Centre for Pacific Studies
https://hdl.handle.net/10023/814
2024-03-19T12:13:54ZNavigating to the Island of Hope - a Pacific response to globalisation, environmental degradation and climate change
https://hdl.handle.net/10023/29083
Navigating to the Island of Hope - A Pacific Response to Climate Change, Environmental Degradation and Economic Globalisation in Oceania explores and seeks to understand indigenous responses to the powerful forces of globalisation and climate change through ethnographic research and cultural analysis spanning more than eight years in totality, and the Pacific renaissance concept of the Island of Hope. The Island of Hope serves as a lens, and is of interest both from a scholarly perspective and a praxis perspective, as the Island of Hope is a complex amalgamation and synthesis of Pacific ethics elements, economic justice, communal interconnectedness, cosmology and the Christian idea of heaven on Earth. This dissertation, just as the Island of Hope itself does, aims to critique and offer a unique perspective on a motivating and unifying principle in Oceania, which extends from the personal to international in scope, and explores the political and economic, the religious and spiritual, the local and global, as well as nature conservation and climate change activism. Global connections dictate global obligations.
2020-07-27T00:00:00ZGard, Rowan A.Navigating to the Island of Hope - A Pacific Response to Climate Change, Environmental Degradation and Economic Globalisation in Oceania explores and seeks to understand indigenous responses to the powerful forces of globalisation and climate change through ethnographic research and cultural analysis spanning more than eight years in totality, and the Pacific renaissance concept of the Island of Hope. The Island of Hope serves as a lens, and is of interest both from a scholarly perspective and a praxis perspective, as the Island of Hope is a complex amalgamation and synthesis of Pacific ethics elements, economic justice, communal interconnectedness, cosmology and the Christian idea of heaven on Earth. This dissertation, just as the Island of Hope itself does, aims to critique and offer a unique perspective on a motivating and unifying principle in Oceania, which extends from the personal to international in scope, and explores the political and economic, the religious and spiritual, the local and global, as well as nature conservation and climate change activism. Global connections dictate global obligations.Articulating life-itself : growth, place and movement on Mugaba (Rennell) in the Solomon Islands
https://hdl.handle.net/10023/29082
Mugaba (Rennell) and Mugiki (Bellona) in the Solomon Islands, is the site of multiple stories, to which different values are given through different registers of 'life-itself'. Research expeditions that renamed Mugaba's life forms would later provide the compelling qualities to merit East Rennell as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (and later as World Heritage in Danger). Earlier ethnographic accounts that endeavoured to capture the last glimpses of a pre-Christian culture, represented both Euro-American genetic legacies, and Rennellese and Bellonese descriptions of people 'coming out of place'. Fieldwork on East Rennell spanned over two years, exploring how Rennellese people have folded these converging stories into their analyses of historical becoming, creating novel articulations of life and its processes. Under the research theme 'Life Itself in the Pacific' at the Centre for Pacific Studies, this work takes Rennellese descriptions of life (human and non-human others) and its contingencies as its starting point. It explores Rennellese articulations of Life-Itself, how people's growth is also enabled by different kinds of movements and flows - those that have elsewhere been qualified as 'history', 'kinship', 'gender', and even 'ecology' - to examine what is at risk in an 'endangered' World Heritage Site.
2020-12-02T00:00:00ZBrowne, Mia KimberlyMugaba (Rennell) and Mugiki (Bellona) in the Solomon Islands, is the site of multiple stories, to which different values are given through different registers of 'life-itself'. Research expeditions that renamed Mugaba's life forms would later provide the compelling qualities to merit East Rennell as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (and later as World Heritage in Danger). Earlier ethnographic accounts that endeavoured to capture the last glimpses of a pre-Christian culture, represented both Euro-American genetic legacies, and Rennellese and Bellonese descriptions of people 'coming out of place'. Fieldwork on East Rennell spanned over two years, exploring how Rennellese people have folded these converging stories into their analyses of historical becoming, creating novel articulations of life and its processes. Under the research theme 'Life Itself in the Pacific' at the Centre for Pacific Studies, this work takes Rennellese descriptions of life (human and non-human others) and its contingencies as its starting point. It explores Rennellese articulations of Life-Itself, how people's growth is also enabled by different kinds of movements and flows - those that have elsewhere been qualified as 'history', 'kinship', 'gender', and even 'ecology' - to examine what is at risk in an 'endangered' World Heritage Site.Infrastructure in Melanesia : imaginaries, experiences and practices of road making in Buka Island
https://hdl.handle.net/10023/29081
This thesis explores Melanesian concepts of roads based on multilocal ethnographic research on different kinds of roads in Buka Island, the northern island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. It explores how different modes of socialities, politics, and future imaginaries have to be negotiated in the context of infrastructural transformation and varying degrees of infrastructural fragility. Taking the idioms for roads like maroro in Haku dialect and rot in Tok Pisin as an analytical vantage point, my thesis analyses how people in Buka conceptualize, build, maintain, and move along different types of roads, including garden roads (beaten footpaths), coral roads, and sealed sections of a highway. It compares the different socialities, politics, and imaginaries these roads generate and the ways in which they intersect and mutually inform each other. Inspired by the anthropology of roads and infrastructure, I argue that Melanesian socialities and politics and their continuously changing articulations can be addressed particularly well by looking at infrastructural transformations, specifically of roads. In addition, this thesis contributes a Melanesian perspective to the anthroplogy of roads and infrastructure by experimenting with the question of what practices and imaginaries create roads and what makes them infrastructural in Buka. It demonstrates the importance of taking other concepts of roads and types of roads into account when seeking to understand the changes large-scale public infrastructure projects like highway construction bring about for people.
