Persistence of the Gift: Tongan Tradition in Transnational Context
By Mike Evans
()
About this ebook
Tonga, the South Pacific island kingdom located east of Fiji and south of Samoa, is one of the world’s few remaining constitutional monarchies. Although Tonga has long been linked to the world system through markets and political relationships, in the last few decades emerging regional and global structures have had particularly intense and transformative effects. Today, because of greatly increased labour migration, people, money, and resources are in constant circulation among Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States.
In Persistence of the Gift, Evans provides a detailed ethnographic and historical analysis of how, in spite of superficial appearances to the contrary, traditional Tongan values continue to play key roles in the way that Tongans make their way in the modern world. But this ethnography is neither that of a timeless “ethnographic present” nor of a remote coral atoll. Instead, like the inhabitants of Tonga themselves, the monograph begins in the islands, and works outward, tracing how Tongans seek to meet their own, culturally specific goals, within the constraints, challenges, and opportunities of the world system.
Tongan culture, like our own, continues to transform in the face of global change, but the changes experienced by Tongans everywhere are patterned and managed by the values of Tongan agents. Both creative and conservative, the emerging transnationalist system continues to be discernibly and proudly Tongan.
Mike Evans
A musician on the Sixties rock scene, Mike Evans began writing about popular music in the 1970s while a broadcaster in local radio, his work appearing in a variety of publications including Sounds, Cream, the Guardian, Elle and as a regular contributor to the UK's top music weekly newspaper Melody Maker. He wrote the much-acclaimed The Art of the Beatles in 1984, and the bestselling Elvis: A Celebration, which he researched and wrote in collaboration with the Elvis Presley Estate in Memphis and The Art of British Rock in 2010. Fleetwood Mac: The Definitive History was published in 2011, and in 2012 Neil Young and Ukulele Crazy. He lives and works in Hastings, on England's south coast.
Read more from Mike Evans
The Final Move Beyond Iraq: The Final Solution While the World Sleeps Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlorida Thunder: The Marion Light Artillery 1861-1865 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeonard Cohen: An Illustrated Record Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRay Charles: Birth of Soul Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Persistence of the Gift
Related ebooks
Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales From The Kingdom Of Tonga Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSina and Her Tuna: Sina Ma Lana Tuna Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVoyages: From Tongan Villages to American Suburbs Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tonga Religious Life in the Twentieth Century Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tears of Apa'ula: Loimata O Apa'ula Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHaare Williams: Words of a Kaumatua Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNavigators Quest For A Kingdom In Polynesia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gift of Mamaku Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTeine Sāmoa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS - A Maori Legend of New Zealand: Baba Indaba Children's Stories - Issue 467 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaori Language: An Introduction for Travellers and Newcomers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeyond the Coral Sea: Travels in the Old Empires of the South-West Pacific (Text Only) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Long Time Coming. Short Writings from Zimbabwe: Short Writings from Zimbabwe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Polynesian Interconnections: Dwayne Johnson And King Kamehameha In Culture And Science Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInikpi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaking a Difference Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOle Manuõ O Tala Tu’U Ma Fisaga O Tala Ave: “The Heralding of Our Oral History and Relishing of Our Story Narratives.” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Botswana Traveler’S Companion; English Setswana Phrase Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manawa Hine: Women Who Swam Against the Tide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLegends Of Maui: A Demi God of Polynesia And Of His Mother Hina Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTightrope Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Dimdim in Paradise: Thirty Six Years in Papua New Guinea Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIntwasa Poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sibyl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5War and Slavery in Sudan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSouth Pacific Tales - Legends and Myths from Tonga, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Easter Island (Folklore History Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInside the Crocodile: The Papua New Guinea Journals Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Piggery Jokery In Tonga: In Search Of, #8 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
History For You
A Grief Observed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Richest Man in Babylon: The most inspiring book on wealth ever written Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret History of the World Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Things You're Not Supposed to Know: Secrets, Conspiracies, Cover Ups, and Absurdities Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whore Stories: A Revealing History of the World's Oldest Profession Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lessons of History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Persistence of the Gift
0 ratings0 reviews