Papers by Emily C . Donaldson
Practicing Anthropology
Anthropologists today are constantly challenged to understand and navigate our relationships to o... more Anthropologists today are constantly challenged to understand and navigate our relationships to others, ourselves, our contexts, and our institutions. For my part, repeatedly facing the question, “What is your affiliation?” has recently made me wonder what that particular relationship means. Recent trends suggest that most of this year’s freshly-minted anthropology Ph.D.s will take their hard-earned expertise to fields outside of academia, where it and other social science perspectives are sorely needed to address the world’s current crises. But as anthropology programs face tightening budgets, more career-oriented students, and the threat of termination, we should be asking how academic anthropologists can better recognize and draw upon all those who have trained in our field. This piece explores the effects and waning relevance of university affiliation on our discipline, at a time when we are striving to achieve greater equality, accessibility, and applicability.
Journal de la Société des océanistes, Dec 15, 2021
American Ethnologist, 2022
Pacific Affairs, 2022
For many Indigenous peoples, ancestral lands are a source of nourishment, strength, and sovereign... more For many Indigenous peoples, ancestral lands are a source of nourishment, strength, and sovereignty that counteracts colonial legacies of violence and hegemony. However, the feelings associated with place and the land can also be complicated by embodied fear and ambivalence. What happens when the remnants of colonialism feed feelings of ambivalence, shame, or fear of the land? How do these lasting emotional scars on Indigenous minds and bodies impact Native place-making, today? This paper problematizes the role of ancestral lands and affective place-making in shaping Indigenous identity, sovereignty, resource management, and sustainability. In the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia, ancestral places are felt as much as seen, and the spirits that dwell there can be dangerous. The active concealment of these Marquesan reactions and relationships to place illustrates the blending of colonial and Indigenous histories and values in ambivalent, affective experiences on the land. Thus, ...
Bulletin De La Societe Des Etudes Oceaniennes, 2005
At a time when Pacific environmental and cultural heritage is facing growing risks while at the s... more At a time when Pacific environmental and cultural heritage is facing growing risks while at the same time becoming an object of debate on the international scene, Donaldson’s book is most useful. I...
International Journal of Environmental Studies
Abstract In the course of their daily subsistence activities, Marquesan Islanders exercise a form... more Abstract In the course of their daily subsistence activities, Marquesan Islanders exercise a form of sovereignty that defies the cumbersome land regulations established by the state (France) and the territory (French Polynesia). A complex network of land owners, workers and caretakers shapes the way islanders use the land, perpetuating customary patterns of tenure and resisting imposed structures of power. Fruit trees apparently planted for financial gain are in fact a pointed political statement about islanders’ struggle for influence and the continuing power of their past.
During the summer of 1998, excavation by archaeologist Dr Barry Rolett of a small, unique collect... more During the summer of 1998, excavation by archaeologist Dr Barry Rolett of a small, unique collection of artefacts in the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia, four beautifully carved and preserved tiki heads were found buried just beneath the jungle floor. These tiki heads ...
Bulletin De La Societe Des Etudes Oceaniennes, 2005
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Oceania, 2018
Increasingly marked by ethnic resettlement, large-scale development and the destruction of cultur... more Increasingly marked by ethnic resettlement, large-scale development and the destruction of cultural places, today's world challenges the essential bond between indigenous peoples and the land. Popular ideas about the supportive role of long-term, phenomenological links to place and heritage appear to be losing their relevance. Yet, a closer look at the complexity of human connections to place reveals how painful memories and discomfort can also generate strong bonds that affirm community and cultural cohesiveness. Place-making in indigenous heritage landscapes marked by colonialism is often ambivalent, evoking Ruth Benedict's observation that the sacred ‘may be a source of peril or it may be a source of blessing’ (1934:28). Though the actual meaning of places may be fraught, a shared approach to such heritage can bind communities together, overcoming historic silences and a violent past. With specific reference to ethnographic research in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia, I illustrate the contingency of indigenous processes of place-making that are based in personal belief, discomfort and colonialism as much as affirmative interaction with the physical world.
International Journal of Environmental Studies, 2017
In the course of their daily subsistence activities, Marquesan
Islanders exercise a form of sover... more In the course of their daily subsistence activities, Marquesan
Islanders exercise a form of sovereignty that defies the cumbersome
land regulations established by the state (France) and the territory
(French Polynesia). A complex network of land owners, workers
and caretakers shapes the way islanders use the land, perpetuating
customary patterns of tenure and resisting imposed structures of
power. Fruit trees apparently planted for financial gain are in fact a
pointed political statement about islanders’ struggle for influence and
the continuing power of their past.
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Papers by Emily C . Donaldson
Islanders exercise a form of sovereignty that defies the cumbersome
land regulations established by the state (France) and the territory
(French Polynesia). A complex network of land owners, workers
and caretakers shapes the way islanders use the land, perpetuating
customary patterns of tenure and resisting imposed structures of
power. Fruit trees apparently planted for financial gain are in fact a
pointed political statement about islanders’ struggle for influence and
the continuing power of their past.
Islanders exercise a form of sovereignty that defies the cumbersome
land regulations established by the state (France) and the territory
(French Polynesia). A complex network of land owners, workers
and caretakers shapes the way islanders use the land, perpetuating
customary patterns of tenure and resisting imposed structures of
power. Fruit trees apparently planted for financial gain are in fact a
pointed political statement about islanders’ struggle for influence and
the continuing power of their past.