Choreographing Difference: The (Body) Politics of Banaban Dance

Abstract

This article discusses Banaban choreography as an expression of historical and postcolonial identities and, more specifically, relations between Banabans and I-Kiribati in terms of what I understand as the Banaban production of difference through dance. This process is shaped by a strategic approach to representing and reconstructing the past and kinship. I explore some of the tensions around history, kinship, and performance that resulted from the impact of phosphate mining and eventual displacement of Banabans from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (now Kiribati and Tuvalu) to Rabi in Fiji. I also discuss how this research opens up possibilities for a more corporeal approach to Pacific studies.

Population Resettlement in the Pacific: lessons from a hazardous history?

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Gender diversity among ‘boys’ in Papua New Guinea: Memories of sameness and difference in early childhood

“…Dance—both ceremonial and otherwise—is an integral part of Pacific Island culture (see for example, Alexeyeff, 2009; Teaiwa, 2012). It is not surprising therefore that dance proved to be a central part of participants’ childhood memories, since it enabled freedom and expression of her preferred gender.…”

Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds

“…In Planetary Social Thought: The Anthropocene Challenge to the Social Sciences, Nigel Clark and Bronislaw Szerszynski (2021) similarly draw heavily upon the work of another island writer, Katerina Teaiwa (2011Teaiwa ( , 2012Teaiwa ( , 2015, concerned with the mineral phosphate mining which has devastated the Kiribati island of Banaba. For Clark and Szerszynski (2021: 146), these islands are 'paradigmatic of the "blast: dump: crush: extract: exhaust" modern mentality' .…”