Beyond the Stone Altar: The "Section Over Heaven of Kansas City": Fusion of a Pohnpeian Chiefdom: A Sociopolitical Basis for Place

Abstract

The Pohnpeian community in Kansas City has been organized as a traditional section under the authority of a Pohnpeian tribal district chief. This thesis explores the relationship of the social structure of the Pohnpeian community in Kansas City to that of their home island of Pohnpei. The Kansas City section formation also has implications for the concept of place and how people create it and relate to it. The traditional section form of Pohnpeian social organization is transposed in Kansas City complete with traditional feasts, chiefly titles, and political integration with a paramount chieftainship in Pohnpei. Some of the continuities and differences of the deployment of the traditional Pohnpeian section system in Kansas City are considered in this paper. The Kansas City community and its section are situated within the broader scope of displaced Micronesian communities and the more general categories of diaspora, migration, creation of locality, and place.