Pacific Island Studies Research Papers (original) (raw)

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- Museum Studies, Pacific Island Studies, Pacific Islands art, Museum and Heritage Studies
- by Siobhan McDonnell
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- Pacific Island Studies, Land tenure, Melanesia (Anthropology), Vanuatu

One of the main reasons for Tongans immigrating to the United States (U.S.) was to enter into tertiary schooling and further one’s knowledge within colleges and universities (Hafoka, ‘Ulu‘ave & Hafoka, 2014). As this has been an aspiration for many Tongan people entering the U.S. for themselves and/or their posterity, another location of knowledge attainment and financial sustainability has become a prevalent force within the Tongan U.S. diasporic community, the airlines. The study takes place in the Ano Māsima, or known as the Salt Lake Valley, due to the influx of Tongans that reside in Utah compared to other parts of the U.S. (US Census Bureau, 2015; EPIC, 2014; Davidson, 2011). The purpose of this study is to explore the phenomenon of how Tongans in the U.S. utilize the airline industry to maintain connections to the sources of Tongan knowledge, which is people (our relationships), and place (where they reside, and our homelands). Also, to better understand reasoning of the influx of Tongans within the airline industry. Through the lenes of Tā-Vā and Critical Race Theories, the study revealed knowledge of air travel to fly around the world to learn and connect, a sense of community and family nurtured within the workplace, and a form of knowledge production created through the undercurrents. The findings reveal content and resources to support marginalized communities (such as Tongans) through seeking to better engage with these groups beyond schooling, and recognizing recommendations regarding the study (such as data disaggregation (mixed race), labor and school experiences, etc.).

- by ʻInoke Hafoka
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- Education, Pacific Island Studies, Migration Studies, Diaspora Studies

To consider small islands as places for sustainable tourism or sustainable anything, for that matter, must surely be cause for critical deliberation. Small islands as sanctuaries, or rare citadels for ecological safekeeping and tight-knit communities, runs counter to islands as sites for extraction and development, yet increasingly the latter prevails. However, the former are the precise reasons that small islands are aligned with the global travel supply chain. Consuming small islands abides with the tropical idyll narrative and, within such invocations, the exposure of small islands to externalities renders its utility to purposes that run counter to benign and constructive outcomes. Herein is the dilemma for small islands and their entanglements with tourism expansion.
See full report here: http://projects.upei.ca/unescochair/files/2020/07/Annual-Report-on-Global-Islands-2019.pdf

- by Joseph M Cheer
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- Tourism Studies, Tourism Marketing, Tourism Management, Pacific Island Studies

This is a qualitative study that investigates how culture and race impact the college experiences of PI football players, how those experiences enhance or inhibit their persistence in higher education, and to introduce Pacific Islander Cultural Racism Theory (PI-CRiT) as a guiding framework for the research. The methodology for this study weaves three Pacific Islander cultural constructs together to ensure that the research process is respectful of each participant, their community, and their gift of mo'olelo (story). This PI methodology disrupts dominant research paradigms by suggesting that data collection, analysis and interpretation should align with its participants' ontology, epistemology and axiology. That is, the methods to gain more knowledge about reality (methodology), should align with the participants' views about reality (ontology), their ways of thinking about reality (epistemology), and their ethics, morals and values that guide their interaction in that reality (axiology).

Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) is increasingly being advocated as a climate adaptation approach that can deliver multiple benefits to communities. EbA scholarship argues that community-based projects can strengthen those ecosystems that deliver critical services to communities and in doing so enhance community resilience. In particular, the inclusion of indigenous and traditional knowledge (ITK) into community-based EbA projects is positioned as critical to successful climate adaptation. Yet, there is surprisingly little investigation into how ITK is being defined and incorporated into EbA initiatives. This paper critically reviews EbA literature and provides empirical examples from Vanuatu and Samoa to demonstrate the different ways ITK relates to EbA projects. We find that there is widespread recognition that ITK is important for indigenous and local communities and can be employed successfully in EbA. However, this recognition is more aspirational than practical and is not being necessarily translated into ITK-informed or ITK-driven EbA projects. ITK should not be conceptualized simply as a collection of local environmental information that is integrated with Western scientific knowledge. Instead, ITK is part of nested knowledge systems (information– practices–worldviews) of indigenous peoples. This knowledge includes local natural resource management, sociocultural governance structures, social norms, spiritual beliefs, and historical and contemporary experiences of colonial dispossession and marginalization. At present, most EbA projects focus on the provision of information to main decision-makers only; however, since ITK is held collectively, it is essential that entire communities are included in ITK EbA projects. There is a huge potential for researchers and ITK holders to coproduce knowledge that would be best placed to drive climate adaptation in a changing world.

