FIELDWORK IN REMOTE

COMMUNITIES: AN

ETHNOGRAPHIC CASE STUDY

OF PITCAIRN ISLAND

Maria Amoamo

ABSTRACT

This research examines, in a case study of Pitcairn Island, the meaning ofcommunity. Such meanings emerge in the empirical field whereby the‘field’ offers its own cues to both issue and method. The main lessonlearned from this ethnographic study stems from the experiential natureof fieldwork whereby ‘community’ is viewed as a cluster of embodieddispositions and practices. Influenced by Anthony Cohen’s ethnographicwork (1978, 1985) the case study demonstrates the centrality of thesymbolic dimensions of community as a defining characteristic. Describedas one of the most isolated islands in the world accessible only by sea,Pitcairn is the last remaining British ‘colony’ in the Pacific, settled in1790 by English mutineers and Tahitians following the (in)famousmutiny on the Bounty. It represents in an anthropological sense a uniquemicrocosm of social structure, studied ethnographically only a handful oftimes. Results show symbolic referents contribute to a sense of ‘exclusivity’of Pitcairn culture that facilitates co-operation and collectivity whilst

Field Guide to Case Study Research in Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure

Advances in Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Volume 6, 417–438

Copyright r 2012 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved

ISSN: 1871-3173/doi:10.1108/S1871-3173(2012)0000006026

417

MARIA AMOAMO418

also recognizing the internal–external dialectics of boundaries of identifi-cation. The study reveals culture as a symbolic rather than structuralconstruct as experienced by its members, seeing the community as acultural field with a complex of symbols whose meanings vary amongst itsmembers. Thus, connection and contiguity of culture continually transformthe meaning of community, space and place. As such, community continuesto be of both practical and ideological significance to the practice ofanthropology.

Keywords: Symbolic community; boundaries of identification; tensedethnography

INTRODUCTION

Descriptions of islands as fragile, small, peripheral and dependent are oftentaken for granted. Such rhetoric sets up a perception of what constructs‘islandness’ or island societies. The author’s ethnographic research is subjectto the search for understanding the workings and ‘meaning’ of communitiesin remote, marginalized island locations. My background for approachingthis topic is the combination of 18 months field experience on Pitcairn Islandand 12 months literature review relating to the study site. The latterhighlights the importance of intertextuality in any anthropological argu-ment for the symbolic meaning of community (Hastrup, 2010).

When I first visited Pitcairn in 2008, I was struck by evidence of aresourceful and resilient community that had evolved particular dispositionsover time that sustained livelihoods and mitigated vulnerability. I wasfinishing my PhD studies in cultural tourism, and accompanied my husband– a doctor – to the island for a year. After submitting my thesis, I was keento research a topic integral to my then present environment. Hence,I examined in relation to Bourdieu’s (1992) concept of social capital, howsustainable livelihoods reflected Pitcairn’s historical trajectories and therelationship between environment and people. Using Hollings’ (2003)‘adaptive cycle’ I showed that the essence of sustainable livelihood resided inthe adaptive and regenerative capacity manifest in cycles of growth,collapse, reorganization, renewal and reestablishment (Amoamo, 2011).

After leaving Pitcairn I commenced a two-year postdoctoral fellowshipwithin the Department of Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies at OtagoUniversity, New Zealand. This academic ‘shift’ motivated me to furtherexamine issues relating to small island developing states (SIDS) withparticular focus on Pacific island culture and community. Anthony Cohen’s

Fieldwork in Remote Communities 419

(1985) concept of the ‘symbolic meanings of community’ offered a usefultheoretical framework in which to identify – in a case study of Pitcairn –how such ‘meanings’ are constructed, maintained, and alter over time.Cohen’s work complemented application of Bourdieu’s concept habitus forunderstanding society and the process of social change or persistence.Cohen (1985, p. 118) argues that people ‘construct community symboli-cally, making it a resource and repository of meaning and a referent oftheir identity’. Ultimately, Cohen shows how the ‘real community’ isdefined by and is generative of a distinctive culture which guides andinforms the behaviour of its members (1978, pp. 18–19). Furthermore, thisconstruction operates through temporal stages of past, present and future.Consequently, my methodic devices became grounded in what I term‘tensed ethnography’ – a matter for later comment.

My purpose in this chapter is to describe how the ‘field’ offers its own cuesboth to issue and method. I am therefore concerned more with how theethnographer seeks the methodology which is appropriate to the discoveryof ‘real community’ rather than any description of results. According toCohen (1978, p. 2) acts of discovery are grounded in the empirical field, asare the issues in which they are employed to describe and explain. It is here,Cohen stresses (1978, p. 6) ‘one has to acquire the idiom of the locality, andthen learn within it’. The methodology of the ‘ethnographic present’ thusbecomes the organizing referent to the actual empirical context in which it isto be applied. My return to Pitcairn for six months in early 2011 was anattempt to achieve this.

The chapter does not offer scope for detailed analysis of findings; sufficeto say I will highlight key points that bring theory and method together.This forms in part my intention to produce an extended monograph ofPitcairn culture. In a sense, I could contend that doing fieldwork is not onlyan outwardly oriented social activity, but also a psychological space inwhich memories and imaginations shape interactions with informants, theirlives, their histories and their futures (Svasek, 2010, p. 90). Collectively, thisinfluences the ways in which our research develops, and our perspectives onwhat we research.

