COSMOLOGIES, CITIES, AND CULTURAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF SPACE: OCEANIC ENLARGEMENTS OF THE WORLD

Authors

Wolfgang Kempf, University of Göttingen

Abstract

This is a commentary on Epeli Hau‘ofa’s vision of an extended Oceania. By contrasting a widening “sea of islands” with the current discourse of an ever-shrinking world, I draw attention to a heterotopic terrain of incompatible spaces. I intend to show that the widely accepted narratives and maps of a shrinking world encompass and assure the image of an ever-extending Western sphere. This rhetoric of global shrinkage as a result of an expanding West is denying others the capability to create their own enlarged world. Hau‘ofa’s critique of a reductionist and diminutive view of Oceania can be seen as a counterversion to presumed neutral and fixed spatial orders. I would like to contribute to Hau‘ofa’s project of enlarging Oceania by illustrating the connection of cosmologies and cities through examples from the northeastern part of Papua New Guinea, with an emphasis on space as a cultural construction bound to specific forms of power and knowledge.

Recommended Citation

Kempf, Wolfgang (1999) "COSMOLOGIES, CITIES, AND CULTURAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF SPACE: OCEANIC ENLARGEMENTS OF THE WORLD," Pacific Studies Journal: Vol. 22: No. 2, Article 6.
Available at: https://digitalcollections.byuh.edu/pacific-studies-journal/vol22/iss2/6