Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on Indigenous prospective of times and places in the Anthropocene, and how the acknowledged presence of the ancestors influences the way two local communities inhabit the islandscape.

Paper long abstract:

Starting from an analysis based on the ethnography of two Pacific archipelagos - geographically distant, populated in distinct eras, characterized by different historical events and in which different landscapes have been produced - this paper analyzes a common value the "weight of the ancestors" when talking and managing islandscapes. The methodology that are mobilized are: native geography and indigenous epistemology. Together with "a variety of animals, plants and things that traveled toward the island, along with human colonization" there were also the spirits. Spirts are active actor in the meshwork that formed and still shapes the landscaped. When talking about Anthropocene and the human agency, the presence and the entanglement with the spirits of the ancestors is rarely taken into consideration. This proposal aims to investigate the local, indigenous response to the Antropocene in the Belep Islands (New Caledonia) and in the island of O'ahu (Hawai'i). We will examine how the weight of the ancestors, that dwell in the natural scapes, shapes the local response through practices and storytelling. In the case studies presented spirits care for the memories of the places shaping todays landscapes, recalling landscapes of the past and imagining future's landscapes. Climate change events related to islandscape are interpreted as a lack or wrong doing in the relationship with the non-human world. What is interesting to underline is the ability of native cultures to see environmental changes in a perspective that holds future, present and the past together, thanks to the presence of the ancestors.

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