ANNUAL REPORT 1998-1999
By Toon van Meijl
Since the beginning of 1999 the regional orientation of our research institution has been expanded. We are now formally the Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies. When the centre was established as the Centre for Pacific Studies in 1991, the regional boundaries of the Pacific were deliberately defined rather fuzzily. Formally, too, the centre has always aimed at co-ordinating Asian studies at the University of Nijmegen, but practically the focus on the region of Oceania remained its most distinctive feature, at least until recently. In the 1990s, Asia has proved to be one of the most dynamic regions in the world, and social scientific research programmes focusing on this increasingly important continent deserve to be ranked on an equal footing with research programmes focusing on Oceania. In view of the increasing political and economic integration between Oceania and Asia scholars affiliated to the University of Nijmegen have opted to co-operate and work together under the – new - flag of the Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies. Over the past year, the process of re-structuring the organisation of the centre has taken a great deal of time and energy, as a result of which the annual general meeting of the Centre will be not be held in 1999. A grand beginning of the new millennium, however, will hopefully provide us with sufficient inspiration to further develop the co-operation between Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Nijmegen.
1. Asian Studies at the Centre for Pacific - and Asian - Studies
In the Netherlands only at the University of Nijmegen can a concentration of scholars who are specialised in the Pacific region be found. Scholars specialised in Asia are to be found at more universities, particularly at Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam. For that reason, too, it has been argued from the outset that the development of a programme on Asian Studies should never try to emulate the programme on Pacific Studies in Nijmegen. The Pacific cluster of the Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies, has a teaching programme and a research programme, while it also aims to provide documentation and information on the region, among other things, by publishing a biannual newsletter, the Oceania Newsletter. The Asia cluster of the Centre, however, aims in the first place at providing a coherent teaching programme, while a research programme may be developed in the future. In view of the fact that elsewhere in the Netherlands excellent information services are available, the Asia cluster of the Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies has not defined this as a major objective of its activities at the University of Nijmegen.
In order to set up a teaching programme, and at a later date possibly also a research programme, in the field of Asian studies, a comprehensive inventory has been made of all staff members at the University of Nijmegen who have conducted research in Asia and/or who are teaching courses on Asia. Approximately 50 people employed at the University of Nijmegen are engaged in Asian studies, spread over a variety of different disciplines in five different faculties. Nearly 60 % of them have completed a questionnaire with questions on their research experience, number and kind of teaching modules, publication record, international contacts and co-operation. In addition, interviews were held with almost all respondents, which has provided us with a fair amount of information on the expertise available at our university. Subsequently, an integrated teaching programme has been compiled, both at graduate and undergraduate levels. The Centre offers courses at graduate and undergraduate levels, while it also supervises M.A. and Ph.D research. It should be noted that all courses are given in Dutch, although students may write essays and exams in English. For the academic year 1999-2000 these courses are:
First Year:
Anthropological and historical issues in the Asia-Pacific region (CA1010)
Regional seminar South Asia (DW1002)
Introduction into Hinduism (GO7011a)
Introduction into Buddhism (GO1018a)
Second/Third Year:
Social problems in the contemporary Pacific (CA2050)
Church, theology and evangelisation in Asia (GO4039a)
Globalized religion and local identity in Southeast Asia (CA2073)
Asia of the Pacific (SG2004a)
Legal anthropology and legal pluralism (RE0443a)
History of the European expansion (CMG IV)
Indonesian language course (Bahasa Indonesia) (AR3355/3366)
Ethnolinguistics (AR3195)
Advanced course on Hinduism (GO2097a)
Advanced course on Buddhism (GO2103-3)
Philosophy and phenomenology of religion: comparative studies (GO3125a)
Third Year:
Advanced seminar Pacific studies (CA2034)
Linguistic fieldwork (AR3190)
A special exam on the basis of literary studies in preparation for individual research projects
Fourth Year:
Individual research projects and supervision of Master theses based on field research within the Asia-Pacific region or on library research.
More information on the Centre's activities and its research and teaching programmes can be obtained through the documentation centre, where an extensive brochure with more detailed course descriptions is available, although only in Dutch. Hopefully, this programme will inspire even more students to focus their programme of study on Asia and/or the Pacific, which, in turn, might result in the development of a research programme that will provide university staff with a dynamic working environment.
