Pacific Way Research Articles

Engaging in twenty-first century practices locally: aligning pacific ways of teaching and learning with innovative learning environments

ABSTRACT Transforming teaching and learning across the Asia Pacific region has moved in waves, from colonial and religious drivers to more recent policy borrowing, resulting in traditional and prescriptive didactic approaches. Nevertheless, an inherent danger exists in introducing global teaching and learning practices without considering the local context. This article proposes a localised solution to global policy reform, a conceptual model that demonstrates the alignment of Pacific teaching and learning methods with contemporary Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs). The conceptual model will illustrate the considerable overlap between these two constructs and provide a contextual and useable framework for future Pacific pedagogical practices that address global educational drivers.

Addressing the challenges of conference participation for the Pacific: a regional approach to maximise attendance and participation

ABSTRACT This paper delves into challenges faced by individuals from remote regions accessing international conferences and proposes culturally appropriate solutions. It shares insights examining remote conference hubs designed to improve attendance and connectivity to online conferences in three Pacific countries. Commissioned by the South Pacific Educators in Vision Impairment (SPEVI), the research aimed to understand barriers faced by remote attendees and document a model for future remote hubs. The findings, including participant feedback and the hub model, are transferable to diverse contexts. Initiated for the SPEVI bi-annual conference, three Pacific hubs facilitated increased attendance and interaction among Pacific Islanders. These hubs provided a space with good internet, facilitated local language communication, and fostered engagement with both main conference activities and specific local events. The collective approach of these hubs resonated with Pacific cultural values, resulting in enhanced participation and satisfaction. This research offers a globally applicable model for remote community participation in conferences and professional development. It provides unique insights from a Pacific perspective, contributing to inclusive conference participation by embracing Pacific ways of understanding and being and advocates for reshaping future online education conferences. Support for professional development in remote locations, emphasising inclusivity and accessibility for all, is discussed.

‘We will not Relax our Efforts’: The Anti-Nuclear Stance of Civil Society and Government in Post-Independence Fiji

ABSTRACT In the years immediately following independence, Fiji took advantage of its position as the first Pacific Island country in the United Nations to highlight the harms of French nuclear testing. Building on the outspoken efforts of Fijian civil society that reflected deep concerns in the region, the government of Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara took on an increasingly activist role in the international arena around the testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific. Fiji’s advocacy over this time represented an important moment in Pacific Way politics, tying nuclear resistance to self-determination struggles. Anti-nuclear sentiment at both a community and political level positioned Pacific agency and perspectives in this global discourse. Revisiting the speeches and diplomatic efforts of the Fijian government alongside the advocacy and activities of the ATOM group offers lessons on the importance of collaborative politics in the face of transboundary harms and regional challenges.

Mentoring: A Traditional Cook Island Approach to Support Men.

The present study examines a unique Cook Island approach to the rehabilitation and support of men, particularly those who have been convicted of criminal offending or who are experiencing other mental health or interpersonal difficulties. The culturally appropriate method of enabling change is offered via a community-based 24-hr mentoring system to support men. Run by men, the program is based on traditional Pacific ways of male mentoring in which one man helps another. This study examines the male mentoring program via qualitative analyses of semi-structured interviews. Seven men who had experienced mentoring and six mentors who deliver the program describe the mentoring system and their experiences. The study identifies several perceived benefits or themes in relation to the program. The unique Cook Islands' male mentoring program is viewed as beneficial in that it allows males to be open and supported to make change to be re-absorbed into the community, have healthy functioning, and reduce re-offending via the ongoing supportive care.

Climate Change, Conflict and Peace in the Pacific: Challenges and a Pacific Way Forward

Climate Change, Conflict and Peace in the Pacific: Challenges and a Pacific Way Forward

Talanoa Dialogue at UN Climate Change Meetings: The Extraordinary Encompassment of a Scale‐Climbing Pacific Speech Genre

ABSTRACTIntroduced to the UN by the Prime Minister of Fiji, the Pacific speech genre of talanoa has become a key frame for international discussion of climate change policy. Traditionally associated with kava‐drinking ceremonies, talanoa includes practices that temporarily mitigate differences in hierarchy and rank, which help to facilitate the formation of consensus, a process sometimes referred to as ‘The Pacific Way’. This capacity has also motivated its application to a wide range of social interactions and speech events, scaling up from local contexts and national debates to international arenas. This includes talanoa's contribution to the facilitation of the Paris Climate Agreement by promoting cooperation and the exchange of ideas. The Talanoa Dialogue differs from other speech genres at the UN, including the process of reconciliation through which resolutions and declarations are formulated. Fiji used its leadership role at international climate change meetings to counter representations of Pacific Islanders as passive victims of climate change, including the threat from rising sea levels. The introduction of talanoa to these meetings can be understood as an ideological project of encompassment in which a regional speech genre became an international framework for addressing one of the most consequential challenges of our times, global climate change.

