Jione Havea (Ed.): MEDIAting Theology (Leseprobe)

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26 <strong>Jione</strong> <strong>Havea</strong> intelligence and civilizations – this position was recently highlighted in the 2008 movie Black Panther, directed by Ryan Kyle Coogler, an American. So my affirmation of the native brand is in order to be a thorn on the side of white supremacy. Teaching is something that traditional academics and White societies value. What is more significant (and signifying) in native societies is the gift of memory and remembering. This is powerfully portrayed in the Mexican based animation, Coco (Disney 2017). It tells the story of young Miguel finding his great-great-grandfather Héctor in the world of the dead, discovering that Héctor wrote the songs that made Miguel’s hero (Ernesto de la Cruz) popular, exposing that de la Cruz poisoned Héctor (preventing him from returning to his family), and returning to the world of the living to assure that Héctor will not be forgotten. There are more to this captivating story, but memory and remembering are foregrounded in this revealing movie; memory and remembering are also the winds on the sails of native oral cultures. Put another way – our emphasis is not so much about teaching as it is about working so that the wronged are remembered. Second, i affirm nativehood because it helps me see the maneuverings of media. In the networking of globalization (market, politics), media “holds” the world in a state of liquidity, with fluid walls. Time and space feel synthetic, and distance seems immaterial if not irrelevant, for the happenings in one city are instantly projected live in another city on the other side of the world. Liquidity and fluidity are capital and technological advancements in media’s globalized world; similarly, liquidity and fluidity are the textures of the webs and flows of the world of natives. Our physical world in Pasifika is a liquid world, and our ways and practices manifest our fluid cultures. An example of fluidity in native thinking is how we in Pasifika understand stories, legends and songlines as myths of belonging rather than as myths of origin as European anthropologists and historians assume when they interview in our waters. This is my way of saying that i do not take (the truths about) origins as the primary interest of natives. I am not interested in origins nor in truths but in “points of entry” (starting points) and in “homing devises” (ideas and plans that make one belong and feel at home). Every person, no matter the task, works from multiple points of entry and need homing devises. One does not enter from only one point; one does not have only one myth of belonging. Even when one thinks she or he is reentering an old point of entry, in a liquid world that point has shifted since the last time. There is no rigidity, no fixity. One enters,
Mediating the Real – A Native Take 27 lands and homes at a point that is always shifting. Fluid. Flux. And multiplying. Such is the way things (net)work in the native Pasifika world, and similarly in mediascapes. On this occasion, i affirm my native-hood because it enables me to “awe” at media. In light of the foregoing reflection, it is not enough to name and reach the Real order or to be moved by the sublime; it is necessary also to be at home, and to enable others to feel that they belong and are at home where they are. This is a critical concern for natives in diaspora (to a foreign land or internally, as with West Papuans and Palestinians), whose struggle is with naming where “home” is, and for islanders who are expecting to become climate refugees, whose struggle is with what will “home” mean when their home(is)land is no more (so Seforosa Carroll). In the following subsections, i offer a native take on “entry points” and “homing devises.” I am forced by the conditions of writing to procced in a linear manner, from point to point, but the points made in the following subsections would flow into each other in the world of orality. To facilitate the flow of orality, Table 1 presents the titles for the following subsections, with an invitation to read them as currents that flow into each other. Table 1 Entry points Many reals Real context Real whitewash Ignored real Homing devises Going organic Merdeka or bust Negotiate and bust Children and young people One of the oral practices shared by Pasifika natives is talanoa, which refers to three oralizing events – story, telling (storying), and conversation (story-weaving). In this native frame, each of the currents in Table 1 is a talanoa – a story, a storying, and a story-weaving. Taking the term talanoa as an example of Lacan’s Symbolic order, to move into, with and beyond talanoa is a native example of the Real order. Entry points I muse in the following subsections on several starting points for envisioning, and nativizing, the Real. I expect that the imagery of the Real changes depending on one’s point of entry and, like Maui the shape shifting demigod in Disney’s Moana / Vaiana, the Real would also change its shape and its character in the currents of talanoa. In talanoa, the same character of the Real may serve opposing functions, like the
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Page 4 and 5: 6 Contents The Palestinians, Israel
Page 7 and 8: Introduction Media makes religions
Page 9 and 10: Introducion 11 land and its resourc
Page 11 and 12: Introducion 13 oppose the hegemonic
Page 13 and 14: Introducion 15 enough to be inspire
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Page 28 and 29: 48 Miguel M. Algranti the context o
Page 30 and 31: 50 Miguel M. Algranti that religion
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Jione Havea (Ed.): MEDIAting Theology (Leseprobe)

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