Changing Frames Identity and Citizenship of New Guineans of German Heritage during the Interwar Years, 2012 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Lingering Legacies of German Colonialism: 'Mixed Race' Identities in Oceania by Christine Winter
Final draft – published as Christine Winter, ‘Lingering Legacies of German Colonialism: the ‘Mixed Race’ Identities in Oceania, Farida Fozdar & Kirsten McGavin (Eds), Mixed Race Identities in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands (Routledge Studies in Anthropology), 2017, pp. 147-161. So what about identity politics in the Pacific? When I meet Pacific Islanders who cheerfully refer to themselves and others as ‘mixed-bloods’ or ‘halfies’, does this mean that the legacies of colonialism have vanished? That the battles over legitimacy and belonging are over, and these terms, often ascribed to people in the past by others in order to denigrate can now be embraced? What history and what purposes do such identity assertions have? In this article I am examining assertions of identity of German-Pacific Islanders of multiple heritage during and after the end of the German colonial empire in the Pacific in order to see how mixed heritage was expressed in different political situations. My case studies focus on families of Samoan and German descent. This is not to say that these families and individuals did and do not have more diverse heritage, including Tongan, Swedish, Japanese, Filipino, Danish, Fijian or French. I am limiting this chapter, however, to an historical exploration how two specific building blocks of identity were used, German and Samoan. In particular I build on and explore L. Wildenthal's analysis of gendered responses to mixedness further, analysing the differences of male and female responses and identity desires for their children.
Un-mixing in the Mandate: purity and the persistence of 'German-time' in New Guinea
(Un-)mixing in the Mandate: purity and persistence of ‘German-time’ in New Guinea, Norig Neveu, Philippe Bourmaud and Chantal Verdeil (Eds), Experts et expertise dans les mandats de la Société des Nations : figures, champs et outils, [The Expert in the Mandate], Inalco Presses, 2020
This chapter is an exploration of Weimar and Nazi German colonialism focusing on the Pacific Mandates. It is published as: (Un-)mixing in the Mandate: purity and persistence of ‘German-time’ in New Guinea, Norig Neveu, Philippe Bourmaud and Chantal Verdeil (Eds), Experts et expertise dans les mandats de la Société des Nations : figures, champs et outils, [The Expert in the Mandate], Inalco Presses, 2020. “Unmixing” is a central term in the debates to bring stability and peace after WWI by ethnically homogenising regions and new nations: “… to unmix tlie (sic) populations of the Near East will tend to secure the true pacification of the Near East…” (Fritzhof Nansen, Lausanne Conference, Quoted by Sadia Abbas, Unmixing, Politicalconcepts, 2012.) So how did the nations with aspirations to ‘rule’ New Guinea deal with what could not be ‘un-mixed’: people of mixed descent, and what did this mean for German-New Guineans? This chapter is an exploration of Weimar and Nazi German colonialism focusing on the Pacific Mandates. It focuses on leagacies of German colonialism after the end of the formal German colonial empire. The crisis of the League of Nations destabilized the legitimacy of Mandate rule in the Pacific during the mid-1930s. Purity and persistence of Germanness became a theme for both the Mandate Administration and the Third Reich. In this chapter I explore the role and function of Germans of ambiguous racial belonging, namely mixed-race German Pacific Islanders, in a wider contest of expert advice and policy development. Racial scientists, German missionaries and ex-colonial officials all had a stake in the future of the Mandated Territories, and its mixed-race German population. Depending on the argument and on their place of residency – Germany or the Pacific – mixed-race German-Pacific Islanders were used as fellow Germans or as ‘natives’ to legitimize German claims. This is an open book edition: https://books.openedition.org/pressesinalco/37738
Foreign Bodies: Oceania and the Science of Race 1750–1940, 2008
Something called the 'half-caste problem' was noted in many colonial situations during the interwar period. Numerous books and chapters addressed it. 2 At least one global survey was attempted (Dover 1937). Half-castes also figured in fiction, images, and song. Noel Coward, better known for 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen', sang a ballad 'Half-caste Woman' which I listened to from an old record as a child. 3 Later, during the course of research that was not particularly concerned with miscegenation, I was struck by contrasting attitudes towards half-castes in several locations in the southwest Pacific during these decades. Two questions puzzled me. First, why, in New Zealand, was indigenous and European miscegenation actually celebrated by some proponents while advocates of a parallel process in Australia were less than jubilant? Second, why did New Zealand administrators revile and vituperate half-castes in Western Samoa when politicians and officials back home rejoiced in their nation's outstanding men of mixed race? While these views on half-castes were not universally held in their time and place, they were nevertheless prominent and I wondered how their differences could be explained. The following discussion is my attempt to do so.
