- Articulating Rapa Nui: Polynesian cultural politics in a Latin American nation state by Riet Delsing
Rapa Nui—or Easter Island, as it is often called by naïve Westerners—has an extraordinary history in that it is the only case save the Antarctic in which a Latin American country has claimed a colonial possession outside of the continent. This colonial history has now lasted more than a century and an end is not in sight. Indeed, on the maps of the daily weather news in Chilean TV the island is often shown as quite close to the Chilean coastline and not as the more than 3,700 kilometers distant that it actually is.
In Steven Roger Fisher’s book Island at the End of the World (2005) we have a very solid study of the island’s history from the very beginning of human culture to our days. From a somewhat different angle, Dutch anthropologist Riet Delsing approaches her subject in her interesting book Articulating Rapa Nui. Delsing has a deep knowledge of the place and her aims are mainly those of an ethnographer who looks at local events interacting with cultural trends at a global level. The author wants to show the tensions inherent in Rapa Nui life and especially their insistence on a collective cultural identity against the powerful Chilean state and the invasion of global tourism and consumerism.
The first part of the book is a history of the island from the moment of the Chilean annexation in 1888. This is stimulating because Delsing uses oral history and ethnography to present a Rapa Nui version of events. In addition, she manages to demonstrate the impact historical events and the memory practices connected to them still have on the islanders’ culture. Delsing’s analysis shows how even well-meant initiatives like the Indigenous Law (Ley Indígena) of 1993 after the Chilean return to democracy had unpredictable and negative consequences for the Polynesian island. The split in the community that Chilean forms of governance produced are characteristic for the situation on Rapa Nui today.
In the second part, Delsing studies the interaction of cultural politics and global imaginaries between appropriation and resistance in contemporary Rapa Nui. Acts of resistance, Delsing argues, can be seen both in the imitation of and open opposition to legal and institutional practices on the Chilean mainland. Using both discourse and their bodies, Rapa Nui people “perform” these acts of struggle from their marginal position within the state. Of course, material culture is of major significance. Traditional arts such as sculpting, body painting and dance are some of the various forms that Rapa Nui use to demonstrate their cultural knowledge and difference. Delsing holds a very optimistic view of the autonomy of this production, perhaps underestimating the influence of global consumerism materialized in tourist demand. More convincing is her discussion of the “rebirth” or (re-) construction of Rapa Nui language as an instrument for cultural revitalization and for political resistance. The specific concept of land that the islanders hold is especially important in this regard going beyond the limits of language and to the very heart of this Polynesian identity. This primordial relationship to the land is still of major importance to many—though not all—islanders, as Delsing convincingly shows. It is also one of the many elements that connect Rapa Nui to other Polynesian cultures. These connections have lately gained importance in the cultural revival on the island and islanders have participated in events all over the Polynesian sea.
While these expressions of Rapa Nui culture are discussed very knowledgeably by the author the final chapter on the exotic image of the island and the tourists that flock to it remains very brief. Delsing discusses the visits of high-profile travelers such as Václav Havel or Spanish King Juan Carlos and the Rapa Nui reactions. Yet exactly how the people on the island construct their self-image in interaction with tourism and commodify it is not explained in the level of detail evident in other...
