Asia in the Pacific
Conference of the European Society for Oceanists
On 25-27 June 1999, the fourth conference of the European Society for Oceanists (ESfO) was held in Leiden. The main theme of this conference, 'Asia in the Pacific', was chosen for the following reason: after the historical penetration of the Pacific by European and North American traders, missionaries, colonial administrators, and development agents, which has already been the subject of many studies, it was necessary to go a step further and take contemporary economic, political, linguistic and (other) cultural influences from Asia into consideration. This step is inevitable if we accept the thesis as many Oceanists do that the Pacific is becoming a major centre in the world economy.
By PAUL VAN DER GRIJP
Although the latter premiss may be truer for the countries of the Pacific Rim than for the small-scale societies of Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and indigenous Australia, it still reinforces the importance of these societies in the centre of the Pacific. This is why the theme 'Asia in the Pacific' was chosen as a focus of reflection and debate.The main theme was paid special attention in the general address and the keynote speeches. The general address by Jan Pouwer (formerly Nijmegen University) may be summarized as: geo-genesis, socio-genesis, and globalization of the Pacific Basin. Without doubt referring to his own academic experience as (founding) professor of the Anthropology Department in Wellington, New Zealand, one of Jan Pouwer's conclusions was that, during the last few decades: 'Academic departments, institutions, and research in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific acquired an independent status, a new elan and a new, far less classy, more informal and inspiring style. Their output was and is impressive. Their scope expanded from inward bound to Pacific-bound and is at present clearly circum-Pacific oriented.'
Jonathan Friedman (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris) in his keynote, entitled 'The sea of islands in the world of nations', commented on an earlier ESfO keynote by the Tongan scholar 'Epeli Hau'ofa in Copenhagen. Ron Crocombe, the former director of the Institute of Pacific Studies (University of the South Pacific, Suva) gave a keynote on 'Asia and the Pacific'. Ron Crocombe explained that: 'Despite the Asian economic crisis, interaction between the Pacific Islands and Asia continues to grow. As with European penetration of the Pacific Islands, the early impacts are mainly in hardware: trade and technology. European software followed quickly, especially churches... East Asia seems destined to become an ever larger factor in trade, investment, immigration.'
Our choice for the main conference theme, Asia in the Pacific, did not exclude the presentation and discussion of other themes, as the wide range of sessions held at this conference reveals. To give some examples of the 13 session themes I mention only a few: 'Mobility, Agency and Identity in the Asia-Pacific Region', 'Fertility and the Foundation of Social and Cosmic Order in the Pacific', 'Impact of Foreign Occupation and Migration on Local Cultures and/of Life Histories', and 'The Trader's Dilemma in Asia and the Pacific'. Most of the about 160 conference participants came from Europe, but there were also many from the USA, Australia, New Zealand and the (other) Pacific Islands.
It was the second time that the biennial conference of the European Society for Oceanists (ESfO) has been held in the Netherlands. The last two conferences took place in Basel and Copenhagen, the very first and founding ESfO conference in Nijmegen in 1992. The purpose of the ESfO is to exchange research results and create closer links between European Oceanists, and also amongst European scholars and their colleagues from other parts of the world. The fourth conference in Leiden, in June 1999, was jointly organized by the Centre for Pacific Studies (CPS) of the University of Nijmegen, and the Inter-university Research Project Irian Jaya Studies (ISIR, co-ordinator Leiden University) in co-operation with the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS, main office Leiden). I think that this co-operation in organizing the conference in Leiden indeed achieved a fruitful exchange of information and ideas, and that it can be seen as a positive marker for the future of Oceania Studies in Europe. Additional information on ESfO and the 1999 conference can be found on the World Wide Web. The main address is http://
www.joensuu.fi/esfo, whilst an Australian mirror site is accessible at http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~marck/esfo/esfo.htm. *
DR PAUL VAN DER GRIJP,
ex-Vice President of the ESfO, is Maître de Conférences at the Département d'Ethnologie, Université de Provence (Aix-Marseille-I), and Researcher of the Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l'Océanie (CREDO)
Maison Asie Pacifique
Campus St Charles
3 place Victor Hugo
F-13003 Marseille
France
E-mail:
pvdgrijp@newsup.univ-mrs.fr.