Pacific Lives, Pacific Places: Bursting Boundaries in Pacific History. (Book Reviews).

PACIFIC LIVES, PACIFIC PLACES: Bursting Boundaries in Pacific History. Edited by Brij V. Lal and Peter Hempenstall. Canberra (Australia): The Journal of Pacific History. 2001. v, 1 90 pp. (Maps, figure.) A$22.50, paper. ISBN 0-9585863-1-4.

As an anthropologist I cannot productively comment on the ways in which this text may have indeed "burst boundaries" in the minds and works of Pacific historians who engaged in this publication and its preceding conference. As an "outsider" to the discipline, however, I can comment on its usefulness to anthropology, and the subtitle of this work appears to be rather a grand claim. This is not to say that the chapters are not inherently interesting, but on the whole Pacific Lives, Pacific Places: Bursting Boundaries in Pacific History failed to "burst" any conceptual boundaries for me. Perhaps this is because there have been some truly challenging anthropological analyses on the Pacific produced in the last decade or so. Perhaps more so, however, the very nature of difference between our respective disciplines, as evidenced primarily in research practice, suggests that what has received on-going critique for many decades in anthropology, would appear to be in a fledgling state for Pacific history. Indeed, as p apers in this volume show, while the distinction between doing anthropology and doing history has never been absolute, participant-observation has been, and remains, the predominant fieldwork paradigm in anthropology and as such continues to be thoroughly critiqued as praxis.

In bursting the boundaries between the archives and lived experience, between object and subject, participant-historians in this volume are predominantly concerned with demonstrating the validity of their work and of placing themselves in the research: "Participant historians learn to live with the inescapable truth that we all live in our histories" (p. 87). Contemporary anthropological debates about the ontological, epistemological and phenomenal underpinnings and effects of participant-observation are far more elaborate than any of the papers from historians in this volume. Understandably that is as one would expect, given the long period of time we have grappled with this aspect of our disciplinary practice. We have also been dealing with issues of identity, the Self and place for at least two decades; however, like the historians, we are still wondering how best to account for the individual. Our work in this area generally remains theoretically and practically underdeveloped, with perhaps the exception of the recent work of Nigel Rapport (Transcendent Individual: Towards a Literary and Liberal Anthropology. London: Routledge, 1997). Indeed, Peter Hempenstall's chapter echoes concerns similar to Rapport's concerning the issue of agency. Agency, says Hempenstall, "has been shown to be a dense field, full of layers and complexities.... But even the more complex appreciations of agency do not solve the problem of telling the story of Pacific Islander lives in terms which, as individuals, they might use for themselves" (p. 38). And this is certainly an on-going and unresolved dilemma in anthropology as well.

This is an interesting collection of quite diverse works from "participant historians" working in a variety of capacities with Pacific Island peoples. In reflecting on their research practices and their selves, this volume offers an insight into the ways in which historians are currently addressing issues such as representation and method, biography and autobiography, colonialism and the academy and, in so doing, are self-consciously placing themselves in the research process.

The themes and arguments of the text are timely and very accessible to the reader and as such it could be used successfully as a first or second-year university text in Humanities and Social Sciences subjects about the contemporary Pacific and historical method.