Fern Ridge (Safla Rama) Digest

An essay that has been well sought after and downloaded is the essay "Reconstituting Oceanic Folktales", published in the University of Hawaii online publication: Scholarspace. It is one of those rare essays I have written and published as an online publication. I include excerpt from the essay here. Indigenous communities in Oceania have always used folktales to explain their social, psychological, political, and cultural environment. This tradition continues today in the cultural productions of many Pacific writers, artists, and filmmakers. Their “texts” are often saturated with social and political discourses that challenge ideology, tradition, and power. I explore how scholars in various discursive traditions have used folktales as structures for viewing culture, society and events, and I do so in order to re-view folktales within an indigenous cultural production in Oceania. Folktales as Social Cultural Texts   If we are to see folktales as “text” then we...

With Michael Fischer @ Angoram Sepik River 2019 Sepik River is strong, majestic, and yet humble. We arrived in Angoram to get a sense of why the Sepik River adorns itself with the splendor of natural beauty. We drove through the Angoram township, passed the market, and down to the jetty. Angoram town was not the glory of its past, but a forgotten reminder of what used to be the busy town with a hive of activities along the big River. We stood by the Sepik River for our prized pictures. The jetty had a woman and children under it, probably washing clothes and swimming. We watched the debris and flotsam float downstream by the power of the Sepik. The jetty area was empty except for a man next to a dinghy waiting for his passengers. He threw suspicious glances at us, but did not offer to give us a tour.   Then he did the most ridiculous thing. He started the engine of the dinghy and headed towards the area where there was a lot of people. Soon after a group of the...