Culture Change in Pohnpeian Society

After finished Nest in the Wind by Martha Ward, I felt very sad about the culture change that occurred in the past 30 years in Pohnpei. When I read the first 8 chapters of the book I thought it was a great example of a different economy and culture that was successful in doing things their own way. I enjoyed reading about their feasting and their sense of community, and I feel with Martha Ward goes back 30 years later the sense of community has decreased. I was able to pull examples from the story and add them to the model of cultural change that we were given in class. The interconnectedness of globalization is the most apparent part of their cultural change. Transportation technology was changed greatly. When Martha went back to the Island she no longer had to walk everywhere, many people thought it was odd she was walking and offered to give her a ride. The communication technology hit Pohnpei which decreased their activity and made them able to communicate much faster. Martha heard a phone go off at her friend Maria’s house and was shocked. I see this technology increase the rate of change. As the media and technology hit the island the family dynamic changed. Children were no longer being adopted as frequently by other parents. It became more expensive to have a large family as they did in the beginning of the ethnographic study. I also saw that the material items changed before the behaviors and social institutions. The food and media changed so therefore the hierarchy changed. Gifts were harder to purchase for the High Chief and the hierarchy started to become more about money than about skill, such as producing the largest yam. The food became much more expensive so therefore it was harder to have larger families because you couldn’t afford to feed them all.
The mechanisms of cultural change that the Pohnpeians experienced were external. Due to governmental policies and investments, the introduction of American and Japenese products were abundant. More members of their society were also being educated in other nations and coming back to Pohnpei. This created an increase in contact with other people and their ideas and values. Martha Ward didn’t focus on how selective this cultural change was. I interpreted this change as more forced than an individual choice but this could have had to do with the way the study was written. We see that both the American and Pohnpeian societies are affected, the American economy becomes larger because they are investing businesses in Pohnpei, Wal mart is especially profiting. Pohnpei is impacted much more than American society; their entire way of living changed and this impacted their moral and cultural values. Most importantly these cultural changes involved a change in form and function of items and implied meanings. The way in which the Pohnpeians valued food changed greatly. It also changed the Pohnpeian’s views on health and hierarchy.
By examining the way that the culture has changed I cannot say that the change is good or bad. It caused greater health problems and reduced the sense of community but it also gave individuals more jobs and greater knowledge of their health. There is no good or bad dichotomy while looking at culture change because some changes may have good and bad aspects. Most importantly when I looked at the culture change I was able to see the interrelatedness that we discussed in class, because culture is holistic the change in one domain changes in another. This is mainly seen through food, because food was so central and symbolic to their culture. I wrote this blog because after I was reading the last the chapters of Nest in the Wind I started seeing all of the things that we have discussed in class about culture change. It was really cool to be able to identify what aspects of culture change related to parts of the study. I could write an entire paper on the topic of culture change in Pohnpeian society but I think I will end it with the broad examples.