Alea Ke Pau or Negotiated Evaluation: A Vital Concept in Pacific Health Promotion

For Pacific peoples, health promotion, community nursing and community development initiative over many years, has often been conducted within a framework of one-sided decision-making. There is always an imbalance between the power relationships of the community being studied and those of the researchers or health practitioners. As a result, there is lack of understanding on the part of the researchers and the health funding agencies of the need to negotiate processes with members of the community being studied or engaging with. All of this are within an overarching lack of understanding of, and respect for, Pacific cultural values, frameworks and Pacific ways of doing things. This paper seeks to explore an alternative concept whereby these values are acknowledged. This concept is metaphorically called “alea ke pau” (or, negotiated evaluation). This approach is forward-looking and one that respects a ‘bottom-up’ view rather than the traditional ‘top-down’ view of health work and funding agencies.
 However, using two Pacific research methodologies called Talanga and Kakala, to explore the concept of alea ke pau were held with five men’s focus groups operating within Kava Clubs in Auckland, New Zealand, and five focus groups in Tonga. The results from these discussions are presented demonstrating the development and application of the “alea ke pau” or “negotiated evaluation” approach.

Living Climate Change Impacts in Pacific SIDS: Articulating the Pacific Way in an Unresponsive World

Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are among the world’s smallest nations living the severe impacts of climate change and development that are consuming them while the world remains largely divided about how to adapt to and mitigate against these changes. This is an onerous concern because while the life-threatening impacts of climate change are becoming better understood across the world, humanity has not agreed on concrete plans and appropriate activities to effectively address the single most callous threat of our time.1 In spite of decades of the Conference of the Parties and associated meetings, assortments of agreements, treaties and conventions formulated at global, regional seas and continental levels and through various organizations, and innumerable partnerships that produced policy frameworks, guidelines, strategies, plans, action plans and pathways to direct countries, there has been little unified effective action taken by the global community. The deeply entrenched and polarized positions between the different countries and the variations in their activities have frustrated Pacific SIDS, which are fighting a losing battle against climate change unless all the major countries of the world commit to these initiatives.

'I just want to be a grandmother, not a caregiver for their kids' Perceptions of childminding among Pacific grandparents living in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

A growing body of research indicates both positive and negative effects of grandparent childcare; effects that are largely dependent upon the context and intensity of the care are required. Here, we suggest that context to be inclusive of cultural background. Drawing on the indigenous methodological framework, talanoa, the views of 13 Pacific Island grandparents in relation to themes of grandparent childminding are explored, as well its proximity to perceptions of elder abuse. A cultural analysis reveals that traditions specific to the Pacific way of life may lead to increased risk of prolonged childcare. The participants in this study felt that prolonged childminding deprived them of time which could be used to benefit them and their community in the long run. It was viewed as a form of disrespect, as older people are revered and held in high regard in decision making activities from the Pacific worldview. The participants embraced their roles as the knowledge holders of cultural treasures; responsible for teaching children and grandchildren their genealogy and language, and for upholding the protocols of their cultural heritage. However, they felt their contributions were not reciprocated nor valued, but instead exploited.

Anthropology at the University of the South Pacific: From past dynamics to present perceptions

AbstractThe Pacific Island region is a key context in the history of anthropology. Yet, while much has been written about how anthropology of the Pacific Islands contributed to Anglo‐American anthropology, the discipline's institutional history in the Pacific Islands has received very little attention. This paper is the first to explore the history of anthropology at the University of the South Pacific (USP). Research findings demonstrate that anthropology lacked practical meaning in an institution established to modernise Pacific Island states. Fieldwork conducted at USP suggests that current perceptions of anthropology held by academic staff are strongly linked to the discipline's classic era. I argue that the anti‐colonial version of the Pacific Way from the 1970s onward, coupled with the hegemony of political economist and anti‐culturalist approaches among the USP teaching staff in the 1980s, inhibited a meaningful engagement with the Writing Culture debate at USP. This may explain why there has been little influence by the discipline's postmodern transformation over the past thirty years on current perceptions of anthropology at USP.

The ‘Pacific way’ of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT The coronavirus pandemic has required those that are most vulnerable to protect themselves as best they can. This includes vulnerable states, among which are the island states of the Pacific, where resources to fight the pandemic are severely limited. Recognising the need to act quickly, Pacific island states closed borders, restricted travel and implemented ostensibly draconian measures. Examining some of these measures in the context of the countries in which they were applied and the extent to which the curtailment of human rights was justified and accepted by those who were subject to these restrictions, we focus on four strengths of these states: faith, capacity, collaboration and community.

