‘Pasifika’ and ‘I‐Kiribati’ identity in Aotearoa New Zealand: ‘Dancing’ and ‘edge‐walking’ through multiple identities

This article explores the relationship between I‐Kiribati communities and the broader ‘imagined’ Pasifika community in Aotearoa New Zealand. It looks at the way a group of I‐Kiribati tertiary students experience identity within this context. Through the use of semi‐structured interviews and a discourse analysis, the study draws three main conclusions. First, that I‐Kiribati navigate multiple identities and are constantly negotiating these within different spaces. Although this contributes to uncertainties around identity, I‐Kiribati students also strategically enact identity to suit various contexts. Second, that Pasifika as a term tends to infer ‘Polynesian’ which in turn may marginalise I‐Kiribati identities within certain spaces, particularly in education settings that intend to support all Pacific identities. Yet, given such a narrow understanding of Pasifika, these efforts may counter that intention for those on the margins of, or outside the common usage of, the term Pasifika. Last, community plays a significant role in the formation of identities within minority groups, which is important for countering aspects of marginalisation experienced within broader pan‐ethnic labels such as Pasifika. Consequently, we argue that Pasifika as a label needs to better reflect inter‐Pacific diversity as well as the identity negotiations that Aotearoa New Zealand‐born Pacific peoples navigate.     

Negotiating ‘home’ and ‘national identity’: Chinese‐Malaysian transmigrants in Singapore

Abstract: Part of the globalisation phenomenon involves an increasing number of elite transmigrants traversing national boundaries in response to the global demand for skilled labour while maintaining multifaceted social ties astride political, geographic and cultural borders, linking home and host countries together. As transmigrants ‘live’ in several communities simultaneously, their identities, behaviour and values are often not limited by location. Thus, notions of ‘home’ and ‘national identity’ are also being reviewed given the discrepancies between these concepts and locality. In this context, this paper explores questions of ‘home’ and ‘national identity’ among skilled Chinese‐Malaysians working and residing in Singapore, portraying them as active participants of two (or more) countries. It focuses on their strategies and struggles in negotiating ideologies of ‘home’ and ‘national identities’ across borders in a setting of two neighbouring countries umbilically linked in a volatile political relationship. It further examines their degree of concern in the political affairs of both countries. Between ‘home’ and ‘host’, Chinese‐Malaysians redefine their practices of home(‐making) in relation to their national identity, drawing on the resources and resilience of familial ties, nostalgic memories and other practical lifecourse needs.     

Deployment of cold tolerance loci from Oryza sativa ssp. Japonica cv. ‘Nipponbare’ in a high‐yielding Indica rice cultivar ‘93‐11’

Cold tolerance is a complex trait, and QTL pyramiding is required for rice breeding. In this study, a total of seven QTLs for cold tolerance in the Japonica rice variety ‘Nipponbare’ were identified in an F_2:3 population. A stably inherited major QTL, called qCTS11, was detected in the region adjacent to the centromere of chromosome 11. In a near‐isogenic line population, the QTL was further dissected into two linked loci, qCTS11.1 and qCTS11.2. Both of the homozygous alleles of qCTS11.1 and qCTS11.2 from ‘Nipponbare’ showed major positive effects on cold tolerance. Through pyramiding the linked QTLs in the cold‐sensitive Indica rice cultivar ‘93‐11’, we have developed a new elite, high‐yielding Indica variety with cold tolerance.     

Performing ‘Chinese‐ness’ in Singkawang: Diasporic moorings,festivals and tourism

Through an examination of two festivals – Qing Ming and Cap Go Meh – in the town of Singkawang in Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan), we show how Singkawang‐bound Chinese Indonesian tourists and their Singkawang‐based relatives produce a diasporic heritage network through ‘moorings’ generated by both transnational and internal migration. Instead of returning to a singular ‘homeland’ in distant China, these tourists return to Chinese‐majority Singkawang as a result of their personal genealogical roots and of their broader cultural allegiance with a kind of Chinese‐ness that Singkawang has come to represent within a post‐Suharto Indonesia. Through these two festivals, we demonstrate how personal heritage practices like ‘roots tourism’ and visiting friends and relatives are intimately bound up with identity and developmental politics at local, national and international scales. In so doing, we identify a range of ways in which migratory and tourism flows by Chinese Indonesian internal migrants shape relations to their ancestral hometowns and cultural ‘homelands’ in Indonesia within the context of membership to and participation in a broader transnational diaspora.     

