Lingering with the Void: Decolonial Relationalities and Transpacific Entanglements

Dominant “transpacific” frameworks have often rendered the Pacific as a voided space to be crossed in order to reach the edges of Asia—as suggested by the focus on the Pacific Rim. The term AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) has emerged in the United States and, while important for increasing representation and countering anti-Asian hate, nevertheless subsumes Pacific Island histories of diaspora, migration, and cross-cultural encounters that are unique and require their own study. Building on the field of Pacific Studies and recent critiques of the “transpacific,” this special issue invites readers to linger within this imagined void—not as empty space to be traversed, but to encounter a vast depth of relations that, like the moana (ocean) itself, cannot be reduced to a passage between other places. To linger, then, is not to settle or possess, but to attend to and perceive the complex relations already embedded within and across Oceania.