Over a period of three years, the PI had proposed to investigate the Tongan conceptions of social relationships and how these same ideas are actively used in generating political actions. Since the PI received only partial support (a pilot grant that could support only part of the proposed first year activities) for this investigation, his data collection and analysis will be limited to one year, including two summer months in the field (Tonga).

The funds provided by the pilot grant received allow the collection and analysis of fewer data than originally proposed. Nonetheless, a substantial data collection will be conducted. These data will provide ample opportunities for extensive analyses. Thus, the major hypothesis and sub-hypotheses of the research project will receive a thorough first round of testing. This first phase of the project is expected to provide concrete findings that will inform the future development of the project as a whole.

Research Hypotheses. This project will test the hypothesis that radiality is an important feature of the mental representation of three knowledge domains for Tongans and, as such, can be termed a Tongan cultural model.

The assumption of radiality as a Tongan cultural model leads to the following related sub-hypotheses about the Tongan cultural realm that this project will test.

The data that will be collected to test sub-hypothesis #1 are about social networks. Of the three basic types of social network data previously indicated only type two (network survey data where each respondent is asked about their connections to all other villagers over several relational contents, e.g. influence, support) and three (ego-centered cognitive networks where each respondent is asked to group and draw the relations between members of village) will now be collected. The first type of collection will be conducted in summer 2004 and the second in summer 2005.

The data that will be collected to test sub-hypothesis #2 include electoral counts and answers to questionnaires about political choices by co-villagers during local elections. The questionnaire will be administered in summer 2004 and will be only about the local election. The data collection about the national election have been postponed.

The data that will be collected to test sub-hypothesis #3 consist of transcripts of structured and unstructured interviews with elected officials and village residents. The number of interviews that the PI will now be able to conduct in the field is less than that originally proposed due to the diminished period of residence in the field. Nonetheless, as many interviews as possible will be conducted. Similarly, other linguistic data collection (e.g., public speeches, everyday conversation) will have to be reduced for the same reason.

Time Frame and Collaborations: Three types of activities are involved in this project: the acquisition of data during fieldwork in Tonga; the digitization and the analyses of data at the home institution; the publication of the results as articles in professional journals. The acquisition of the linguistic, geographical, and social networks data will now be conducted over a period of 15 months, 2004-2005, including two months of fieldwork–one month in summer 2004 and one month in summer 2005. During the first period of fieldwork the PI will collect part of the social network data, and conduct some interviews. During the second period of fieldwork, the PI will collect linguistic data, conduct some experimental activities, and possibly collect more data about social networks. Analyses of the first set of data during academic year 2004-2005 will be conducted at Northern Illinois University. The second set of data will be analyzed when further support for the project is secured.

Collaboration with Charles Cappell, Department of Sociology, and Kurt Schultz, School of Art, both at Northern Illinois University, is deemed as fundamental for the success of the project. Cappell will collaborate in the preparation of the questionnaires about social networks (before fieldwork), in the preparation of these data for statistical analyses, and in the selection of the appropriate statistical application/s and procedures that best suit the goals of the research project. Schultz is responsible for the 3-D rendering and for the programming of the Director application that makes possible the analyses of the linguistic data (digital videotapes) in synchrony with the spatial data (3-D of Houma). His contribution will make possible the innovative analyses to be conducted on the data (digitized interviews) gathered in the field.

Field Site: Only one community will now be involved in this project: the village of Houma. This village is a small subsistence community (172 residents), on the northern island of Vava’u. In the village of Houma, the PI will collect data about social relationships, social networks, and political choices regarding the election of the town officer. Most of the information regarding the geographical and social space in Houma has already been entered in the "Digitized Tonga" database. In collaboration with Dr. Cappell, sociometric questionnaires will be prepared during summer 2004 (before fieldwork) that will measure several analytical dimensions of interpersonal ties. These questionnaires will follow standard network methodology in that a full grid of potential actors will be presented to each respondent and they will be asked to mark which of those actors were involved in the interactions being investigated. The questionnaires will try to capture the local political structure by asking respondents with whom they interacted to solve a dispute or "trouble case," to mobilize public opinion to reach a collective decision, and to influence other members of the village to take a particular action. Research on political networks also includes the use of "hypothetical" or pending political problems and how network contacts would be used to gain influence. One or two of these questionnaire formats will be used focusing on pending local political issues.

Most of the adults (18 years and older) in the village of Houma will be interviewed and observed (again, the limited time now available does not allow a complete survey of all adult villagers). The observation of informal interactions during the working hours, at the end of the day, and on week-ends was planned to occur at fixed intervals of two or three days and for periods of two or more hours. Conducting these systematic observations is now rendered very unlikely by the fact that too many other activities need to be completed during the limited period of residence in the field. In summer 2002, the PI conducted an indirect observation of daily activity by asking every day for a week a number of villagers about their communicative exchanges during each day with other co-villagers. This activity can be conducted by a Tongan assistant and will substitute the direct observation previously planned. The collection of these data in this manner will be attempted for a period of minimum ten days and a maximum of two weeks in summer 2004.

Experimental Tasks: In summer 2005, The PI will administer a set of experimental tasks to investigate ego-centered cognitive networks. One of these tasks involves transferring mental information about social space–kinship, social relationships, and social networks–into graphic forms. The PI will first present subjects with a set of cards containing the names of all the adults co-villagers (around 90), including the subject. Then, the PI will ask the subject to sort the cards in significant groups. Finally, the PI will ask them to draw (create a diagram of) the group to which they have assigned themselves. The PI expects the subjects to put themselves in a peripheral positions in the drawing and to put in the center one of the few apical or central individuals from the already obtained social networks. In summer 2005, the PI will also administer other two experimental tasks: a memory task and a free recall task. The first one involves asking individuals to remember the co-participants in an event. The PI expects the subjects' recall to be skewed toward few participants, especially those who occupy central or apical positions in the social networks the subjects belong to. The other one requires individuals to provide a list of people to whom one is related for a stated reason, e.g., neighborhood, subsistence/business, religion, politics. Given the assumption (to be tested) that people first remembered or recalled are more prominent, these tasks provide salient information about representations of social relationships. The PI expects people first remembered to be those occupying central positions in the social networks the subjects belong to. Since this task is used as a further check of my hypotheses, the PI will administer it only to a limited sample of the whole adult population of the village.

Research Assistance and Equipment: Most of the described activities require some fluency in Tongan, fluency that the PI has acquired through formal studies and during his residence in the Kingdom. They also require the assistance of a graduate student for the electronic recording of the data, both audio, video, and digital and for conducting some of the social network observations. The assistance of native Tongan speakers for the transcription of the linguistic data is also necessary. The amount of data to be analyzed is such that the PI would be unable to conduct the research within the time indicated without the assistance of a graduate student/s. Besides, graduate students will acquire skills in research management, research implementation, and in data analysis. The PI's own linguistic and cognitive audio/video/digital laboratory at the Anthropology Department at Northern Illinois University already has available most of the necessary equipment, the other equipment necessary is a laptop computer system.

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