Abstract
Originating half a century ago in Europe, the critique authenticity and identity were quickly taken up in the USA, and subsequently in countries like New Zealand. Towards the end of the twentieth century, someone using the word ‘authentic’ in New Zealand was immediately under suspicion of essentialism. Māori who did not want to relinquish notions of authenticity and identity often became targets of such criticism. The notion of identity is, of course, further complicated in diasporic situations, where its articulation at the intersection of dwelling and travelling claims continuity within discontinuity. This paper explores notions of identity and authenticity as performance, in the force field of past and present imperialisms and globalisation, through the histories of several ‘travelling houses’ from Samoa and Aotearoa New Zealand. For more than a century, Pacific houses have been displayed in fairs, parks or museums: three Māori wharenui (meeting houses) and a Sāmoan fale tele (council house) were instrumental in performing European and Pasifika identities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Three fale and Te Aroha o Te Iwi Māori, the central and largest whare at the Māori village, were built at the Polynesian Cultural Center (Hawai’i) in 1961–63. In 2004, a fale arrived at the Tropical Islands Resort in Brand, Germany, which had been built on commission by tufuga fau fale and was reassembled at the resort. These houses not only signify but per/form identities, according to inconsistent, even conflicting values. Our paper investigates exchanges between three regions, worlds apart yet with shared histories. We first explore notions of place and identity at exhibitions featuring Māori whare and fale Samoa in the USA, Europe and Aotearoa New Zealand. Then, we address aspects of critical regionalism relevant to (post)colonial contexts and, finally, we discuss exhibitions as performative practices. We deliberately see-saw between diverse geographical, theoretical and political positions, to generate relational spaces that transcend geo-political boundaries, yet remain local and specific.
The original version of this chapter was revised: Author biography has been updated. The erratum to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6904-8_35
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Change history
22 September 2018
An erratum has been published.
Notes
- 1.
Arguments rejecting Māori essentialism effectively deny Māori the right to self-determination and were (are?) often employed as an “imperialist tactic of preserving intellectual distance and intellectual superiority” (Jahnke 1996: 14–15).
- 2.
‘Pasifika ’ is a term in the Samoan language describing non-Samoans, especially European westerners. It is a cognate in other Polynesian languages and used by New Zealand Ministries “when referring to Pacific peoples in New Zealand. The term refers to those peoples who have migrated from Pacific [island] nations and territories. It also refers to the New Zealand-based (and born) population, who identify as Pasifika via ancestry or descent” (Anae & Mila-Schaaf 2010).
- 3.
And, just as ironically, authenticity in Europe nationalist ideologies was entangled with an anxiety over the credibility of the nation’s existence as a bounded and distinctive entity. Such anxiety, in Handler’s observation, is “particularly apparent where national or ethnic groups find themselves in a struggle for recognition, seeking either national sovereignty or equal rights within a larger polity” (Handler 1986: 3).
- 4.
Tūrangawaewae is defined as “domicile, standing, place where one has the right to stand—place where one has rights of residence and belonging through kinship and whakapapa ” (Moorfield 2017).
- 5.
Kenneth Frampton rejected the eclectic appropriation of “alien, exotic forms” for the revitalisation of “an enervated society” (1989: 37).
- 6.
See also Meleisea and Schoeffel (1994: 89–124).
- 7.
“To visit the Exhibition is to visit every Continent of the earth” (Lawrence quoted in Cohen 2004: 89).
- 8.
- 9.
The genealogy of this configuration is unmistakeable: Dürbeck (2006: 93) argues that tourism anywhere still profits from the same dualistic stereotypes of the Pacific highlighted in the Völkerschauen. Tropical Islands Resort’s Tropical Village includes “authentic houses from six tropical regions of the world”, “constructed on site at Tropical Islands by craftsmen from their respective home countries” (Tropical Island Management GMBH 2005).
- 10.
Since the 1960s, most traditional fale tele and faleafolau are being built for tourism resorts. While some fale have been commissioned by schools, other education institutions and government agencies like the Samoan Tourism Authority , the tourism sector remains the main source of work for the tufuga -faufale regarding the construction of traditional houses.
- 11.
‘Critical regionalism’ refers to Frampton ’s ideas as developed in Western architectural discourses. A focus on European concepts tends to diminish their relevance to extra-European contexts (see Colquhoun 1997).
- 12.
The full quote reads: “The fight against colonial powers and the struggles for liberation were, to be sure, only to be carried through by laying claim to a separate personality: for these struggles were not only incited by economic exploitation but more fundamentally by the substitution of personality that the colonial era had given rise to. Hence it was first necessary to unearth a country’s profound personality and to replant it in its past in order to nurture national revendication” (Ricœur 1992: 277).
