ABSTRACT
This chapter is about glocalization, or the globalization of the local. It concerns pre-colonial northwestern Melanesia and how agents both of globalization and of local identity sustained their own existences by manipulating the production and distribution of distinctive local products though systems of regional interaction and interdependence which might otherwise have been expected to diminish or eliminate local irregularities and homogenize cultures. These systems comprised webs of small-scale, politically autonomous communities articulated by specialized long-distance middleman traders such as the Siassi Islanders, who linked northeastern New Guinea with the western islands of the Bismarck Archipelago.
