Asserting Identity: Youth Culture, Education and Nationalism in Contemporary Palau / Agarwal, Rachana
- Bib ID:
- 7124117
- Format:
- Book and Microform
- Author:
- Agarwal, Rachana, author
- Description:
-
- Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2013
- 427 p.
- ISBN:
- 9781303029417
- Summary:
-
The teaching of Palauan culture and language in local schools is an illustration of this. Yet, Palauan youth are increasingly traveling to the US, and other countries, as students or as army recruits, thereby engaging in practices that potentially undermine Palauan elders' efforts to foster a sense of national identity. I situate youth in the Palauan social hierarchy to highlight their structurally subordinate position and examine how they self-identify and make choices amidst divergent structural forces---the project of Palauan nationalism, on the one hand, and the American influence through the Compact, on the other. I conducted fieldwork for different lengths of time between 2006 and 2009, participating actively in the everyday lives of youth in Palau.
This dissertation investigates the simultaneous efforts of Palauan youth to construct personal identities and Palauan authority figures to promote cultural nationalism in the context of Palau's ongoing political economic relations with foreign countries, particularly the US. After being a colony of Spain, Germany, and Japan, successively, and then a Trust Territory of the US, Palau finally gained political independence in 1994. Yet, it remains economically dependent on the US, its "guardian" nation, through an agreement called the Compact of Free Association. In light of recent independence, Palauans are actively forging a national identity and reaffirming their local ties as a manifestation of their sovereignty.
This involved in-depth, biographical interviews with students on local school and college campuses, accompanying them in recreational activities such as paddling competitions and summer camps, observing them during customary and military recruitment ceremonies, and in other social settings, such as political rallies, cybercafes and their homes. I also gathered data from textual and archival sources, events and symposia, various educational, cultural, historical, and medical institutions, as well as foreign embassies located in Palau. By juxtaposing the personal narratives of youth with larger ongoing political processes, I illustrate how Palauan youth produce their own self-images that might be aligned with, run counter to, or do both simultaneously with respect to Palauan cultural nationalism.
- Notes:
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- Advisors: Richard J. Parmentier Committee members: Joyce Antler; Elizabeth E. Ferry; Kathleen D. Hall.
- Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 74-08(E), Section: A.
- English
- Subject:
- Other authors/contributors:
- Brandeis University. Anthropology, degree granting institution
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
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Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Published
- Publication date:
- 2013
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