Author Description

This book is a sequel to a previous book by ""Huntsman"" (and Antony Hooper), ""Tokelau: A Historical Ethnography"" (AUP, 1997), and follows the history of the small Pacific nation from the 1970s up to the recent referendum in which the Tokelauans voted to remain a New Zealand dependency. It is an extraordinary story - a dramatic narrative, sometimes taking place on the coral atolls of far-away Tokelau, sometimes in the bland offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, sometimes in the monumental UN building in New York. Officials and politicians and Tokelau elders all play their roles and the repeated clash of cultures leads to comic, bizarre and often disturbing outcomes. While this is a superbly researched study of village social and political life in a modernising world, it is also an illuminating picture of MFAT, its operations and relationships, and a brilliant critique of the United Nations and the way it conducts its affairs.