- 13.
Provincializing Europe has affinity with Stevenson’s notion of interparochial differences which imply, despite their limiting self-interest, plural ways of understanding. See Chakrabarty (2008: 96).
- 14.
Regere fines mean the tracing of “limits by straight line”, the “delimitation of the interior and the exterior” by an authority “invested with the highest powers” (Benveniste 1969: 311).
- 15.
German Protectorate from 1900; annexed by New Zealand in 1914; mandated to New Zealand by the League of Nations from 1920 to 1962.
- 16.
A “certain version of ‘Europe ,’ … continues to dominate the discourse of history … In other words, the global condition for the production of history had this element of inequality about it” (Chakrabarty 2008: 86–87).
- 17.
This would interrupt the sequence “first in the West, and then elsewhere” (Chakrabarty 2008: 6). The inequality in the production of history has an equivalent in the production of regions: what “lies beyond the center is by definition peripheral. No matter how vital, the peripheral is other than, deviant from, and lesser than the center” (Eggener 2002: 232).
- 18.
Jacobs (1996), who attempts also to present the views of ‘those marked as Other’, expands colonised peoples’ repertoire of available attitudes—yet this repertoire still appears strangely bound to Chakrabarty ’s ‘silent referents’.
- 19.
Gayatri Spivak’s use of critical regionalism (Butler and Spivak 2007: 8, 94, 118) points at the political implications of regionalism’s going “under and over nationalisms” to reinvent the state beyond the nation state.
- 20.
The hangar connotes technology and progress—the fale imaginary islands’ balmy breezes, and a utopian way of life. Both are double-apse buildings, and their structural frameworks share similarities. See Buck (1949) and Lehner (u.d.).
- 21.
‘Flimsy’ is a relative term. In Samoa , “space is indissolubly linked to time” (Tcherkézoff 2008: 136, 201).
- 22.
See Tisdall (2012).
- 23.
Pollock et al. register a need to ground a “sense of mutuality in conditions of mutability”, “to learn to live tenaciously in terrains of historic and cultural transition” (2000: 580).
- 24.
Sala Pio Tagiilima stated in an interview that the work for the Tropical Islands Resort fale was done on a palagi (non-Samoan) contract, as the builders had to leave the country and could not act within a Samoan framework. Vitale Feaunati, a tufuga involved in the construction and re-assemblage at Tropical Islands Resort, commented that Samoan building techniques were disregarded. “What they actually wanted was just the look … It’s meaningless to the Fa’a-Samoa ”.
References
Acting Assistant Secretary External Affairs Wellington. (1940). Memorandum for Secretary, Samoan Administration dated 12th Jan 1940. National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa: Cat No. IT 1 495/ EX 87/20/7.
Anae, M. A., & Mila-Schaaf. K. (with Coxon, E., Mara, D., & Sang, K. (2010). Teu Le Va: Relationships across research and policy in Pasifika education. https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/pasifika/teu-le-va-relationships-across-research-and-policy-in-pasifika-education/appendices.
Assistant Secretary. (1938). Memorandum to Secretary, Samoan Administration dated 1st Aug 1938. National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa: Cat No. 1 495/ EX 87/20/7.
Balme, C. (1998). Staging the Pacific: Framing authenticity in performances for tourists at the Polynesian Cultural Center. Theatre Journal, 50, 53–70.
Bell, L. (1989). Walters and Maori Art: The nature of the relationship. In J. Ross & L. Simmons (Eds.), Gordon Walters: Order and intuition. Auckland: Walters Publication.
Benveniste, É. (1969). Indo-European Language and Society. London: Faber & Faber.
Best, E. (1924). The Maori as He was. Wellington: Government Printer.
Buck, T. (1949). Samoan material culture. Honolulu: Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum Bishop Museum.
Butler, J., & Spivak, G. (2007). Who sings the nation-state? Language, politics, belonging. New York: Seagull Books.
Chakrabarty, D. (2008). Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial thought and historical difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cohen, S. (2004). The empire from the street: Virginia Woolf, Wembley and imperial monuments. MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 50, 85–109.
Colquhoun, A. (1997). The concept of regionalism. In G. Nalbantoglu & C. Wong (Eds.), Postcolonial Space(s). New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
Crinson, M. (2008). Singapore’s moment: Critical regionalism, its colonial roots and profound aftermath. The Journal of Architecture, 13(5), 585–605.
Culin, S. (1894). Retrospect of the folk-lore of the Columbian exposition. The Journal of American folklore, 7, 51–59.
