Review of: Possessing Polynesians: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawai'i and Oceania, Maile Arvin (2019) Durham: Duke University Press, 328 pp., ISBN 978 1 47800 633 6 (pbk), US$27.95
Mainstream narrative cinemas as theorized by David Bordwell privilege human characters or protagonists as the causal agents, whose desires and goals motivate the progression of the plot towards a satisfactory ending that resolves all dramatic conflicts. Bordwell delineates a logical, cause-effect pattern in the classical (Hollywood) narrative structure, which has come to dominate most of the mainstream cinemas' storytelling. In an attempt to indigenize narrative film theories for analysing Pacific cinemas, this article examines the manifestations of mana in film, an indigenous cultural concept that is deeply rooted in the Pacific's conceptualization of time–space (tā-vā) reality. Mana or the Force, as popularized by the Star Wars franchise, is a life-sustaining natural force and constant spiritual companion of the protagonist, that often serves as a key element in the narrative, and that not only effects causal changes but also provides the drive towards a resolution. The workings of mana in Pacific narratives also hinge upon the often multi-layered, circular tā-vā relationships, weaving generations of societal network through cultural performances and through reciprocal, nurturing connections between man and nature. I argue that mana functions like a Bordwellian causal agent in the narrative construction as illustrated in three recent Pacific narrative films – The Land Has Eyes (2004), The Orator (2011) and When the Man Went South (2014) – and that through the culture's prospective on the tā-vā 'continuity' one can make sense of the Pacific's storytelling mediated through the modernized form of cinema.
This article examines in Up the Yangtze and Last Train Home how Chinese Canadian filmmakers Yung Chang and Lixin Fan positioned themselves, framed the migrant issues and their subjects, and utilized two visual motifs in documenting China's migrant workers' labor and (im)mobility—the cruise ship and the train that transport both tourists and migrant workers. Chang and Fan blend participatory or interactive filmmaking with cinéma vérité cinematography and embed these two imposing motifs in the mise‐en‐scène to foreground the human subjects as marginalized, forgotten, and ignored masses against a highly territorialized economic landscape in contemporary China, an irony resulting from the so‐called "socialist market economy" that replaced the used‐to‐be egalitarian communist model. The author, while not intending to provide a full close reading of both films, bases the analysis of them on Bill Nichols' discussion on the modes of documentary and argues that the filmmakers' cinematography projects the train and the ship as means to mobilize human resources horizontally between the rural and the urban areas, but they failed thus far, within China's current economic structure and social hierarchy, to provide the migrant workers mobility to move upward and escape their stigmatized caste.
Abstract Encountering the Pacific in the Age of Enlightenment, John Gascoigne (2014) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 574 pp., ISBN 978 0 5218 7959 0 (hbk), £84.99 Pacific Worlds: A History of Seas, Peoples, and Cultures, Matt Matsuda (2012) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 450 pp., ISBN 978 0 5217 1566 9 (pbk), £19.99 The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds from Cook to the Gold Rush, David Igler (2013) Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 272 pp., ISBN 978 0 1999 1495 1 (hbk), US$31.95 The Black Pacific: Anti-Colonial Struggles and Oceanic Connections, Robbie Shilliam (2015) London: Bloomsbury Academic, 264 pp., ISBN 978 1 4725 3554 2 (pbk), £19.99 Matters of the Heart: A History of Interracial Marriage in New Zealand, Angela Wanhalla (2013) Auckland: Auckland University Press, 316 pp., ISBN 978 1 8694 0731 5 (pbk), NZ$49.99 The Rise and Fall of National Women's Hospital: A History, Linda Bryder (2014) Auckland: Auckland University Press, 236 pp., ISBN 978 1 8694 0809 1 (pbk), NZ$49.99 A Rising Tide: Evangelical Christianity in New Zealand 1930–65, Stuart M. Lange (2013) Dunedin: Otago University Press, 300 pp., ISBN 978 1 8775 7855 7 (pbk), NZ$40 Maranga Mai! Te Reo and Marae in Crisis?, Merata Kawharu (ed.) (2014) Auckland: University of Auckland Press, 280 pp., ISBN 978 1 8694 0805 3 (pbk), NZ$45 Language Contact in the Early Colonial Pacific: Maritime Polynesian Pidgin Before Pidgin English, Emanuel J. Drechsel (2014) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 349 pp., ISBN 978 1 1070 1510 4 (hbk), £65 Climate Change, Forced Migration and International Law, Jane McAdam (2012) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 344 pp., ISBN 978 0 1996 8222 5 (pbk), £26.49 Securing Paradise: Tourism and Militarism in Hawai'i and the Philippines, Vernadette Vicuna Gonzalez (2013) Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 296 pp., ISBN 978 0 8223 5370 6 (pbk), US$24.95 Gender on the Edge: Transgender, Gay, and Other Pacific Islanders, Niko Besnier and Kalissa Alexeyeff (eds) (2014) Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 408 pp., ISBN 978 0 8248 3883 6 (pbk), US$35 Pacific Identities and Wellbeing: Cross Cultural Perspectives, Margaret Nelson Agee, Tracey McIntosh, Philip Culbertson and Cabrini 'Ofa Makasiale (eds) (2013) Dunedin: Otago University Press, 332 pp., ISBN 978 1 8775 7835 9 (pbk), NZ$45 Pacific Futures: Projects, Politics and Interests, Will Rollason (ed.) (2014) New York: Berghahn Books, 256 pp., ISBN 978 1 7823 8350 5 (hbk), US$95 Asians and the New Multiculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand, Gautam Ghosh and Jacqueline Leckie (eds) (2015) Dunedin: Otago University Press, 312 pp., ISBN 978 1 8775 7823 6 (pbk), NZ$40 When the Farm Gates Opened: The Impact of Rogernomics on Rural New Zealand, Neal Wallace (2014) Dunedin: Otago University Press, 160 pp., ISBN 978 1 8775 7872 4 (pbk), NZ$40 Get Off the Grass: Kickstarting New Zealand's Innovation Economy, Shaun Hendy and Paul Callaghan (2013) Auckland: Auckland University Press, 248 pp., ISBN 978 1 8694 0762 9 (pbk), NZ$34.99 Inequality: A New Zealand Crisis, Max Rashbrooke (ed.) (2013) Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 296 pp., ISBN 978 1 9271 3151 0 (pbk), NZ$39.99 A Search for Tradition & A Search for a Language, Douglas Lilburn (2011) Wellington: Lilburn Residence Trust, 112 pp., ISBN 978 0 4731 8379 0 (pbk), NZ$25 Kitchens: The New Zealand Kitchen in the 20th Century, Helen Leach (2014) Dunedin: Otago University Press, 320 pp., ISBN 978 1 8775 7837 3 (pbk), NZ$49.95
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