Palau Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

In December 2017, the Pacific Island nation of Palau changed its immigration policy in a globally unprecedented way. As of that month, tourist visas are only issued to visitors who upon entry sign the Palau Pledge, an eco-statement stamped into their passports. The pledge addresses the “children of Palau,” whose islands the inbound visitors personally commit to protecting as they take the pledge. To prepare inbound visitors prior to their arrival for this unusual visa procedure, and to get their message across more strongly, the campaign has also created a video spot, The Giant. This highly acclaimed clip is required inflight viewing for all inbound visitors to Palau. The clip begins with a traditional chesols. The lyrics of the recitation attribute ownership of the (Palauan) land exclusively to the water and the rocks. This chesols is used here to evoke a sense of deep connectedness with the land: an old, oceanic wisdom viscerally connected with the islands themselves, inscribed into traditional Palauan value structures and customs but apparently overrun by the speed and inequalities of both a long and burdensome colonial history and a present carrying the legacy of that history.
Exploring the nature of this wisdom, in this article, I take a closer look at the traditional performing arts in Palau as “sound knowledge.” I analyze chesols, a type of recitation, as a mode of knowledge that is substantive in nature and at the same time distinct to the qualities and affordance of its medium, i.e. sound. I pursue this idea by, first, conceptually exploring the notion of sound knowledge as a resource for Pacific Island cultures and loosely situating it within recent debates in phenomenology, the theory of knowledge as well as music studies. Following this, I will return to The Giant, PLP’s inflight video, looking at what can be gained from the idea that music offers a resource that may be key to survival in the complex environmental predicament of Palau, and by extension, Micronesia. What do Palauan musical practices know about sustainable ecologies and how do they know it? How does music-making make this knowledge operable and, consequentially, how do humans mobilize on this knowledge in coping with their changing life-world through music? Addressing these questions, I take a closer look at the musical genre employed in The Giant, chesols. In closing, I adumbrate the implications of the notion of sound knowledge for a Palau seeking to ensure its future livelihood.