THE STUDY SITE: PITCAIRN – AN ISLAND

‘ON THE MARGIN’

Fifty years before I had read the story of this distant human habitation, and in my

eager mind it had always been one of the wonder-places of the world. I had imagined it,

dreamt about it, talked about it, but had never hoped to see the little speck of land so far

MARIA AMOAMO420

out of the beaten track of ships and meny . And yonder was Pitcairn! (The Romance of

Pitcairn, Fullerton, 1923, p. 10)

She is Pitcairn’s Island, latitude 25 degrees 4 minutes south, and longitude130 degrees, 6 minutes west, South Pacific Ocean. She is a tiny isle, one milewide by two miles long, location approximately midway between Panamaand New Zealand (Fig. 1). She is remote, isolated, appearing lonely tooutsiders (Ford, 1996). Pitcairn is the last remaining British OverseasTerritory in the Pacific and is often described as one of the most isolatedplaces in the world, accessible only by sea and visited annually by only ahandful of ships and passing yachts. The journey to Pitcairn takes no lessthan six days from New Zealand, via Papeete to Rikitea in the GambierIslands, the furthest eastern archipelago of French Polynesia. From here 36hours by ship, operating only four times a year, takes you to Pitcairn. Theisland has a rocky, cliff-dominated topography, with no beaches, and nosafe anchorage. Ships must lie a mile or so offshore with passage to theisland governed by the skill of the islander’s and their longboats (Fig. 2).Few seamen and crew are willing to navigate the difficult and treacherouspassage into the Bounty Bay. Those who are lucky enough to set foot onPitcairn are often overwhelmed by the beauty, tranquillity and unique senseof place the island exudes.

Fig. 1. Pitcairn Island.

Fig. 2. Transporting Cruise Ship Passengers to Bounty Bay.

Fieldwork in Remote Communities 421

Taken broadly the term ‘marginalization’ evokes a dynamic between twosocial analytic categories: the centre and the periphery or ‘margins’. Thecentre is normally associated with dominance, privilege and power, and themargins with relative powerlessness. I use the term ‘marginalized’ holisti-cally to encompass notions of cultural, political, economic and geographicalsignificance. The term is relative not only to Pitcairn’s geographical locale,but also its socio-political situation as a British ‘protectorate’. The island’srelationship with the United Kingdom (UK) has been described as one ofneglect (see Connell, 1988; Farran, 2007), placing the island in a subordinateor peripheral power relationship. Thus, geographical isolation and socialdislocation are constraints imposed upon the small island territory. Pitcairnhas a fragile economy, heavily dependent on a small number of activities.Since 1940 the islanders have supported themselves through the sale of

MARIA AMOAMO422

postage stamps, with a subsistence lifestyle based on trade and barter withpassing ships. However, the decline in demand for philately products hasmeant that accumulated reserves for the island were exhausted by 2004.Pitcairn went into budgetary aid and in recent times significant developmentassistance has been provided from the UK (Pitcairn Island Administration,2008).

Pitcairn has an ageing population, less than 60 people, and represents inan anthropological sense a unique microcosm of social structure, studiedethnographically only a handful of times since its settlement. Settled byTahitians and mutineers of H.M.S. Bounty in 1790 this hybrid Polynesian/English society has seduced mariners, travellers and literary enthusiastswith romantic tales for over 200 years. The story of the mutiny on theBounty has been the subject of several Hollywood movies, hundreds ofbooks, magazine and newspaper articles, documentaries and numerouswebsite groups (Kirk, 2008).

Pitcairners are a unique group of people whose day-to-day lives are frequently exposed

to the public through books, magazines, newspapers and other publications. The names

of Pitcairn folks are known the world overy and who have been so studiously

inspected, so celebrated, so invasively reported by the world’s media. Pitcairn Island is a

public icon. (Kirk, 2008, pp. 3–4)

Consequently Pitcairn ‘identity’ is constituted through a very public/private dichotomy whereby a clear ideological if not practical divisionbetween ‘us’ and ‘them’ is practiced by the islanders. To the outside world,Pitcairn is remote and exotic, an imaginative place bound to myth andintrigue (Amoamo, 2010). For present day, Pitcairners however, it isisolated and vulnerable: cultural erosion through increased mobility andmigration has diminished the fabric of society. For those who remain, thereis an inherent sense of ‘islandness’ manifest in both locality and identity.Members of the Pitcairn community have strongly expressed theirdetermination to remain on the island and to preserve their ability to liveas an economically self-sustaining community (Pitcairn Island Administra-tion, 2008). The Bounty heritage is the primary attraction for visitors, andtourism has been identified as offering the islanders the only viable means ofeconomic growth. Intrinsic to these factors, the construct of ‘community’ isfundamental to Pitcairn’s future survival.

At this point I will contextualize Pitcairn’s contemporary history relevantto the centre/periphery relationship with the UK and its bearing on myfieldwork. In 2004 historical criminal charges of sexual abuse were laidagainst a number of Pitcairn men and, after protracted legal proceedings,

Fieldwork in Remote Communities 423

they were found guilty and jailed on the island. The events divided thecommunity and raised questions about the application of British law onPitcairn. Indeed, some commentators argued that the prosecution repre-sented the imposition of a set of external and alien legal norms by adominant and overbearing metropolitan authority upon a small andvulnerable community (Trenwith, 2003). Risk is also apparent in theconverse of social cohesion and loss of ‘glue’ when such events disrupt socialcapital. The latter brought the attention of Pitcairn into the global domainand sweeping change to the island’s socio-political situation. The author’sethnographic research thus, in part, encompasses the (re)constitutionfollowing a traumatic event. Moreover, the centrality of the ‘symbolic’becomes a defining characteristic of community recovery. Additionally theinternalized presence of the researcher incorporates identifying with anumber of I-positions (Svasek, 2010). In the context of Pitcairn, I haveentered the field as a PhD candidate, tourism professional, doctor’s wife,friend, advocate and postdoctoral researcher. The latter entails the need toimmerse oneself in both social realities as insider/outsider.

APPLIED ETHNOGRAPHY

Geertz (1973) has likened doing ethnography to that of reading amanuscript, much like analysing a text. Referring to ‘thick description’Geertz describes the ‘thick’ as the meaning behind and its symbolic importin society. The analogy of the textual leads me to posit the notion of ‘tensedethnography’. An ethnographic tense enables the ethnographer to reviewrelevant literature that contains descriptions of past events and measurethese against present fieldwork experience. Additionally, Aull-Davies (2008)proposes that data obtained through documentation supports the perspec-tive that the past informs the present, and indeed the future, that is beingproduced. Furthermore, application of the concept ‘tensed ethnography’enables better understanding and expression of a range of possible culturalfutures for Pitcairn.

