Rurutu Island Cultural Insights from the Phillips Library Collection
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Tuesday, July 1, 2025 from 5—6 pm
Virtual event
Included with admission
Advance registration recommended.
Register Here: pem.org/events/rurutu-island-cultural-insights?date=2025-07-01&time=05:00
Join us to hear Jennifer Kahn, the 2024 Frances E. Malamy Fellow at PEM’s Phillips Library, present the findings of her research project: The Longue Durée of Rurutu Island Culture History: Insights from the Martin Brunor Archival Collections at the Phillips Library.
Rurutu Island, part of the Austral Islands, is located about 350 miles South of Tahiti in the South Pacific. Rurutuan communities traditionally transmitted their local histories through oral traditions, relying on genealogies. Accessing library collections with unpublished materials relating to Rurutuan oral traditions, land use, material culture and cultural practices is critical for anthropological understanding of Rurutuan culture and its relationship to other archipelagoes in Eastern Polynesia. These library collections are also vital for engaging with Rurutuan communities’ desires to access aspects of their cultural history that have been lost given the chaotic upheavals their ancestors experienced in the post-contact period.
Martin Brunor (1901–1983) devoted much of his life to researching the Indigenous cultures of Rurutu and the Austral Islands. He was awarded a research fellowship to the Peabody Museum, one of PEM’s predecessor institutions, in 1962, and his large personal collection of recordings, research notes, photographs and manuscripts is now housed in the Phillips Library collection.
The Phillips Library Frances E. Malamy Research Fellowship program, funded by the Malamy family, awards $5,500 to one recipient each year to perform independent research for three months at the library in Rowley, Massachusetts.
About the Presenter:
Jennifer G. Kahn is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the College of William & Mary. Her interdisciplinary archaeological research focuses on the remote island archipelagoes of Eastern Polynesia. Her research considers diverse themes, including the origins of social complexity and social inequality; monumental architecture, ritual and religion; and long-term histories of human-environmental interactions. Kahn has co-published two books on the archaeology of Hawaiʻi and the Society Islands and recently published the first full-length book on pre-contact chiefdoms of the Society Islands with the University of Hawaiʻi Press. She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and has advised 25 graduate students in their post-baccalaureate research. Over $1.3 million dollars of funding from nationally and internationally competitive research grants has supported her research. These efforts have been thoroughly collaborative, involving members of native Polynesian communities at every step, including cultural associations and Council of Elders, local governmental groups (Mayor’s offices) and regional and international institutions (French Polynesian government, Pacific Territories Initiative for Regional Management of the Environment and the European Union).
Get Tickets
Virtual event
Included with admission
Advance registration recommended.
Register Here: pem.org/events/rurutu-island-cultural-insights?date=2025-07-01&time=05:00
Join us to hear Jennifer Kahn, the 2024 Frances E. Malamy Fellow at PEM’s Phillips Library, present the findings of her research project: The Longue Durée of Rurutu Island Culture History: Insights from the Martin Brunor Archival Collections at the Phillips Library.
Rurutu Island, part of the Austral Islands, is located about 350 miles South of Tahiti in the South Pacific. Rurutuan communities traditionally transmitted their local histories through oral traditions, relying on genealogies. Accessing library collections with unpublished materials relating to Rurutuan oral traditions, land use, material culture and cultural practices is critical for anthropological understanding of Rurutuan culture and its relationship to other archipelagoes in Eastern Polynesia. These library collections are also vital for engaging with Rurutuan communities’ desires to access aspects of their cultural history that have been lost given the chaotic upheavals their ancestors experienced in the post-contact period.
Martin Brunor (1901–1983) devoted much of his life to researching the Indigenous cultures of Rurutu and the Austral Islands. He was awarded a research fellowship to the Peabody Museum, one of PEM’s predecessor institutions, in 1962, and his large personal collection of recordings, research notes, photographs and manuscripts is now housed in the Phillips Library collection.
The Phillips Library Frances E. Malamy Research Fellowship program, funded by the Malamy family, awards $5,500 to one recipient each year to perform independent research for three months at the library in Rowley, Massachusetts.
About the Presenter:
Jennifer G. Kahn is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the College of William & Mary. Her interdisciplinary archaeological research focuses on the remote island archipelagoes of Eastern Polynesia. Her research considers diverse themes, including the origins of social complexity and social inequality; monumental architecture, ritual and religion; and long-term histories of human-environmental interactions. Kahn has co-published two books on the archaeology of Hawaiʻi and the Society Islands and recently published the first full-length book on pre-contact chiefdoms of the Society Islands with the University of Hawaiʻi Press. She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and has advised 25 graduate students in their post-baccalaureate research. Over $1.3 million dollars of funding from nationally and internationally competitive research grants has supported her research. These efforts have been thoroughly collaborative, involving members of native Polynesian communities at every step, including cultural associations and Council of Elders, local governmental groups (Mayor’s offices) and regional and international institutions (French Polynesian government, Pacific Territories Initiative for Regional Management of the Environment and the European Union).
Get Tickets
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