Epeli Hau'ofa
Encyclopedia
Epeli Hauʻofa was a Fiji Islander
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

 writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and anthropologist of Tonga
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...

n descent. He was born in what was then the Territory of Papua.

Biography

Hauʻofa was born of Tongan missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

 parents working in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

. At his death, he was a citizen of Fiji, living in Suva
Suva
Suva features a tropical rainforest climate under the Koppen climate classification. The city sees a copious amount of precipitation during the course of the year. Suva averages 3,000 mm of precipitation annually with its driest month, July averaging 125 mm of rain per year. In fact,...

, Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

. He went to school in Papua New Guinea, Tonga
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...

 and Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

 (Lelean Memorial School
Lelean Memorial School
Lelean Memorial School is one of the largest co-ed schools in Fiji today. It was established in 1943 and is run by the Methodist Church of Fiji. It is co-located at the Davuilevu Methodist Compound with the and the Young People's Department, which runs training for Methodist catechists...

), and attended the University of New England
University of New England (Australia)
The University of New England is an Australian public university with approximately 18,000 higher education students. Its original and main campus is located in the city of Armidale in northern New South Wales....

, Armidale, New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

; McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

, Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

; and the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...

, Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...

, where he gained a PHD in social anthropology
Social anthropology
Social Anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs,...

, published in 1981 with the title Mekeo: inequality and ambivalence in a village society. He taught briefly at the University of Papua New Guinea
University of Papua New Guinea
The University of Papua New Guinea was established by ordinance of the Australian administration in 1965. This followed the Currie Commission which had enquired into higher education in Papua New Guinea...

, and was a research fellow at the University of the South Pacific
University of the South Pacific
The University of the South Pacific is a public university with a number of locations spread throughout a dozen countries in Oceania. It is an international centre for teaching and research on Pacific culture and environment. USP's academic programmes are recognised worldwide, attracting students...

 in Suva, Fiji. From 1978 to 1981 he was Deputy Private Secretary to His Majesty the King of Tonga, serving as the keeper of palace records. During his time in Tonga, Hauʻofa co-produced the literary magazine Faikara with his wife Barbara. In early 1981 he re-joined the University of the South Pacific as the first director of the newly created Rural Development Centre based in Tonga.

He subsequently taught sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 at the University of the South Pacific and, in 1983, he became Head of the Department of Sociology at the University's main campus in Suva
Suva
Suva features a tropical rainforest climate under the Koppen climate classification. The city sees a copious amount of precipitation during the course of the year. Suva averages 3,000 mm of precipitation annually with its driest month, July averaging 125 mm of rain per year. In fact,...

. In 1997, Hauʻofa became the founder
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 and director of the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture at the USP in Suva.

Writing

He was the author of Mekeo: Inequality and ambivalence in a village society; Tales of the Tikongs, which deals (through fiction) with indigenous South Pacific Islander responses to the changes and challenges brought by modernisation and development; Kisses in the Nederends, a novel; and, more recently, We Are the Ocean, a selection of earlier works, including fiction, poetry and essays. Tales of the Tikongs was translated into Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...

 in 2002 by John Allan Pedersen (as Stillehavsfortællinger, ISBN 87-7514-076-4)

The BBC History magazine writes that Hauʻofa provided a "reconceptualisation of the Pacific": In his "influential essay Our Sea of Islands", he argued that Pacific Islanders Islanders "were connected rather than separated by the sea. Far from being sea-locked peoples marooned on coral or volcanic tips of land, islanders formed an oceanic community based on voyaging."

The essay Our Sea of Islands was published in A New Oceania : Rediscovering our Sea of Islands, co-edited by Hauʻofa, Vijay Naidu and Eric Waddell, published in 1993.

Death

Hauʻofa died at the Suva Private Hospital in Suva at 7 AM on January 11, 2009 at the age of 70. He was survived by his wife, Barbara, and son, Epeli Si'i. A funeral service was held at the University of the South Pacific campus in Suva on January 15, 2009. He was buried at his farm in Lami
Lami
Lami, Fiji is an urban area in Rewa Province, Fiji, north-west of Suva. It was formally incorporated as a Town in 1977, and had a population of 20,529 at the most recent census in 2007. The municipal boundaries enclose an area of 680 square kilometers....

, Fiji.

External links

  • "Epeli Hau'ofa : Muse, mediator and mentor", obituary by Joni Madraiwiwi
    Joni Madraiwiwi
    Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi is a Fijian lawyer, politician and was the Vice-President of Fiji from 2004 to 2006. He was sworn in on 10 January 2005, following his nomination by President, Ratu Josefa Iloilo and his subsequent approval by the Great Council of Chiefs on 15 December 2004...

    , former Vice-President of Fiji, in the Fiji Times
    Fiji Times
    The Fiji Times is a daily English-language newspaper published in Suva, Fiji. Established in Levuka on 4 September 1869, it is Fiji's oldest newspaper still operating....

    , January 19, 2009
  • "Our Sea of Islands by Epeli Hau'ofa"
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