The Art of Living as a Community: Profiguration, Sustainability, and Social Development in Rapa Nui
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
- (1)
- Conceptually review the area of social development to provide new intercultural and intergenerational considerations to complete it.
- (2)
- Analyze the social development of the Rapa Nui using key perspectives such as education, sustainability, and profiguration.
3. Results and Discussion
3.1. Social Development, Interculturality, and Education
“Interculturality in education has the purpose of understanding and respecting other cultures, valuing personal and collective enrichment by relying on one’s own and others’ contribution, in order to promote healthy coexistence between diverse cultures; this can be seen in the performance of the Lorenzo Baeza Vega School, whose mission is to promote the Rapa Nui language and culture. The aim of having a ‘Rapa Nui Language Day’ was to attract the attention of parents, families, authorities, and state institutions, to ensure that they would all contribute to revitalizing the language of the Rapa Nui Polynesian people. ”(VHM)
“Chilean regulations establish that if there is a high percentage of indigenous population, their education must include a subject focused on learning the local language. In this case, this is Rapa Nui, which is studied for two hours a week. But this is very little. That is why Language Day, November 9, is very important, as it encourages people to remember the language and use it as part of teaching and learning; the whole island is highly involved, and it is the main event of the year.”(ROM)
“Easter Island still keeps culture alive, ensuring that it is natural (…) for my children to want to learn how fishing was done in the past; that you can still listen if you can speak the language, in a way that is not restrictive; this is a special charm about Easter Island; one goes to Hawaii and they all speak English; one goes to New Zealand, and they suffer, because they have largely lost their language. We don’t want that to happen to us. I am racially mixed, and I speak it as our generation speaks it: I speak it correctly in a traditional way. (…) I speak it in a more modern way, because I am from another generation, and there are some idioms.”(LZM)
3.2. Social Development and Sustainability
“With the COVID-19 pandemic, the plan made by the Environmental Department has been expedited, as it helps to have small vegetable gardens in people’s homes, supported by the slogan “I produce my own food.” The Municipality offers technical assistance and many lucas [money] have also been made available for this.”(ROM)
“In view of the overcrowding of the island, a passport was implemented in 2018 [Law 21,070 (of March 2018) regulating the rights to reside in, stay in, and move to Rapa Nui] that only allows people to stay for up to a month [both tourists and continental Chileans].”(ROM)
“[Comparing with the 2011 situation] The recycling plant is currently still working and has continued to operate by recycling and separating materials such as plastic, aluminum, paper, organic waste and electronic waste, which are shipped by sea to the continent directly to the company responsible for handling this waste.”
“General awareness of recycling has improved in the community, including people separating their own waste and the creation of recycling centers in different areas.”
“In relation to wastewater, houses, hotels and/or residential areas are now required to have their own treatment system according to health regulations.”(JAH)
3.3. Social Development, Women and Profiguration
“With regard to young people who decide to continue their higher education on the continent, the majority return to the island after they have completed their courses, and they may be able to pursue the career they studied for, but not necessarily. Some professionals manage to hold state public offices. Others engage in agriculture, fishing, livestock, crafts and tourism-related jobs. ”
“As an example, during the current pandemic the entire community saw the need to increase agriculture through the massive implementation of family vegetable gardens, in addition to the strengthening of fishing and animal farming, due to the cessation of tourist activities.”(JAH)
“As for the younger generations, it can be seen that they’re doing quite well with technology in general, as they often use it to find information, without prioritizing the knowledge of the elders and older adults, who hold knowledge about a lot of things, including names and locations of stars in the sky, meaning of kāiŋa or territory, hakaara or genealogies, which are part of the essential principles and values of the Rapa Nui worldview. This is a key issue, which we will continue to work with the adults and the elderly, in order to transmit [these principles] to the younger generation and children, revaluing the wise people in the community.”(VHM)
“Women play a central part in this community; since time immemorial the territorial organization has focused on the importance of the role they occupy because they gestating and/or create society. It is not a mere coincidence that the terms used to name the territory and the land are the same used to designate the placenta and the uterus, that is, Kāiŋa and Henua. The territory and its components are conceived in a way that is homologous to the process of the gestation of life that occurs in women’s wombs, since development ultimately depends on them (…) There is an imperative need to establish equal conditions for all human beings, providing a safe and fair environment for everyone, now and for the future.”(VHM)
“Regarding the Tapati Rapa Nui festival [this is a cultural festival in which the whole family participates, where each family has to compete but in a cultural way], it has been carried on normally through the years.”(JAH)
“Mama Piru died (…) she was one of these Rapa Nui born and bread women who lived in the countryside, near Tongariki. (…) She always went out to clean the shore; she would grab her bags, she would clean, then others would pick stuff up. That also made a deep impression last year (2019) and there have been several patrols to check the level of cleanliness on the coast (…) so there’s the children, the adolescent, and then the parents.”(ROM)
“The elderly meet in a dining hall called Hare Koa Tiare (…) they have lunch, talk, and spend their time painting and playing some parlor games. Activities have been suspended until further notice as a result of the pandemic.”
