Pacific Oceania

This is an advance preview of sections of my principal anthropological study/monograph of personhood, environment and climate change in the Torres Islands. This is the extended version in Spanish, of which a more compact version in English is currently in preparation for submission to an academic publisher.

Between 1860 and 1920, a creole language, Tayo, emerged as the community language of Saint-Louis a former Marist mission in southern New Caledonia. This article briefly introduces the demographic history of Saint-Louis and the arrival of Melanesian neophytes from different ethno-linguistic areas of the colony before discussing the influence of education on the development of Tayo, the Pacific’s only French-lexified creole language. It closely examines the role played by the mission-educated SaintLouis girls in the formation of this language of intra-village communication, exploring the teaching conditions at Saint-Louis at both the boys’ and girls’ schools and comparing these with other mission schools in New Caledonia. Highlighting the exceptional nature of the linguistic ecology of Saint-Louis, it considers the reasons why a French-based creole evolved in Saint-Louis as opposed to an indigenous language-based creole or the adoption of one of the Kanak languages spoken by the neoph...

Though the Arctic Council accepted China, Japan, and South Korea as observers in May 2013, the multilateral organization’s permanent member states continue to treat them as non-Arctic outsiders due to their lack of territory north of the Arctic Circle. Applying geographic perspectives that consider the importance of territory and proximity on the one hand and relations and networks on the other, the author argues for a reconceptualization of the Arctic region extending beyond the Arctic Circle. After presenting an overview of the Arctic’s long-standing economic integration with disparate parts of the globe, the author examines the bilateral economic cooperation occurring between countries in Northeast Asia and the eight countries with territory north of the Arctic Circle. Special attention is paid to the ports, or gateways and pivots, linking resources in the North Pacific and wider Arctic region to destinations in Northeast Asia. Importantly, the shipping lanes of the Northern Sea Route and the North Pacific Great Circle Route are facilitating these commercial ties, especially as northern countries seek to export their liquefied natural gas to expanding markets in Northeast Asia. Finally, as political cooperation has not grown to match the intensifying economic cooperation between Northeast Asian and Arctic countries, the author considers present and future directions of regional governance within the Asian-Arctic region. Possibilities examined include more focused regional and mini-lateral structures along with mechanisms based less on territory and more on networks and relations, especially those concentrated in the North Pacific – Northeast Asia’s maritime entryway to the Arctic.

Dans l'immense étendue d'un Pacifique majoritairement anglophone, quatre entités géo-politiques se démarquent en faisant du français leur langue, ou l'une de leurs langues officielles : la Nouvelle-Calédonie, la Polynésie française, Wallis et Futuna et le Vanuatu. Cet héritage d'une colonisation française qui a débuté au XVIIIème siècle avec le cycle des grands voyages de découverte à visée scientifique, religieuse, ou économique fait porter aujourd'hui à 600 000 le nombre de locuteurs francophones dans ces îles. Par ailleurs, les trente dernières années du XXème siècle ont vu émerger dans ces territoires une forme de renouveau culturel : la culture, la langue autochtone, les rites ancestraux ont été remis sur le devant de la scène et c'est pendant cette période que sont apparus, principalement en Polynésie française et en Nouvelle Calédonie, les premiers textes littéraires d'auteurs insulaires, centrés sur la question identitaire. Je m'intéresserai à cette littérature, qui porte l'histoire de la confrontation entre des univers linguistiques et culturels différents, qui place la question identitaire au coeur du dispositif littéraire, et qui s'écrit en langue française. Quel est alors le statut du français dans ces textes? La pérennisation d'un impérialisme culturel répond-elle seule à cet usage et l'utilisation du français condamne-t-elle obligatoirement la pratique littéraire à être marquée aux fers ou permet-elle aux auteurs insulaires de faire entendre leur voix, libre, pleine ? Je m'intéresserai au regard que ces auteurs portent sur leur propre pratique, tantôt teintée de culpabilité, tantôt assise sur une pratique décomplexée, tantôt encore analysée au regard de ce que les spécificités de la langue peuvent apporter à la transmission, pour tenter de cerner quels sont les enjeux du français dans les territoires francophones du Pacifique et quelle « hybridité » ces auteurs apportent au texte littéraire. Le choix qui m'a guidée parmi les auteurs présentés ici ne prétend pas à l'exhaustivité ; il a été déterminé par le positionnement particulier qu'ils ont fait entendre de leur pratique du français, de ses enjeux dans leur pratique littéraire et dans la réflexion qu'elle engage sur la question identitaire. Après un état des lieux dévoilant les modalités de l'usage du français dans ces quatre territoires et le regard que les écrivains portent sur cet usage, je prendrai en considération la langue telle qu'elle apparaît au coeur du dispositif littéraire en tant qu'elle manifeste la rencontre entre des univers culturels différents. PAGE 3 1 J'emprunte ce terme à Sylvie André (Le roman autochtone, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2008) et à Chantal Spitz parce qu'il est plus neutre que « francophone », qui, par ailleurs, induit des questions définitionnelles complexes. Chantal Spitz, qui se réfère à la Déclaration interamérindienne relative aux droits des peuples autochtones, le préfère également à « indigène », connoté négativement, cf Litterama'ohi n°14, p.105.

