WORKING WRONGLY AND SEEKING THE STRAIGHT: REMEDIAL REMEDIES ON ENEWETAK ATOLL

Authors

Laurence Marshall Carucci, Montana State University

Abstract

Classical approaches to righting wrongs among Pacific societies have been couched in terms of normative models of authority, and particularly in relation to societies with positions of ascribed authority, chiefs, and those with acquired authority like Melanesian center persons (“big-men”). In this article, I contend that typological approaches to the analysis of perceived wrongdoing are of limited utility in the assessment of how wrongdoing is culturally fashioned and socially redressed. Instead, I suggest that constructions of wrongdoing are culturally relative. Moreover, ideas and feelings about just and unjust action within the community are also relative and depend upon varied logical scenarios that community members use to construct and project their social identities. Specific cases from Ujelang and Enewetak Atolls in the Republic of the Marshall Islands are considered in relation to contested issues such as land and chieftainship, the moral value of monogamy versus polygamy, and the symbolic use and social valuation of alcohol and suicide. These cases demonstrate that differently positioned social actors rationalize their ideas about wrongdoing and injustice in a variety of ways as they develop and maintain empowered senses of identity within the community

Recommended Citation

Carucci, Laurence Marshall (1998) "WORKING WRONGLY AND SEEKING THE STRAIGHT: REMEDIAL REMEDIES ON ENEWETAK ATOLL," Pacific Studies: Vol. 21: No. 2, Article 2.
Available at: https://digitalcollections.byuh.edu/pacific-studies-journal/vol21/iss2/2