American Anthropology in Micronesia: An Assessment

Introduction

1 Introduction Robert C. Kiste and Mac Marshall This volume focuses on those Micronesian islands that have experienced American colonial rule: the Carolines, the Marshalls, and the Marianas. Not included in our purview are the contemporary Micronesian nations of Nauru and Kiribati, which lie geographically within what usually is called Micronesia but have rather different colonial histories. Over the past fifty years, the areas of Micronesia administered by the United States have shared a unique colonial experience that sets them apart from both their Micronesian neighbors and the rest of the Pacific (with the possible exception of American Samoa). The impact of American rule has been particularly great in the political arena, and Micronesia’s massive economic dependency can be rivaled only by the territories of the French Pacific. In providing a separate analysis for “American Micronesia,” we do not deny that culturally and historically it shares many characteristics with and has numerous linkages to other Micronesian and other Pacific islands. Indeed, such connections are considered in Robert C. Kiste’s discussion of Micronesia as a culture area in chapter 13. This volume also focuses on sociocultural anthropology and the several offshoots of the discipline that have developed in the last five decades. Explicitly not included here are prehistory, anthropological linguistics, and physical anthropology. The applied anthropology interests of the 1940s were played out primarily within the domain of sociocultural anthropology, and until recently that subfield has dominated research in Micronesia. Most major work in archaeology came later, with a substantial amount of research accomplished only in the past twenty years (see Rainbird 1994 for a recent summary; see also 2 ROB ERT C. KIS TE A ND MAC MA RSHA LL appendix 2C). During the early postwar years a few anthropological linguists worked in Micronesia, but the large body of research on Micronesian languages completed subsequently has been done almost exclusively by linguists. For example, under the Pacific and Asian Linguistics Institute (pali) project, several faculty members and graduate students in the University of Hawai‘i Department of Linguistics have devoted extensive study to Micronesian languages . While a few researchers in the first group of American anthropologists to work in Micronesia after World War II represented physical anthropology, this area of inquiry has since been neglected compared to the other subfields (see appendix 2C). In the 1940s, anthropological research in Micronesia provided a major impetus for a new and struggling academic discipline. Anthropology’s practitioners in American universities and museums were relatively few in number, and research funds were scarce, particularly for overseas fieldwork. Most sociocultural research was conducted as salvage ethnography on American Indian reservations, often during the summer months; a tradition of extended periods of field research had yet to be established among North American anthropologists . Although the postwar involvement of anthropologists in Micronesia continued a variety of war-related applied projects, it also represented an entirely new venture. The opportunity for overseas fieldwork was without parallel in American anthropology, opening to English speakers a new part of the Pacific as a major research area. Collectively, the several different programs that constituted the effort in Micronesia represent the largest research initiative in the history of American anthropology. American anthropological research in Micronesia can be divided into two phases. In the first, applied concerns dominated the World War II years and remained paramount through the 1950s. Most of the anthropologists at this time were funded or employed by various agencies of the US federal government, some in the direct hire of the US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (USTTPI). By the early 1960s the tide had clearly turned, and the second phase began. The last applied anthropologists became community development officers, took other positions in the administration, or ended their service in Micronesia. Thereafter most research was conducted by individuals as an academic endeavor, with practical applications of little or no concern. With all of this in mind, each invited contributor to this book, based on their previously demonstrated expertise, was asked to review a particular subject area and assess how post–World War II anthropological research had Introduction 3 affected the Micronesian people themselves, the US colonial administration, and the discipline of anthropology. Kiste and Suzanne Falgout (chap. 1) describe the historical background of American anthropology’s involvement in Micronesia, review the heyday of applied work there, outline the developments of the last twenty-five years, and discuss the shifting political milieu within which...