- by Johanna Nalau
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- Climate Change, Decision Making, Pacific Island Studies, Climate Change Adaptation

L ’étude du « Blackbirding », la chasse aux « oiseaux noirs » dans les archipels du triangle polynésien. Cette « chasse » est à l’origine d’un commerce très fructueux. C’est un phénomène qui s’amplifie à partir des années 1860 lorsque des « recruteurs » sans scrupule écument les îles en dehors de tout cadre réglementaire. La découverte et l'évangélisation ont profondément bouleversé les traditions et les façons de vivre des Polynésiens et voici que se prépare, à partir du Pérou, une agression encore plus terrible : celle de « négriers » sans scrupules. Les raids des Péruviens de 1861 à 1863 dans les îles polynésiennes ont déferlé sur ces paradis comme de véritables tsunami, dont les épicentres se trouvaient dans le port péruvien de Callao. Un grand nombre de pauvres gens sans défense vont se retrouver dans des îles bien pires que les leurs où souvent ils connaissent une famine endémique, des îles habitées par des milliers d’oiseaux, pour y ramasser leur fiente, le guano.

- by CHRISTINE PEREZ
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- Pacific Island Studies, Guano, Evangelisation, Esclavage

Le 12 avril 2014, les Chefs coutumiers Kanak ont adopté dans leurs aires coutumières respectives la "Charte du Peuple Kanak - socle commu des valeurs et principes fondamentaux de la civilisation Kanak". Ce texte a ensuite été solennellement proclamé à Nouméa le 26 avril en présence de l'ensemble des autorités coutumières. Ce travail de constitution de socle commun des valeurs et de rédaction engagé par le Sénat coutumier Kanak suscite l'admiration des personnes versées dans les questions de décolonisation, de justice, de mémoire et de développement.
Ainsi, l'émergence de la revendication autochtone dasn un nouveau contexte socio-politique est d'abord une entreprise décolonisatrice (I). C'est pourquoi la démarche autochtoniste bouleverse les principes constitutionnels et les institutions politiques et adminsitratives de la Nouvelle-Calédonie (II).
Le présent texte discute du contexte de l'adoption de la Charte, de l'organisation du peuple Kanak et propose des réflexions sur ce nouveau pas vers l'autodétermination des Kanak.

NEW BOOK SERIES: Maritime Literature and Culture offers alternative rubrics for literary and cultural studies to those of nation, continent and area, which inter-articulate with current debates on comparative and world literatures, globalization and planetary or Anthropocene thought in illuminating ways. The humanities have paid increasing attention to oceans, islands and shores as sites of cultural production, while the maritime imagination in contemporary literatures and other cultural forms has presented ways of responding to human migration, global neoliberalism and climate change. This series provides a forum for discussion of these and other maritime expressions, including enquiries that engage maritime and coastal zones as spaces that enable reflection on labour and leisure; racial terror and performances of freedom; environmental wonder and degradation; metaphor and materiality; and the various implications of globe, world and planet.

