The Frontiers of Pacific Islands Regionalism: Charting the Boundaries of Identity

Abstract

The boundaries of the contemporary Pacific Islands region were drawn not by the inhabitants of these islands but by the colonial powers that administered them after World War II. Ownership of this region was transferred to the Pacific Islanders both by the process of decolonization and by their increased control of the colonial organization that gave the region its political contours. Unable to complete either process, the independent Island countries created a second association. Yet, even this body was not exclusively an Islander association, and a half-century of tensions has followed in reconciling the consequent geopolitical contradiction. Not all the entities within the region are independent, and yet the independent Island states have wished to maintain a regional identity based on the original, colonial era boundaries. This article shows how much of the contemporary political tensions within the Pacific Islands can be traced back to these contradictions in its regional identity.