More Than a Living

Polynesians of Kapingamarangi refer to fishing as the surfacing of the sacred. Shaped by the relationships between a coral reef ecosystem and a religion designed to appease powerful spirits, traditional fishing activity once signified the integration and sanctity of community. In More Than a Living, Michael Lieber compares changes in this traditional activity with those in the larger Kapinga community. Liebers findings offer a lucid portrayal of how culture shapes a communitys response to change. Polynesians of Kapingamarangi refer to fishing as the surfacing of the sacred. Shaped by the relationships between a coral reef ecosystem and a religion designed to appease powerful spirits, traditional fishing activity once signified the integration and sanctity of community. As the Kapinga have confronted the tide of twentieth-century colonialism, traditional fishing activity has become a metaphor for the communitys disintegration.Using activity as a basis for analyzing how external institutions inform and organize the social order, Michael Lieber contextualizes the atolls fishing activity within natural, social, and cultural frameworks. As natural disaster and conversion to Christianity destroy the ancient religion that once regulated fishing activity, the community experiences a parallel disembodiment as a result of colonial development programs.The new relations between the Kapinga and the colonial administration mirror those they have displaced; Kapinga definitions of personhood, community, and political authority retain their implicit character if not their religious foundation. Liebers discussion of fishing and the social order is a lucid portrayal of how cultural context shapes human responses to the agents and events that have changed the Kapingas universe.