Cultural Divisions and Island Environments since the Time of Dumont d'Urville

Pacific Islanders as Melanesians, Micronesians or Polynesians by the 1980s, although no clear alternative had emerged. This sentiment was voiced by scholars in a number of disciplines involved in the study of Pacific cultures. 1 The 19th-century French explorer J.-S.-C. Dumont d'Urville synthesised the terms Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Dumont d'Urville's association of four cultural regions (including Malaysia) with two racial types had a profound influence on subsequent scholarship, and was a major factor behind recent academic criticisms of the classification. Attempts to explain or refute the association of culture and race in the Pacific have also diverted attention away from other explanations of cultural and historical patterns in Oceania. 2 In particular, the general preoccupation with race and culture, combined with consideration of environmental influences that is either too narrowly focused or too generalised, has resulted in a failure to explore fully how environmental and cultural influences have interacted to shape Oceania's cultures and history.