The Contemporary Pacific: A Journal of Island Affairs

10/05/2024

We are excited to announce Professor Katerina Teaiwa as the first Indigenous female editor of The Contemporary Pacific: An Interdisciplinary Journal (TCP). An alumna of and former faculty member at the Center for Pacific Islands Studies (CPIS) at the University of Hawaiʻi–Mānoa, Teaiwa is an interdisciplinary scholar, artist, and award-winning teacher of Banaban, I-Kiribati, and African American heritage born and raised in Fiji. She is a professor of Pacific studies in the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific and a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Professor Teaiwa’s research is deeply interdisciplinary and Pacific centered; she engages histories of British, Australian, and New Zealand phosphate mining in the central Pacific by interweaving dance, archival and historical research, mixed-media arts, and storytelling. She has contributed several significant pieces to TCP, including book reviews, dialogue pieces, and peer-reviewed articles. In addition to her scholarly excellence, Teaiwa brings an abundance of experience to her editorship, having served as arts editor since 2019 and, previously, as a correspondent (2007–2019) and board member (2003–2007). As outgoing arts editor, she has connected readers to works by Monica Dolores Baza (35:1&2), Yuki Kihara (34:2), Nālani Wilson-Hokowhitu (34:1), Jasmine Togo-Brisby (33:2), Latai Taumoepeau (33:1), Lisa Hilli (32:2); and Joy Lehuanani Enomoto (32:1). As editor, Teaiwa will continue the vital work of maintaining editorial processes and regular publication, bridging between teaching pedagogy and scholarly outputs, expanding readership and visibility in our current digital era, as well as ensuring the long-term sustainability and interdisciplinarity of the journal. As we enter new seas, we are grateful to have Professor Teaiwa guiding our TCP canoe into the future.

24/10/2023

We are pleased to announce the release of the latest volume in the Pacific Islands Monograph Series (PIMS) My Land, My Life: Dispossession at the Frontier of Desire by Siobhan McDonnell, published by the Center for Pacific Islands Studies and University of Hawaii Press.

Throughout Oceania, land is central to identity because it is understood to be spiritually nourishing and sustaining. Land is the mother. Land, and the kinship it nurtures, is the basis for sustaining livelihoods and ways of life. Therefore, Indigenous dispossession from the land has deep and far-reaching consequences. My Land, My Life: Dispossession at the Frontier of Desire explores the land rush that took place in Vanuatu from 2001 to 2014 which resulted in over ten percent of all customary land being leased. In this book, Siobhan McDonnell offers new insights into the drivers of capitalist land transformations. Using multi-scalar and multi-sited ethnography she describes not simply a linear march toward commodification of the landscape by foreign interests, but a complex web replete with the local powerful Indigenous men involved in manipulating power and property.

Interested in reading more? Order your copy here: https://go.hawaii.edu/yUW

26/07/2022

In addition to the 4 articles and 2 dialogue essays, TCP 34-1 includes political reviews of entities in Micronesia and Polynesia, as well as a number of book and media reviews.

View the issue's full contents via Project Muse here: https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/47990.

The Contemporary Pacific: A Journal of Island Affairs covers a wide range of disciplines with the aim of providing comprehensive coverage of contemporary developments in the entire Pacific Islands region, including Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. It features refereed, readable articles that ex...

21/07/2022

Our second dialogue piece in TCP 34-1 is "Pacific People Navigating the Sacred Vā to Frame Relational Care: A Conversation between Friends across Space and Time" by Silia Pa‘usisi Finau, Mele Katea Paea, and Martyn Reynolds.

Read the piece here: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/857202

In many cultures of the Pacific region, the self is relational, inevitably and permanently connected to other people and entities as a fact of existence. Among the articulations of Pacific relationality is the sacred relational space of connection and separation: vā. Differences in relational think...

19/07/2022

TCP 34-1 also includes two timely dialogue pieces!

The first is titled, "Pacific Island Pride: How We Navigate Australia," from Dion Enari and Lorayma Taula.

Read the piece here: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/857201

Pacific Island peoples have a long-standing history in Australia, but throughout that history, their experiences on arrival have unfortunately been marked by racism and prejudice. The racism is extensive, ranging from negative stereotypes to official government statements. In this essay, we explore....

14/07/2022

Learn about the work of Equal Playing Field (EPF), an organization that introduces ideas of gender equity to students in schools in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG), through a qualitative analysis by Ceridwen Spark and Martha Macintyre in "“We Are So Happy EPF Came”: Transformations of Gender in Port Moresby Schools."

Check it out on ProjectMuse here: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/857200

In this article, we examine the work of Equal Playing Field (epf), an organization that introduces ideas of gender equity to students in schools in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Drawing on interviews with students, teachers, and epf staff and volunteers, we demonstrate that the design and im...

