“The Ocean in Us”: Navigating the Blue Humanities and Diasporic Chamoru Poetry

This essay will explore the complex relationship between Pacific Islander Literature and the “Blue Humanities,” navigation traditions and canoe aesthetics, and Chamoru migration and diaspora. First, I will chart the history, theory, and praxis of Pacific voyaging traditions; the colonial history of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Craig Santos Perez
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2020-07-01
Series:Humanities
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/9/3/66
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spelling doaj-b9be76e9bcc14961bed290fc092db3bd2020-11-25T03:11:11ZengMDPI AGHumanities2076-07872020-07-019666610.3390/h9030066“The Ocean in Us”: Navigating the Blue Humanities and Diasporic Chamoru PoetryCraig Santos Perez0Department of English, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USAThis essay will explore the complex relationship between Pacific Islander Literature and the “Blue Humanities,” navigation traditions and canoe aesthetics, and Chamoru migration and diaspora. First, I will chart the history, theory, and praxis of Pacific voyaging traditions; the colonial history of restricting indigenous mobilities; and the decolonial acts of seafaring revitalization in the Pacific (with a specific focus on Guam). Then, I will examine the representation of seafaring and the ocean-going vessel (the canoe) as powerful symbols of Pacific migration and diasporic cultural identity in the context of what Elizabeth DeLoughrey termed, “narrative maritime legacies” (2007). Lastly, I will conduct a close-reading of the avant-garde poetry collection, <i>A Bell Made of Stones</i> (2013), by Chamoru writer Lehua Taitano. As I will show, Taitano writes about the ocean and navigation in order to address the history and traumas of Chamoru migration and diaspora. In terms of poetic form, I will argue that Taitano’s experimentation with typography and visual poetry embodies Chamoru outrigger design aesthetics and navigational techniques. In the end, I will show how a “Blue Humanities” approach to reading Pacific Islander literature highlights how the “New Oceania” is a profound space of Pacific migration and diasporic identity.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/9/3/66Blue HumanitiesPacific Islander literature
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Craig Santos Perez
spellingShingle Craig Santos Perez
“The Ocean in Us”: Navigating the Blue Humanities and Diasporic Chamoru Poetry
Humanities
Blue Humanities
Pacific Islander literature
author_facet Craig Santos Perez
author_sort Craig Santos Perez
title “The Ocean in Us”: Navigating the Blue Humanities and Diasporic Chamoru Poetry
title_short “The Ocean in Us”: Navigating the Blue Humanities and Diasporic Chamoru Poetry
title_full “The Ocean in Us”: Navigating the Blue Humanities and Diasporic Chamoru Poetry
title_fullStr “The Ocean in Us”: Navigating the Blue Humanities and Diasporic Chamoru Poetry
title_full_unstemmed “The Ocean in Us”: Navigating the Blue Humanities and Diasporic Chamoru Poetry
title_sort “the ocean in us”: navigating the blue humanities and diasporic chamoru poetry
publisher MDPI AG
series Humanities
issn 2076-0787
publishDate 2020-07-01
description This essay will explore the complex relationship between Pacific Islander Literature and the “Blue Humanities,” navigation traditions and canoe aesthetics, and Chamoru migration and diaspora. First, I will chart the history, theory, and praxis of Pacific voyaging traditions; the colonial history of restricting indigenous mobilities; and the decolonial acts of seafaring revitalization in the Pacific (with a specific focus on Guam). Then, I will examine the representation of seafaring and the ocean-going vessel (the canoe) as powerful symbols of Pacific migration and diasporic cultural identity in the context of what Elizabeth DeLoughrey termed, “narrative maritime legacies” (2007). Lastly, I will conduct a close-reading of the avant-garde poetry collection, <i>A Bell Made of Stones</i> (2013), by Chamoru writer Lehua Taitano. As I will show, Taitano writes about the ocean and navigation in order to address the history and traumas of Chamoru migration and diaspora. In terms of poetic form, I will argue that Taitano’s experimentation with typography and visual poetry embodies Chamoru outrigger design aesthetics and navigational techniques. In the end, I will show how a “Blue Humanities” approach to reading Pacific Islander literature highlights how the “New Oceania” is a profound space of Pacific migration and diasporic identity.
topic Blue Humanities
Pacific Islander literature
url https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/9/3/66
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