Travelling Parties: Cook Islander ways of doing transnational travel
Kalissa Alexeyeff, University of Melbourne
The majority of Cook Islanders live outside the nation-state, predominately in New Zealand and Australia. Familial and community relationships are maintained by frequent visits to and from the Cook Islands to participate in major life-stage events, family reunions and sport and dance tours. This paper examines how Cook Islands' transnational communities are maintained through travel undertaken in large groups called tere pati (travelling party). This kind of travel complicates notions of global versus local, home and away, and demonstrates how belonging to the Cook Islands nation is asserted through a range of economic and affective practices by those who no longer reside at home.