“The municipality supports this hall and provides food for the elderly; many of them live with their families, only a few are alone.”
“The Council of Elders Mau Hatu or Rapa Nui is represented by 36 wise people from the families who hold sociocultural authority. They are part of a Development Commission chaired by the governor, which also consists of the Mayor, the Navy, CONAF, National Assets, Heads of Services and five people from the community elected by the Rapa Nui people.”(VHM)
3.4. Social Development and Life Course Approach
- (1)
- In relation to the principle of lifespan development, actions for the consolidation and enhancement of cultural identity and sustainability are increasing both quantitatively and qualitatively, and are a long way from being diluted by homogenizing globalization processes.
- (2)
- Regarding the principle of time and place, contextualization is a profigurative, intercultural, and sustainable framework, the AMOR Plan and the 2030 Agenda with the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) forming a well-established roadmap.
- (3)
- Regarding the third principle, of historical time, crucial events are happening at the right times and with a both reactive and proactive vision, which allows improvement actions to have a clear impact on the island’s social development. This is part of a complex and complicated history that has threatened ecological and human sustainability, which has accompanied and endangered the community and the island of Rapa Nui.In relation to the “modern milestones”, a number of turning points can be identified, among others:
- the Indigenous Law (1993) by which the Easter Island Development Commission was created and the Council of Elders was legally recognized;
- the somewhat Disney-like worldwide release of the movie Rapa Nui (Kevin Costner, 1994), which really put the island and Rapa Nui culture on the map, for both good and bad, since it attracted necessary tourism but almost ended up becoming predatory;
- the presentation of the documentary Being Rapa Nui (Susan HitoShapiro and Santi Hitorangi, 2007) at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Affairs;
- the setting up of the first recycling plant on the island (2011);
- the transfer of the Rapa Nui Park, a World Heritage Site, to the Polynesian Indigenous Community Ma’u Henua, which has led to sustainable administration and tourism planning;
- the issuing of a passport to ensure that continentals and tourists do not stay on the island longer than a month, thus curbing overpopulation (2018);
- the repeal of Articles 13 and 14 of the Easter Law, in relation to gender equality and against male violence against women (2020), is expected;
- the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic can be considered a turning point in 2020, since it has revealed human vulnerability and the need to articulate interdependence with community sustainability, an additional enhancing element for profigurative, environmental, and human sustainability, as exemplified in Rapa Nui.
- (4)
- All of the above is also related to the fourth principle of linked lives, which is the fundamental principle of profiguration, since human lives are interdependent and occur across networks of shared relationships and influences. Dynamics involving education (teachers-students), family, family-work connections, friends (peers), and the community (Rapanui) can only be developed in a positive way within a profigurative form of socialization, where intergenerational relationships can reveal a wealth of perspectives and experiences.
- (5)
- The fifth principle, agency, is evident in Rapa Nui in relation to the general (sociological) idea that people can shape their own lives but do so within certain socially structured constraints. Individuals make choices and build their own life course; there are links and causality between the individual and the structural. They exercise their free will within a structure of opportunities (circumstantial and even structural constraints and opportunities which, as has been shown, are related to the community and to the insular nature of Rapa Nui). A profigurative form of socialization facilitates flexible, ample socialization and provides opportunities, albeit guided by a fine thread of the wisdom of life experience, without this being a constraint on freedom (as a post-figurative option would be, which would only operate from the elderly and the adults toward the young).
4. Conclusions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Molina-Luque, F. The Art of Living as a Community: Profiguration, Sustainability, and Social Development in Rapa Nui. Sustainability 2020, 12, 6798. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12176798
Molina-Luque F. The Art of Living as a Community: Profiguration, Sustainability, and Social Development in Rapa Nui. Sustainability. 2020; 12(17):6798. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12176798
Chicago/Turabian StyleMolina-Luque, Fidel. 2020. "The Art of Living as a Community: Profiguration, Sustainability, and Social Development in Rapa Nui" Sustainability 12, no. 17: 6798. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12176798