We Are the Ocean: Selected Works

by Epeli Hauʻofa

We Are the Ocean is a collection of essays, fiction, and poetry by Epeli Hau'ofa, whose writing over the past three decades has consistently challenged prevailing notions about Oceania and prescriptions for its development. He highlights major problems confronted by the region and suggests alternative perspectives and ways in which its people might reorganize to relate effectively to the changing world.

Hau'ofa's essays criss-cross Oceania, creating a navigator's star chart of discussion and debate. Spurning the arcana of the intellectual establishments where he was schooled, Hau'ofa has crafted a distinctive--often lyrical, at times angry--voice that speaks directly to the people of the region and the general reader. He conveys his thoughts from diverse standpoints: university-based analyst, essayist, satirist and humorist, and practical catalyst for creativity. According to Hau'ofa, only through creative originality in all fields of endeavor can the people of Oceania hope to strengthen their capacity to engage the forces of globalization.

"Our Sea of Islands," "The Ocean in Us," "Pasts to Remember," and "Our Place Within," all of which are included in this collection, outline some of Hau'ofa's ideas for the emergence of a stronger and freer Oceania. Throughout he expresses his concern with the environment and suggests that the most important role that the "people of the sea" can assume is as custodians of the Pacific, the vast area of the world's largest body of water.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Indigenous, Essays, Anthropology, History, The World

216 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2008

About the author

Hauʻofa was born of Tongan missionary parents working in Papua New Guinea. At his death, he was a citizen of Fiji, living in Suva. He attended school in Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Fiji (Lelean Memorial School), and later attended the University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales; McGill University, Montreal; and the Australian National University, Canberra, where he gained a Ph.D. in social anthropology. Hauʻofa published in 1981 with the title Mekeo: inequality and ambivalence in a village society. Hauʻofa taught briefly at the University of Papua New Guinea, and was a research fellow at the University of the South Pacific (USP) in Suva, Fiji. From 1978 to 1981 he was the Deputy Private Secretary to His Majesty King Tāufaʻāhau Tupou IV (The King of Tonga), while serving as the keeper of palace records. During his time in Tonga, Hauʻofa co-produced the literary magazine Faikara with his wife Barbara. In early 1981 he re-joined USP as the first director of the newly created Rural Development Centre based in Tonga.
Hauʻofa subsequently taught sociology at USP and in 1983 became the Head of the Department of Sociology at the main campus in Suva. In 1997, Hauʻofa became the founder and director of the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture (OCAC) at USP in Suva.
As the author of Mekeo: Inequality and ambivalence in a village society; and Tales of the Tikongs, Hauʻofa dealt with indigenous responses to the changes occurring and those that have already occurred by modernization and development. Kisses in the Nederends, a novel; and, more recently, We Are the Ocean: Selected Works, include fiction, poetry and essays.
Tales of the Tikongs was translated into Danish in 2002 by John Allan Pedersen (as Stillehavsfortællinger, ISBN 87-7514-076-4)
Epeli Hauʻofa died at the Suva Private Hospital in Suva, Fiji 11 January 2009 at the age of 70. He was survived by his wife, Barbara, and son, Epeli Siʻi. A funeral service was held at the University of the South Pacific campus in Suva, 15 January 2009. He was buried at his farm in Lami, Fiji.

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

WE ARE THE OCEAN: Selected Works by Epeli Hau'ofa, 2008.
.
#ReadtheWorld21 📍 Tonga

The book combines academic essays, poetry, fictions, and interviews with Hau'ofa. The most insightful sections of the book for me were Part 1 and 2 containing essays on anthropology, Oceania/Pacific identity and history, and his work as a teaching professor.


"What kind of teaching is it to stand in front of young people from your own region, people you claim as your own who have come to university with high hopes for the future, and to tell them that our countries are hopeless? Is this not what neocolonialism is all about? To make people believe that they have no choice but to depend?" (p 29-30)


At the time of writing, he expresses his role as the SOLE anthropologist of Pacific heritage, coming into a academic realm and study that unfortunately is steeped in colonialism, othering, paternalism, and illegal acquisition of material and intellectual culture. Indigenous peoples used by anthropologists and archaeologists as labor and lackeys for decades, completely dismissing the millennia of knowledge by these people.

Hau'ofa calls for unity across the Pacific, reconsidering the notion of each island and land mass being isolated but woven together, the fluid waters of the Pacific connecting each location.

Many other amazing revelations and insights on this book - I made so many notes! - and also enjoyed the absurdist fictions, his poetry, and the eulogy he wrote and presented at the funeral of King Tāufa'āhau Tupou IV of Tonga in 2006.

