writing from july
Posts
on cultural indigenous knowledge, emotions, and their significance in social movements
It is important to recognise that the very study of emotions as a separate factor to social movements, and not as an integral, fundamental, and defining component of social movements, is a foreign concept for many societies and communities. When many social movements, predominantly in the west, have been characterised by ‘individualistic linear organising’ (brown, a. m. 2017: 10), it is understandable why many have failed to consider and study the inexplicable spiritual and emotional motives for social movements, and to articulate them in a way that does not whitewash them, or diminish the potency of their cultural value and significance. The way I, and many Pasifika people, understand social movements is founded on mutuality, love, kinship, and an obligation to care for our community. These can be attributed to key cultural concepts and principles such as the generalised Pasifika concept of mana , the Hawaiian aloha ‘āina , and the Tongan concepts of ‘ofa, faka’apa’apa, fetokoni’aki ,...