Alistair Sponsel

This proposal would make possible a unique collaboration between a historian of science, a coral reef scientist, and a prominent Tahitian custodian of traditional Polynesian knowledge. We aim to document living elders’ perspectives on coral reefs at three island groups in what is now French Polynesia (or Ma’ohi Nui), and to compare these ethnographic findings with older attitudes described in archival materials. The immediate product of this fellowship would be a coauthored paper reporting and analyzing our results, but the funded research would also contribute to a scholarly book on the history of coral reef science and to ongoing community-based efforts to preserve biocultural heritage in Polynesia.