“I Followed England Round the World”: The Rise of Trans-Imperial Anglo-Saxon Exceptionalism, and the Spatial Narratives of Nineteenth-Century British Settler Colonies of the Pacific Rim

2009 ◽  
pp. 99-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penelope Edmonds
2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara S. Wagner

the Victorians’ driving interest in exploration and expansion is perhaps one of the best-known scholarly truisms about the age and its literature. While the British Empire was rapidly expanding and commercial competition began to stretch across the globe with a newly perceived urgency, Victorians at home throughout this expanding empire were at once fascinated and anxious in reading about the wider world. Armchair explorers might have confined themselves to a vicarious enjoyment of the gold-nuggets that seem to lay scattered throughout the expanding settler world, of adventures in an excitingly exoticised “bush,” and of shipwrecks and dubious impostors who sometimes seemed to return from the middle of nowhere. Readers could even indulge in a smugly self-congratulatory sense of amusement when witnessing the satirised ignorance of Flora Finching in Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit (1857), when she famously evokes semi-colonial China as such a country to live in for so long a time, and with so many lanterns and umbrellas too how very dark and wet the climate ought to be and no doubt actually is, and the sums of money that must be made by those two trades where everybody carries them and hangs them everywhere, the little shoes too and the feet screwed back in infancy is quite surprising, what a traveller you are! (152; ch. 13) With its bizarre juxtaposition of exotic references and vague gesticulations towards imperial commerce's impact at home, Flora's confusion is first and foremost funny, and readers were clearly meant to recognise it as such. In the same vein, adventure tales set in far-off islands in the Pacific or in new settlements in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand certainly continued to feature the enticingly wild and exotic. Yet increasingly, popular fiction made it clear that we ought to know more about the world out there, and that this entailed a different sense of responsibility as well. It is tellingly the satirised, pompous characters who wildly joke about the hero's escapades “down under” in Anthony Trollope's John Caldigate (1879), while the novel instead shows that the widespread notion “that anything done in the wilds of Australia ought not ‘to count’ here, at home in England” (322; ch. 42) does no longer hold in a world that is clearly not only expanding, but contracting and narrowing in the process. But if these widely read Victorian triple-deckers show how aware readers were becoming of the British presence throughout the world – including such indisputably still mystified, exoticised places as China – and how this impacted on literature and culture “back home,” the way the Victorians thought about, imagined, and discussed their own shifting place in this changing world was markedly wide and varied. Public interest in sinology, for example, as reflected in the magazines of the time, or contradictory accounts by missionaries, military officers, and emigration societies, and how these discourses were worked into popular culture productions, all testify to an ambiguous, contested field. The depiction of settler societies in particular underwent enormous shifts in the course of the century. How the most persistent images of the expanding settler and commercial empire were generated and circulated in Victorian Britain can be gleaned from shipboard diaries, popular ballads, broadsides, as well as from more official accounts such as the manuals and pamphlets produced by emigration societies. A close analysis of this rarely discussed material, in turn, compels a reconsideration of the way literary works engaged with discourses on emigration, travel, and imperial adventure. In going beyond what we see merely reflected in Victorian canonical literature, this special issue on nineteenth-century representations of the region spanning, roughly, what we now consider the Pacific Rim allows us to get a wider perspective on what “the Victorians” made of the changing world around them.


Author(s):  
Gregory Rosenthal

This book’s epilogue considers how the story of the rise and fall of Hawaiʻi’s indigenous workers—and the diasporic, migratory nature of their experiences—revolutionizes what we think we know about the place of Hawaiʻi in the Pacific, and the place of the Pacific in the world. I also raise questions about what this story can contribute to twenty-first-century struggles over capitalism and colonialism in Hawaiʻi as well as across our globalizing world. The epilogue looks specifically at the twenty-first-century legacies of nineteenth-century practices and experiences of Hawaiian migrant labor, state labor discipline, indigenous land dispossession, policing and incarceration, and life in “perpetual diaspora.”


2001 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Hickson ◽  
Michael Schull ◽  
Emilio Huertas Arias ◽  
Yasufumi Asai ◽  
Jih-Chang Chen ◽  
...  