As mentioned, very little ethnographic work has been conducted onPitcairn, due not only to its isolated and inaccessible location but alsobecause, for nearly two centuries, the islanders’ have fiercely regulated whomay visit (and live on) the island. Pitcairn constitutes a small, tight-knit andkin-related grouping. Insularity, governed by strong religious doctrine andits own practice of self-government, has in part formed the social ‘glue’ thatcontinues to bind the community. An ethnographic study was the most

MARIA AMOAMO424

appropriate research methodology in which to understand Pitcairn ‘culture’per se. Aull-Davies (2008, p. 45) states ‘good ethnographic researchencourages a continual interplay and tension between theory and on-the-ground methods and experiences’. This approach further allows applicationof different research methods (e.g. interviews, surveys, audio-visual data,self-histories, diaries and archival material) whilst simultaneously living andexperiencing people’s daily lives and cultures. In addition, Wax (1980,p. 272) argues that ‘the task of the fieldworker is to enter into the matrix ofmeanings of the researched, to participate in their system of organizedactivities, and to feel subject to their code of moral regulation’. Hence,my participation in social events, public meetings, tourism committee,craftmaking, visits to ships, community heritage projects and work in themedical clinic helped achieve this objective.

The practice of ethnographic fieldwork applies in two ways: it is both an in-depth study of people within their own culture and based on their own words,and it is the detailed written record of that study (Birx, 2010, p. 153). This ismore often focused on either the development of the culture and its operationover time, or on how individual behaviour and the culture relate to eachother. The latter operates both within a micro and macro-context. Forexample, the fact Pitcairners speak ‘Pitkern’ (a dialect of 18th century Englishand Tahitian) is a macro-context. It is part of their developmental trajectory.A micro-context might be an informant I meet during fieldwork who is anarticulate storyteller or steeped in Pitcairn cultural heritage. The micro-contextual factors operate locally, and offer distinctions between Pitkernspeakers. As ethnographic researchers, we need to recognize the context as‘data rich’ and to study and understand the possible contexts in which ourinteractions occur (Blommaert & Jie, 2010). This expands our range ofrecognizable things – something Bourdieu calls the ‘field’, the whole complexof surrounding conditions. An important feature of the ethnographic inquiryis a concern with action, with what people do and why. Emphasis on socialaction demands analysis of the socially shared means whereby peopleconstruct their social worlds (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). Therefore, weshould also view human behaviour as ‘symbolic action’.

RESEARCH METHODS AND THE ‘ETHNOGRAPHIC

PRESENT’

It would be fair to say that Pitcairners have not paid much attention todocumenting their history notwithstanding the Bounty heritage that has

Fieldwork in Remote Communities 425

prompted a wealth of external literature. A handful of archaeological andanthropological studies, produced mainly in the 20th century, have providedcontemporary details of ‘daily life’ and the island’s developmental trajectory(see Ball, 1974; Clune, 1966; Ferdon, 1958; Harre, 1968; Moverley, 2007;Shapiro, 1936). I have used a wide range of documentation sources(informal, formal and official) as well as material artefacts to inform my‘tensed ethnography’ of Pitcairn (e.g. ethnographies, on-island publications,documentaries and films, newspaper and magazine articles, governmentreports, life histories and material artefacts). Hammersley and Atkinson(2007, p. 121) comment that the latter are easily overlooked as ethnographicdata and ‘in recent times, there has been so much emphasis, in somequarters, on the study of face-to-face interactions, on encounters andsituations, that other key features of the social world could be forgotten’.Equally, my use of historical literature supports the concept of using the‘ethnographic present’ as a beneficial, rather than criticized fieldworkmethodology.

The ‘ethnographic present’ is a problematic term and contains severaldistinctive interpretations (Fabian, 1983; Hastrup, 1990; Sanjek, 1991). Assuch, I focus on the benefits of this methodology rather than its criticisms asproducing a timeless description of the people being studied that riskdenying the historicity of these people. I therefore attempt to seek an openspace to combine the ideological and operational to produce ethnography ofthe present, situated between past and future (Sanjek, 1991, p. 617). Datareliability is ensured with valid observation techniques confronted withanthropological theories, categories, concepts or ideas about the problembeing studied (Pereiro, 2010, p. 177). The inclusion of documentary sourcesexpands the ethnographic present in two directions: (1) that ethnographymust be consciously located with regard to the past, which situates bothethnographer and subjects in time and space, and (2) it must give attentionto the likely future that is being produced. The use of documentationexpands the ethnographic present and acknowledges the mutual historicityof ethnographers and the peoples they study (Aull-Davies, 2008, p. 196)whilst also acting as support mechanism to traditional methods of partici-pating, observing and interviewing. According to Moore (1987, p. 727) thisalso emphasizes that data obtained in these ways be regarded as ‘currenthistory’ with the perspective that the past informs the present and indeed thefuture that is being produced. Thus, emphasis is placed on historicallylocated and contingent processes.

Social settings are often self-documenting, that is members are engagedin the production and circulation of various kinds of written material.