Abstract


The sugar crisis of 1860 in Reunion motivated the migration of thousands of Réunionnais to New Caledonia. Along with sugar planters, wealthy enough to transport their production equipment as well as their indentured workers, significant groups of both skilled and unskilled labourers made their way from Reunion to the Pacific colony in the second half of the nineteenth century. In previous publications, I have focused my attention on the sugar industry and the immigration of the rich planters and their coolies. While I have drawn attention to the heterogeneity of the sugar workers and have signalled the arrival and numeric importance of tradespeople, manual and low skilled workers from Reunion, I have not yet described these immigrants in detail. This is because this group has been largely ignored by history and details surrounding their circumstances are scant. In this paper, I discuss the background and origins of these people and highlight some of the fascinating stories to emerge from this migration to New Caledonia and beyond.


Keywords


Migration; New Caledonian history; Reunion Island history; African Diaspora; Pacific history; Colonial history

My encounter with my family in Samoa opened my eyes to the pervasive nature of Anti-Blackness. As I grew darker, I was teased for being a "loli," a Samoan term for black sea cucumber, a verbal parachute according to Bonilla Silva signalling Blackness. In solidarity with Black Lives Matter, “Popolo, Meauli ,Uliuli '' aims to address anti-Black attitudes and sentiments in Samoan American communities. In the larger framework, this is an attempt to understand the cultural positionality of “Fa'aSamoa ''in Samoans Americans in context to race and ethnicity. Second, and how does anti-blackness reflect in the larger Pasifika across the diaspora. The research asks How are racial understandings about the Black community understood within the first and second generational Samoan-American Aiga? Where does the Samoan configuration, “Fa’asamoa, fa’amasinoga, and fa’aloalo (Samoan way, identity and respect) lie in the spectrum of race? Using an interdisciplinary lens, it borrows from Critical Race Theory, Bonilla Silva concepts of “racial distancing, social contact, tri racial hierarchy” and Pacific Islander Indigenous epistemology to holistically address and assess this matter. Through facilitated ethnographies, our findings concluded the intergenerational variations categorized in Afakasi, Military, Samoa Churches and Transnational Relationships. The voyage towards reconciliation and Black solidarity remain in a state of progression, nevertheless forward.

In this paper, we present an overview of the language policies adopted in the Oceanian countries and territories after analysis of legislation, plans and government programs. Representing 22.9% of all languages in the world-the vast majority spoken by few people and endangered-, this continent suffered an intense linguistic colonization marked by the instrumentalisation of indigenous languages by missionaries and by the subsequent imposition of European languages as the only ones allowed during European and American imperialism. Such a scenario has broadened the complex linguistic situation in Oceania and has imposed on the countries of the region many challenges about languages to adopt after their independences, in view of the many local problems, which caused the Oceanian peoples to seek diverse political solutions and to become frontier peoples-frontiers of languages, frontiers of meanings, frontiers of memories, frontiers between colonizer languages, indigenous languages and immigrant languages.

Oceania occupies an intriguing place within anthropology’s genealogy. In the introduction to this collection of essays, we examine the role of the ethnography of Oceania in the develop- ment of our anthropological perspectives on materialisation, the dynamic process by which persons and things are inter-related. Building upon the recent resurgence of theoretical interests in things we use the term materialisation (rather than material culture or materiality) to capture the vitality of the lived processes by which ideas of objectivity and subjectivity, persons and things, minds and bodies are entangled. Taking a processual view, we advocate for an Oceanic anthropology that continues to engage with things on the ground; that asks what strategies communities use to materialise their social relations, desires and values; and that recognises how these processes remain important tools for understanding historical and contemporary Oceanic societies. Examining these locally articulated processes and forms contributes to a material (re)turn for anthropology that clarifies how we, as scholars, think about things more widely.