Place,memory and identity: Imagining ‘New Asia’

Abstract: The rapid transformation of Asian societies and landscapes, especially since the mid‐1990s, has engendered much conjecture of the ‘Asian renaissance’ and the rise of a ‘New Asia’. This Special Edition of Asia Pacific Viewpoint explores the intersecting themes of ‘urban place’, ‘social memory’ and ‘cultural identity’ in the articulation of and contestation towards New Asia. Specifically, the six articles here offer various interpretations of New Asia – as tourism marketing tool, political vision and social identity – and the politics involved in urban, tourism and cultural development. From colonial hotels in key South‐East Asian cities to the historic waterfront of Singapore; from festivals and rituals in Hong Kong, Hoi An (Vietnam) and Penang (Malaysia) to the clash of cultural values in Manggarai (Indonesia), ‘selective remembering’ and ‘ideological forgetting’ are central to the construction of New Asian identities. Ultimately, this Special Edition hopes to provoke continuing discussions on the rhetoric of New Asia and its imaginative and contested geographies, sociologies and histories.     

Researching ‘sustainable consumption’ in Asia‐Pacific cities

Abstract: Asia‐Pacific cities are experiencing substantial environmental problems, which require innovative policy approaches. One newly emergent policy strand is that of ‘sustainable consumption’. This approach aims to reduce environmental degradation by encouraging all consumers to adopt more environmentally friendly modes of behaviour, especially those living in congested and environmentally degraded urban areas. Although a promising initiative, significant conceptual and practical problems exist with sustainable consumption's current policy framework. However, rather than abandon the idea completely, consumption should become central to researching environmental issues in Asia‐Pacific cities. Here, a ‘political ecology’ approach frames all forms of consumption as revealing political, economic and cultural practices and modes of distributions that give rise to current unsustainable outcomes. Through in‐depth examinations of current forms of consumption, this approach aims to offer a challenging perspective for future research into Asia‐Pacific urban environmental problems.     

Between ‘state’ and ‘society’: Commune authorities and the environment in Vietnam's craft villages

Maintaining a liveable environment in Vietnam's polluted craft villages is a daily challenge for state authorities and residents. Neighbouring urban populations demand that the state effectively curtails and manages pollution, while local residents prioritise their livelihoods and routinely flout regulations. The commune official, tasked with the seemingly impossible task of environmental regulation, occupies a fraught position, torn between the imperatives and constraints of craft producers and state regulatory demands. This study of water pollution in northern Vietnam's craft villages finds that commune officials' conflicted role in environmental governance is a central factor in the failure of the current environmental governance regime, and reflects the internally conflicted nature of the Vietnamese state.     

Interspecific cross‐hybrids of Nicotiana tabacum L. cv. (gla.) S ‘K326’ with Nicotiana alata

In order to introduce the Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus (TSWV) resistance from Nicotiana alata into Nicotiana tabacum, a cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) line of N. tabacum (N. tabacum L. cv. (gla.) S ‘K326’), was successfully crossed with N. alata. Despite a high DNA content variability, F₁ hybrids could be classified in two subgroups, a major one encompassing fertile hybrids morphologically similar to their tobacco maternal parent but TSWV sensitive, and a minor one displaying sterile hybrids showing an intermediate phenotype and TSWV resistant. In order to elucidate the unexpected fertility recovery of the fertile F₁ plants, some N. alata fertility restoration ppr genes were cloned and were shown to be differentially expressed between parental lineages as well as between both F₁ subgroups, suggesting that N. alata contains fertility restoring allele able to overcome the CMS of N. tabacum.     

Disentangling the ‘grass roots’ in Tonga: ‘traditional enterprise’ and autonomy in the moral and market economy

Semi–subsistence sectors predominate throughout Pacific Island countries. But the nature of the social organisation that characterises them, remains generally unexamined. This paper introduces the concept of ‘traditional enterprise’, based on observations in Tonga, to help analytically illuminate the sector. It also investigates processes of household dynamics that lead to selective upward social mobility and the consequent fragmentation of the generalised peasant household. Better understanding of the basic units, goals and means of achieving them among the traditional, rural, or the ‘grass roots’ sectors should help the current developmentalist emphasis on informal sector growth.