Missionaries and Other Emissaries of Colonialism in Tuvalu

Authors

  • Michael Goldsmith University of Waikato

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15286/jps.128.4.457-474

Keywords:

Tuvalu, London Missionary Society, colonial rule, governmentality, periodisation

Abstract

This paper examines the similarities and differences between the forms of external rule established in nineteenth-century Tuvalu first by the London Missionary Society and then by the British government through its imperial outreach. These raise the question of whether or not the two forms can be characterised as essentially the same and, if so, what implications are posed for the periodisation of history in Tuvalu and other Pacific societies.

Author Biography

Michael Goldsmith, University of Waikato

Michael Goldsmith retired in 2014 as Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, where he remains an Honorary Fellow. He has published across a wide range of topics in Pacific ethnography, history and politics, but much of his work has focused on Tuvalu, where he conducted fieldwork in 1978–1979 and 1979–1980, with brief return visits since. In pursuit of more detailed understanding of Tuvaluan history, he has collaborated on several occasions with the historian Doug Munro, most notably on The Accidental Missionary: Tales of Elekana (Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury, 2002). He also retains a strong interest in aspects of New Zealand cultural identity and ethnicity, especially in relation to the dominant majority (“European”, “white”, or “Pākehā”).

JPS December 2019 cover

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Published

2019-12-14

Issue

Vol. 128 No. 4 (2019): December 2019

Section

Articles

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