"We cannot therefore have our memories erased, foreshortened, or directed. With weak roots, we would be easily transplanted... grafted upon..."

[muthuvel · Rating 5 out of 5]

"To remove a people from their ancestral, natural surroundings or to destroy their lands with mining, deforestation, bombing, large-scale industrial and urban developments, and the like - is to sever them not only from their traditional sources of livelihood but also, and much more importantly, from their ancestry, their history, their identity, and their ultimate claim for the legitimacy of their existence.
..
Such acts are therefore sacrilegious and of the same order of enormity as the complete destruction of all of a nation’s libraries, archives, museums, monuments, historic buildings, and all its books and other such documents."

The work comprises of the writer's essays, fiction and personal accounts. It has so much to offer insightful and enduring perspectives on the cultures, historical understanding and distortions, political atmosphere, and more importantly the contemporary survival livelihoods amidst establishments and reconciling the challenges of indigenous lives in the Pacific region with the role of art.

With a PhD in Anthropology, he worked at the University of South Pacific balancing the academic times with his artistic activities with regional artists to find their inspiration in their own cultures, histories and contemporary experiences.

With multitude of cultures within the sea of islands, he brings ocean as the common thing to mend a regional identity that unites them literally and metaphorically. The essays featured raises very important questions regarding the notion of what it means to live in a multicultural society. With so many of us (un)consciously assimilating towards a singular clichéd digital/ popular/ mainstream ways of living, I think, the writer's effort to reconcile these cultural conundrums in the region is a powerful tool as in itself and insights could be developed for the sake of decency and persistence of dignity of humans from all walks of culture.

I'm adding some of the quotes from the work for those got interested enough to reach this point.

Pg: 46-47
"In the earliest stage of our interactions with the outside world, we were the South Sea paradise of noble savages living in harmony with a bountiful nature; we were simultaneously lost and degraded souls to be pacified, Christianised, colonised, and civilised."

Pg: 70-71
"With little or no memory, we stand alone as individuals with no points of reference except to our dismally portrayed present, to our increasingly marketised national institutions, to international development agencies, international lending organisations, transnational corporations, fit only to be globalised and whateverised, and slotted in our proper places on the Human Development Index."

Pg: 88
"Globalisation, on the other hand, is such a serious, mechanical, joyless, and soulless enterprise that the flames in people’s spirit are often extinguished at the outset, making it very difficult to rekindle them. Much time and effort are thereby consumed wastefully."

Pg: 147
"If you survive the pain in the arse you can live with just about anything."

Pg: 131
"We must greet, love, and dance with each other in the middle of our zones of taboo, for we have not created any real taboos, only the fears and phobias that we, in our limitless capacity for self-delusion, have swept to the boundaries of our cherished conventions, where they remain to haunt us into insanity and violence."

Pg: 141
"I almost lost my sense of humour trying to be civilized; but fortunately I never got quite civilized."

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is a rare breed of a Pacific Islander with a PHD in Anthropology. Compilation of chapters of public lectures, segments of a previous novel written, and other other observations of life in the South Seas. This is my second reading of the book. The issue is: "How do we maintain our culture, way of life and island soul while impacted by the foreign countries that 'hang' over us." Part of the book reads like a college text book. It raises the issue of the islands lack of economic freedom, as well as the negative impacts to the 'folklore' and way of life enjoyed by the islanders.

The author is the Head of the Department of Art and Culture of the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji (where I bought this book) modeled after the Oahu's Polynesian Cultural Center.

[Monica (Tattered_tales) · Rating 4 out of 5]

We are the Ocean by Epeli Hau'ofa is a collection of his essays, poetry, excerpts from his novels, including an interview and a eulogy. I'm not someone who usually drifts towards non-fiction, especially if it's not a memoir but there was something so gripping about this book. From the get go the author commands our attention as he talks about the region from which he comes from, Oceania.

What actually comes to the mind when you hear the word Oceania?
At first, the images that used to spring to my mind were that of Australia and New Zealand followed by the vast expanse of ocean dotted with islands, some whose names I knew and many I didn't know.

Reading this book gave me new perspective of these islands. I have heard about the categorization of these islands as Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia but I didn't know that it was an European-imposed division. The author, an anthropologist, writes extensively about his dislike of this threefold division which to him holds racial/cultural connotations. Instead he wanted to do away with it and regroup the region geographically as follows:
"West Oceania (the islands of New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia); North Oceania (Belau, the Marianas, Guam, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands); Central Oceania (Nauru, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Uvea [Wallis] and Futuna, Fiji, Tonga, Tokelau, Samoa, American Samoa, Niue); East Oceania (Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Pitcairn Island, Rapanui, Hawai‘i, Aotearoa New Zealand). Central Oceania is the region of the greatest overlapping and mingling of populations and cultures."

