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177 Epilogue Can you imagine the “Islands of Love” with no people on them? That’s what it will be like, ten, twenty years’ time from now. We must forecast ourselves and think about what is going to happen. The young ones must know they are the future carers for children and grandchildren. If they don’t keep this in mind, the islands will be empty. —Ethel Jacob, community leader, 23 September 2003 The timber walls and doors of Trobriand houses are ledgers of daily life, displaying idle doodling, random musings, creative drawings, and images cut out from newspapers and magazines. Upon my return to the Trobriands for a twoweek family visit in January 2007, I was taken by surprise when I noticed a scrawl of chalk on the wall next to the entrance of my mother-in-law’s house. The hastily written message in English was simply “AIDS is preventable.” I asked household members if they knew who put the message there and everyone just laughed and said “Aiseki!” (Who knows?). I satisfied my curiosity by regarding this parthenogenetic apparition as a sign of good faith to mark my return visit. Like seeing the HIV awareness poster on the bukumatula, for me this random message was emblematic of how the discursive presence of HIV has settled into the Trobriand landscape. A subliminal but constant daily reminder—friends reminding friends— at the entrance of a house that welcomes many people for a chat and a chew during the course of the day. Ethel’s statement in the epigraph asserts the importance of being mindful of HIV prevention in the present by imagining a future foretold. Her rhetorical question sharply juxtaposes the idyllic “Islands of Love” with the devastation of HIV, intimating the distinctiveness of the Trobriands in contending not only with imposed representations and models of meaning but with the cultural challenges of prevention. The global HIV pandemic relentlessly imposes paradoxes on local ways of knowing and being (Setel 1999). In the Trobriands, this is acutely apparent in the potential for the decimating virus to manifest through and suffuse the cultural pleasures of fecundity and social regeneration. As an expression of Trobriand sociality , sexuality is a productive resource in building interclan relationships. The life stage of kubukwabuya, or unmarried youth, is particularly significant for demonstrating the capacity for social reproduction and, as Ethel forcefully reminds, securing the future. 178 ISLANDS OF LOVE, ISLANDS OF RISK In what ways can we portray the stories of how people imagine and respond to the unfolding presence of a localized HIV epidemic? Perhaps a vortex into despair is fitting for some realities, as Alex de Waal described during a workshop I attended in 2007.1 For the Trobriands, I think the spiral of the wosimwaya dance, which charts the process of regeneration and the promise of the future by turning back and looking forward to arrive at new levels of understanding, is the appropriate metaphor. The recursive view of time and retrospective character of growth are central features of a broader Melanesian sociality, which activate ancestral strength and identity to transform the past into the future (Strathern 1988:280). Social action directed toward future outcomes draws on accumulated knowledge through strategic reflection and evaluation. For Malakulans of Vanuatu, the signification and celebration of “custom” are oriented toward “an image of the future . . . as a projection of individual and collective power” (Curtis 2002:241). Similarly, in the Trobriands, exchange as the operative mode of social interaction is based on reflective projections wherein “the future exists as a perspective of the present” (Weiner 1976:82). Clement’s call for condom use to uphold cultural fidelity suggests an image of a future secured by maintaining traditional foundations through the adoption of new practice. Ethel’s urgings to “forecast ourselves” grounds the viability of the future firmly in the present. The movement of the wosimwaya dance celebrates this capacity by bringing the youngest dancer, trailing at the end of the line, to the fore. The spiral form of the dance evokes the importance of intergenerational relations and how they represent one aspect of the “pivotal moral concept . . . of interdependence” in responding to HIV (Reid 1995:7–8). Ethel expresses a moral concern for the interdependence between generations in this response by emphasizing that future responsibility for nurture and care rests in the present. The sentiment of interdependence was revealed in many of the discussions during my research, especially by older women who expressed not only concern for...

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