Relational Space in Epeli Hau‘ofa’s Postcolonial Thought

Abstract

Epeli Hau‘ofa (1936-2009) was a Tongan anthropologist and writer based in Fiji. He shaped and inspired an entire generation of anthropologists and historians studying island societies across the Pacific Ocean Basin (Pacifika). In the 1990s, Hau‘ofa experienced his “road to Damascus”, in which he revitalized Oceania studies from a critique of his own practice as a social scientist and proposed a new conceptualisation of pelagic space. His essays “Our Sea of Islands” (1994), “The Ocean in Us” (1998) and “Pasts to Remember” (2008) marked a turning point in regional studies by breaking with the colonial tradition of dividing the Pacific by island groups, and by proposing new alternatives of cultural geography and new correlations between space and identity. This paper engages with Epeli Hau‘ofa’s work and analyses them in terms of their relational and societal value, as well as its relevance for historiography. It is a contribution to the intellectual history of the Pacific, analysing Hau‘ofa’s texts and situating them within broader debates on spatial configuration, nationalism and postcoloniality that preceded and  informed his thought.