Austronesian Navigation and Belief Networks

February 10, 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Mānoa Campus, East-West Center Research Program, Burns Hall, Room 3012

Austronesian Navigation and Belief Networks: Shared Heritage Meaningful in Our Daily Life


Dr. David Blundell

Professor and Director
Asia-Pacific SpatioTemporal Institute (ApSTi)
Research and Innovation-Incubation Center
National Chengchi University

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 12:00 noon to 1:00pm
John A. Burns Hall, Room 3012 (3rd floor)

Where are we, and why? My anthropology is about us, and what is meaningful. I embarked on a way of living through cross-cultural awareness since an early age. The Experiment in International Living, School of International Training, Vermont, introduced me to Sri Lanka. My destiny was to study in Southern Asia where I learned about island people and their beliefs. While there I became aware of seaward navigators sailing the Indian Ocean to the Pacific and to the Hawaiian islands.


Yet, I did not know this would bring me here today.


The legacy of “Hawa” is an integral part of the Oceanic heritage as tree bark is to making tapa cloth. Original migrations sprang from the westward continent and islands with the invention of navigation techniques and returnable routes to mix with a myriad of people in one ocean. Frequent visitations of seafarers to distant places became integrated in song and lore.


In terms of comprehending Monsoon Asia and Pacific early history, languages and cultures, aesthetic systems and beliefs, I have conducted spatiotemporal research employing multimedia and geographic information systems (GIS). What I have found is networks of shared heritage meaningful in our daily life. This is why I am here. br>


David Blundell , from Santa Monica, California, as a child traveled the world with his Sierra Club parents, hiking and camping. At 22 he received a scholarship for ethnological research in Sri Lanka and there he attended the University of Peradeniya for Sinhala and Buddhist studies. This prepared him for a doctorate in anthropology from the University of California based on the life histories of Buddhist practitioners making their own ethnographic films in Sri Lanka. Prof Blundell teaches at National Chengchi University, Taipei. He conducts anthropology and linguistic research with the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI), University of California, Berkeley. .


Event Sponsor
East-West Center, Research Program, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Laura Moriyama, 944-7444, Laura.Moriyama@eastwestcenter.org

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