Select Language

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

Research period:2022.10-2025.3

YAMANOUCHI Yuriko

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.