A Comparative Ethnography of Belonging and Difference in Mixed Heritage Peoples: Cases from Indigenous Peoples in Oceania

Keywords

Indigenous,mixed heritage,Oceania

Objectives

●A comparative ethnographic research on the politics of acceptance, inclusion, and exclusion of Indigenous people with “mixed heritage*”.
●To shed light on their life experiences in the contemporary post-post-colonial world.
●“Mixed Heritage*” refers to people who straddle multiple ethnic categories, also described as being of “mixed race” or “mixed ethnicity”.

Background: Colonization caused massive migrations of people around Oceania, which in turn created large numbers of mixed heritage people in encounters with Indigenous populations. Since these Indigenous-mixed heritage people straddle the boundary between colonizer and colonized (non-Indigenous/Indigenous), their lives have been regulated and managed by colonial authorities. Simultaneously, Indigenous people had their own approach towards accepting or excluding mixed heritage people, based on factors such as kinship and sharing of substances. Nevertheless, they were more accepting and inclusive of mixed heritage people than were colonial authorities. Colonial and Indigenous logic interplayed to shape the life experience of Indigenous-mixed heritage people. However, even after decolonization, the exclusive boundary between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people remains. Yet, the experience of having both Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage has received little academic attention.
This research project focuses on the experience of Indigenous people with mixed heritage and explores how colonial rule and Indigenous thinking entangle and affect each other in contemporary Oceania, composed of neighboring coexisting non-settler and settler states, each experiencing lingering aftereffects of colonization. This research aims to develop theories through comparing cases from different regions.

Research Results

This research project convened a total of twelve workshops, including four sessions featuring invited guest lecturers. Across these meetings, case studies from various regions of Oceania—namely Australia, New Zealand, Hawaiʻi, Guam, Samoa, Fiji, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Solomon Islands, French Polynesia, and New Caledonia—were presented and examined. In addition, case studies from the Philippines were introduced as comparative material, alongside presentations on recent trends in studies of mixed heritage peoples in the Americas and the circum-Pacific region. These presentations fostered active and substantive discussions among participants.
Through the workshops, it became evident that in Oceania, the lives and social positioning of peoples of mixed heritage—arising from the historical processes of colonialism and, more recently, globalization—have been shaped not only by modern Western categories such as “race” and “ethnicity,” but also by Indigenous logics of differentiation and belonging that operate independently of those categories. The discussions further clarified how these Indigenous politics of difference and affiliation have entangled with Western classificatory frameworks.
In postcolonial nation-states where populations formerly designated as Indigenous under colonial administrations have attained independence, Indigenous logics have remained particularly salient. Within these contexts, social actors have navigated their positions through the articulation of Indigenous frameworks with the structures of the nation-state. With the consolidation of nation-states, some actors advance claims to national belonging and land rights by invoking Indigenous roots and genealogies. At the same time, other actors mobilize and scale up forms of “mixing” grounded at local levels—such as language use and patterns of residence—within broader political and institutional frameworks, or draw upon long-standing relations with outsiders that predate colonialism in the contemporary politics of inclusion and exclusion.
In settler-colonial states, where nation-states were formed primarily by settlers, Indigenous movements are characterized by an entanglement of modern Western logics of exclusive binary classification and Indigenous epistemologies grounded in non-Western frameworks. While some modes of non-exclusive inclusion draw upon genealogies and kinship relations, certain Indigenous movements were also observed to marginalize or suppress internal diversity.
In French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France, the lives and social positioning of peoples of mixed heritage have been shaped by the territory’s distinctive mode of governance. While Indigenous movements have exerted a significant influence, the strategic deployment of bodily modification and references to bodily features have played an important role in articulating locally specific forms of mixed-heritage identity.
The issues emerging from this research project are valuable not only for the study of Oceania but also for broader scholarship on human mobility and mixing. Further scholarly inquiry and sustained discussion are necessary to deepen understanding of these issues.