ARTHIST115 Chap.5 Our Sea of Islands: Hau'ofa and Oceania
Our Sea of Islands: Hau'ofa and Oceania
Epeli Hau'ofa's 1994 essay Our Sea of Islands rejects the view that Pacific countries are too small, poor and isolated to be autonomous. That view, he argues, counts only dry land and was introduced by continental Europeans and Americans, who drew boundaries that confined ocean peoples for the first time.
Oceanic cosmologies measured a far larger world of land, ocean, underworld and heavens, and the ancestors of ocean peoples voyaged to trade, marry and visit kin. Hau'ofa sees post-war migration to Australia, New Zealand, Hawaiʻi, North America and Europe as the same world enlargement, sustained by reciprocity rather than dependence. For ARTHIST115 the essay is a lens.
It explains why Pacific carving and adornment share forms across islands, why diaspora is a major contemporary theme, and why the course opens its Pacific lectures with Hau'ofa's words about an identity grounded in the sea.
The reading also supplies a vocabulary for reflections and essays: belittlement, world enlargement, reciprocity and Oceania itself are terms you can use precisely once you understand the argument behind each.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Hau'ofa's argument against belittlement
- 02
Smallness as a matter of what is counted
- 03
Islands in a far sea versus a sea of islands
- 04
Colonial boundaries and the contraction of Oceania
- 05
World enlargement, migration and reciprocity
- 06
Applying the reading to an artwork
Worked example · free
Apply Our Sea of Islands to Pacific migration and art
- 1State the contrast: islands in a far sea counts only land, while a sea of islands sees the ocean as connecting people.
- 1Give the history: nineteenth-century boundaries contracted a once boundless world into small, separated states.
- 1Give the present: post-war migrants enlarged their world again, circulating people, goods and stories through kin networks.
- 1Apply: an artist's work on diaspora can then be read as connection across one ocean rather than loss of a homeland.
Key terms
- Oceania
- Hau'ofa's preferred name for the region, meaning a sea of islands with their inhabitants.
- World enlargement
- Hau'ofa's term for ordinary Islanders expanding their world through travel, migration and kin networks.
- Belittlement
- The representation of Pacific peoples as small and dependent, which Hau'ofa argues can produce fatalism.
- Reciprocity
- The exchange of goods and care between homeland and migrant relatives at the core of oceanic cultures.
Our Sea of Islands: Hau'ofa and Oceania FAQ
What is the main argument of Our Sea of Islands?
Hau'ofa argues that describing Pacific countries as too small, poor and isolated reflects a narrow, land-based view introduced by Europeans. Seen as a sea of islands, Oceania is vast and connected, and ordinary Islanders continue to enlarge it through migration and reciprocity. He calls the outsider view belittlement and warns that, internalised, it breeds fatalism.
Why does Hau'ofa reject the term Pacific Islands?
Pacific Islands denotes small areas of land on reefs or seamounts, the outsider's measure. Oceania denotes islands together with their inhabitants and the ocean that connects them. Hau'ofa notes that anglophone planners and economists rarely use Oceania, perhaps because it would force them to revise their perspectives on the region.
How can Hau'ofa be used in an exam answer?
Use him when a work concerns voyaging, migration, diaspora or links between islands. State his contrast between islands in a far sea and a sea of islands in one sentence, cite the 1994 essay, and then analyse how the artwork shows connection across the ocean. Avoid summarising the whole essay.
What does Hau'ofa mean by world enlargement?
He uses it for the way ordinary Pacific Islanders expand their world by moving across the ocean, as their ancestors did. After the Second World War, people moved in large numbers to Australia, New Zealand, Hawaiʻi, North America and Europe, keeping kin networks through which people, goods and stories circulate. He calls this interdependence, not dependence.
Exam move
Memorise the contrast as a two-column note and add one example from the course to each column. Then practise applying it in exactly two sentences to Lisa Reihana's Māramatanga and to the Lapita and Polynesian voyaging history from the carving lecture. Finally, write one sentence stating the limit of the argument, since Hau'ofa writes chiefly of central and western Polynesia and an overextended claim weakens an answer.
Finish by pairing the reading with one Pacific work from the collection tour.
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