What does it mean to work with the ancestors?
It means acting with a sense of remembrance and loving respect.
My book explores how Marquesans are navigating islands crowded with historic sites, spirits and urgent dreams of a sustainable future.
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Throughout the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia, forest spirits share space with ancestral ruins and active agricultural plots, shaping land use as well as heritage preservation.
As they actively pursue UNESCO World Heritage List status, Marquesans are grappling with questions about when these sites should be preserved, when neglect might be appropriate, and when deterioration resulting from local livelihoods should be accepted. Working with the Ancestors: Mana and Place in the Marquesas Islands (University of Washington Press, 2019) looks at how Marquesan understandings of heritage and mana, or spiritual power, influence the use of land and resources. It asks the question: How can each of us chart a sustainable future that honors our shared past?
Working with the Ancestors delves into the challenges faced by Marquesans as they strive to strike this balance and grow in a way that supports their unique perspective and way of life. With minimal jargon, it illustrates how anthropological concepts such as embodiment, alienation, place and power can inform resource management, offering a new approach to sustainability that integrates policy, practice, and heritage. It offers insight for anyone seeking to balance international pressures with local priorities.
Working with the Ancestors is based on over a year of doctoral fieldwork and ethnography in the Marquesas, including more than 400 interviews with Marquesans. Through my expeditions into the forest, conversations with elders, adventures in bingo and encounters with ancestral spirits, I explore the depth and meaning of life through the words of Marquesans.
Praise for Working with the Ancestors
“Well-researched, this book commendably documents multiple Marquesan viewpoints. It recommends limiting heritage tourism in favor of agricultural use and advocates incorporating indigenous concerns.” ―Choice
“Working with the Ancestors is a fascinating book. Embedded in the values of place, knowledge of place and power, this book furthers current debates within human geography, anthropology and environmental sustainability concerning posthumanism, especially in terms of how posthumanistic notions can play out within the everydaylives of Indigenous people...In the tradition of the best anthropological books, Working with the Ancestors transports the reader to a foreign land and allows them to learn from local people themselves. It is a journey worth taking.” ―Archaeology in Oceania
“This study...lies at the intersection of various topics and approaches in social anthropology, history and heritage studies and offers an insightful perspective on the case of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia...[B]oth timely and necessary.” ―Journal of Pacific History
“This well-written and powerful book blends together theoretical foundations, ethnographic examples, and Donaldson's own extensive anthropological fieldwork, presented as a series of vignettes and case studies. Taken together it is a valuable contribution to academic and applied work in heritage studies, development encounters, and tourism in the Pacific.” ―Pacific Affairs
With my American mother, Jennifer, and my Marquesan parents, Maima and Manuhi Timau, during my doctoral research in 2013.