Tahiti Beyond the Postcard: Power, Place, and Everyday Life (Culture, Place, and Nature)

290 Pages·2011·2.41 MB·English

by  Miriam Kahn

culture, place, and nature
studies in anthropology and environment
K. Sivaramakrishnan, Series Editor
culture, place, and nature
Centered in anthropology, the Culture, Place, and Nature series encompasses new
interdisciplinary social science research on environmental issues, focusing on the
intersection of culture, ecology, and politics in global, national, and local contexts.
Contributors to the series view environmental knowledge and issues from the
multiple and often conflicting perspectives of various cultural systems.
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by Mark Baker
The Earth’s Blanket: Traditional Teachings for Sustainable Living
by Nancy Turner
Property and Politics in Sabah, Malaysia: Native Struggles over Land Rights
by Amity A. Doolittle
Border Landscapes: The Politics of Akha Land Use in China and Thailand
by Janet C. Sturgeon
From Enslavement to Environmentalism: Politics on a Southern African Frontier
by David McDermott Hughes
Ecological Nationalisms: Nature, Livelihood, and Identities in South Asia
edited by Gunnel Cederlöf and K. Sivaramakrishnan
Tropics and the Traveling Gaze: India, Landscape, and Science, 1800–1856
by David Arnold
Being and Place among the Tlingit
by Thomas F. Thornton
Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers: The Politics of Environmental Knowledge
in Northern Thailand
by Tim Forsyth and Andrew Walker
Nature Protests: The End of Ecology in Slovakia
by Edward Snajdr
Wild Sardinia: Indigeneity and the Global Dreamtimes of Environmentalism
by Tracey Heatherington
Tahiti Beyond the Postcard: Power, Place, and Everyday Life
by Miriam Kahn
TAHITI
BEYOND THE POSTCARD
Power, Place, and Everyday Life
Miriam Kahn
University of Washington Press
seattle & london
This publication is supported in part LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
by the Donald R. Ellegood International CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Publications Endowment.
Kahn, Miriam.
Tahiti beyond the postcard : power, place, and
COPYRIGHT © 2011 everyday life / Miriam Kahn.
BY UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS p. cm. — (Culture, place, and nature)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Printed in the United States of America ISBN 978-0-295-99101-6 (hardback : alk.
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 paper) — ISBN 978-0-295-99102-3
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Ethnology—French Polynesia—Tahiti
All illustrations courtesy of the author (Island) 2. Human geography—French
unless otherwise noted. Polynesia—Tahiti (Island) 3. Culture and
tourism—French Polynesia—Tahiti (Island)
All rights reserved. No part of this publica- 4. Geographical perception—Tahiti (French
tion may be reproduced or transmitted in any Polynesia : Island) 5. Postcolonialism—
form or by any means, electronic or mechani- French Polynesia—Tahiti (Island)
cal, including photocopy, recording, or any 6. Tahiti (French Polynesia : Island)—
information storage or retrieval system, with- Social life and customs. 7. Tahiti (French
out permission in writing from the publisher. Polynesia : Island)—Foreign relations—
France. 8. France—Foreign relations—
University of Washington Press Tahiti (French Polynesia : Island) I. Title.
P.O. Box 50096, Seattle, WA 98145, U.S.A. GN671.S55KK34 2010
www.washington.edu/uwpress 996.2’11—dc22
2010043123
Printed and bound in the United States
of America / Designed by Ashley Saleeba
Composed in Minion Pro and Meta The paper used in this publication is acid-free
and it meets the minimum requirements of
COVER: “Preparing Coconut Monoi Oil,” American National Standard for Information
painting by Bobby Holcomb; courtesy of Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Dorothy Levy. Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984.
To my parents,
Tatyana Uffner Kahn
and Ludwig Werner Kahn

Contents
Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xi
Note to the Reader xv
Introduction 3
CHAPTER ONE
New Geographies in the Wake of Colonialism 30
CHAPTER TWO
Placentas in the Land, Bombs in the Bedrock 61
CHAPTER THREE
Keeping the Myth Alive 96
CHAPTER FOUR
In the Cocoon 127
CHAPTER FIVE
From Our Place to Their Place 155
CHAPTER SIX
Everyday Spaces of Resistance 181
CHAPTER SEVEN
E Aha Atu Ra? What Will Happen? 208
Notes 221
References 237
Index 260

Foreword
The imprint that places leave on the societies that inhabit and shape them has
always been of great interest to environmental anthropology. In this study
Miriam Kahn draws upon fieldwork and archival research conducted in both
Tahiti and France to reflect on the basic question of how places and people
form and change their identity in interconnected ways. She takes a historical
view of the formation of modern Tahiti as an object of intense Euro-Amer-
ican interest and desire, and from that vantage point tells the story of how
Tahitians and others have narrated their lives in this group of islands and in
the island’s necessary and elective relations with the rest of the world.
Colonized by France after several voyagers had already begun to represent
Tahiti as a place of legendary beauty and comfort, French Polynesia offers a
story that at one level resembles European arrivals in other parts of the Pacific
and Polynesia. Those comparative lessons do not escape Kahn, but she is
more interested in providing a careful account of how—in the experience of
colonialism and cold war—residence, travel, interconnection, and the pro-
duction of livelihood in Tahiti mark the landscape and thereby shape identity
for those who live and travel there. Before the arrival of European explorers,
Tahitian lives were already shaped by the travel and trade characteristic of
Pacific Islander and Polynesian cultures. By focusing here on arrivals and
departures in the era of European expansion and beyond, to the contempo-
rary incorporation of Tahitian lives into the world of nuclear deterrence and
tourism, Kahn traces the different modes and regimes of travel and, thereby,
IX