Throughout the essays he talks about his interest in preserving the culture, tradition and heritage of Oceania and his firm belief that art was the basis to achieve that. He became the founder and director of the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture at the University of South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, where he taught sociology, to aid him in his goal.

The latter half of the book contains excerpts from his fictional novels "Tales of the Tikongs" and "Kisses from the Nederends", both regarded to be milestones in Pacific literature. It also includes an interview of the author wherein he talks about a painful and difficult time in his life. The last part includes a eulogy for King Tāufa'āhau Tupou IV, the monarch of Tonga. It was insightful and revealed information about aristocratic Tonga that was hitherto unkown to me.

I'll end this review with a paragraph from this book that deeply resonated with me.
"Oceania is vast, Oceania is expanding, Oceania is hospitable and generous, Oceania is humanity rising from the depths of brine and regions of fire deeper still, Oceania is us. We are the sea, we are the ocean, we must wake up to this ancient truth and together use it to overturn all hegemonic views that aim ultimately to confi ne us again, physically and psychologically, in the tiny spaces that we have resisted accepting as our sole appointed places and from which we have recently liberated ourselves. We must not allow anyone to belittle us again, and take away our freedom."

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're at all interested in anthropology, this book is one worth picking up, particularly for the first two sections. I admit that I wasn't as big of a fan of Hau'ofa's creative writing (featured prominently in the third section), but I think I see why excerpts from his novel were included in this collection of his works.

[Noa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious and insightful, this book (or collections of essays) has become one of my favorite texts. Hau'ofa is a Oceanic anthropologist who is one of our own, studying us. He knows the nuances as a member of the community he studies -- and he knows what buttons to push to instigate reactions.
Some major concepts were the idea of the ocean as a connector, that the class systems and how they changed with the diaspora, the education systems promoted through time...he speaks to reciprocity and the taavaa theory and tauhivaa.

[Jamie Zaccaria · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating mix of essays, fiction, and poetry from one of the leading cultural voices of Oceania. I learned more about the region from this book than all 12 years of grade school in the US.

[ElenaSquareEyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found We Are the Ocean fascinating. It’s been a long time (since my uni days) since I’ve read academic essays, so I was a little apprehensive how I’d find these but quickly I realised my fears were unfounded. These essays were very readable and Hau’ofa’s voice came through clearly. As a lot of the essays were originally speeches at conferences, or adapted from a speech, that easy, conversational voice came through a lot.

I found these essays really interesting. I’ll readily admit I know little to nothing about the Oceanic region and the various island nations in that part of the world, so I learnt a lot from these essays. A lot of them were about the anthropology, history and financial structure of the countries in the Oceania/Pacific region. The relationship between the smaller island nations and Australia and New Zealand were a big part of it. How the trade worked, and how culture had been shared between the various countries and how people’s identities in some of the island countries were shaped by the influence of Australia and New Zealand rather than major western countries like America.

It was all super interesting and understandable because there was also talk of self-fulfilling prophesies as young people are told things like you’ll never amount to much in your home country unless you get an education abroad – so then is it of little surprise why the people in charge of banks, government etc aren’t fully educated in their home country. In fact, there’s often people of European, Australian, and New Zealander decent in positions of power due to colonial history.

The talk of anthropological studies and how historically anthropologists have been white and European and when they came to these countries, they made their own observations and didn’t think to make the effort to consult the native people who were experts in their own traditions. Hau’ofa being one of the only anthropologists from that region means he feels a great weight of responsibility of expanding the textbooks and the whole area of study.

The couple of short stories in this collection are kind of satirical and because they come after the majority of the essays it means you can pick up more of the references to the things and attitudes Hau’ofa is highlighting.

We Are the Ocean was incredibly interesting and easy to read. If you’re interested in history, social and cultural studies and how that all can interact to a person’s or country’s identity then this collection of work is for you. I learnt a lot from it and I’m please I read it.

[boombaard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always had a longing to visit Oceania. Perhaps it's due to a romanticized perception of the ocean, or maybe it's the sliver of Melanesian ancestry in me. However, something has held me back, as I yearned for a compelling reason to embark on such a journey. Fortunately, the gift of a book provided me with an alternative means of personal exploration. “We Are the Ocean” — the selection of Epeli Hauʻofa very diverse writings — was presented in a thoughtfully organized sequence: Rethinking, Reflecting, Creating and Revisiting. It's an extraordinary introduction to Tonga and, with that, a bit of the wider region, delving into profound contemplation and, though connected, comical short stories, too. There's a tribute to a king and an ending with a mesmerizing poem. All of it recommended reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the bluest part of our blue planet.