Der Spiegel (1985) No 44 (28.10.1985).
Dürbeck, G. (2006). Samoa als inszeniertes paradies: Völkerschauen um 1900 und die tradition der populären südseeliteratur. In C. Grewe (Ed.), Die schau des fremden: Ausstellungskonzepte zwischen kunst, kommerz und wissenschaft. Stuttgart: Steiner.
Eames, A. (2006). Welcome to Germany’s pleasure dome, The Sunday Times. 21 May. http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,10290–2187529,00.html. Accessed 6 June 2006.
Eggener, K. (2002). Placing resistance: A critique of critical regionalism. Journal of Architectural Education, 55(4), 228–237.
Ellis, N. (2012). ‘No hea koe?: Where are you from?’ Māori meeting houses overseas. In B. Schmelz & W. Köpke (Eds.), The House Rauru: Masterpiece of the Māori. Mitteilungsband 44. Hamburg: Museum für Völkerkunde.
Engels-Schwarzpaul, A.-C. (2001). Myth, symbol, ornament: The loss of meaning in transition (PhD Thesis, The University of Auckland). http://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/handle/2292/48.
Engels-Schwarzpaul, A.-C. (2006). -13.833333/-171.73334 in 51.466667/14.766666. Whose Tropics, Whose Fale? In T. McMinn, J. Stephens, & S. Basson (Eds.), Contested Terrains: Proceeedings of the 23rd Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand. Fremantle: SAHANZ.
Engels-Schwarzpaul, A.-C. (2007a). Tillers of the soil/traveling journeymen: Modes of the virtual. Transformations. Walter Benjamin and the virtual: Politics, art, and mediation in the age of global culture. 15. http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal/issue_15/article_12.shtml.
Engels-Schwarzpaul, A.-C. (2007b). Travel in tropical islands: Enemies coexisting in peace. Interstices: Journal of Architecture and Related Arts, 8, 21–30.
Engels-Schwarzpaul, A.-C. (2007c). A warm grey fabric lined on the inside with the most lustrous and colourful of silks: Dreams of airships and tropical islands. The Journal of Architecture, 12, 525–542.
Engels-Schwarzpaul, A.-C. (2009). Out there: Whare and Fale Performing Abroad. In J. Gatley (Chair, Ed.), Society of architectural historians, Australia and New Zealand. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the Cultural Crossroads—26th International SAHANZ Conference: Auckland, NZ.
Engels-Schwarzpaul, A.-C., & Simati Kumar, B. (2014). A Fale Samoa at Tropical Islands Resort, Germany: Performing Samoa to the world. In Proceedings of Samoa Conference II: Tracing Footprints of Tomorrow: Past lessons, present stories, future lives. 4th–8th July 2011. http://samoanstudies.ws/publications/samoa-conference-ii-proceedings/.
Fitzgerald, S. (2015). Interview with Tina Engels-Schwarzpaul, Lāi’e, 23rd Oct.
Frampton, K. (1989). Towards a critical regionalism. In H. Foster (Ed.), Postmodern culture. London: Pluto Press.
Gregson, N., & Rose, G. (2000). Taking butler elsewhere: Performativities, spatialities and subjectivities. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18(4), 433–452.
Grewe, C. (Ed.). (2006). Die schau des fremden: Ausstellungskonzepte zwischen kunst, kommerz und wissenschaft. Stuttgart: Steiner.
Hamilton, A. (1901). The art workmanship of the Maori race in New Zealand. New Zealand Institute: Wellington.
Handler, R. (1986). Authenticity. Anthropology Today, 2(1), 2–4.
Handler, R. (2014). Debating authenticity: Concepts of modernity in anthropological perspective. American Anthropologist American Anthropologist, 116, 205–206.
Harrison, R. (2011). Consuming colonialism: Curio dealers’ catalogues, souvenir objects and Indigenous agency in Oceania. In S. Byrne, A. Clarke, R. Harrison, & R. Torrence (Eds.), Unpacking the collection: One world archaeology. Dordrecht: Springer.
Jacobs, J. (1996). Edge of empire: Postcolonialism and the city. New York: Routledge.
Jahnke, R. (1996). Voices Beyond the Pae. He Pukenga Korero, 2(1), 12–19.
Johnston, E. (1999). Representing the Pacific at international exhibitions 1851–1940 (PhD Thesis, The University of Auckland).
Laguardia, D. (2009). Book review: Who sings the nation-state? Lectora, 15, 349–353.
