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Reform and Purification in the Historical Archaeology of the South Pacific, 1840-1900

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Abstract

Modernity is often assumed to correlate with increased secularism, though scholarly literature challenges this idea, linking ideas about modern subjectivity to Protestant Reformation philosophies. Tracing the impact of Reformation ideologies across time and space is crucial to understanding modernity, especially in situations where some of the first “modern” colonial settlers were Protestant missionaries. A key concept for understanding modernity is “purification,” referring to attempts to solidify categorical boundaries, usually around culturally defined dualisms. Archaeological remains from mission sites and other colonial institutions around the Pacific reveal problems that emerge where cultural contacts produce hybrid phenomena, despite projects of reform aimed at purification.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Megan Springate and Kim Christensen for the invitation to submit this paper both as a conference presentation at the Society for Historical Archaeology meeting in Leicester in 2013, and for this issue of IJHA. Research in the leprosarium at Kalawao was supported by the U.S. National Park Service and the University of California Berkeley Stahl Research Endowment, the Lowie-Olsen Fund, and the Gilbert Undergraduate Fund. Research in Vanuatu was supported by the Washington and Lee University Lenfest Fund, and an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE130101703) hosted at the Australian National University. The project is part of an ongoing collaboration with the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. I am forever grateful to local communities in Hawai‘i and Vanuatu who have been great collaborators and friends in these projects.

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  1. Department of Archaeology, University of Sydney, Quadrangle Building (A14), Sydney, 2006, Australia

    James L. Flexner

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Flexner, J.L. Reform and Purification in the Historical Archaeology of the South Pacific, 1840-1900. Int J Histor Archaeol 21, 827–847 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-017-0398-1

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