Anne Hattori was in attendance when Tongan scholar Epeli Hau‘ofa delivered a speech that would become his profound and seminal essay, ‘Our Sea of Islands’. Attending the conference with other Pacific Island graduate students, she recalls that it shook them from their insularity and sense of smallness. It reminded them of their historic interconnectedness, fluidity, and dynamism. Yet she also understood that Pacific Islanders, in general, have a strongly centred sense of place. They are grounded in their individual villages and specific islands. This is most clearly demonstrated in the Micronesian navigational concept of etak, the navigational practice of positioning one’s home island as the reference point from which all other movement is located, thus requiring you to know your precise point of origin before undertaking any voyage. Read metaphorically, etak engrains in Islanders the consciousness that they must know their homeland well before moving forward in a reliable and safe manner.