[Rita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Epeli Hau'ofa (1939-2009) era um escritor e antropólogo tonganês e fijiano.
O livro combina ensaios académicos, poesia, ficções, e entrevistas com Hau'ofa sobre os problemas enfrentados pela região.

Foi uma leitura um pouco monótona, mas dá-nos uma visão sobre aquelas ilhas do Pacífico.

We must greet, love, and dance with each other in the middle of our zones of taboo, for we have not created any real taboos, only the fears and phobias that we, in our limitless capacity for self-delusion, have swept to the boundaries of our cherished conventions, where they remain to haunt us into insanity and violence.

45/198 – Fiji
46/198 - Tonga

[Suzesmum · Rating 2 out of 5]

42📖 🇹🇴 TONGA🇹🇴 This is a collection of essays, chapters from his novels and poetry, traversing 30 years and consistently challenging prevailing notions about Oceania and prescriptions for its development. I found it rather tedious to read, like an academic text. I found myself skimming the essays and conference papers. The extracts from Hau’ofa’s well-known Kisses in the Nederends was quite disgusting, and inspired by the author’s own complications with an infected fistula. I’m glad that I didn’t purchase the book, and have come to the conclusion that the author has an unhealthy obsession with faeces. Gross🤮

[Melissa Chalhoub · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made me realize how similar the imperialistic strategies are in all corners of the world. We Are the Ocean emphasizes on how the pacific islands were divided and alienated from each other, instead of sharing the ocean, they are now each fitted on islands too small to be self-sufficient and forced to rely on foreign aid. Something very similar happened in the middle east with Sykes Picot, the same colonizers divided us and we’re trying to find a solution from within when the problem came from without.

Also as one of the very few native anthropologists Hau`ofa showcases the “orientalism” this branch of studies is immersed in especially when its leading figures are our colonizers.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gave me a fascinating insight into Pacific Islanders life, society and culture. It was a brilliant read and I'm curious to read more of Hau'ofa's work. This has really helped shaped my Master's dissertation.

[excentric · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great piece of work. I loved the authors explanation of his culture and the humour he used to ease us into the complicated and completely new (at least to me) traditions and history of the Oceanic nations.

[Gini · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was doing fine until his fiction pieces. He needs to stay with his academic and public speaking work. He did say that he found fiction type writing an outlet of sorts, and I understand that. I just don't appreciate it.

[Danna]

https://thecourseofevents.wordpress.c...

[Ashleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting anthology about life and culture in Tonga I'm interested in reading more of his work.

[Iris · Rating 4 out of 5]

pasts to remember will always be life changing. but a pretty hit or miss on some of these essays. nonetheless grateful to have read works by an anthropologist from the pacific islands

“To remove a people from their ancestral, natural surroundings or vice
versa-or to destroy their lands with mining, deforestation, bombing, large-
scale industrial and urban developments, and the like--is to sever them
not only from their traditional sources of livelihood but also, and much
more importantly, from their ancestry, their history, their identity, and
their ultimate claim for the legitimacy of their existence. It is the destruc-
tion of age-old rhythms of cyclical dramas that lock together familiar time,
motion, and space.”

[Shane McClendon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought it was pretty good.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

The beginning half is mainly comprised of essays, and the latter half comprised of fiction and poetry. It is conceivable that Hau`ofa’s highly personal style is strategic. By inviting the reader into the world in which he operates through his own frank reflections, he invites the reader to reflect upon his or her own feelings and experiences—things not usually valued in Western academia. Within this context, the reader feels empowered to engage with the topics, which become accessible and talk story style. Due to the author’s approaches, I certainly found the book persuasive and compelling. Clearly, as an anthology of work, the writings were not originally intended to be put together, and I think the way in which the book is not one coherent work is actually beneficial. This illustrates that there are many truths and histories, especially when it comes to the Pacific Islands—a place rooted in oral tradition. The book serves as an opening and invitation for other Pacific Islanders to express their own histories, realities, ideas, and visions for the future, as well as a reminder for outsiders to the Pacific to pause and understand one’s positionality in reference to the peoples of this place, as Epeli Hau`ofa alludes to in his poem “Blood in the Kava Bowl”:

Who we are we know and need not say
for the soul we share came from Vaihi
Across the bowl we nod our understanding of the line
that is also the cord brought by Tangaloa from above,
and the professor does not know. (180)

[Danielle Clode · Rating 5 out of 5]

An enlightening and refreshing view of Pacific history, from the perspective of the first people to live there, rather than the Eurocentric approaches more common in the historical and anthropological literature.