MARIA AMOAMO426

Upon reading first-hand accounts of Pitcairn life the past melds with thepresent due to the fact that people I read about are closely related(indeed, some are still alive) to islanders currently living on Pitcairn.Albeit an individual narrative, distinctive of how the author organizedexperiences, imagery and situated vocabularies, such readings can suggestpotential lines of inquiry for the ethnographer. Therefore, the use ofdocumentation informs the generation of concepts throughout theresearch process (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). One important resourceis The Pitcairn Miscellany (TPM), a monthly newsletter published on-island since 1959. The author viewed over 500 copies of this publicationwhich offers a rich social narrative of ‘bits and pieces’ of Pitcairn life.Consequently, I view TPM as a contemporaneous record in my objectiveto identify ‘symbols’ and ‘meaning’ within this small social grouping.What might at first seem the minutiae of day-to-day social action, allserve to assist the researcher interpret Pitcairn life as ‘tensed’. One gleansa sense of the emotive (via islander narratives, poems and stories), thepolitical (via Council meeting reports), communal (public work, schoolevents, church activities), social (via birthday celebrations, weddings orother special events), food gathering activities (gardening, fishing) andeconomic (trade with visiting ships) as well as observations of opinion,gossip, rumour, innuendo, disagreements, alliances between kin groupsand friendships etc. As such, the use of documentation has allowed theresearcher to expand the ‘ethnographic present’ through interaction withthose written about and as ‘sequences of data collected according to plan’(Sanjek, 1991, pp. 619–620).

Based on my year’s experiential fieldwork and literature review Igenerated a set of categories to be maintained throughout the course ofmy second fieldwork visit in 2011 (Table 1). Furthermore, these generalcategories helped me organize daily field notes. Emic and etic categorieswere used to place material within indigenous cultural categories (emic) orkey analytic issues linked to theoretical arguments (etic). Cohen states (1978,p. 4) ‘before using these (categories) one must ‘‘know’’ a societyy one mustfirst seek to comprehend phenomena as they are indigenously understood’y furthermore, ‘a lengthy period of immersion is required in order thatsalient issues and correct procedures may be intuited before anything likesystematic research can be conducted’ (1978, p. 6). To ‘know’ the societylessens the risk of researcher bias. I felt I had achieved the former to satisfythe latter.

The next section describes the concept of community followed by researchfindings attentive to the theoretical approach of this research.

Table 1. Fieldwork Categories.

Emic Etic

Kinship Social capital

Religion Tensions/Conflict

Ritual Politics

Identity Economy

Language Tourism

Narratives (life stories, anecdotes) Networks

Gender Boundaries

Reciprocity Disposition

Hierarchy Resilience

Art/Craft/Music/Food Vulnerability

Trade/Barter Emotive

Fieldwork in Remote Communities 427

THE CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY

The concept of community has been one of the most compelling themes inmodern social science, yet at the same time one of the most elusive to define.‘Community’, Cohen (1985, p. 11) says, is one of those words – like ‘culture’,‘myth’, ‘ritual’, ‘symbol’ – bandied around in ordinary, everyday speech,whilst Jenkins (1998, p. 136) notes, ‘it is a ‘feel-good word’ carrying apowerful symbolic load, hence its political uses’. Others argue the concept isan illusion – a device for generating nostalgic images of an idyllic way of life(Lasch, 1991). Definition is problematic, as definition implies theory, andthe theory of community has been very contentious. But we can draw somecommonalities within such ‘definitions’. Belief in the notion of community,either as ideal or reality, is commonplace. Seen in phrases such as‘community spirit’, or the ‘European community’, the term realizes microand macro conceptualizations of what community is ‘about’. This reliesupon who is doing the talking ‘about’ and in what context community isdescribed. At one level it may be rhetorical, at another, conscious. In itsideological sense, it not only says how things are, it says how they should be(we’re all supposed to be in favour of ‘community’), thus community acts asa symbol as opposed to defining symbols of community (Jenkins, 1998).

More generally communities are seen as collections of people sharingcertain interests, sentiments, behaviour and objects by virtue of theirmembership of a social group (Warner & Lunt, 1941). A common elementof the group is place, a territory bounded by spatial arrangement ofrelations directly or indirectly with each other. This need not be an isolated

MARIA AMOAMO428

locality; both urban/rural locales can be products of human construction,and thus human life. Hence, two dimensions, place and specific interests arekey characteristics of community. The latter also links community with thewider world (Warren, 1969). Simply, we may say community is a placewhere people find the means to live. Moreover, it is a place of temporality.That is, it represents an accumulation of group experiences and memorieswhich comes out of the past and extends through time, even though themobility of its members may change. The latter ensures one thing:communities are dynamic.

THE PITCAIRN COMMUNITY

Writing of the settlement of Pitcairn, Shapiro (1929, p. 9) stated: ‘Themutineers and their Tahitian wives brought with them to Pitcairn noidealistic theory for the foundation of a new society. An account of their lifeand customs is the story of the development and growth of an unconscioussocial experiment’. Shapiro notes the adaptation of Tahitian methods withinthe new Pitcairn lifestyle, and also the influence of European ways broughtby the mutineers and later through contact with visiting whaling and navalships. He goes on to say, ‘ybut even more interesting are the customsdeveloped by the islanders themselves, especially their self-government andtheir social and religious attitude’. This observation, taken from Shapiro’santhropomorphic study of Pitcairn Islanders provides the basis from whichPitcairn life today can be observed and described. With a population thathas never exceeded 240 people, and for the most part has remained less than80, Pitcairn culture has developed its own unique ways of life.

Trenwith (2003, p. 10) states: ‘Pitcairners are British in name only –notwithstanding their recently restored status as British citizens they havelittle in common with the motherland rejected by their mutinous ancestorsover 200 years ago. Everything about them is different: their genealogy,their way of life, their social norms, and even their language, Pitkern (aunique mixture of old English and Tahitian)’. The reality of the Pitcairner isapparent to him in the obvious differences between himself and the outsider.He sounds different; he behaves differently and observes different codes ofconduct. I do not assume the social phenomenon under study represents amicrocosm of a whole cultural universe, however it is a context, one whichoffers the uniqueness of 200 years of isolation and insularity. As such, I findit difficult to describe Pitcairn in any other way but as a community, of 55people, of whom most are related, living on a remote Pacific island. They

Fieldwork in Remote Communities 429

form, for want of a better word, a familial unit – only four surnames exist onthe island, two of which derive directly from the Bounty mutineers. It is thisidea of community in which I contextualize Pitcairn society.