To keep track of the implementation of the teaching programme and the development of a research programme on Asian studies at the University of Nijmegen, it has also been necessary to change the organisation of the Centre for Pacific Studies. In addition to the Board, which functions at the general level of the centre, and which operates as an umbrella, each cluster, both the Pacific cluster and the Asia cluster, will manage the daily operation of the distinct programmes. The Pacific cluster, which at least for the time being will operate a more extensive programme, retains a small board, consisting of a chairman, an academic secretary and a research co-ordinator to manage its activities on a more regular basis; this management team also functions as the executive board of the Centre at large. The Asia cluster has appointed a co-ordinator, dr. Huub de Jonge, to maintain the momentum that we initiated over the past two years.
2. Research Programme
The Research programme of the Pacific cluster, entitled "Changing Pacific: a comparative research project of processes of cultural transformation in South Pacific societies", officially expired on December 31st, 1999. Soon this will be revised, mainly in view of the new procedure for the allocation of research funds to large-scale, interdisciplinary research programmes made up of a number of projects in various regions by the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO), but also to re-direct the research activities of the Centre's staff to the most important social, cultural, economic and political issues that will dominate the debate on the Pacific at the beginning of the new millennium.
The proposal for a PhD research project that was submitted in 1998 to the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO) was accepted. It concerns Silvia Broeke and the title of her project is "Maori Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights: An Anthropological Approach of Indigenous Rights and International Law". Ms. Broeke joined the Centre's staff in August 1999.
In 1999 one proposal for a PhD research project was submitted to the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO). The topic of the project has been described as "Dreams and transitions: the use of dream-space in individual and social maturation among Australian Aboriginal women", to be implemented by Ms. Mohkamsing-den Boer. After the first round of the assessment procedure the applicant was invited to elaborate on her proposal and re-submit a complete application by September. Towards the end of 1999 she will be advised whether she will be awarded a PhD research scholarship or not. Given the feedback on her initial application we are rather hopeful that she will join the Centre next year.
3. Teaching Programme
As mentioned above, the Centre's teaching programme has been completely revised. The most important change regarding the curriculum on Pacific studies is that the introductory course for first year students has been integrated with the introductory course on Asia. In the first year of the curriculum a new course is now offered, made up of three modules: Continental Asia, insular Southeast Asia and the Pacific (CA1010). Each of these modules consists of four lectures: one on the precolonial period, one on the colonial period, one on the postcolonial period, and one on topical issues characteristic of the region. The course is followed by approximately 70 students and proves popular amongst them, which is hopeful for the future. Next year, advanced students will be offered separate courses on each of the regions that are central in the three different modules of the integrated introductory course.
At the graduate level it may be mentioned that the special seminar on Pacific studies for Master students again focusses exclusively on the region of the Pacific. In previous years the emphasis was on the issue of identity construction, with case-studies on the Pacific and other regions, but at the request of students the orientation of this seminar is now again regional, with attention for other topical issues as well. This year the seminar focuses particularly on the expression of cultural identities through forms of material culture.
4. Seminar Series
The integration of the Post-Fieldwork Seminar Series for Master Students into the seminar series of the Centre for Pacific Studies, the Nijmegen Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology and the Anthropological Students' Union Quetzalcoatl, has been continued over the past year and a half. A tradition of staff and students' performances in alternate weekly sessions has now been firmly established. Over the past three semester speakers included Herb Wharton (Australia), Halleh Ghorashi (Nijmegen), Janine Klungel (Nijmegen), Pamela J. Stewart & Andrew Strathern (Pittsburgh, USA), John Helsloot (Amsterdam), Robert Verloop (CPAS), Fenneke Reysoo (Nijmegen), Indira Simbolon (CPAS), Catrien Notermans (Nijmegen), Thomas Widlok (Cologne, Germany), Justin Stagl (Salzburg, Austria) and Philip Jones (Adelaide, Australia). Thus, the Brown Bag Seminar Series continues to provide a useful platform for discussion on ongoing research in the Pacific and Asia and other regions.