Iconicity and appropriation: images as living things

The Call for Papers invokes a history of thinking about images in terms of Western traditions, culminating in the ‘apocalyptic discourses of today’s cultural climate’ Jacques Rancière describes in The future of the image (2007, p. 1). Not considered in this scenario are other ways of looking at, being moved by, thinking about, going with and feeling through images, which I will unfold in this paper. Starting with filmmaker Merata Mita from Aotearoa New Zealand, who contrasts living images of her ancestors in documentaries, ‘very much alive’ to her, with outsiders’ selective collecting of those images (Mita, 1992); linking with Natalie Robertson’s (2019) tracing of takiaho (relational cords), by which descendants keep connections with their ancestors in film fragments alive; I will also remember Aby Warburg’s notion of Nachleben – the ‘survival’, ‘continuity’ and ‘metamorphosis’ of images and motifs (Didi-Huberman et al., 2003, p. 273), and finally engage Mitchell’s (2009) consideration of a road not taken by Rancière in contemplating The future of the image. The paper explores a range of experiences, actions, reflections and emotions bundled in the terms appropriation and iconicity: from engaged encounters to consumptive misuse in the first case, from fleeting celebrity fame to a particular form of material presence that contributes to identification and community building (Bartmański & Alexander, 2012; Engels-Schwarzpaul, 2017; Refiti, 2015) in the latter. By bringing Māori and Pacific ways of thinking together with minor European thought traditions the paper shows that images, as appearance into visibility and doability, can not only connect the imagination with reality. They can also open up new and old realms of possibilities through affective and effective iconicity. Whether or not this can happen depends on the prevailing kind of belonging.

Na defesa dos sagrados interesses: a greve dos ferroviários no sul da Bahia (Ilhéus e Itabuna, maio de 1927)

O principal objetivo deste artigo é analisar a greve, ocorrida em 1927, dos ferroviários da Estrada de Ferro que ligava Ilhéus a Conquista. A paralisação dos ferroviários foi uma das principais mobilizações operárias do sul da Bahia na Primeira República, com a atuação de diversas agremiações proletárias de Ilhéus e de Itabuna em torno das atividades e da agenda na “defesa dos sagrados interesses”. Com contornos pacíficos e atuando nas brechas da política oligárquica, os ferroviários deram dimensões populares à greve, de modo a pressionar intendentes, parlamentares e associações patronais, utilizando-se do nacionalismo brasileiro contra os administradores ingleses da ferrovia. O artigo foi escrito a partir de matérias veiculadas em jornais, de relatórios institucionais e de correspondências coletadas em arquivos da Bahia e do Rio de Janeiro.

The Pacific Research Paradigm: Opportunities and challenges

Around the world, favourable social and political circumstances have encouraged the development of academically non-traditional ways of researching. This article explores the recent proliferation of research approaches from Pacific and Pasifika communities which, in some Australian and New Zealand contexts, are attracting increased interest from policymakers and researchers. We present a socio-historical account of how the Pacific research paradigm emerged and some key contemporary Pacific research approaches within this paradigm. We then critique aspects of the paradigm’s development by discussing opportunities and challenges. Our main argument is for researcher reflexivity and dialogue, important for the development and sustainability of research inspired by Pacific ways of knowing and being. We believe this will lead to research in which Pacific communities will recognise themselves and their aspirations for the future.

The Pacific Way of Development and Christian Theology

Since the era of national independence in the Pacific Islands, many indigenous leaders have attempted to articulate a ‘Pacific Way’ aimed at developing island states along lines true to a shared past. Drawing on emblematic regional practices held to foster communalism, dialogue, and consensus, Pacific Way advocates have argued that Oceanic cultures hold the key to their own postcolonial development by drawing on what they share with their neighbours and what distinguishes them from the Western and global. In this article, I describe how some of the most vigorous and sustained attempts to cultivate a Pacific Way – discursively, at least – have arisen in indigenous Christian theology. I ask what the articulation of a Pacific Way accomplishes for the theologians who use such a figure, and what its implications are for understanding development as a practice with an inherently spiritual aspect.

Karoronga, kele’a, talanoa, tapoetethakot and va: expanding millennial notions of a ‘Pacific way’ journalism education and media research culture

As critical issues such as climate change, exploited fisheries, declining human rights, and reconfiguration of political systems inherited at independence increasingly challenge the microstates of Asia-Pacific, approaches to news media and journalism education are also under strain. University-based journalism education was introduced to the South Pacific in Papua New Guinea at independence in 1975 and in Fiji at the regional University of the South Pacific in 1987, while Technical Vocational Educational and Training institutions have been a more recent addition in the region. Some scholars argue there is little difference between Pacific and Western approaches to journalism, or that some journalism schools are too focused on Western media education, while others assert there is a distinctive style of journalism in Oceania with cultural variations based on the country where it is practiced and parallels with some approaches in Asia such as “mindful journalism.” This paper examines a “Pacific way” journalism debate which echoes a regional political concept coined by the late Fiji president, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. The paper argues for a greater appreciation of the complexities of media cultures in Pacific nations and proposes a more nuanced, reflexive approach to journalism in the Pacific region. This is reflected in a “talanoa journalism” model that he advocates as a more culturally appropriate benchmark than monocultural media templates.

