Description
Book SynopsisTells the story of the land and people of Banaba, a small Pacific island, which, from 1900 to 1980, was heavily mined for phosphate, an essential ingredient in fertilizer. This book offers an insight into the plight of other island peoples facing forced migration as a result of human impact on the environment.
Trade ReviewTeaiwa deals with the great sense of betrayal, loss, and displacement indigenous Banabans suffered through as well as the harsh physical toll decades of excessive mining has taken on the land. With a justified sense of outrage, Teaiwa educates her audience without alienating it, laying bare the consequences of reaping such a natural bounty at the expense of others.
* Publishers Weekly *
Recommended.
* Choice *
A detailed ethnography of Banaba undertaken by a researcher who hails from this 'very, very small island' . . . is an example of reflectivity and insightful scholarship. This is not a book to be taken lightly, but rather should be suggested to anyone with an interest in material culture, globalization, and post-colonial and ecological studies.
* Antipode *
Teaiwa displays artfully the powerful potential of interdisciplinarity as an approach toward gaining a richer and deeper understanding of Pacific pasts and peoples.
* The Contemporary Pacific *
By bringing gritty ethnographic detail, an omnivorous approach to sources, and surprising narrative innovations to bear on such topics, Teaiwa's book moves the social history of Earth's biogeochemical cycles into fertile new terrain.
* The Journal of Pacific History *
Table of ContentsPrelude: Three Global Stories
Acknowledgments
Notes on Orthography and Geography
Part I. Phosphate Pasts
1. The Little Rock That Feeds
2. Stories of P
3. Land from the Sea
Part II. Mine/lands
4. Remembering Ocean Island
5. Land from the Sky
6. Interlude: Another Visit to Ocean Island
7. E Kawa te aba: The Trials of the Ocean Islanders
8. Remix: Our Sea of Phosphate (photo essay)
Part III. Between Our Islands
9. Interlude: Coming Home to Fiji
10. Between Rabi and Banaba
Coda
Ocean Island/Banaba Timeline
Notes
Bibliography