AbstractIntroduction:The discussions in this theme provided an opportunity to address the unique hazards facing the Pacific Rim.Methods:Details of the methods used are provided in the preceding paper. The chairs moderated all presentations and produced a summary that was presented to an assembly of all of the delegates. Since the findings from the Theme 3 and Theme 7 groups were similar, the chairs of both groups presided over one workshop that resulted in the generation of a set of action plans that then were reported to the collective group of all delegates.Results:The main points developed during the presentations and discussion included: (1) communication, (2) coordination, (3) advance planning and risk assessment, and (4) resources and knowledge.Discussion:Action plans were summarized in the following ideas: (1) plan disaster responses including the different types, identification of hazards, focusing training based on experiences, and provision of public education; (2) improve coordination and control; (3) maintain communications, assuming infrastructure breakdown; (4) maximize mitigation through standardized evaluations, the creation of a legal framework, and recognition of advocacy and public participation; and (5) provide resources and knowledge through access to existing therapies, the media, and increasing and decentralizing hospital inventories.Conclusions:The problems in the Asia-Pacific rim are little different from those encountered elsewhere in the world. They should be addressed in common with the rest of the world.


1995 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Noble ◽  
J. C. Aitchison

Polycystine radiolaria that produce siliceous tests are known to range from Cambrian to Holocene. They have proven to be enormously useful in providing age control for siliceous marine sequences of Middle Devonian and younger ages, particularly for cherts and shales that are commonly devoid of other biostratigraphically useful fossils. The utility of radiolarian biostratigraphy became widely recognized in the 1970s and 1980s when it was applied in dating deformed marine siliceous sequences in orogenic belts around the world, most notably in Cordilleran North America and other areas along the Pacific rim (e.g., Jones and Murchey, 1986; Aitchison and Murchey, 1992; Ichikawa et al., 1990).


1972 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 273-275
Author(s):  
I. A. Fedosseyev ◽  
A. F. Plakhotnick

Though Russia, in contrast with England, had no broad access to the oceans, Russian oceanographers always took a great interest in the world ocean investigations. To confirm this we would first of all like to mention the Russian cruises around the world, made by I. F. Krusenstern and Ju. F. Lisjansky in 1803–06, V. M. Golovnin in 1806–13 and 1817–19, M. P. Lazarev in 1819–21 and 1822–25 (the second voyage, the main result of which was the discovery of the Antarctic Continent, was made together with F. F. Bellingshauzen), O. E. Kotsebu in 1815–18 and 1823–26, and F. O. Litke in 1826–29. The names of several Russian explorers who carried on important work in various parts of the Arctic and the Pacific Oceans in different periods of the nineteenth century are well known. At one time valuable results of the oceanological investigations, carried out by Admiral S. O. Makarov on the ship Vitjaz in the Pacific Ocean in 1886–89, attracted much attention. The fact that Vitjaz is lettered on the pediment of the Oceanographical Museum of Monaco among the ten ships most distinguished in oceanographical explorations from the whole world testifies to the scientific importance of Makarov's investigations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Emalani Case

<p>While exploring different topics and issues—examining everything from the importance of our Pacific genealogies, to the analysis of Hawaiian language literature, to the power of prophecies and predictions for the future, to the need to be reflexive in the creation of culture, and finally to the act of building a nation—each chapter of this thesis is connected by one shifting concept: Kahiki. Furthermore, they are joined by the idea that there is life to be found there. As an ʻōlelo noʻeau, or a Hawaiian proverb, states, “Aia ke ola i Kahiki,” “Life is in Kahiki”. This adage has served as the foundation of this research and each chapter has been written with the belief that there is life—in the form of reconstructed knowledge, new interpretations, and growing understandings—to be found in Kahiki.  Encapsulated in this one term are our ancestral memories of migration. When islanders traveled to different parts of the Pacific region, they maintained knowledge of their homelands. Although the names of these homelands differ throughout the Pacific, the concept is the same: islanders knew that their life in a particular place, a particular group of islands, was dependent on other places and peoples that although out of sight were never completely out of memory. After generations, however, the specificity of these “homelands” was blurred, and one name came to represent the genealogical connection that people shared with other places in the Pacific. What was Pulotu for some, therefore, became Hawaiki for others, and eventually became Kahiki for my ancestors in Hawaiʻi. Thus, Kahiki became a general term for all lands in the region outside of Hawaiʻi, and more importantly, became a way for Hawaiians to explain their existence to themselves. In later generations, however, particularly when people from other parts of the world came to Hawaiʻi, Kahiki became a term used to refer to all lands beyond Hawaiʻi’s shores.  This thesis, therefore, studies the life of this one concept through time: looking at it as part of our Pacific genealogies, as presented in oral traditions; examining it as a means of making nationalistic statements, and sometimes, even as a means of justifying colonialism in the nineteenth century; and then exploring contemporary articulations and engagements with Kahiki, particularly in the era following the Hawaiian renaissance, when a group of men on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi built a single-hulled canoe, brining tools, teachers, and knowledge from Kahiki to give new “life” to their people. Studying the way this one concept has shifted through time provides a means of understanding how people in each generation used one term to make sense of their experiences. Furthermore, it gives us the chance to examine our contemporary movements and to reengage with Kahiki in a way that will empower us to do and be more for our people, our region, and the world.</p>


