Trading Nature: Tahitians, Europeans, and Ecological Exchange

In so doing her work fits into three recent strands of Pacific history: the move away from "imperial" and/or "fatal impact" narratives, the role of exchange as a "social operation" that facilitates and maintains intercultural relationships, and the rise of "non-human" history, which seeks both to create "nuanced, dynamic understandings of how humans have shaped and have been shaped by their natural world" (p. 3) and to recognize that "plants, animals, and other aspects of a natural environment do not only have a presence in the perceptions, decisions, and actions of society-plants and animals are themselves historical agents" (p. 2). According to Newell, "the varying perceptions of the landscape held by Tahitians and Europeans formed a fundamental part of their cultural divide" (p. 87), and moral landscapes were configured around European perceptions of the Tahitians' relationship with their natural environment.