Changing Contexts, Shifting Meanings: Transformations of Cultural Traditions in Oceania

Acknowledgments

xi Acknowledgments First of all, sincerest thanks to those cultural communities throughout Oceania who generously welcomed us into their midst. To all who aided our research and granted access to their lives and knowledge, we are greatly indebted. Given that in the process of writing culture we constantly interact with their representations and praxis, it is not surprising that their voices and actions are always present in our research findings. The idea for a symposium with the title “Changing Contexts—Shifting Meanings” originated with Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin. This topic, which she had treated already in earlier publications as well as in the article heading the present volume, was a fortuitous one, as it allowed a dependable roof to be built that enclosed many different research interests. I wish to expressly thank her for support rendered in the run-up to the symposium . In dialogue with her I developed a specific focus within the overall architecture, inviting an exchange of novel research on “Changing Contexts—Shifting Meanings: Transformations of Cultural Traditions in Oceania.” For affording us the opportunity to present our research results—first at the symposium , now within the pages of this volume—we are especially indebted to Stephen Little, director of the Honolulu Academy of Arts. In the planning phase for the exhibition Life in the Pacific of the 1700s: The Cook/Forster Collection of the Georg August University of Göttingen, Stephen immediately picked up on the importance of a symposium connected with the exhibition. He got the meeting off to a splendid start with an inspirational walk through the rooms housing the exhibitions at the academy. On this tour he was concerned to place the art objects within their respective contexts—cultural origin, time and place of acquisition, and museological classification—stressing that the artifacts represent highly variegated interactions with their contexts. And in the symposium ’s aftermath, he enthusiastically supported the idea of bringing its papers to a wider audience of readers. On a personal note, I wish to thank Stephen for encouraging me to organize the symposium as a research fellow with the Honolulu Academy of Arts, and also for inspiring conversation and unstinting support in preparing this volume for publication. I would also like to record my gratitude to the Honolulu Academy of Arts itself for the above research fellowship and for generously cofinancing with the Doris Duke Foundation Endowment Fund both the symposium and the present publication. For agreeing to subsidize the printing costs I am greatly indebted to the academy’s Board of Trustees and especially to Lynne Johnson, the chairman and interim director. In connection with the task of planning the symposium, I am indebted to suggestions made, from time to time, by a special committee consisting of Stephen Little, Brigitta xii | Acknowledgments Hauser-Schäublin, Adrienne Kaeppler, and Deborah Waite. To all coworkers and volunteers at the Honolulu Academy of Arts who helped out in the symposium’s organizing phase or in preparing this volume for print, I owe a debt of gratitude. Thus my thanks go to Lori Admiral for her demonstrated expertise and organizational skills and for the harmonious way we interacted throughout; to Cathy Ng, who was always on hand to smooth the logistics; to Chris Scrofani and Aaron Hara, who competently assisted with the IT; to Kathee Hoover, who supplied expert advice; to Milt Chun for his typeface concept for the book cover; and to Shuzo Uemoto, who let me use his brilliant photographs of the opening of the Life in the Pacific of the 1700s exhibition. Harry Haase from the University of Göttingen added his own masterly photographs of objects, for which I am grateful too. My sincere thanks to Ulrich Menter for his tireless commitment to seeing the symposium through and for laying out the present manuscript, a process in which he brought to bear the same formidable know-how and experience displayed in his own publications. In the context of the Life in the Pacific of the 1700s exhibition, he and conservator Gerry Barton honed my eye for the fascinating complexity of the objects on display. I would also like to warmly thank Steffen Herrmann for helping with bibliographic research, preparing the photos for the manuscript and offering to include one of his own, and giving valuable advice and expert assistance when pursuing the copyedited manuscript. He is also to be complimented for drafting a cover design that is at once striking and masterfully executed. Indigenous scholars have, through their studies...