Geography Department > Faculty > Murray Chapman
Murray Chapman
Murray Chapman, Professor
Emeritus / Geography & Population Studies
Research Interests: human mobility; generational change and islander identities;
indigenous epistemologies; field methods; Melanesia.
Phone: (808) 956-8465
Email: murrayc@hawaii.edu
Education
B.A., Geography and English, University of New Zealand, 1958
M.A. (Honors), Geography, University of Auckland, New Zealand, 1961
Ph.D., Geography and Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle, 1970.
Dissertation research in Guadalcanal,
Solomon Islands (1965-67) on people's movement from the
standpoint of the village.
International Development Seminar, Institute of Advanced Projects, East-West Center, summer 1965.
Postdoctoral Training in social demography, International Population Program, Cornell University 1968-69.
Research interests
Human mobility; generational change and islander identities; indigenous epistemologies; field methods; Melanesia
I am interested in population movements in the third world, generational change in rural populations, mobility and identity, and field methods, with a regional focus on the island Pacific, especially Melanesia. In the early 1990's, I returned to Solomon Islands and worked for the third time in twenty-eight years with the Guadalcanal communities who formed the basis of my doctoral dissertation. The aims of this research were both applied and basic. Applied, because the Solomons' need for information for socioeconomic planning, meant collecting details about population structure and dynamics for comparison with previous field data. The intellectual concern was with local epistemologies of movement as indicating structures of knowledge that have evolved independent of the Western intellectual tradition and might well inform its blinkeredness.
Recent Publications
In Press: Issues in Pacific Populations (edited with Kesaia Seniloli), Suva: University of the South Pacific, Population Studies Programme and UNFPA South Pacific.
1995, "Island autobiographies of movement: alternative ways of knowing?" P. Claval and Singaravelou, eds: Ethnogeographies, Paris: L'Harmattan, pp. 247-59.
1992 "Population movement: free or constrained," in Ron Crocombe and Esau Tuza (eds), Independence, Dependence, Interdependence: The First Ten Years of Solomon Islands Independence, Honiara: Solomon Islands College of Higher Education, Institute of Pacific Studies and Solomon Islands Centre, University of the South Pacific, pp 75-97. Reprinted: Program on Population, East-West Center Reprint 283.1991, "Pacific island movement and socioeconomic change: metaphors of misunderstanding", Population and Development Review 17:263-92.
1991 "Pacific island movement and socioeconomic change: metaphors of misunderstanding," Population and Development Review 17:263-92. Reprinted: 1993, "Moving populations: metaphors of misunderstanding and socioeconomic change," in UNCRD, Development and Planning in Small Island Nations of the Pacific, Nagoya, pp 113-52; also East-West Population Institute, Reprint 273.1989, Renaissance in the Pacific (jointly edited with Jean-Francois Dupon), special issue of Ethnies (8-9-10), Paris: Revue de Survival International-France (in English and French), 128 pp.
1991 "Population geography" (with Nancy Dowdle), in Daniel Noin (ed), Where is Population Geography Going?," Paris: International Geographical Union, Commission on Population Geography, pp 38-42.
1989 "Renaissance in the Pacific" (edited with Jean-Francois Dupon), special issue of Ethnies 8-9-10, Paris: Revue de Survival International-France, 128 pp, ISSN 0295-9151 (also in French)
1987 "Population movement studied at microscale: experience and extrapolation," GeoJournal 15:347-65. Reprinted: 1988, in John C. Caldwell, Allan G. Hill, and Valerie J. Hull (eds), Micro-Approaches to Demographic Research, London: Kegan Paul International, pp 349-75; also East-West Population Institute Reprint 218.
1985. Circulation in Third World Countries (edited with R. Mansell Prothero), London, Boston, Melbourne and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 473 pp, ISBN 0-7102-0343-8.
1985 "Circulation between 'home' and other places: some propositions" (with R. Mansell Prothero), in Murray Chapman and R. Mansell Prothero (eds), Circulation in Population Movement: Substance and Concepts from the Melanesian Case, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp 1-12. Reprinted: East-West Population Institute Reprint 197.
1985. Circulation in Population Movement: Substance and Concepts from the Melanesian Case (edited with R. Mansell Prothero), London, Boston, Melbourne and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 483 pp, ISBN 0-7102-0451-5.
1985 "Me go 'walkabout'; you too?," in Murray Chapman and R. Mansell Prothero (eds), Circulation in Population Movement: Substance and Concepts from the Melanesian Case, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp 429-43. Reprinted: East-West Population Institute Reprint 197.
1985. Mobility and Identity in the Island Pacific (editor), special issue of Pacific Viewpoint, 26(1), Wellington: Department of Geography and Victoria University Press, Victoria University of Wellington, in association with East-West Center, and Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 371 pp, ISSN 0030-8978.
