"Giuffre combines shrewd participant observation with network analysis to capture the emergence of an art world in Rarotonga. Identities vie with ethnicity for dominance, as do paintings with crafts, during a decade of contentions on and off the island. Central to her analysis is the paradoxical interplay of canons with collectors across auctions and galleries, all triggered by tourism plus exchange with New Zealand." — Harrison White, Columbia University
"Drawing theoretical and methodological inspiration from sources as varied as Becker, Bourdieu, and social network research, Katherine Giuffre opens up new avenues for the analysis of artistic creativity. An inquiry richly informed by historical, ethnographic, and documentary research, this book reaffirms the collective nature of artistic innovation and uncovers in remarkable detail the social and relational processes at its core. This wonderful book will become an indispensable point of reference for cultural analysts, students of art worlds, social network researchers, and sociologists of modernity and globalization." — Mustafa Emirbayer, University of Wisconsin-Madison