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How, when, and why has the Pacific been a locus for imagining
different futures by those living there as well as passing through?
What does that tell us about the distinctiveness or otherwise of
this "sea of islands"? Foregrounding the work of leading and
emerging scholars of Oceania, Pacific Futures brings together a
diverse set of approaches to, and examples of, how futures are
being conceived in the region and have been imagined in the
past.Individual chapters engage the various and sometimes contested
futures yearned for, unrealized, and even lost or forgotten, that
are particular to the Pacific as a region, ocean, island network,
destination, and home. Contributors recuperate the futures hoped
for and dreamed up by a vast array of islanders and outlanders -
from Indigenous federalists to Lutheran improvers to Cantonese
small business owners - making these histories of the future
visible. In so doing, the collection intervenes in debates about
globalization in the Pacific - and how the region is acted on by
outside forces - and postcolonial debates that emphasize the agency
and resistance of Pacific peoples in the context of centuries of
colonial endeavor. With a view to the effects of the "slow
violence" of climate change, the volume also challenges scholars to
think about the conditions of possibility for future-thinking at
all in the midst of a global crisis that promises cataclysmic
effects for the region. Pacific Futures highlights futures
conceived in the context of a modernity coproduced by diverse
Pacific peoples, taking resistance to categorization as a starting
point rather than a conclusion. With its hospitable approach to
thinking about history making and future thinking, one that is open
to a wide range of methodological, epistemological, and political
interests and commitments, the volume will encourage the writing of
new histories of the Pacific and new ways of talking about history
in this field, the region, and beyond.
Making Micronesia is the story of Tosiwo Nakayama, the first
president of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Born to a
Japanese father and an island woman in 1931 on an atoll northwest
of the main Chuuk Lagoon group, Nakayama grew up during Japan’s
colonial administration of greater Micronesia and later proved
adept at adjusting to life in post-war Chuuk and under the
American-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. After
studying at the University of Hawai‘i, Nakayama returned to Chuuk
in 1958 and quickly advanced through a series of administrative
positions before winning election to the House of Delegates (later
Senate) of the Congress of Micronesia. He served as its president
from 1965 to1967 and again from 1973 to 1978. More than any other
individual, Nakayama is credited with managing the complex
political discussions on Saipan in 1975 that resulted in a national
constitution for the different Micronesian states that made up the
Trust Territory. A proponent of independence, he was a key player
in the lengthy negotiations with the U.S. government and throughout
the islands that culminated in the Compact of Free Association and
the eventual creation of the FSM. In 1979 Nakayama was elected the
first president of the FSM and spent the next eight years working
to solidify an island nation and to see the Compact of Free
Association through to approval and implementation. One wonders
what the contemporary political configuration of the western
Pacific would look like without Tosiwo Nakayama. His story,
however, involves much more than a narrative of political events.
Nakayama’s rise to prominence constitutes a remarkable story
given the physical, political, and cultural distances he
negotiated. His engagements with colonialism, decolonization, and
nation-making place him squarely in the middle of the most
important issues in twentieth-century Pacific Islands history. The
study of his life also invites a reconsideration of migration,
transnational crossings, and the actual size of island worlds.
Making Micronesia follows Nakayama’s life through time, focusing
on the expansiveness of his vision. In many ways, “Macronesia,”
not “Micronesia,” seems a more appropriate term for the world
he inhabited and tried to make accessible to others.
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