- by Meg Samuelson
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- Cultural Studies, World Literatures, Pacific Island Studies, Literature

The conference at Gotland University assembled over 200 Pacific Islands scholars, scientists, students and enthusiasts in the island city of Visby in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Like its predecessors, this conference stimulated to new discussions on the Pacific past, present and future. The conference was co-chaired by Paul Wallin and Helene Martinsson-Wallin, Gotland University and Christopher Stevenson, The Easter Island Foundation. The VII International Conference on Easter Island and the Pacific was the first of its kind to be held in Europe and therefore the ideas of the world of the Pacific expands to a global scale.
This volume contains 6 chapters with 40 papers on updated Pacific research in the fields of archaeology and anthropology. Chapter 1-3 focus on Easter Island (Rapa Nui) research, Chapter 4 on Eastern Polynesia and the question on Pacific-American contacts, Chapter 5 on the Western Pacific and Chapter 6 include Miscellaneous Papers. The main themes at the conference were migration, identity, and cultural heritage. The keynote speech by Professor John Flenley at the Geography Department of Massey University, New Zealand focused on these issues from a paleobotanical perspective that clearly showed how man changes the environment when arriving into untouched Island landscapes. With this as a starting point and background, the discussion continued into cultural complexity and questions on identity...
We hope this collection of papers prove to be a unique and useful contribution to future research in the Pacific area.

In this essay, I explore ways Native Pacific activists enact Indigenous futurities and open space to transform present settler colonial conditions. In particular, I highlight the Protect Mauna a Wākea movement as a field of such openings. In this movement Kānaka Maoli and settler allies work together to unmake relations of settler colonialism and imperialism, protecting Indigenous relationships between human and nonhumans through direct action and compassionate engagement with settler-state law enforcement. This kind of futures-creation is not only in the interest of Indigenous people. Indigenous resistance against industrial projects that destroy or pollute our territories concerns the health of all people.

- by booker Sokovagone
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- Pacific Island Studies

● NZ HERITAGE BOOK AWARD 2019
● Two KA PALAPALA PO'OKELA AWARDS 2019
● STORYLINES NOTABLE BOOK AWARD 2019
● Best of 2019 - Radio New Zealand National: 'absolutely one of the best books I have ever read'
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AUTHOR WEBSITE: https://authors.org.nz/author/andrewcrowe/
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- by andrew crowe
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- Geography, Pacific Island Studies, Polynesian Studies, Natural History

En 1971, la France dispose de la force de dissuasion planifiée au début de la Ve République : des Mirage IV dotés de bombes de 60 kt (quatre fois la puissance déployée à Hiroshima), des missiles sol-sol au plateau d’Albion (150 kt), ceux de la force océanique, embarqués dans des sous-marins, d’une puissance nominale de 500 kt. À quel prix ? Les 193 essais aériens puis souterrains, réalisés au Centre d’Expérimentation du Pacifique de 1966 à 1996 n’ont pas seulement impacté l’écosystème des atolls de Moruroa et Fangataufa où ils ont été tiré : ils ont bouleversé la vie de l’ensemble des Polynésiens, qu’ils aient été concernés, travailleurs et riverains des sites, par les retombées radioactives, ou que leur mode de vie ait été transformé par la gigantesque entreprise qui a mobilisé une centaine de milliers d’hommes et des milliards de francs, des Marquises à Bora-Bora. Écrire l’histoire d’un deuxième contact, après la « découverte » de la Polynésie, et les différentes facettes de cette rencontre entre deux mondes, voici l’ambition de ce livre.

- by Renaud Meltz
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- Pacific Island Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Nuclear Weapons, French Polynesia
- by John Taylor
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- Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Anthropology, Visual Studies

Le présent rapport expose les motifs justifiant la mise en place d’une action de promotion concertée des outils transactionnels relatifs au foncier et aux droits fonciers pour concrétiser les objectifs de conservation et de résilience climatique dans la région Pacifique. Il s’appuie sur deux études de référence : un tour d’horizon mondial des outils transactionnels mettant en jeu les biens et les droits fonciers, complété par les données d’expérience relatives à l’application de ces outils à l’échelon régional et dans certains pays océaniens ; et une évaluation de la faisabilité du recours accru à ces outils dans quatre États et Territoires insulaires océaniens cibles : les Fidji, Vanuatu, la Nouvelle Calédonie et la Polynésie française. L’analyse exposée ici s’inspire de ces deux études qui ont associé recherche documentaire, entretiens avec des informateurs clés et ateliers de consultation des parties prenantes.

