Marshall Island people.” Readers will be appalled.” —Publishers Weekly “For more than half a century, Walter Pincus has been among our greatest reporters and most persistent truth-tellers. Blown to Hell is a story worthy of his talents—infuriating, heart-breaking, and utterly riveting.” —Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Liberation Trilogy

The Marshall Islands

The Marshall Islands PDF Author: James P. Terry
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
"...the book covers a wide range of topics on the Marshall Islands, including chapters on the geography and physical environment, the ecosystems and flora, early human settlement and post-colonial history, traditional Marshallese medicine, and topics on modern applied science related to the exploitation of sand, gravel and rock aggregate, waste management, and the use of geographical information systems (GIS) for socioeconomic analysis. Authors of chapters include Dr. Terry and Dr. Terry, Professor Randy Thaman, Dr. Irene Taafaki, Director of the USP Marshall Islands Centre, ex-geography lecturer, John Morrell, and staff of SOPAC." --Publisher.

Bombing the Marshall Islands

Bombing the Marshall Islands PDF Author: Keith M. Parsons
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107047323
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
A narrative history of the nuclear tests conducted by the United States in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958.