The first exhibition of its kind, ‘Hand in Hand’ featured Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Maori, Samoan, Niuean and Fijian Artists based in Aotearoa, USA and Australia.

The 2008 annual Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative’s Sydney Mardi Gras exhibition was an opportunity for Indigenous artists across the Pacific to participate in a celebration of international standing through a program that openly challenged dominant views on sexuality.

The exhibition was also held in collaboration with the Performance Space @ CarriageWorks in Australia.

The artwork featured was a focus on non-conventional media including: the moving image, installation and also inter-disciplinary media including performance art, music and adornment. The artists: Jeffery Samuels, Tracey Moffatt, Arone Raymond Meeks, r e a, Darrell Sibosado, Clinton Nain, Adrian Wills, Dianne Jones, Gary Lee, Moana Nepia, Niwhai Tupaea, Sionelagi Falemaka, Dan Taulapapa McMullin, Claudine Sartain, Salote Tawale & artist / curator: Jenny Fraser (AUS) & invited guest artist / curator Shigeyuki Kihara (NZ).

Rjabchikov, Sergei V., 2018. The Bird-man Cult in the Rapanui Rock Art and Oral Literature. Polynesia Newsletter, 16, pp. 2-32.

Keywords: writing, rongorongo, folklore, rock art, Rapanui, Rapa Nui, Easter Island, Polynesia, Quechua, Andean, Old Peruvian, Incan, petroglyph, archaeoastronomy, mythology

The Ritidian Site in Guam holds a fullspectrum record of 3500 years of natural and cultural history of the Mariana Islands, now preserved within the Ritidian Unit of Guam National Wildlife Refuge. The site has produced substantive information from each major episode of human-environment relations in the remote Pacific Islands region. Ritidian ranks among the oldest of all known archaeological sites where human beings first lived in a Remote Oceanic environment, about 3500 years ago. The site contains abundant material evidence about the interplay between cultural activities and environmental change over the following centuries and millennia. The resulting high-resolution integrated natural-cultural history is so far unparalleled in the region. This summary reviews the holistic chronological sequence at Ritidian, proposes new research questions, and relates this information in larger contexts.

The 2006 coup in Fiji marked a profound shift in the structure of political relationships: not only between the office of government and the military, but also between the churches and their connections to these institutions. In this paper, I explore the different positions the churches have taken, the relationships between the religious umbrella groups, and their connections to the government and the military. I argue that, for Christian Fijians in particular, the coup and its aftermath have re-ignited questions on the correct relationship between religion and politics in Fiji, which profoundly affect ideas about the way in which Fiji should be governed.  http://epress.anu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/ch091.pdf

This undergraduate research paper analyzes the evidence and possibilities behind the hypothesis that Spanish explorers and conquistadors ‘discovered’ the Hawaiian archipelago approximately 250 years before British Captain James Cook made first Western contact with the indigenous Hawaiians. This paper focuses heavily on both Western (European) and indigenous Hawaiian historical sources. For Western sources, hand-drawn maps, journal entries, diary descriptions, and stone carvings are utilized as evidence for this paper. In terms of Native Hawaiian sources, this essay touches heavily on the usage of Hawaiian oral history such as ‘oli (chants) and mo‘olelo (stories) concerning great ali‘i (chiefs) from the islands of Hawai‘i, Maui, O‘ahu, and Kaua‘i.
Throughout the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the Spanish Empire routinely sailed galleons from the Americas to Asia and back again. The most famous sea route for Spain was from western Mexico to Manilla, Philippines. During this time period, Spain ruled the seas, and the Pacific Ocean was widely under the domain of the Spanish Crown. Consequently, Hawai‘i is directly in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Spanish maps from the 16th century show an archipelago of islands referred to as Islas de Mesa (Table Islands), with updated maps in the 17th century referring to these islands as Los Monges. Interestingly enough, the islands on these Spanish maps look extremely similar to the eight primary Hawaiian islands, with two islands on the map looking exactly like Maui and Hawai‘i Island (the ‘Big Island’). In even more tantalizing evidence, these Spanish-drawn islands are only a few degrees away from Hawaii’s geographical coordinates, an impressive feat for the technology available during the 1500s.
` Besides hand-drawn maps, a possible carved stone figure of a Spanish conquistador — along with metal tools — are used as evidence for this short research paper. For indigenous Hawaiian sources, the ‘oli and mo‘olelo spoken of in this paper all describe, in similar detail across multiple Hawaiian islands, “pale people who arrived here across the sea from Kahiki. They do not speak our language in Kahiki,” along with describing “pale men with shiny knives.” Is it merely a coincidence that multiple Hawaiian chants and stories from the same era, across multiple islands, all describe nearly the same exact scenario?
      Lastly, the best piece of evidence for this hypothesis regarding Spanish explorers ‘discovering’ the Hawaiian archipelago before James Cook, is the journal entries of Juan Gaetano. His personal writings describe an island in the middle Pacific that is so tall, clouds cover half of the mountain. With his description of the mountain and the rest of the island, it is very possible that Gaetano was the first haole (foreigner) to catch sight of either Hawai‘i Island’s Mauna Kea and/or Mauna Loa, or Maui’s Haleakalā. The Spaniards may have ‘found’ the Hawaiian isles two-and-a-half centuries before the English arrived at the remote islands!