- by Jaap Timmer
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- Anthropology, Climate Change, Pacific Island Studies, Land Law

Story dialogue known as talanoa is increasingly finding its place as a Pacific research method. The authors situate talanoa as an Indigenous concept of relationally mindful critical oratory. Approaching talanoa from mostly a Tongan lens, it is argued that it can contribute to broader discussions of Indigenous research methods and epistemology. The authors address the talanoa literature that has defined it as an open or informal discussion, and respond to questions that have emerged from challenges in implementing it practically in academic research. Indigenous Oceanic thought is used to interpret talanoa as a mediation between relations of Mana (potency), Tapu (sacred/restrictions), and Noa (equilibrium), which is a gap in the talanoa literature. Talanoa is grounded as a continuum of Indigenous knowledge production and wisdom present from the past that is adaptable to research settings. Centring Moana (Oceanic) epistemology in talanoa challenges dominant research methods to adapt to Indigenous paradigms, rather than attempting to Indigenize a Western one.

The origins of the New Zealand population are highly diverse. New Zealand Māori are the indigenous peoples with a population of approximately half a million (~12 %), with the remainder comprising predominantly European/Caucasian (~50 %), Pacific Island Polynesian (~28 %) and Asian (~10 %) peoples. With a prevalence of overweight and obesity of 65%for adults >15 years of age, of which 28 % have a BMI>30 kg/m2, New Zealand has been ranked third highest in a global OECD obesity review, behind only the US and Mexico. Levels of childhood obesity are also significant, with 31 % of New Zealand’s children either overweight or obese. Few gender differences exist, but there are significant differences between ethnicities (Asian>European Caucasian>Māori>Pacific) with disproportionate representation by those poorer and with less formal education. A high 62 % of Pacifika are obese and virtually the entire adult population has a BMI >25 kg/m2. Public health measures to limit progressive increases in weight are unsuccessful, and clearly should be priority for government focused on disease prevention.

- by Amy Liu and +1
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- Pacific Island Studies, Obesity, Diabetes, Public Health

In the late 1990s and early 2000s a wave of Ponzi schemes swept through Papua New Guinea, Australia, and the Solomon Islands. U-Vistract, the most notorious scheme, along with other fast money schemes, attracted 300,000 investors, enticing them with promises of 100 percent interest to be paid monthly. Its founder, Noah Musingku, was a charismatic leader who promoted the scheme as a form of Christian mission and as the basis for establishing an independent kingdom.
Fast Money Schemes uses in-depth interviews with investors, newspaper accounts, and participant observation to understand the scheme’s appeal from the point of view of those who invested and lost, showing that organizers and investors alike understood the scheme as a way of accessing and participating in a global economy. John Cox delivers a “post-village” ethnography that gives insight into the lives of urban, middle-class Papua New Guineans, a group that is not familiar to US readers and that has seldom been a focus of anthropological interest. The book’s concern with understanding the interweaving of morality, finance, and aspirations shared by a global cosmopolitan middle class has wide resonance beyond studies of Papua New Guinea and anthropology.

- by John Cox
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- Development Studies, Globalization, Pacific Island Studies, Anthropology of Christianity

Samoa was the first Pacific Island State to secure the right
to self-determination and independence in Oceania during
the 20th century (1962).1 Samoa’s population is estimated at
198,414 people.2 The demographics of Samoa are: Samoan
96%, Euronesians 2% (persons of European and Polynesian
ancestry), and other 1.9%.3 Through decades of direct action in
non-violent protest via the Mau movement, combined with repeated
delegations to the League of Nations and later the United
Nations, and in the face of violent oppression, the Indigenous
Peoples of Samoa secured a seat at the United Nations as
a full member in 1976.4 Samoa originally abstained in the vote to
adopt the UNDRIP in 2007; however, they have since expressed
their support.5
When Samoa achieved its independence, it created a
modern nation state upholding the rule of law. However, Samoa
retained the fa’a Samoa (traditional culture) in political
structures and in its Constitution. Matai (traditional chiefs) are
able to stand for election to the Fono (unicameral parliament).
The Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) has been in power
since 1982 and has supported specific steps towards universal
values of equality. Universal suffrage was introduced in 1990,
granting women the right to vote for the first time. In 2013, the
Constitution was amended guaranteeing women five seats in
the Fono. The Komesina o Sulufaiga (Ombudsman) Act 2013
expanded the mandate of the Komesina o Sulufaiga Act from
1989 onwards to include the National Human Rights Institution
of Samoa (NHRI). The independent institution was given three
main functions: good governance, human rights and a special
investigation unit.