Le Tagaloa, A. F. A. (1998). Bekenntnisse einer Fledermaus. In G. Kroeber-Wolf & P. Mesenhöller (Eds.), Talofa! Samoa, Südsee: Ansichten und einsichten. Museum für Völkerkunde: Frankfurt.
Lehner, E. (u.d.). Elementare architektur skelettbauweisen: skelettbauweisen mit sekundärem tragsystem das fale tele auf Samoa. http://www.baukunst.tuwien.ac.at/abk/texte/skelettbauweisen/b-fale_tele.html. Accessed 22 May 2017.
Lu, D. (2010). Architecture, modernity, and knowledge. Fabrications, 19(2), 144–161.
Macpherson, C. (1962). The political theory of possessive individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Maxwell, A. (2000). Colonial photography and exhibitions: Representations of the Native and the making of European identities. London: Continuum.
McLintock, A. (Ed.). (1966). An encyclopedia of New Zealand. Wellington: Government Printer.
Meleisea, M., & Meleisea, P. (1994). Lagaga: A short history of Western Samoa. Suva: University of the South Pacific.
Mesenhöller, P. (1995). Ethnography considers history: Some examples from Samoa. In C. Blanton (Ed.), Picturing paradise: Colonial photography of Samoa, 1875 to 1925. Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum für Völkerkunde: Köln.
Minh-ha, T. (1987). Of other people: Beyond the salvage paradigm. In H. Foster (Ed.), Discussions in contemporary culture. Seattle: Bay Press.
Minh-ha, T. (2011). Elsewhere, within here: Immigration, refugeeism and the boundary event. New York: Routledge.
Moe, D. (2015). Interview with Albert Refiti 15th October.
Moorfield, J. C. (2017). Te Aka Online Māori Dictionary. Retrieved 28 June, 2017, from http://maoridictionary.co.nz/.
Moors, H. (1986). Some recollections of early Samoa. Apia: Western Samoa Historical and Cultural Trust.
Padel, R. (1990). Making space speak. In J. Winkler & F. Zeitlin (Eds.), Nothing to do with dionysos? Athenian drama in its social context. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pollock, S., Bhabha, H., Breckenridge, C., & Chakrabarty, D. (2000). Cosmopolitanisms. Public Culture, 12(3), 577–589.
Ricœur, P. (1992). Universal civilization and national cultures: History and truth. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Schneider, W. (1981). Colonies at the 1900 World Fair in Paris. History Today, 31, 31–36.
Secretary Administration of Western Samoa. (1923). Memorandum for Secretary, External Affairs, Wellington. Dated 25th Sept. 1923. National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa. Cat No. IT EX 87/20.
Sloterdijk, P. (2005). Im weltinnenraum des kapitals. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Sloterdijk, P. (2009). Spheres theory: Talking to myself about the poetics of space. Harvard Design Magazin. www.gsd.harvard.edu/events/pdf/Peter_Sloterdijk.pdf. Accessed 27 October 2009.
Smith, L. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Dunedin: University of Otago Press.
Spurrier, S. (1924). Without a Single Nail!: Building a Samoan “Fale” at Wembley. The Illustrated London News. May 24.
Steffen-Schrade, J. (1998). Exkurs: Samoaner im Frankfurter zoo. In G. Kroeber-Wolf & P. Mesenhöller (Eds.), Talofa! Samoa, Südsee: Ansichten und einsichten. Museum für Völkerkunde: Frankfurt.
Stevenson, R. (1895). A footnote to history: Eight years of trouble in Samoa. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Tcherkézoff, S. (2008). First contacts in Polynesia: The Samoan case (1722–1848): Western misunderstandings about sexuality and divinity. Canberra: ANU EPress.
Tisdall, C. (2012). China Syndrome Dictates Barack Obama’s Asia-Pacific Strategy. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/06/china-barack-obama-defence-strategy. Accessed 25 May 2017.
Tropical Island Management GMBH. (2005). The Tropical Village. Tropical Island Management GmbH. http://www.my-tropical-islands.com/village/index-e.htm. Accessed 12 November 2005.
Wikitera, K.-A. (2015). Māori spaces in foreign places. Hinemihi o Te Ao Tawhito. (PhD Thesis, Auckland University of Technology).
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge Ross Jenner and Benita Simati’s support with the drafting of the original paper. This chapter is a significantly revised and expanded version.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
(Tina) Engels-Schwarzpaul, AC., Refiti, A.L. (2018). Fale Samoa’s Extended Boundaries: Performing Place and Identity. In: Grant, E., Greenop, K., Refiti, A., Glenn, D. (eds) The Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6904-8_25
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6904-8_25
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-6903-1
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-6904-8
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)