Sauerkraut and Salt Water: The German-Tongan Diaspora Since 1932
2017
This is a study of individuals of German-Tongan descent living around the world. Taking as its starting point the period where Germans in Tonga (2014) left off, it examines the family histories, self-conceptions of identity, and connectedness to Germany of twenty-seven individuals living in New Zealand, the United States, Europe, and Tonga, who all have German-Tongan ancestry. It seeks to illuminate the extent to which there is a German-Tongan diaspora, and to represent the overall impact German emigration to Tonga has had on the world, via the lives and contributions of German-Tongan descendants worldwide. There are many factors which contribute to either the strength or weakness of the German identity in descendants in foreign nations. The First and Second World Wars in the early and mid-twentieth century proved to be watershed influences on the identity of German and mixedrace German-descent individuals in the Pacific. Actual population sizes and demographics, too, were important factors in the strength or weakness of German identity development. Political circumstances, including the lack of opportunity for foreigners to purchase land in Tonga, proved to be catalysts for the widespread emigration of German-Tongans in the twentieth century. According to interviews conducted with them and their family members, in diaspora, German-Tongans identify widely as Tongan, yet these identities are augmented by additional ethnicities. This augmentation is due largely to the multi-racial and-national realities of most of these individuals' lives. While almost none report a strong connection to their German heritage, this appears to be due to the historical circumstances which limited the cultural transference of German identity to them rather than a conscious decision to disconnect. Modern descendants do, however, share important, distinct phenotypic and name legacies which set them apart from their full Tongan counterparts, and their wider communities. Taken as a diaspora or simply as a subset of the wider mixed-race population, German-Tongans around the world today are a vibrant and important group of individuals and families. Their lives perfectly reflect the tremendous, longreaching effects of the historical emigration of Germans to Tonga.
Journal of Intercultural Studies
This paper traces complex negotiations of multiraciality in the context of transgenerational genealogy work in the wake of historical violence, genocide and colonialism. Basing the analysis on detailed ethnographic material about Indonesian-Dutch (Indisch) genealogy and memory work, I explore how the regulation of ‘races’ [sic] during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies and under the White Australia Policy employed genealogical charts to determine freedom from imprisonment and/or rights to full citizenship for Indisch individuals, and how these feature in the genealogy work of the children and grandchildren of those subjected to racial regulatory norms. Centring the analysis on a specific family history writing project, I demonstrate how such a project is haunted by the ghostly figures of historical ‘miscegenation’ – the Indonesian foremother, and the white woman who crosses lines of respectable white femininity by marrying an Indisch man. The paper explores how narrative strategies of exclusion are used differently across generations as a way of dealing with feelings of shame, guilt and secrecy produced by institutionalised racism, historical violence and imperialism. The paper argues that genealogy work operates not only as a vehicle for self-exploration and belonging for transnational families of historical diaspora, but is also central for the collective identity formation and the production of Indisch peoplehood.
Being Pākehā: White Settler Narratives of Politics, Identity, and Belonging in Aotearoa/New Zealand
PhD thesis, 2015
Since the 1970s, Aotearoa/New Zealand has undergone wide-ranging social, political and cultural transformations both with respect to the politics of settler-indigenous relations and the ethnocultural diversification of the country’s population. Indigenous rights movements and the politics of biculturalism, as well as rapid increases in immigration from non-traditional source countries have disrupted deeply entrenched settler narratives that naturalised white settler colonialism and destabilised the dominant position of the white settler majority (Pākehā), forcing Pākehā to rearticulate identities and re-imagine the nation. This thesis investigates how Pākehā experience ‘being Pākehā’ today. Taking account of several decades of living with or growing up with biculturalism and increasing ethnic diversity, it explores how Pākehā construct and manage identity and their ‘social imaginaries’ (Taylor, 2002), that is, how they conceptualise their own position in society vis-à-vis both indigenous and migrant communities as well as the normative and ideological assumptions that guide their expectations. Life story interviews with 38 Auckland-based Pākehā form the empirical basis of this study. The biographical approach produced stories of lived experience, of memories, expectations and anticipations that allowed me to analyse how Pākehā negotiate majority group identity, and the role of wider discursive repertoires in enabling and constraining participant narratives. Guided by critical whiteness and settler colonial studies, the analysis primarily aims to reveal discursive practices that consolidate and/or challenge whiteness and settler colonial practices. The empirical data demonstrates that participants discursively construct post-colonial cosmopolitan identities, as expressed in stories of personal transformation, which highlight a new recognition of and engagement with Māori culture, as well as the normality of everyday multiculturalism. However, despite genuine intentions, such narratives often remain wedded to colonial, nationalist, and racialised assumptions and thereby serve to protect the majority’s normative and privileged position. Analysing in detail the politics of naming the majority group, the role of collective ‘living memory’ in perpetuating old myths and creating new ones, and visions of a multicultural future as prime sites of Pākehā identity construction, the thesis contributes to the international literature by providing a current and empirically based analysis of Pākehā identities and imaginaries that helps to deepen our understanding of the processes that secure white settler normativity and privilege in settler societies.