Social Change and Psychosocial Adaptation in the Pacific Islands: Cultures in Transition (International and Cultural Psychology) - Tapa blanda

The history of the Pacific Islands is noted for great upheavals, from colonization to tribal warfare, natural disasters to nuclear testing. More recently, political change, increasing technology and urbanization, and conflict between traditional and Western cultures have led to considerable social problems in the region. Substance and alcohol abuse, violence, cultural displacement, and suicide bring uncertainty to day-to-day life and stretch already overextended social resources.

Social Change and Psychosocial Adaptation in the Pacific Islands sensitively balances situations applicable across this vast geographical area with data and events relevant to individual nations in Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. Chapters are written by native clinicians, cultural anthropologists, cross-cultural psychologists, and other professionals serving the region, specifically focusing on:

- Hawaii
- Aboriginal Australia
- The Solomon Islands
- Fiji
- Guam
- The Marshall Islands
- The Federated States of Micronesia

Each provides historical background, details the country's ethnic makeup, summarizes major cultural identity/survival issues, and examines its existing health care and mental health care systems.

The tasks ahead are large. Practitioners, researchers, and other professionals working with the peoples of the Pacific need culturally attuned resources to better collaborate on interventions, prevention programs, and policy. Social Change and Psychosocial Adaptation in the Pacific Islands rises to this complex challenge.

This volume is the product of an international gathering of scholars and healthprofessionalsinHonolulu,Hawaii,forthespeci?cpurposeofdo- menting and understanding the wide-ranging psychosocial consequences of rapid social change among people of Paci?c Island nations. In the wide expanse of the Paci?c Ocean, there are scores of nations and an untold number of cultural traditions. This area has been the scene of rapid social change since the Paci?c Island people began contact with the Western and Eastern worlds through exploration, commerce, and religious mission- ies. These changes led to the collapse and decimation of many groups as challengestotraditionalwaysoflifesoonexceededtheircapacitytoendure and survive. Today, from Australia's Aboriginal peoples in the South to the Hawaii's Native Hawaiian (Kanaka Maoli) people in the North, there is a resurgence of cultural pride and efforts to renew ties with past. From Po- nesia (e. g. , Hawaii, Samoa) to Micronesia (e. g. , Chuuk, Pohnpei, Palau) to Melanesia (e. g. , Solomon Islands, New Guinea), the indigenous p- ple of the Paci?c are continuing their struggle to survive amidst a rapidly changingworldinwhichbasicandfundamentalvaluesandlifestyles?nd themselvesincon?ictwithwaysoflifethatemphasizealienvaluessuchas individuality, materialism, competition, and change. These words are not meant to idealize the traditional cultures of the Paci?c Island people for they have often been characterized by aggression, hostility, and destr- tion of one another in the course of their history. Yet, it is clear that never hastherebeensuchsomanyandsopotentexternalforceschallengingtheir existence. Westernization can now be found throughout the Paci?c Islands with the exception of a few isolated regions in Melanesia and Micronesia.