Author(s):  
Robert J. Cromwell

The origins of historical archaeology in the Pacific Northwest of North America in the mid-twentieth century concentrated on the excavations of British terrestrial fur trade forts, but little synthesis and inter-site comparisons of available data has been completed. This chapter presents a comparative typological analysis of these early-nineteenth-century British and Chinese ceramic wares recovered from the Northwest Company’s Fort Okanogan (ca. 1811–1821), Fort Spokane (ca. 1810–1821), Fort George (ca. 1811–1821) and the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Vancouver (ca. 1825–1860). This study helps to reveal the extent that early Victorian ideals gave precedence to the supply of British manufactured goods to these colonial outposts on the opposite side of the world and what the presence of these ceramic wares may reveal about the complex interethnic relationships and socioeconomic statuses of the occupants of these forts and the Native Americans who engaged in trade with these forts.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Halaevalu F.O. Vakalahi

The existing written literature on Pacific people is generally limited and available information is often incomplete, inaccurate or outdated. In many geographical locations, including the United States, literature focusing specifically on Pacific people is extremely sparse because it is often subsumed within broader coverage of people throughout the Asia-Pacific region. As such, the experiences are often trivialised. The Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology is filling gaps in contemporary psychology. It is exposing the world to the phenomenally rich and diverse cultures and people of the Pacific Rim. This is not only groundbreaking; it is also a form of social justice work. It advocates the use of a cultural lens in viewing the world and human behaviour; in this case a Pacific-culture lens that emphasises inclusivity, collectivity and reciprocity. Helping to promote a social justice movement that celebrates and honours the rich and extraordinarily diverse region of the Pacific will continue to contribute to the betterment of research, services and programming in today's diverse society. Furthermore, it will contribute to the journal's quest to become a preferred forum for the ??First People of the Pacific inside and outside of their Pacific home.


1981 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Baker

In the sense that myth is a reordering of various random elements into an intelligible, useful pattern, a structuring of the past in terms of present priorities, nineteenth-century Englishmen were inveterate myth-makers. As liberal and scientific thought shook the foundations of belief, the Victorians erected gothic spires as monuments to a medieval order of supposedly simple, strong faith. While their industrial masses languished, they extolled the virtues of self-made men. Confronted with foreign competitors and rebellious colonials, they instinctively asserted the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race. In classic myth-making style, the Victorians set about “reorganizing traditional components in the face of new circumstances or, correlatively, in reorganizing new, imported components in the light of tradition.”Myth not only serves self-validating ends; it also provides a cohesive rationale, a fulcrum propelling people towards great achievements. If the Victorians were confident and self-congratulatory, they had cause to be: their material, intellectual, and political accomplishments were many. Not the least of their successes was in the sphere of sports and games, a subject often ignored by historians. Especially in the development of ball games—Association and Rugby football, cricket, lawn tennis, and golf—the Victorians modernized old games, created new ones, and exported them all to the four corners of the earth. Stereotyped as overly-serious folk, they in fact “taught the world to play.”Since sport, more than most forms of human activity, lends itself to myth-making, it is not surprising to find a myth emerging among the late-Victorians having to do with the origins of Rugby football. Like baseball's Doubleday myth, the tale of William Webb Ellis inspiring the distinctive game of rugby is a period piece, reflecting more of the era which gave it birth than of the event to which it referred.


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