In Bourdieu’s (1992) Logic of Practice, ‘practice’ refers to the ongoingmix of human activities that make up the richness of everyday social lifeand arise from the operation of ‘habitus’ – a set of dispositions that inclineagents to act and react in certain ways. According to Bourdieu, the modesof behaviour, or dispositions, produced by the habitus, are passed onthrough the generations. Bourdieu’s sens du jeu or ‘feel for the game’ pointsto the generation and adaptation of strategies as a ‘field of forces’ (Mahar,1990, p. 44). In a field, there are stakes. There are forces, and there arepeople who have a lot of capital and others who do not. Capital is aconcentration of force, a specific force, which operates in the field (Mahar,1990, p. 36). For example, within Pitcairn’s society are several hierarchicalpositions. These include those of chief magistrate (now mayor), islandsecretary, chairman of the internal committee, longboat coxswain, chiefengineer, seventh day adventist pastor, education officer/governmentadvisor, island policeman, radio operator, postmaster. Each role holds aform of capital; a concentration of force. Authority and status is attachedto the mayor, reputation the chairman, esteem the coxswain, standingthe radio operator, influence the pastor, and ability the chief engineer. Butthe field is also a place in which people fight to change the structure andthus, becomes a field of struggle as people contest, have opinions and evenseek to disrupt.

As researchers, we need to observe the situation and to analyse the methodapplied, to understand how the situation works. Thus, generalizations mustbe approached with caution. Previous ethnographic material based on‘other’ peoples’ experiences and observations can cloud the anthropologist’sjudgment, carrying forth subjective biases. However, they can also shedinsight. For example, an ethnographic account of island life in 1948–1949enabled me to observe kin-group and male progeny traits in two furthergenerations. Authoritative and economic power was manifest attached tothe aforementioned roles; hence capital, in the form of both authoritativeand economic wielded a concentration of force, one which ultimately wascontested and disrupted through external forces (i.e. British government).However, the habitus is such, that internal structures work to dislodge, ormanipulate such exogenous forces, retaining a measure of control andautonomy.

It is useful to explore how people construct a sense of themselvesand their fellows as ‘belonging’ in a particular locality or setting of

MARIA AMOAMO430

relationships and interaction, and with – if not to each other (Jenkins,1998). Relating the notion of ‘belonging’ to the Pitcairn community andthe behavioural norms that construct social identity, this is subject tovarying levels of commitment. That is, Pitcairners may be more or lesscommitted to various symbols, for example religion. But in general, whenPitcairners talk of ‘their community’, they refer to an entity, a reality,invested with all the sentiment attached to kinship, rivalry, familiarity,jealousy and conflict, as they inform the social process of everyday life(Cohen, 1978). This is the conscious level of community. Furthermore, it isto ‘symbols’ such as rituals, social events and daily practices that a sharedsymbolic universe emerges. It is in talking together about ‘community’ thatits symbolic value is produced and reproduced as a discursive form of ashared symbolic universe. There is a complex and ambivalent mutualitythat allows people to perceive themselves as experiencing political,economic, and life cycle changes together. In this sense, we can speak ofthe community as symbolic, rather than a structural construct (Cohen,1985, p. 98).

But a sense of homogeneity or uniformity that is apparent from withinlocal communities is, according to Cohen, just that, apparent. It is not to saythat each member of a community is likely to see each other, or themselves,manifesting differences similarly. Cohen argues that form rather thancontent govern what is actually held in common, which is not verysubstantial. A recent example of this can be highlighted in Pitcairn’s revisedConstitution (2010) and new governance structure implemented in 2008.These political changes aim to devolve more ‘autonomy’ to the IslandCouncil. In theory, this development symbolizes collective political life cyclechanges together, but in practice one observes intrinsic divisions betweenindividuals and groupings within the community that hinder progressiontowards self-determination. A semblance of agreement and convergence isgenerated by shared communal symbols (such as the revised constitution),but differences of opinion, world views, amongst and between membersconstruct and emphasize the boundary between members and non-members.The latter for instance constitute the grouping of ‘islanders’ who are notPitcairners, that is ‘outsiders’ who have married local Pitcairners. Thus,symbolism, meaning, a sense of ‘belonging’ and the complex nature ofboundaries become indicative of what community ‘means’. According toCohen the boundary marks the beginning and end of a community (1978,p. 12). The term is at once problematic, in that it symbolizes exclusion aswell as inclusion.

Fieldwork in Remote Communities 431

THE MAINTENANCE OF BOUNDARIES: THE

PUBLIC/PRIVATE

According to Cohen (1985), community membership also depends on thesymbolic construct and signification of a mask of similarity which all canwear; a form of solidarity for all. Cohen’s point was that ‘community’encompasses notions of similarity and difference, ‘us’ and ‘them’. Thisfocuses attention on the boundary, where there is a ‘sense of us’, constitutedby people in interaction. The emphasis on ‘boundary’ is sensitive to thecircumstances in which people become aware of the implications ofbelonging to a community, how they symbolize and utilize these boundariesto give substance to their values and identities. This helps the researcher toidentify where similarity and difference coincide, or diverge. It also effectshow the researcher herself navigates the complexity of ‘boundaries’ within acommunity setting.

As a newly arrived ‘outsider’ my first field experience of Pitcairn entailedlearning to ‘belong’ to the environment. One such activity that enabled meto gain a sense of ‘insider-ness’ was gardening. Pitcairners are keengardeners and from necessity, grow much of their produce. Pitcairn is afertile, volcanic island – a fact the mutineers together with their Tahitiancompanions realized from their first sighting of the island in 1790(Nordhoff & Hall, 1936). The islanders are generous to newcomers; wewere often given fresh vegetables, fruit and fish, and told to ‘help ourselves’to their many garden plots scattered over the island. Coming from a cityenvironment, gardening per se was not something I had the inclination, ortime for, as part of a busy professional/academic life. But I soon realized, inorder to ‘fit in’, one must ‘act’ like a Pitcairner. So I set about establishing aproductive garden which, over the coming months provided not only fortwo, but I could also share produce with both off-islanders and islanders.Reciprocity is an underlying principle of Pitcairn life – evidenced inhistorical literature relating several shipwrecks during the 19th century.Pitcairners took many of these folk – often for several months – into theirhomes until another ship passed the island. As a result, the islanders haveoften been rewarded by gifts sent from grateful recipients – food, clothing,books, tools, and furniture have all been welcomed in return. The abilityand willingness to share is respected, if not openly accorded; there is a‘sense’ of shared experience in such activities.

