A Different Kind of Vā: Spiraling through Time and Space

Refiti, Albert L.; Engels-Schwarzpaul, A.-Chr.; Lythberg, Billie; Smith, Valance; Waerea, Layne

doi:10.1353/cp.2022.0060

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Oceanic theories of knowledge emphasize materialities-in-motion, which in Samoa and elsewhere in the Pacific are contextualized within an understanding of v ā (see Refiti 2015;Refiti et al, 2022). Noted Samoan author Albert Wendt (1996, 18) defines v ā as "the space between, the betweenness, not empty space, not space that separates but space that relates, that holds separate entities and things together in the Unity-thatis-All, the space that is context, giving meaning to things."…”

Section: The Moving (And Knowing) Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving materialities: Oceanic epistemologies and embodied knowledge production in Pentecostal women's health mentorship in Samoa

Hardin

2023

American Anthropologist

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This article employs Oceanic epistemological theories to explore the body as a site of knowledge production among Samoan Pentecostal women as they dance in a church‐sponsored Zumba session, tracking foods, words, and feelings: I call these moving materialities. In their work together, these women contextualized health, sickness, and weight as generated from the circulation of these kinds of moving materialities. Their work theorizing health through material change is quite different from those imagined and circulated in the literatures on diabetes and obesity. The article orients critical studies of health toward an interrogation of the dynamic qualities of materiality, including both the moving body and materials that move between or within bodies. By expanding what might be considered material and movement in the context of health, this article offers an alternative to theories of metabolism that have come to dominate how we understand the body in terms energy expenditure. Ultimately, this approach calls for anthropologists to consider the circumstances in which theory is understood to be “culturally specific” or “generalizable.”

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Section: The Moving (And Knowing) Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving materialities: Oceanic epistemologies and embodied knowledge production in Pentecostal women's health mentorship in Samoa

Hardin

2023

American Anthropologist

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Activating the Vā: Performance, Academia and the Sublime — Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania (ASAO) 2023 Distinguished Lecture

Hereniko

2024

Oceania

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The concept of vā in various Oceanic cultures came into academic discourse among Pacific Islands scholars in the mid‐1990s, but it was not until covid became a global pandemic and an academic conference focusing solely on the vā took place in 2021 that the concept became a focus of my interest. This is partly because certain rules of behavior such as ‘social distancing’ drew attention to the importance of the ‘space between’ individuals as well as the space between humans and the natural world. What exactly does vā mean and why is it so important to understand its potential? How does the concept of vā apply to culture in relation to performance, specifically the genre of dance? What about academic writing, which does not exist in a three‐dimensional space? As a creative artist and scholar, I am interested in how to activate the vā in both arenas so that the quality of the outcome that results from this activation is elevated to the level of the sublime.

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Living Through Back-to-Back Public Health Crises in Samoa: Mutual Narrative Creation and Research Practices

Boodoosingh,

Aiavao,

Fulu-Aiolupotea

et al. 2024

Narratives of Wellbeing

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A Different Kind of Vā: Spiraling through Time and Space

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Moving materialities: Oceanic epistemologies and embodied knowledge production in Pentecostal women's health mentorship in Samoa

Moving materialities: Oceanic epistemologies and embodied knowledge production in Pentecostal women's health mentorship in Samoa

Activating the Vā: Performance, Academia and the Sublime — Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania (ASAO) 2023 Distinguished Lecture

Living Through Back-to-Back Public Health Crises in Samoa: Mutual Narrative Creation and Research Practices

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