paradise paradigm: cultural commodification and the evolution of the Pacific world, 1780-1914.

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20253273

Utilizing the framework of trade networks and negotiations in the Pacific during the era of globalization, my dissertation, The Paradise Paradigm: Cultural Commodification and the Evolution of the Pacific World, 1780-1914, explores the fantasy and reality of desires. Over the course of the long nineteenth century, a period commencing with the last phase of British exploration of the Pacific and terminating at the beginning of World War I, the world became known, and within that knowing European and American actors constructed a particular framework of beliefs, prejudices, and practices that they carried with them into the region, and cultivated at home. This framework, known as a transit, operated in conjunction with other racialized stereotypesand sometimes in opposition to themto determine the appearance and conduct of Islanders at world expositions, theatre shows, and other displays that collectively formed a culture of spectacle designed to indoctrinate white Euro-Americans into the developing ideology of white supremacy. The commodification of Islanders culture and Island spaces lies at the heart of my work.