Pacific Indigeneities: From Māori Mythology to James Cameron’s Avatar

Catalog description

What is indigeneity? The answer is all but straightforward, especially in the context of the Western Pacific. We will examine a deeply eclectic mix of sources of Pacific indigeneity – from Māori Mythology, the Kuroshio Current, and Okinawan cuisine to Southeast Asian revolutionary thought, Oceanian cosmology, and James Cameron’s Avatar. In doing so, we will lay bare the intricacies of the concept of indigeneity as they relate to one of the world’s hotbeds of bio- and linguistic diversity. Paying close attention to forms of knowledge production both within and beyond the academy, this course explores Pacific manifestations of the global indigenous movement.