Self-promotion of a maverick travel-writer:

Suzuki Tsunenori’s southern Pacific travelogue (1892)

Ryota NishinoThe University of the South Pacific

nishino_r@usp.ac.fj

鈴木経勲 (1853-1938)• Advocate of Japanese

advance to the South Seas in late 19C.

• Travel-writer (amongst other pursuits). 南洋探検実記 (1892)

• Reputation deteriorated from an ethnographer to a bluffer.

Travel-writing scholarship

• ‘Pseudos’ and multiple functions (Holland and Huggan, Youngs, Thompson).

• Self-presentation <> representing the other.

Self-presentation as …• A reporter

– Meeting Robert Wilcox in Hawai’i• A cultural interlocutor

– Catholicism; Linguistic abilities• A grass-roots ambassador

– School visit to promote Japan’s industrial advance.

– Striking rapport with ‘natives’ and ‘coolies’ in Fiji.

A kava ceremony,Pagopago,

Samoa

Loreto school, near Levuka

‘Kawasu’