The extensive literature on inventions of tradition and identity in the Pacific has dealt mostly with reifications that are positively upheld by the people under consideration. This article traces some changes in cultural objectifications over various phases of the encounter between islanders and colonizers, examining the ways in which the recognition of both others and selves made particular practices and customs emblematic of whole ways of life. The fact that these generalized constructions of customary ways can be negated as well as affirmed may have broad ramifications for the ways anthropologists think about culture. [tradition, identity, invention, colonialism, Pacific Islands]
`Human security' is a promising but still underdeveloped paradigmatic approach to understanding contemporary security politics. We argue that tension between those embracing the politics of development and those supporting the human security paradigm has intensified because the transnational dimensions embodied within the latter approach have been under-assessed. The idea of `threat' also needs to be identified with more precision for the human security concept to accrue analytical credibility. We focus on how transnational behaviour addresses the central human security problems of vulnerability and immediacy. Human security's utility for confronting crisis is also evaluated via the application of two case studies of humanitarian intervention: the 1994 multinational operation in Haiti and the 1999 intervention in East Timor. We conclude that, while general security politics includes both domestic and international issues, human security allows us to transcend sovereign prerogatives and to address emerging transregional threats more effectively.
This speculative comment considers the potential worth of raising questions that appear simple but may be rewardingly complex. It asks whether routine aspects of curatorial work, such as captioning objects and juxtaposing them in displays, may not have more suggestive dimensions than has been recognized previously. It asks what the implications of a conception of ''the museum as method'' might have for current approaches to public exhibition. [
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