The Uncertainty of Traditional Authority in Pohnpei, Micronesia

Abstract

This paper examines how chiefs are viewed as persons wielding traditional authority in contemporary Pohnpei. According to Max Weber, tribal or feudal styles of political leadership or traditional authority could be replaced by rational forms of governance such as the modern nation-state and its attendant bureaucracies, what he labeled as rational authority. However, as enlightening as Weber's grand narrative of modernization has been, some forms of leadership and authority have not quite worked out in the ways he anticipated. Until 1990's anthropologists' major interest in traditional authority was to explain why persons having a particular office (such as kingly status or chiefly status) could retain legitimacy within a traditional society. In contrast, the anthropological emphasis in studies of traditional authority since the 1990s has been to reveal how chiefly positions (including kingly positions in the sense of the prior studies) should be articulated in a post-colonial state. In short, both studies have focused upon the social positions of the persons known as kings or chiefs. In the following, I suggest that two points cannot be explained in terms of social positions. First, because local participants may have different perspectives and attitudes toward the same events and objects, it is likely that according to each situation, some people regard the chief as authoritative, while others do not. Second, as suggested by George Marcus, a chief can have "two bodies," that is to say, there is more than one side to a chiefly person. From one perspective, the chief is a sacred being, separate from his people, and generally mystified in status. From another perspective, the chief is not a mystified being separated from his people, but is viewed as an exemplary person, respected and admired by his people. For those two reasons, chiefly authority is always ambiguous. The position is uncertain in terms of chiefly tradition and must be negotiated according to each interaction. Thus, it is necessary to situate the perception, understanding, or vision that people have of chiefly authority in each interaction. In order to consider the negotiations over traditional authority in situ, we need to look at the definition of interaction by those who are in the situation, as explored by Erving Goffman. In order to explain contemporary negotiations over traditional authority, this paper adopts Michel Gallon's approach to what he calls "framing and overflowing," adapted from Goffman's model of frame analysis. On the one hand, among those who interact with chiefs and other participants, any interaction is framed as appropriate to the situation. Yet at the same time, this act of framing brackets the outside world from the frame. This process defines the effectiveness of chiefly authority within a given exchange. On the other hand, however, activities framed in that way are always vulnerable, as framing does not actually abolish all the links with the outside world, which also inevitably relate to the contemporary political and economic order. Therefore, some outside elements may overflow from the bracketed outside world that they cannot frame. That leads to a process of constant negotiation and reframing among chiefs and other participants in the interaction. The 'framing and overflowing' approach helps to describe chiefly authority as a dynamic and ever ongoing process of change and exchange. The following case study focuses on some instances of this process in Pohnpei (which gained independence in 1986 as one state of the Federated States of Micronesia in 1986). It is largely acknowledged to be a chiefly society. Through the process of modernization and administration by foreign countries (Spain, German, Japan and the United States), Pohnpeian chieftainship has undergone some big changes. That is especially notable through the German

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