DISCOURSES ON CHUUKESE CUSTOMARY ADOPTION, MIGRATION, AND THE LAWS OF STATE(S)

Authors

Manuel Rauchholz, Institute for Ethnology, University of Heidelberg, GermanyFollow

Abstract

This article concerns Chuukese adoption, child exchange, and fosterage practices and how they are continued or discontinued when Chuukese migrate to Guam, Hawai‘i, or the continental United States.1 By focusing on one cultural practice and the system of values attached to it, I hope to pinpoint some of the major changes that take place when key identity- shaping factors diversify and are no longer shared by an ethnic group, let alone families within that ethnic group. We will see how, for Chuukese today, “cultural citizenship” is a “dual process of self-making and being made within the webs of power linked to the nation-state and civil society” (Ong 1996, 738) but also that it is more than that: it is a dual process of self-making and being made within the webs of power linked to traditional society, their nation-state, and the United States.

Recommended Citation

Rauchholz, Manuel (2012) "DISCOURSES ON CHUUKESE CUSTOMARY ADOPTION, MIGRATION, AND THE LAWS OF STATE(S)," Pacific Studies Journal: Vol. 35: No. 1, Article 5.
Available at: https://digitalcollections.byuh.edu/pacific-studies-journal/vol35/iss1/5