1985 "Policy makers and circulation at the grassroots: south Pacific and south-east Asian examples," in Guy Standing (ed), Labour Circulation and the Labour Process, London: Croom Helm, pp 382-407.
1983 "Themes on circulation in the third world" (with R. Mansell Prothero), International Migration Review, 17:597-632. Translated into Spanish: 1987, Temas sobre circulacion en el tercer mundo, Divulgacion Geografica 6, Mexico DF: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Instituto de Geografica (47 pp). Reprinted: 1985, in Circulation in Third World Countries, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp 1-26; also East-West Population Institute Reprint 168.
1982 "Circulation," in John A. Ross (ed), International Encyclopedia of Population, vol 1, New York: Free Press, pp 93-98.
1981 "Policy implications of circulation: some answers from the grassroots," in Gavin W. Jones and Helen V. Richter (eds), Population Mobility and Development: Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Development Studies Centre Monograph 27, Canberra: Australian National University, pp 71-87. Reprinted: East-West Population Institute Reprint 136.
1980 "Method and history of a multidisciplinary field project: population and resources of south Guadalcanal, 1971-75" (with Judith Bennett), Yagl-Ambu (Papua New Guinea Journal of the Social Sciences and Humanities), 7:47-76.
Recent Conference Papers, Consultant and Technical Reports
1999 "Report on applied research, Solomon Islands College of Higher Education Institutional Strengthening Project (SICHE-ISP)", 1995-99', prepared for the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), Canberra, Australia, 25 pp.
1998 "Research Cultures and Melanesia: the case of Solomon Islands'", paper presented to the Twelfth Pacific History Conference, Solomon Islands College of Higher Education, Honiara, Solomon Islands, June 22-26.
1997 "The grass roots, mobility, and arcane knowledge", address in celebration of the retirement of Richard L. Morrill, University of Washington, Departments of Geography and Anthropology, Center for Demography and Ecology, and The Jackson School: International Studies and Southeast Asian Studies Program, Seattle, November 21.
1996 "Geography, the Pacific, and indigenous learning", invited commentary presented to the Fiftieth Anniversary, Department of Geography, University of Auckland, New Zealand, May 31-June 3; proceedings, pp 54-55.
1995 "Conceptions of third world mobility: innovative, irrelevent, simply absurd?", paper presented to the International Conference on Population Geography, University of Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom, September 16-19.
1994 "Establishing a research culture in a Melanesian tertiary institution," invited paper presented to International Symposium on Education, Tenth Anniversary, Solomon Islands College of Higher Education, Honiara, Solomon Islands, August 16; proceedings, pp 115-23.
1994 "Island epistemologies of movement: alternative conceptions of the labour trade," invited paper presented to the Tenth Pacific History Conference, Tarawa, Kiribati, July 5-12.
1992 "Development of new institutional agreement with Solomon Islands College of Higher Education," report prepared for International Agreements Fund, University of Hawai`i, 11 pp.
1990 "Island autobiographies of movement: new ways of knowing?," paper presented to the First Colloquium: Journées d' Ethnogéographies, Centre d'Etudes de Géographie Tropicale, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, Domaine Universitaire de Bordeaux, Talence, France, October 8-10.
1990 "Migration and transformations in New Guinea: a critique," invited commentary presented to the Formal Symposium on Migration and Transformations, Nineteenth Annual Meeting, Association for Social Anthropology, Kapa`a, Hawai`i, March 21-24.
1990 "Moving populations: metaphors of misunderstanding and socioeconomic change," commissioned paper presented to the International Meeting on Multilevel Development in Pacific Island Countries, Government of Tonga, Central Planning Department and United Nations Centre for Regional Development, Nuku`alofa, Tonga, January 10-13.
Working with graduate students
Over the years, including in theoretical retirement since August 2001, my primary advising in doctoral studies has been with midcareer Asian professionals and in masters' work with persons from not only Asian countries but also Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, and United States. Dissertation topics have included an insider and humanistic perspective on movement in a Nepali village, and the resource links between an urban housing estate and rural communities in Java. Theses have ranged from Filipino movements seen in terms of social networks reaching across national boundaries, to household mobility in a Pacific atoll environment as collective strategy for survival. All this student research has been informed by the goal to develop theory grounded in the social reality of the Asia-Pacific world. Such an approach to graduate study means taking the long- term view but, as a result, much student research has appeared in monographs and as published papers in professional journals (eg: Asia Pacific Population Journal 2001; Asia Pacific Viewpoint 1999; International Migration Review 1995; Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 1993; Tjidschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 1991).