From an ethnographic perspective, this kind of ‘presence’ in the fieldimplies a process of becoming (Hastrup, 1990). It does not imply that the

MARIA AMOAMO432

ethnographer becomes identical with the ‘others’, but does allow one tochange in the process. From a methodological perspective, we become ourown informants on the ethnographic present; fieldwork implies a sharing oftime with the other. But criticism of ‘distancing’ is raised when the act ofwriting about the other occurs (Fabian, 1983), thereby placing the Other in adifferent time from that in which the anthropologist places herself. ButHastrup (1990, p. 46) argues that ‘by her presence in the field, theethnographer is actively engaged in the construction of the ethnographicreality or, one might say, of the ethnographic present’. Through ourembodied presence, from co-residence to various forms of collaboration andadvocacy, we gain closeness to our research subjects. Consequently webecome enmeshed in and empathetic to, the complexity of theirsubjectivities, and to their positionalities (Frohlick & Harrison, 2008).

The internal–external dialectic also allows us to think about boundaries ofidentification (Jenkins, 1998). Cohen (1985, p. 74) has stated the ‘boundaryrepresents the mask presented by the community to the outside world; it isthe community’s public face’. As a discrete entity, the ‘community’ sees itselfas occupying a particular niche in the wider world – in the case of Pitcairnthis is inherently bound to their Bounty heritage. It thus acquires a strategicimperative for the presentation of its collective identity; it has a self-image,and it broadcasts this to the world. Cohen (1978, p. 8) also states that‘community’ maintains its integrity, it elaborates its own codes ofbehaviour, its norms of organization, its culture, and it develops devicesto sustain these things.

Members of the Pitcairn community present a consistent face to theoutside world through trade and visitation to cruise and cargo ships. The‘device’ sustained through the practice of trade is the notion of exclusivity.Pitcairners use their exclusivity to exploit/entice passing ships to part withsome of their supplies in trade which is most favourable to them(Pitcairners). This includes the sale of artefacts which symbolize theirexclusivity (weaving and carving, Bounty memorabilia, postage stamps) toaid their own individual livelihoods, whilst also obtaining items (e.g. shipsdunnage) that would otherwise need to be imported at high freight costs(e.g. timber, nails, paint, diesel). This makes economic sense. Butexploitation operates two ways – available versus not available. There is atenuous balance of how much Pitcairners ‘expose’ to the wider world; thereis a need to maintain novelty and mystique, thus a boundary is maintainedbetween ‘us’ and ‘them’ to protect their exclusivity.

One long-standing ‘device’ sustained by Pitcairners is represented in theirhymn singing. The reputation of the islander’s (past) piety and strong

Fieldwork in Remote Communities 433

religious morals is reiterated in this practice today, especially to visitors oncruise ships. Fieldwork observation however records this sense of‘belonging’ at a communal level operates at varying levels of commitmenton-island. Therein, social identity is constructed in a setting of interactionwith if not to each other depending on individual traits. To the visitor, theislanders present a collective religious ‘face’. There are several elders, forwhom this practice represents both the public and private face; there remainstrong religious convictions amongst some islanders. But the symbolicconstruction presented publicly operates at a more superficial level, whichPitcairners can and do exploit to maintain their exclusive self-image.Pitcairners are renowned for their signature song ‘In the Sweet Bye andBye’. Often sung collectively aboard a cruise ship or alternatively, as in oneof my field experiences, performed from a longboat as it departs a visitingship. This performance is highly emotive (a subjective interpretation) as theislanders’ harmonious tones drift across the water and appear, to all intentsand purposes heartfelt. Many a cruise passenger is enthralled with such ascene. Surprisingly, once the singing has finished and the longboat heads‘home’ to Bounty Bay, I note that hardly one islander looks back at thedeparting ship. Each one appears intent on the next stage of the tradeactivity, be it collective share out, or their individual sales for the day. Theboundary so to speak is (re)drawn, from ship to shore. The ‘place’ ofPitcairn, indeed the ‘island’ itself marks a boundary-expressing symbol. As asymbol, it is held in common by its members; but its meaning may varybetween and with its members’ unique orientations to it. Moreover, in theface of this variability of meaning, the consciousness of community has to bekept alive through ‘manipulation of its symbols’ (Cohen, 1985, p. 15).

The internal/external dichotomy of the centre/periphery reflects Pitcairn’shistoric administrative governance as a British ‘colony’. The ‘imposition’ ofoutsiders is manifest in the need to provide education, healthcare, pastoralcare and political administration to Pitcairn. Such people have integrated tovarying degrees within the community. More recently the ‘imposition’ ofoutsiders in the form of prison officers, police authority, UK Governor’srepresentative and social and community workers as a result of the 2004trials is another factor. Paradoxically the term ‘accommodation syndrome’has been coined by British officials whereby professionally contractedemployees to the island are monitored for becoming ‘too close’ and/orsupportive to islanders. A further argument is that boundaries will be morevigorously symbolized when under pressure or threat (Cohen, 1985).Difference will be constructed and emphasized and we-ness asserted inopposition to them. This was clearly evident during the trials between the

MARIA AMOAMO434

island and UK administrators. During this period the islanders’ maintaineda very public collectivity; a symbolically contrived sense of local similarity(which did not actually exist at all levels) as the only available defence.

