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Abstract: Over the past few decades the Pacific region has undergone many changes through decolonization and postcolonial adjustment. Political change in new and existing Pacific nations is marked by efforts to reclaim identities, histories and futures. The smallest Pacific community with a separate identity is Pitcairn Island, the last British "colony" in the Pacific. Using critical ethnography this case study of Pitcairn examines the notion of erasure in relation to the history and politics of colonization and decolonization. Erasure is inextricably tied to the issue of power; the imbalance of power and the scrutiny of processes of social negotiation between centre and periphery. This paper argues that erasure has not been sufficiently well theorized in either island studies or postcolonial studies. As a subnational island jurisdiction the issue for Pitcairn is how to reclaim identity, maintain autonomy without sovereignty, and create a sustainable future for its small island community.
Keywords: decolonization, disassembly, erasure, mutiny, Pitcairn, postcolonial studies, trials, United Kingdom Overseas Territory
© 2013 Institute of Island Studies, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Introduction
The concept of Empire is characterized fundamentally by a lack of boundaries; Empire's rule has no limits (Dirlik, 2002, p. 446).
Islands were the first territories to be colonized in the European Age of Discovery, and have been the last to seek and obtain independence (Baldacchino & Royle, 2010). In what is widely perceived as the postcolonial period, decolonization has occurred not in "the last colonies" but within existing states (Aldrich & Connell, 1998, p. 235); the "rush to decolonization has slowed to a stop" (Royle, 2010, p. 204). There are a number of factors contributing to the latter, not least the process of "upside down decolonization" and the definitive advantages in not being independent (Baldacchino, 2010). The politics of "upside decolonization" are, according to Baldacchino (2010, p. 47) the norm rather than the exception in today's non-independent (and mainly island) territories. Many are simply too small to contemplate any kind of existence without a powerful international protector and benefactor to provide defence, aid, transport infrastructure and welfare provision (Aldrich & Connell, 1998). Yet, the balance of power in these dichotomous relationships warrants closer examination if we are to move from explanation to understanding islands as ambiguous worlds of...