12/07/2022

In "The Compensation Page: News Narratives of Public Kinship in Papua New Guinea Print Journalism," Ryan Schram explores how news narratives provide a metaphor for the contact between liberal and relational social orders, producing knowledge of what it means to be a citizen in a society defined by vast and profound diversity.

Read more at ProjectMuse: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/857199

In Papua New Guinea (PNG), news media frequently report on events in which groups exchange gifts as compensation for alleged harms. In news narratives of this type, compensation is a metaphor for the contact between liberal and relational social orders. In this way, news media in PNG produce knowled...

01/07/2022

For an analysis of poems from a special issue of Hawai‘i Review titled Wansolwara: Voices for West Papua alongside two Wansolwara Dance short stories as expressions of Indigenous solidarity with West Papua, look to Bonnie Etherington's "One Salt Water: The Storied Work of Trans-Indigenous Decolonial Imagining with West Papua."

Available on ProjectMuse here: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/857197

Scholars have examined West Papuan efforts to gain merdeka, or freedom, from Indonesia through the lenses of political science, history, legal and human rights studies, and anthropology, which has led to many productive analyses of the independence movement. However, while gesturing to the storied m...

28/06/2022

We’ll be previewing 34-1’s contents over the coming weeks, beginning with the four research articles, moving on to the two Dialogue essays, as well as closing out with the political and book and media reviews. Stay tuned!

23/06/2022

34-1 features art by Nālani Wilson-Hokowhitu, a self-described global citizen of Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) ancestry dedicated to raising awareness about decolonisation as well as critical, innovative and transformative Pacific and Indigenous futurities. Highlighted on the cover is "Hālāwai" (2021; watercolor on paper; 50 x 60 cm).

Read more about Nālani Wilson-Hokowhitu in the "About the Artist" section of 34_1, written by TCP Arts Editor Katerina Teaiwa: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/857196

21/06/2022

We’re kicking off our summer with an exciting new issue, TCP 34-1! Join us over the next few weeks as we highlight the art, articles, authors, and more!

Find it : https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37.

08/06/2022

In case you missed it, today we're highlighting our Fall 2021 special issue, "Schooling Journeys in the Southwestern Pacific," guest edited by David Oakeshott, Rachel Emerine Hicks, and Debra McDougall.

33-2 includes art by Jasmine Togo-Brisby, whose multidisciplinary work explores the historical practice of blackbirding in the Pacific. Featured on the cover is “From Bones and Bellies” (2021; archival pigment print on backlit film, aluminum frame light box).

Find it : https://muse-jhu-edu.eres.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/issue/46981

28/12/2021

TRIBUTE TO PROF BRIJ LAL

The Contemporary Pacific and the Center for Pacific Islands Studies (CPIS) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) join scholars, friends, and family members in Fiji, around the Pacific Islands region, and around the world in reflecting on the life and scholarly contributions of Brij Vilash Lal, Emeritus Professor of Pacific and Asian History at the Australian National University (ANU). He passed away in Brisbane, Australia, on 25 December 2021.

Prof Lal, or Brij as he was fondly known among friends, was the founding editor of The Contemporary Pacific, the reputable Pacific studies journal that CPIS continues to publish. He was a longtime friend and supporter of the Center and a valued member of the Pacific Islands History Association (PHA).

Brij came from a sugarcane farming family in the village of Tabia outside of Labasa, Vanua Levu, Fiji. From that humble beginning, he went on to obtain a BA from the University of the South Pacific (USP), an MA from the University of British Columbia (UBC), and his PhD from the ANU. Over the years, he taught history at USP, the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG), UHM, and the ANU, where he was Professor of Pacific and Asian History from 1990–2016 and later became Emeritus Professor.

In recognition of his contributions to scholarship, Brij received numerous awards and honors, including the Fellowship of the Australian Humanities Academy, the Pacific Distinguished Scholar Medal, the Centenary Medal of the Government of Australia, appointment as an Officer of the Order of Fiji, and, in 2015, appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia.

He was a trailblazing scholar and prolific writer who authored numerous books and hundreds of articles. His work focused largely on Fiji history, especially on Indo-Fijian/Girmit history and Indian diaspora. In recent years, he published short stories that reflected on his life and journeys. His last book was published in Delhi only a month ago.

In the mid-1990s, Brij served in the three-person Constitutional Review Commission with Sir Paul Reeves (Chair) and Mr Tomasi Vakatora. Their review of the 1990 Fiji Constitution based on widespread national and international consultations resulted in a report and recommendations that eventually led to the 1997 Fiji Constitution. This Constitution was endorsed by the Great Council of Chiefs, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

Brij is well known for being a committed teacher, mentor, scholar, and gentleman.