‘SYMBOLS’ OF MEANING IN THE PITCAIRN

COMMUNITY

The aforementioned influences on the community and its increased exposureto globalization have had both positive and negative effects on its unity. Onthe positive side, the island’s isolation and limited access and resources (bothhuman and environmental) have given rise to a number of unique adaptiveskills that are admired by many outsiders. These skills reside in the need tobe self-sufficient, resourceful and resilient. The longboat is a case in point:this resource is critical to survival and transporting island supplies. As such,the natural environment is an intrinsic part of Pitcairn identity, both (is)landand sea incorporate a unique ‘sense of place’ and ‘islandness’. Thecapabilities of Pitcairners have been shown, through historical literature,to resonate in particular dispositions like religion, ‘share out’, public work,food gathering activities and the Pitkern language to name a few. From myethnographic data analysis I have listed the main ‘symbols’ that constructthe ‘idea’ of Pitcairn community (Table 2).

To elaborate further, one of these symbols – ‘share out’ – may have datedto the mutineers’ first years of settlement. Dening (1992, p. 318) states: ‘eachwould put into the common store what circumstance of skill or productiveland allowed and take out what each neededy land they ownedindividually, but its produce were owned in common’. This commonality

Table 2. ‘Symbols’ of Pitcairn Community.

Religion/Sabbath Bounty memorabilia (bible, anchor, canon)

Language (Pitkern) Rituals (e.g. ‘Burning of the Bounty’)

Cuisine/Food Food implements (e.g. ‘una’ and ‘yolla’)

Fishing Weaving/Carving/Tapa cloth making

Trade/Shipping Island/Place/Names

Public work Annual sugar and arrowroot harvest

Share out Hymn-singing

Public dinners/Gatherings Longboats

Bell ringing (e.g. launching of longboat) ‘Shooting’ breadfruit

Pitcairn wheelbarrow Kite flying

Fieldwork in Remote Communities 435

is maintained through trade with passing ships; all goods – either traded orgifted – are distributed evenly amongst islanders. Upon experiencingPitcairn life author Ian Ball commented:

The spirit of cooperation that has enabled the community to survive is based only partly

on practical considerations. It is rooted as much in the heart as in the mindywhat little

each family might have is there for all to share if need bey noting, that at time of share

out, the lot may be pathetically small – tiny piles of three or four potatoes, a single tin of

sardines, a dozen crackers taken from a box. (1974, p. 24)

Cohen (1978, p. 50) notes that ‘ritual’ occupies a prominent place in therepertoire of symbolic devices through which community boundaries areaffirmed and reinforced. Ritual confirms and strengthens social identity andpeople’s sense of social location: it is an important means through whichpeople experience community. The practice of ‘share out’ still exists today,maintained by a shared norm that facilitates group co-operation andcommunity level action. During my second field experience a supply of mirowood was gifted by Pitcairners in Mangareva. Miro is valued for its finequality and especially sought after for carving. For many decades,Pitcairners have made the annual longboat trip to Henderson Island formiro – a now depleted resource on Pitcairn. The 169-km journey isundertaken by 40 foot longboat, in often treacherous seas. The reefsurrounding Henderson is risky to cross, and once onshore, they must cutand manoeuvre the timber from land to longboat, a process that often takesseveral days. Resilience and adaptive strategy is demonstrated in thecollection of this resource and lies in the islanders’ ability to undertake thedifficult and necessary journey to Henderson and harvest a much-neededresource for economical benefit. Hence, when this wood was gifted to the

Fig. 3. ‘Share Out’.

MARIA AMOAMO436

island, the traditional ‘share out’ practice was maintained – the wood wascut to even sizes and each man, women and child were allocated their‘portion’ (Fig. 3). It is the ritual of ‘share out’ that gives meaning to thecommunity as a whole. With its long historical association, and dimensionof communal asset, ‘share out’ is a fundamental referent of Pitcairn identity.

CONCLUSION

Symbols express contrast and distinction. This case study demonstrates thecentrality of the symbolic dimension of community as a definingcharacteristic. The main lesson learned from this ethnographic study stemsfrom the experiential nature of fieldwork. My experiences help meunderstand how particular structures originate and remain embedded withina small community where the personal becomes political, the politicalpersonal. Hierarchical power is often wielded indiscriminately, overtly andcovertly; kinship ties create strong allegiances but also divisions. Will andcapability hold sway in small communities and in Pitcairn’s case, power ismore often than not wielded individually, a point that may be detrimental toPitcairn’s future survival. Moreover, we realize social agents are not passivebeings pulled and pushed about by external forces, but skilful creatures whoactively construct social reality through categories of perception, apprecia-tion and action (Bourdieu, 1992). The community itself generates its ownsocial forces. Embedded as we are, in the field situation, we constantlyrenegotiate our understanding of the situation in which we find ourselves.

In this chapter I have attempted to show that the practice of researchmethodology must be capable of dealing with the complexity of the task, solong as it does not underestimate the complexity of the ‘meaning’ ofcommunity. Such ‘meanings’ emerge in the empirical field whereby the ‘field’offers its own cues to both issue and method. Pitcairn, to some extent reveals‘community’ in its many guises, as a powerful everyday notion in whichpeople organize their lives and understand the places and settlements inwhich they live and the quality of their relationships. As such ‘community’ isamongst the most important sources of collective identification. Symbolssuch as ‘share out’ are devices for expressing symbolically the continuity ofpast and present, and for reasserting the cultural integrity of the communityin the face of its apparent subversion by the forces of change (Cohen, 1985,p. 103). Moreover, it expresses a fundamental set of human needs (Doyal &Gough, 1991). It is collectively, more than the sum of its individual partsand therefore not reducible.

Fieldwork in Remote Communities 437

This study reveals culture as a symbolic rather than structural construct asexperienced by its members, seeing the community as a cultural field with acomplex of symbols whose meanings vary amongst its members (Cohen,1985). It has identified particular symbols that operate in both past andpresent Pitcairn habitus. These symbolic meanings clearly do exist in thePitcairn community. The question remains will such symbolism continue toact as the ‘social glue’ that binds the community?