2021-06-28T00:00:00ZRosolowsky, Marlit FelizitasThis thesis explores Melanesian concepts of roads based on multilocal ethnographic research on different kinds of roads in Buka Island, the northern island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. It explores how different modes of socialities, politics, and future imaginaries have to be negotiated in the context of infrastructural transformation and varying degrees of infrastructural fragility. Taking the idioms for roads like maroro in Haku dialect and rot in Tok Pisin as an analytical vantage point, my thesis analyses how people in Buka conceptualize, build, maintain, and move along different types of roads, including garden roads (beaten footpaths), coral roads, and sealed sections of a highway. It compares the different socialities, politics, and imaginaries these roads generate and the ways in which they intersect and mutually inform each other. Inspired by the anthropology of roads and infrastructure, I argue that Melanesian socialities and politics and their continuously changing articulations can be addressed particularly well by looking at infrastructural transformations, specifically of roads. In addition, this thesis contributes a Melanesian perspective to the anthroplogy of roads and infrastructure by experimenting with the question of what practices and imaginaries create roads and what makes them infrastructural in Buka. It demonstrates the importance of taking other concepts of roads and types of roads into account when seeking to understand the changes large-scale public infrastructure projects like highway construction bring about for people.Translating identities : 'being a missionary' in Papua New Guinea
https://hdl.handle.net/10023/22134
Many studies of missionaries have taken an historical perspective,
looking particularly at missionaries’ role in colonialism. However,
missionaries are still very much part of contemporary Papua New
Guinea (PNG), with a significant number of expatriate missionary
groups working in PNG. This thesis is a study of a present day
mission in PNG, SIL International, formerly known as the Summer
Institute of Linguistics (SIL). It examines the way in which the
mission community is constructed and the boundaries and divisions
within the community itself. It attempts to challenge some of the
stereotypes of missionaries and show that there are different views of
what it is to ‘be a missionary’ even within the missionary community
itself. I focus particularly on what it means to ‘be a missionary’ and
the ambiguities and ambivalences between the ideals and realities of
mission work.
The focus of the study was on SIL members themselves and their
identities as missionaries rather than the effect of their missionising
on others. This is examined through a number of different themes.
Debates about the fence surrounding the mission station highlighted
the way in which it created both a physical and a symbolic boundary
between those living inside the fence and the people living outside of
it. Related to this were debates regarding the mission station,
Ukarumpa and how SIL members should ‘communicate the gospel’.
SIL’s main goal is Bible translation and the thesis explores the
challenges and problems of translation, both the practical aspects of
Bible translation and translating between cultures. Literacy work is
also an important part of SIL’s goal and is shown to be especially
significant in maintaining a good relationship with the PNG
government. Finally, notions of ‘home’ and ‘belonging’, particularly
in relation to the children of missionaries, and the notion of ‘citizens
of heaven’ is shown to help shape SIL members’ identities as
‘missionaries’.
2006-01-01T00:00:00ZRoberts, E. Mei-LiMany studies of missionaries have taken an historical perspective,
looking particularly at missionaries’ role in colonialism. However,
missionaries are still very much part of contemporary Papua New
Guinea (PNG), with a significant number of expatriate missionary
groups working in PNG. This thesis is a study of a present day
mission in PNG, SIL International, formerly known as the Summer
Institute of Linguistics (SIL). It examines the way in which the
mission community is constructed and the boundaries and divisions
within the community itself. It attempts to challenge some of the
stereotypes of missionaries and show that there are different views of
what it is to ‘be a missionary’ even within the missionary community
itself. I focus particularly on what it means to ‘be a missionary’ and
the ambiguities and ambivalences between the ideals and realities of
mission work.
The focus of the study was on SIL members themselves and their
identities as missionaries rather than the effect of their missionising
on others. This is examined through a number of different themes.
Debates about the fence surrounding the mission station highlighted
the way in which it created both a physical and a symbolic boundary
between those living inside the fence and the people living outside of
it. Related to this were debates regarding the mission station,
Ukarumpa and how SIL members should ‘communicate the gospel’.
SIL’s main goal is Bible translation and the thesis explores the
challenges and problems of translation, both the practical aspects of
Bible translation and translating between cultures. Literacy work is
also an important part of SIL’s goal and is shown to be especially
significant in maintaining a good relationship with the PNG
government. Finally, notions of ‘home’ and ‘belonging’, particularly
in relation to the children of missionaries, and the notion of ‘citizens
of heaven’ is shown to help shape SIL members’ identities as
‘missionaries’.What is a schema? : Invited contribution to symposium on Philippe Descola
https://hdl.handle.net/10023/9165
Comment on Descola, Philippe. 2013. Beyond nature and culture. Translated by Janet Lloyd with a foreword by Marshall Sahlins. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2014-01-01T00:00:00ZToren, ChristinaComment on Descola, Philippe. 2013. Beyond nature and culture. Translated by Janet Lloyd with a foreword by Marshall Sahlins. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.