Women’s Reactions to Men’s Patriarchal Oppressions in Selected Ghanaian Male and Female Novels

Social imbalances between men and women are the bedrock of injustices women encounter in the world, particularly in African societies. Patriarchy is identified by womanist and feminist scholars as one of the social practices that give men more privilege and maintain women in peripheral roles. This article examines how female characters in African patriarchal settings of two Ghanaian male and female novels, Asare Adei’s A Beautiful Daughter (2012) and Amma Darko’s The Housemaid (1998) have been able to face/cope with men’s oppressions through womanist and radical feminist theories. The findings have revealed that majority of the female characters are empowered economically and socially in the male and female fictional texts, and this has enabled them to combat men’s patriarchal oppressions. The female characters’ reactions vary from one another. Some of them made use of pacific ways such as dialogue, feminine solidarity or sisterhood in their attempts to address men’s patriarchal oppressions, while others have made use of violence against men and children in their quest for justice and equality.

Developing a “culturally validated” dialogic indicator tool: A reconceptualised analytic framework using Talanoa to code classroom talk

Dialogic approaches are promising vehicles for effective pedagogy, providing opportunities for students to talk about learning; build on and sustain individual and collective identities, and; advance thinking and understanding in ways that support enhanced achievement. Whilst this is an idealised view of talk in classrooms, international literature provides evidence that suggests teachers struggle to shift practice toward dialogic pedagogy. From a national perspective, a more pressing issue given the nature of this study is to reconcile international views of dialogic pedagogy with a Pacific worldview. This article reports on the process of developing an analytic framework or tool for identifying ‘dialogic’ practices that are informed by Pacific ways of knowing or orientations, including language practices to progress that reconciliation. The reconceptualised ‘Pacific Dialogic Indicator Tool’(PDIT) will foreground culturally validated language acts based on talanoa dimensions and weave across these dimensions key dialogic principles that are research-based.

La ruta de los templos en Melilla: turismo espiritual para el desarrollo de la identidad europea multicultural

El presente análisis profundiza en el impacto que el turismo espiritual, denominado de reflexión, tiene al afrontar el hecho multicultural de forma creativa y pacífica, de modo que contribuye a la configuración de una identidad europea intercultural e inclusiva.El caso de Melilla es muy representativo debido a su carácter pluricultural. En ella conviven cuatro culturas que, sin renunciar a sus señas de identidad, se enriquecen en el contacto diario: la cristiana, la musulmana, la hebrea y la hindú. Cada una de ellas aporta la riqueza de su patrimonio cultural también inmaterial. Todas ellas manifiestan su espiritualidad a través de rituales elaborados en espacios religiosos que atraen a un buen número de visitantes y turistas.La experiencia de la visita a los templos facilita el conocimiento de otras culturas y permite la reflexión, aumentando la comprensión del otro y facilitando el entendimiento, lo cual es altamente valorado por los visitantes.

AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND AND REGIONAL SECURITY IN THE PACIFIC: REFLECTIONS ON PEACEKEEPING IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS AND PAPUA NEW GUINEA (BOUGAINVILLE)

This paper examined conflicts and regional security in the Pacific. The paper has as its focus the roles of Australia and New Zealand (and the Pacific Islands Forum) in managing security in the Pacific using Papua New Guinea (Bougainville) and the Solomon Islands as case studies. It documented their peacekeeping experiences, and interrogated whether these operations were successes or not and why. Furthermore, the author explored whether the peacekeeping experiences in the Pacific and lessons learnt from these operations might be applicable to, and/or be helpful in developing a useful peacekeeping model for other regions. The argument of this paper is that, although Australia and New Zealand regional security management role is based on security concerns of the region but the national interests of these dominant states are also at play and a key factor that shape the nature and direction of interventions. As well, the dynamics of these operations have revolved around interaction between and among local, regional and global political factors. The author argued that peacekeeping in the Pacific (especially in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands) may not offer an appropriate peacekeeping model in such-conflict ridden settings as Africa where armed violence are more complex, protracted and involve full-scale military actions as opposed to low-intensity and localised conflicts in the Pacific, but some of the peacekeeping lessons from the region may be helpful to other peace operations, especially Peacekeeping the 'Pacific Way'.