REFERENCES

Amoamo, M. (2010). Remoteness and myth making: Tourism development on Pitcairn Island.

Tourism Planning & Development, 8(1), 1–19.

Amoamo, M. (2011). The mitigation of vulnerability mutiny, resilience and reconstitution: A

case study of Pitcairn Island. Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island

Cultures, 5(1), 69–93.

Aull Davies, C. (2008). Reflexive ethnography: A guide to researching selves and others. Oxon,

UK: Routledge.

Ball, I. (1974). Pitcairn: Children of the bounty. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd.

Birx, H. J. (Ed.). (2010). 21st century anthropology: A reference handbook. Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage.

Blommaert, J., & Jie, D. (2010). Ethnographic fieldwork: A beginner’s guide. Bristol, UK:

Multilingual Matters.

Bourdieu, P. (1992). The Logic of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Clune, F. (1966). Journey to Pitcairn. Sydney: Angus & Robertson Ltd.

Cohen, A. P. (1978). Ethnographic method in the real community. Sociologia Ruralis, 18(1),

1–22.

Cohen, A. P. (1985). The symbolic construction of community. Chichester, UK: Ellis Horwood

Ltd.

Connell, J. (1988). The end ever nigh: Contemporary population change on Pitcairn Island.

GeoJournal, 16(2), 193–200.

Dening, G. (1992). Mr Bligh’s bad language: Passion, power and theatre on the bounty.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Doyal, L., & Gough, I. (1991). A theory of human need. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.

Fabian, J. (1983). Time and the other: How anthropology makes its object. New York, NY:

Columbia University Press.

Farran, S. (2007). The ‘‘re-colonising’’ of Pitcairn. Victoria University of Wellington Law

Review, 38(3), 435–464.

Ferdon, E. N. (1958). Pitcairn Island 1956. American Geographical Society, 48(1), 69–85.

Ford, H. (1996). Pitcairn: Port of call. Angwin, CA: Hawser Titles.

Frohlick, S., & Harrison, J. (2008). Engaging ethnography in tourist research. Tourist Studies,

8(1), 5–18.

Fullerton, W. Y. (1923). The romance of Pitcairn. London: Carey Press.

Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. In C. Geertz

(Ed.), The interpretation of culture (pp. 3–30). New York, NY: Basic Books.

MARIA AMOAMO438

Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (2007). Ethnography: Principles in practice third edition

(e-book ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Routledge.

Harre, J. (1968). A model for the analysis of Island emigration. The Journal of the Polynesian

Society, 77(2), 177–186.

Hastrup, K. (1990). The ethnographic present: A reinvention. Cultural Anthropology, 5(1),

45–61.

Hastrup, K. (2010). Emotional topographies the sense of place in the far north. In J. Davies &

D. Spencer (Eds.), Emotions in the field: The psychology and anthropology of fieldwork

experience (pp. 191–211). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Holling, C. S. (2003). Foreword: The backloop to sustainability. In F. Berkes, J. Colding &

C. Folke (Eds.), Navigating social-ecological systems (pp. xv–xxi). Cambridge: Cam-

bridge University Press.

Jenkins, R. (1998). Social identity (3rd ed.). Oxon, UK: Routledge.

Kirk, R. W. (2008). Pitcairn Island, the bounty mutineers and their descendants: A history.

Jeffersen, NC: McFarland & Co.

Lasch, C. (1991). The true and only heaven progress and its critics. New York, NY: W. W.

Norton.

Mahar, C. (1990). Pierre Bourdieu: The intellectual project. In R. Harker, C. Mahar &

C. Wilkes (Eds.), An introduction to the work of Pierre Bourdieu the practice of theory

(pp. 26–57). Houndmills, UK: The MacMillan Press Ltd.

Moore, S. F. (1987). Explaining the present: theoretical dilemmas in processual ethnography.

American Ethnologist, 14, 727–736.

Moverley, M. (2007). Our Pitcairn story. Inglewood, CA: Diana Moverley.

Nordhoff, C., & Hall, J. N. (1936). The bounty trilogy. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and

Company.

Pereiro, X. (2010). Ethnographic research on cultural tourism: An anthropological view. In

G. Richards & W. Munsters (Eds.), Cultural tourism research methods (pp. 173S–187S).

Wallingford, UK: CABI.

Pitcairn Islands Administration. (2008). Pitcairn islands governance restructure concept

document. Paper prepared by Council, PDT, Pitcairn Island Community: Pitcairn.

Sanjek, R. (1991). The ethnographic present. Man, New Series, 26(4), 609–628.

Shapiro, H. L. (1929). Descendants of the mutineers of the bounty: Memoirs of the Bernice P.

Bishop museum. Honolulu, HI: Museum of Hawaii.

Shapiro, H. L. (1936). Heritage of the Bounty: The story of Pitcairn through six generations.

London: Victor Gollancz Ltd.

Svasek, M. (2010). In ‘‘the field’’ intersubjectivity, empathy and the workings of internalized

presence. In D. Spencer & J. Davies (Eds.), Anthropological fieldwork: A relational

process (pp. 75–95). Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Trenwith, A. (2003). The empire strikes back: Human rights and the Pitcairn proceedings.

Journal of South Pacific Law, 7(2). Part V. Retrieved from http://www.paclii.org/

nournals/fJSPL/vol09no2/3.shtml.

Warner, W. L., & Lunt, P. S. (1941). The social life of a modern community. New Haven, CT:

Yale University Press.

Warren, R. L. (1969). Toward a reformulation of community theory. In R. M. French (Ed.),

The community: A comparative perspective (pp. 39–48). Itasca, IL: F.E. Peacock.

Wax, M. L. (1980). Paradoxes of ‘‘Consent’’ to the practice of fieldwork. Social Problems, 27(3),

272–283.