Research Starter Grant: Building Pacific Islander Homes, Households, and Communities

University Of Hawaii, Honolulu

Investigators

Abstract

This NSF Starter Grant will allow the continuation of a research project called ?Understanding Domestic Space in an Urban Setting: Views from Migrant Women from the Federated States of Micronesia? undertaken as part of a Postdoctoral Research Minority Fellowship (NSF 00-139). The postdoctoral project examined gendered and indigenous understandings of mobility and the household among migrant women who reside in the Territory of Guam, but come from Chuuk, an island state in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). The focus of this Starter Grant project stems from experiences and engagements that took place during the postdoctoral research involving a grassroots movement of Pacific Islanders acting collectively to establish a desirable built environment and community. The intellectual merit of the proposed activity is an increased understanding of Pacific Islander ways of knowing and experiencing urban and diasporic communities. The newest wave of Pacific Islanders to the United States and its territories comes from the FSM. They can be found in urbanized places in the Pacific region, especially in locales such as Hawai`i and the Territory of Guam, often living in less-than-desirable conditions. Yet little is known about them. Among other things, this research will produce a story-based documentary film, a new vehicle for Pacific peoples in urban spaces to express emerging identities found in community activism as well as a fresh and engaging way for viewers to better understand Pacific Islander ways of knowing and communicating. As a model of observation employed here, film will be used both as a cultural product that explores social issues relating to Pacific Islanders and a social process that encourages community strengthening and social change. Finally, as a Pacific Islander scholar studying other Pacific peoples, this research will yield more nuanced scholarship involving boundaries amongst and between Pacific Islanders as both indigenous people and ethnic minorities in different island settings and on different levels of the national and regional context. The broader impacts of the proposed activity will deepen an understanding of social issues contemporary Pacific Islanders face, and underscore their resonance within an increasingly diverse global society. The proposed project incorporates the focus on migrant women and households featured in my postdoctoral work, and extends it to include research on Pacific Islander migrants taking civil action to stay on their land, as well as the social movements and transformations involved. This combination promises many benefits. A social-issue documentary offers opportunities to set the public agenda and influence public policy. First, it increases the visibility and importance of the Pacific and its peoples. Second, it brings regional and national awareness to diasporic and migrant groups who are often ignored. Third, it will allow an underrepresented group to express ways of knowing and manners of thinking through digital and broadband (internet) media. To help achieve this last objective, the project will provide internship, training, and employment for two nationals from Chuuk (FSM), one pursing a PhD in educational technology and another who worked as my assistant for the postdoctoral project and is currently pursuing a master?s in social work. Many other Pacific peoples who are represented in the film will be given opportunities to both critique and participate in post-screening discussions. Several government organizations headquartered in Hawai`i have a direct interest in this project and its postdoctoral predecessor. The Department of Housing and Urban Development would benefit from my research on housing discrimination, displacement, and homelessness. Findings on infrastructure and natural disasters preparedness would be of interest to the Environmental Health Administration, as would public health information on water, sanitation, and wastewater treatment in urban areas. By better understanding housing affordability for large, extended family units, the United States Department of Agriculture could build more effective coalitions with rural communities. Finally, Hawai`i is an EPSCoR state and falls within the educational directive of the NSF. If awarded, this project will build on the first postdoctoral research minority fellowship given to a Pacific Islander and will be the first Starter Grant made to the University of Hawai`i at Manoa where the PI recently has been hired as an assistant professor in the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, School of Pacific and Asian Studies.