Winners of the Library Treasures Scholarships for AY 2022-2023

Jordan Peterson (PhD in Political Science), “Land, Identity, and Migration: Beyond resource competition as an explanation for correlation of indigenous mobility and ‘Sons of the Soil’ conflict in West Papua at the regency level”

Of the one billion migrants in the world 763 million are estimated to be internal migrants; that is people who move within their country of origin. Relative to international migration, however, there has been a comparative dearth of research on the political implications of the massive movement of people within borders. This project critically engages with ‘Sons of the Soil’ (SoS) conflict theory in the context of indigenous Papuan mobility in West Papua at the regency-level. The invaluable digital resources of the Southeast Asia Collection and the Web Archiving Project for Papua and West Papua in the Pacific Collection will be used to conduct a statistical analysis of data from the Badan Pusat Statistik to understand the correlation between Papuan mobility and incidence of ethnic violence of ‘SoS’ conflict. Furthermore, this project will utilize discourse analysis of primary accounts from websites the Aliansi Demokrasi Untuk Papua, Jaringan Damai Papua, and West Papua Report, and secondary literature to argue that while ‘SoS’ conflict theory has been generative as a conceptual model for understanding the dynamics of ethnic violence in West Papua it lacks sufficient empirical support for the assertion that indigenous mobility is negatively correlated with ethnic conflict due primarily to economic factors. Rather, through discourse analysis of the websites and media produced by indigenous Papuan organizations affiliated with resistance movements indicates that identity is a paramount concern.

Leiana San Agustin Naholowaʻa (PhD in English), “History of Writing and Publishing of Traditional Stories in Micronesia”

This research project focuses on traditional stories of indigenous people from Micronesia and studies how this literary history coincides with political, economic, and social changes in the region. The analysis of this body of work, sometimes categorized as myths, legends, folklore, wonder tales, and speculative fiction of the Pacific, centers on the publishing history of traditional stories from Micronesia since the 20th century. I will examine the named and unnamed acknowledgement of indigenous storytellers and the background of compilers and editors who have led these projects. I am interested in the political changes occurring in the region since the establishment and termination of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, along with economic, social, and military changes that reflect any surge or decline in literary publishing, as well as those stemming from cultural renaissances and decolonization and revitalization movements. Contemporary adaptations of traditional stories, which include film and animation, and literary themes, genre categorizations, and organizational structures of the stories themselves will also be documented in this work. The Hamilton Library archives I will explore for this project include the Hawaiian and Pacific, General, Wong Audiovisual Center, and Digital Collections.

Dalton Barcus (BA in Communications), “The Araki Project: Prince of the Air and the Pioneer of Efficiency”

The Araki Project is the sum of my research about my Japanese heritage, and how the stories of my ancestors spread across Japan and the world. I’ll be using sources from the library’s Asian collections, and newspapers from their databases, and will be using resources in MAGIS. This project will analyze my great grandfather, Toichiro Araki’s contribution to the efficiency movement in Japan, as well as his place in Japan’s history. One of Japan’s largest newspapers, Jiji Shinpo sponsored a travel race around the world (1928) in which two contestants were chosen. Araki was the winner of this contest and wrote a book about his success. This book “Prince of the Air: Around the World in 33 Days” is linked to the book “Tokyo and Yokohama Rebuilt” (1930) in the special Asian collections at Hamilton Library. The 1930 book was to express the spirit of the sentiments towards friends in the USA. The New York Times covered this race with what seems to be inaccurate information according to other news articles I found. At the end of World War I, there was some contention between Japan and other nations at the Paris Peace Conference. The Araki Project is an attempt to highlight more connections between the East and West and to find the gaps in history to create a better understanding and build a stronger bridge.