5. Documentation
In 1999 the bibliographic database on the Pacific that is continuously being updated by our research institute's Documentation Centre finally came online. It can be accessed through our homepage on World Wide Web <http://www.kun.nl/cps/>. At present, the database contains some 6600 references to recent publications on the Pacific, which makes it a very useful source for bibliographical research. Publications not only include new books from many academic publishing houses, but also articles that have appeared in any of the 113 academic journals that our documentationalist checks to compile the overviews of publications, which are also published in the Oceania Newsletter. The database can be searched by typing in the name of an author, a title, or a keyword. An additional distinctive feature of the database is that book reviews are also listed in it. Since everyone can search our bibliographical database free of charge for references to publications in relation to his or her specific research interests, the number of visitors to the Centre's internet site has increased dramatically. Our home page has been visited some 10,000 times over the past two years. And we proudly add that dr. Ciolek, head of the Internet Publications Bureau of the Australian National University, has classified the academic relevance of our internet site as 'essential'.
6. Oceania Newsletter
Two issues of the Oceania Newsletter have been published over the past year. Since the co-ordination of the publication of the Newsletter has been taken up by a member of the secretarial staff of the Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology, Antoine Vanhemelrijk, it has become more manageable to produce a newsletter on a regular basis than it was in the past, when we relied entirely on volunteers.
The Oceania Newsletter is also available on the World Wide Web (WWW). All issues that were prepared on a wordprocessor, i.e. the numbers 6 through 23, are available through a hyperlink on our home page. Over the past year we have also begun to scan in the first five issues of the newsletter that were prepared on a typewriter. With the assistance of Sjoerd Jaarsma we were able to make Oceania Newsletter number 5 available. Next year we hope to continue this process of publication on the internet.
7. European Society for Oceanists: Conference on "Asia in the Pacific"
In June 1999 the Centre for Pacific Studies jointly organised the fourth conference of the European Society for Oceanists (ESfO) with the Irian Jaya Studies Programme (ISIR) that is coordinated by Leiden University. The conference committee was made up of Jelle Miedema (ISIR/chair), Paul van der Grijp (CPS/Deputy Chair), Toon van Meijl (CPS), Gunter Senft (CPS/ISIR), and the conference secretaries Philomena Dol and Jantien Delwel, both of ISIR. The general theme of the conference was Asia in the Pacific. More than 170 scholars from in and outside Europe participated, including scholars from research institutions in Asia and the Pacific itself. A total of 75 papers were presented in parallel working sessions, and 3 keynote lectures were given at plenary sessions by Jan Pouwer, Jonathan Friedman and Ron Crocombe.
The general theme of the conference was selected in the light of cultural, linguistic, political and economic influences of Asia in the Pacific – and of the Pacific in Asia – in the past and at present. The theme was addressed, however, mainly in the keynote addresses and in some of the thirteen workshops. The broad and non-exclusive scope of the workshops, conforming to the many disciplines united in the ESfO (i.e. anthropology, history, linguistics, museology, &c.), ensured that all the conference's participants were free to choose a subject for their papers outside the bounds of the conference's general theme.
For more information on the conference, see the report published in the Oceania Newsletter 23, September 1999, pp. 2-3. The opening address to the conference held by emeritus professor Jan Pouwer was published in the same issue of the newsletter, pp. 4-8. Recently, the conference committee made a selection of papers for publication in two volumes, one on 'Local Economies, Globalization, and Trade in the Pacific' to be edited by Paul van der Grijp, the other on 'Cultural Identity and Politics in the Pacific' to be edited by Toon van Meijl and Jelle Miedema.
8. Exhibitions
The Nijmegen Ethnological Museum, which is associated with the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies, organised an exhibition on the region. From December 18th 1998 until January 29th 1999, an exhibition was held on Polynesia, with work by three Dutch artists who have been inspired by the region, i.e. the watercolour painter Wil Wijchers, the landscape photographer Manfred Kleiter, and the bone carver Dieter Jaques. The work of the artists mentioned focused mainly on New Zealand.
From June 14th until September 17th 1999 an exhibition was held on Central Borneo, Indonesia, based on the work by the Dutch Hendrik Tillema (1870-1952), who made a photo and film journey to Borneo, the current Kalimantan, in the 1930s. The title of the exhibition was Apo Kajan: A Film Trip to Central Borneo.
From October 4th until December 23rd 1999 an exhibition was held by the photographer Jan Malawauw, entitled Saudara: Portraits and Life Histories of Elderly Moluccans living in the Netherlands. The photographer himself is of Moluccan descent.