- by Georges Depeyrot
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- History, Economic History, Japanese Studies, Economics

This paper looks at Bruno Nettl's analysis of comparison and the idea of a comparative method in ethnomusicology. Drawing on research into alliances and affiliations between Indigenous artists and activists in Australia and PNG and their counterparts in the African Diaspora, it argues that historical ethnomusicology--or, a world music history--can be play an important role in the future of ethnomusicology and in decolonizing musicology at large. Research for this world music history is of necessity multi-sited and comparative, though not in the ways that older structural-functionalist and structuralist projects were.

- by Gabriel Solis
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- Black Studies Or African American Studies, Music, Music History, Musicology
- by Prof. Katerina Teaiwa
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- Indigenous Studies, Performing Arts, Dance Studies, Pacific Island Studies
- by Linda Jean Kenix
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- Journalism, Pacific Island Studies, Audience and Reception Studies, Culture
- by Nathaniel Moir
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- History, Military History, International Relations, Pacific Island Studies

Trade in marketplaces is central to the domestic distribution of food and other goods throughout the developing world. The commodity networks involved are often complex with numerous intermediate transactions between producer and consumer. By contrast, in the Pacific nation of Papua New Guinea (PNG), marketplace trade has historically occurred through very short commodity networks. This article examines the appearance and growing significance of intermediary trading in PNG's marketplaces and associated trade networks. Reselling is supporting urban livelihoods at a time when making a living in town is increasingly precarious, but the transformation of marketplaces, I argue, also threatens to reduce the agency of rural producers and erode the incomes of certain producers. Growing intermediation may also see men increasingly involved in an economic domain where women have been central. The emergence of intermediaries is globally an important historical development, and this article provides a rare study of this process within the contemporary era. K E Y W O R D S commodity networks, intermediaries and middlemen, marketplace, Papua New Guinea, rural-urban relations, trade

- by Timothy Sharp
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- Human Geography, Economic Geography, Pacific Island Studies, Commodity Chains

This baseline builds on the previous localisation baselining work in Vanuatu. The international humanitarian sector is currently developing ways to measure progress on localisation following the commitments made at the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016. This has also been a key issue for humanitarian actors in the Pacific region. Generating an evidence base on localisation is important in order to demonstrate what change is happening and the impact it is having. This report provides a baseline snapshot of localisation in Tonga.

Is religion inherently predisposed to violence? Or has religion been taken hostage by a politics of aggression? The years since the end of the Cold War have shown a noticeable shift in patterns of religious extremism, accentuating the... more

- by Michael Jerryson and +1
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- Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism

The popular Samoan adage 'o le ala i le pule o le tautua' (the pathway to leadership is through service) is commonly understood by Samoans around the world as an important life value. Writings about tautua (service) have chronicled traditional understandings of the term (Tavale 2009, Tavale 2013) and more recently with personal experiences of tautua in Samoa (Filisi, 2018) and transnational matai in their communities (Falaniko 2020, Fetui 2020). Being able to trace the links between these understandings of tautua leads to considering ways in which tautua is enacted and enabled in Samoa and transnational societies. Tavale's four stages of tautua (Tavale, 2013) and his collection of proverbial expressions that focus on tautua (Tavale, 2009) form a natural foundation for its application in Samoa and internationally. Through the eyes of matai with Samoan language fluency, we use our multiple service roles with the intent of privileging interdisciplinary Pasifika research. We introduce the three intergenerational spheres of service-tautua ia tautua (serve to serve), tautua ia pule (serve to lead) and pule ia tautua (lead to serve)-that show what tautua looks like in a lifecycle. Samoan indigenous knowledge pertaining to service foregrounds the shared experiences of tautua by the authors. The oscillation of the spheres speaks directly to service, positioning our own individual experiences as matai, as Pasifika tertiary students (Pilisi, 2020) and how we negotiate our journey of tautua within our collective contexts through the conceptualisation of the "tautua lifecycle" model-to explore the pathway to leadership through service.