Following the 2006 coup, the current Fiji Government banned him from entering Fiji. He lived and died in exile. Despite this, his daughter Yogi Lal said, “Dad was a Fiji boy to the very end.” Brij is survived by his wife, Padma Lal, who is also a renowned scholar; his children, Niraj and Yogi; and five grandchildren.

09/12/2021

Looking forward to the Sweat and Salt Water: Selected Works virtual launch next week by our sister publication, Pacific Islands Monograph Series! Did you know that Dr Teresia Teaiwa's "L(o)osing the Edge," featured in Sweat and Salt Water, first appeared 20 years ago as part of the 13-2 special issue in The Contemporary Pacific? https://doi.org/10.1353/cp.2001.0071

21/07/2021

TCP 33-1 also features political reviews for entities in Micronesia and Polynesia, as well as book and media reviews of exciting content that spans monographs, edited volumes, art exhibitions, and documentary films.

14/07/2021

For a look into the response of the New Zealand government to military coups in Fiji in the context of rugby, check out Greg Ryan's "Smart Sanctions, Hollow Gestures, and Multilateral Sport: New Zealand–Fiji Relations and the Politics of Professional Rugby, 1987–2011."

07/07/2021

In "Gesturing to the Past: The Case for an Ethnography of Melanesian Poetics," Deborah Van Heekeren explores the loss of poetics in the language of the Vula‘a people of southeastern Papua New Guinea, in particular the relationship between language loss and knowledge loss.

30/06/2021

In “'Keeping an Eye Out for Women': Implicit Feminism, Political Leadership, and Social Change in the Pacific Islands," Ceridwen Spark, John Cox, and Jack Corbett draw on interviews to describe how senior women politicians practice a form of “quiet” or “implicit” feminism.

23/06/2021

Check out Talei Luscia Mangioni's "Confronting Australian Apathy: Latai Taumoepeau and Politics of Performance in Climate Stewardship," for a discussion of the power of diasporic Pacific arts to engage the Australian public in the environmental concerns of Oceania.

18/06/2021

For an examination of the development practices of residents living in informal settlements in Port Moresby, PNG, look to Michelle Nayahamui Rooney's “'We Want Development': Land and Water (Dis)connections in Port Moresby, Urban Papua New Guinea."

17/06/2021

Over the coming weeks, we'll be previewing some of the content in TCP 33-1, beginning with each of the research articles. Stay tuned for more information! And in the meantime, don't forget that TCP is always available via @ ProjectMUSE: https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37

The Contemporary Pacific: A Journal of Island Affairs covers a wide range of disciplines with the aim of providing comprehensive coverage of contemporary developments in the entire Pacific Islands region, including Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. It features refereed, readable articles that ex...

04/06/2021

Hot off the presses, TCP 33-1 is now available! This issue features five research articles, in addition to a host of political and book and media reviews. Available now via @ ProjectMUSE: https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37

33-1 features art by Latai Taumoepeau, who engages a body-centered faivā (performance practice) to spotlight issues related to race, class, and the female body politic. Seen on the issue's front cover is "Stitching (Up) the Sea" (2014; performance).

12/05/2021

Finally, this issue features an excellent selection of political reviews of Melanesia and the region, as well as several engaging book reviews.

05/05/2021

32-2 also features a Dialogue section, "Asylum Seekers in the Pacific (Manus, Nauru)." Guest edited by JC Salyer, Steffen Dalsgaard, and Paige West, it includes 9 essays exploring Australia’s detaining, processing, and resettling of asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus.

30/04/2021

Check out 32-2's Resources essay, "Climate Change, Mental Health, and Well-Being for Pacific Peoples: A Literature Review," by Jemaima Tiatia-Seath, Trish Tupou, and Ian Fookes, for an exploration of the connections between natural disasters and mental health.

28/04/2021

For a look into the legacies of nuclear colonialism, check out Anaïs Maurer's "Snaring the Nuclear Sun: Decolonial Ecologies in Titaua Peu's 'Mutismes: E ‘Ore te Vāvā,'" which considers how both speech and silence become political weapons against environmental racism.

23/04/2021

Check out Hannah Fair's "Their Sea of Islands? Pacific Climate Warriors, Oceanic Identities, and World Enlargement" for an analysis of some of the ways that Pacific Islanders challenge dominant discourses of climate change, the Pacific Islands, and hopelessness.

21/04/2021

For a discussion of frameworks for thinking through climate change and inter-Indigenous Oceanian sociality and politics, look to Angela L Robinson's "Of Monsters and Mothers: Affective Climates and Human-Nonhuman Sociality in Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner’s 'Dear Matafele Peinam.'"