Oceania is what Tongan scholar Epeli Hau‵fa calls a “sea of islands.” Rather than isolated, powerless dots scattered across the heart of the Pacific Ocean, these thousands of insular worlds were once interconnected by webs of ancient sailing routes. Today, Hau‵fa argues, Oceanians are extending their voyaging frontiers to the anglophone Pacific rim, usually by air travel, as they seek alternative sources of modern wages, goods, health care, and education. This indigenous perspective is provocatively empowering and designed to counter arguments that contemporary “outmigration” from Oceania is a sign of economic dependency by overpopulated islands on external industrial resources. In fact, the long-term history of the region is one of ongoing diasporas from (1) first settlement and maritime exchange networks through (2) initial adaptation to European shipping and overseas employment opportunities to (3) today’s circulation between resource-poor homelands and industrial countries. Both...
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Chappell, D.A. (2005). Oceanian Diaspora. In: Ember, M., Ember, C.R., Skoggard, I. (eds) Encyclopedia of Diasporas. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-29904-4_22
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