In a recent ISJ paper, “Island Archaeology: In Search of a New Horizon”, Boomert and Bright (2007) argue that the field of “island archaeology” should be replaced by an “archaeology of maritime identity”. We disagree and counter that although islands share many physical, biological, and cultural similarities with continental coasts, coastal zones also grade uninterruptedly into riverine, lacustrine, and terrestrial landscapes, raising questions about the validity of their concept of the archaeology of maritime identity. In our view, island archaeology (the application of archaeology to island settings), regardless of past biogeographical underpinnings, has made major contributions to understanding the historical ecology, human impacts, and cultural developments of islands around the world. A focus on islands by archaeologists has encouraged scholars to study the history of island and maritime societies within a comparative framework that is useful for breaking out of the often provincial focus on a single island or archipelago.

Pourquoi le Polynésien diffère-t-il dans sa conception du temps ? Parce qu'il insère tout son être dans la vie universelle et vit intensément son i teie nei : le moment présent. L'important, c'est maintenant non parce que demain n'existe pas, mais aussi parce que demain deviendra aujourd'hui. Le Polynésien ne marque aucun intérêt pour les dates et leur exactitude : qu'importent les années qui s'égrènent sur un calendrier. Ce qui importe ce sont les événements remarquables dignes de rester dans la mémoire collective, celle qui engrange les successions des générations, savoir collectif colporté par le haere no po, le Grand Marcheur de la Nuit, grand-prêtre qui récite inlassablement les généalogies à chaque instant des multiples rituels qui scandent la vie de la communauté : oublier les généalogies, c'est la mort assurée. En effet, ce sont elles qui déterminent accès au pouvoir et autorité. Le Polynésien a tout son temps. C'est l'explication qu'on donné les missionnaires du fait que le Polynésien marche doucement, posément, sans se presser, prenant le temps de vivre pour que chaque pas, chaque phase de la vie soit bien assurée et appréciée pleinement. C'est ainsi que le grand héros Maui, dont le mythe étiologique est présent dans tous les archipels du Triangle polynésien, capture le soleil, Râ, afin qu'il règle sa course sur le rythme de l'homme afin que les populations puissent avoir le temps de cuire leur nourriture et de la manger pendant le jour, et d'avoir le temps de dormir pendant la nuit, de vivre le temps, à leur rythme ! La nature vit au même diapason : la pratique des rahui, les tapu-interdits-temporaires imposés par l'ari'i, le roi, consiste à imposer des périodes de prohibition, des restriction, notamment sur la pêche à la bonite, pour que les ressources terrestres ou marines aient le temps de se « ressourcer ».

- by CHRISTINE PEREZ
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- Pacific Island Studies, Comparative mythology, Insularity, Espace Et Temps
- by Linda Jean Kenix
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- Journalism, Pacific Island Studies, Audience and Reception Studies, Culture

This chapter presents the historical context of the People of the Pacific and the challenges imperialism, colonialism, and (im)migration imposed on this community in the United States. The authors illustrate how all Pacific Islanders are Indigenous peoples while some have particular political relationships with the United States. We argue that data disaggregation for the population is a first step to acknowledging Pacific Islanders as indigenous peoples. Lastly, the authors offer implications of research for policies and practices that better support, and are more inclusive of the NHPI community.

- by Kēhaulani Vaughn and +1
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- Indigenous Studies, Pacific Island Studies, Higher Education

This editorial introduction delves into problematic aspects of positionality and publishing ethics related to island and Indigenous issues. Taking its point of departure in Gilley's paper on 'The case for colonialism' and Pöllath's paper 'Revisiting island decolonization', the present paper questions: Whose voices should we listen to when considering island and Indigenous issues? If some voices should be excluded from the debate, how should we determine which voices are excluded? Ultimately, the paper criticizes exclusionary approaches and argues that Island Studies Journal should be open to publishing articles from metropolitan and outsider perspectives as well as from islander and Indigenous perspectives―but that it is necessary for authors and readers to be aware of their own positions within the colonial matrix of power.

- by Adam Grydehoj
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- Indigenous Studies, Publishing, Pacific Island Studies, Island Studies