Description
Book SynopsisTongan women living outside of their island homeland create and use hand-made, sometimes hybridized, textiles to maintain and rework their cultural traditions in diaspora. Central to these traditions is an ancient concept of homeland or nation - fonua - which Tongans retain as an anchor for modern nation-building.
Trade Review “The book compellingly demonstrates how women, textile wealth and tradition are enmeshed… [and] adds considerably to the understanding of how material culture works in a contemporary society and how women can bind geographically scattered communities through the movement of these valuable objects, which are the products of female activity.” · Pacific Affairs
“This is a very well written ethnographic study that is a valuable contribution to the long standing discussions within anthropology about ‘the gift.’ More specifically it adds a new dimension to the work on women’s wealth…[it] is also a valuable addition to work on diasporic populations.” · Helen Lee, La Trobe University
“This is an original and important study of the experience of contemporary Tongans… Through nuanced ethnography which moves between Tongatapu and Auckland in New Zealand, she shows how ordinary Tongans daily cross the borders of states and the tenacious barriers between tradition and modernity, gifts and commodities.” · Margaret Jolly, The Australian National University, Canberra
Table of Contents Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Nation, Cloth, and Diaspora: Locating Langa Fonua
Chapter 1. Migration, Tradition, and Barkcloth: Authentic Innovations in Textile Gifts
Chapter 2. Gender, Materiality, Value: Tongan Women’s Cooperatives in New Zealand
Chapter 3. Women, Roots, and Routes: Life Histories and Life Paths
Chapter 4. Gender, Kinship, Economics: Exchanging Complex Ceremonial Gifts in Diaspora
Chapter 5. Cash, Death, Diaspora: When Koloa Won’t Do
Chapter 6. Church, Cash, Competition: Multi-centrism and Modern Religion
Conclusion: Moving, Dwelling, and Transforming Spaces
Glossary of Polynesian Language Terms
Works Cited
