“Summoning Breadfruit” and “Opening Seas”: Toward a Performative Ecology in Oceania

Brian Diettrich (PhD, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa) is Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, where he teaches courses in critical approaches to ethnomusicology and music ethnography. Brian’s research has focused on music in Oceania, especially in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), and he has undertaken projects in Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kosrae, with communities of the central Caroline atolls, among Micronesian migrant communities in Hawai’i, and in New Zealand. Brian is a co-author of Music in Pacific Island Cultures: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture (Oxford University Press), and his research has appeared in academic journals and edited collections. He has chaired the ICTM Study Group on Music and Dance of Oceania since 2015. Brian has regularly undertaken collaborative and educational projects in the northwest Pacific Islands, and he formerly taught music in the FSM at the College of Micronesia.