Miss Ulysses from Puka-Puka, the Autobiography of the South Sea Trader's Daughter by Florence Johnny Frisbie, was published in 1948. It is regarded as the first literary work written by a South Pacific writer. The other distinctive feature of this work is that a thirteen-year-old girl narrates the story of her voyage in the central part of the Pacific area during the Second World War. The remarkable quality of this romanticised autobiography is that the narrator longs to leave her island to adopt the Western lifestyle. Contrary to the narrators of Oceanian fiction published two decades later, she does not feel guilty about abandoning her Polynesian culture. Thus, she takes the opposite path to that of most Pacific narrators. Key words Point of view, autobiography, travelogue, South Seas myth, coral island young girl. Résumé Miss Ulysses from Puka-Puka, the Autobiography of the South Sea Trader's Daughter de Florence Johnny Frisbie, publié en 1948, est considéré comme le première création littéraire publiée par un auteur originaire du Pacifique Sud. Son autre particularité est que la narratrice est une toute jeune fille de treize ans qui nous conte ses récits de voyages maritimes dans la partie polynésienne du Pacifique pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Enfin le caractère remarquable de cette autobiographie romancée est que la narratrice polynésienne aspire à quitter son île pour vivre à l'occidentale. A la différence des autres narrateurs des oeuvres océaniennes publiées vingt ans plus tard, Johnny ne se sent pas coupable de délaisser sa culture d'origine. Elle parcourt donc le chemin inverse de la plupart des narrateurs océaniens. Mots clés Point de vue, autobiographie, récit de voyages, mythe insulaire, fillette d'atoll.

Rjabchikov, Sergei V., 2017. The Ancient Astronomy of Easter Island: The Urauranga te Mahina Observatory. Polynesia Newsletter, 9, pp. 2-32.

Keywords: archaeoastronomy, Easter Island, Rapanui, Rapa Nui, linguistics, Polynesia, Polynesian, Austronesian, Andean, Old Peruvian, Quechua, petroglyphs, rock art, script, folklore, writing, rongorongo, rongo-rongo, birdman cult

As a whole, the book is a reference book about contemporary religious movements across the Pacific.  The section on Fiji offers a background on Fiji to new researchers and a guide to a number of Christian churches operating in Fiji before the 2006 coup.

You can buy this book from: http://uspbookcentre.com/store/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=UBC&Product_Code=ISBN-9789823480206&Category_Code=RG  "

have demonstrated a significant relationship between modern population size and environment by examining atoll area and rainfall in the Marshall Islands. The present work seeks to extend that argument into prehistory by examining the relationship of ancient habitation sites and size of aroid pit agricultural systems to atoll land area and rainfall regime along the 1,500-3,500 mm precipitation gradient in the Marshall Islands. Four atolls were selected for study: Ebon at the wettest extent in the extreme south; Ujae and Maloelap near the center of the archipelago; and Utrc?k at the dry north. The first phase of this long-term archaeological program is reported. During the survey of Ujae Atoll (9" 05' N, 165" 40' E), three habitation sites, an aroid pit agricultural zone, one early historic burial, and seven fish traps, weirs, and enclosures were recorded. Along with excavations at two habitation sites (8 m2 total area), 35 traditional artifacts were recovered (shell adzes, ornaments, and manufacturing tools). Seven radiocarbon age determinations document land use beginning as early as the third century A.D. A beachrock sample dated to 2450 _+ 70 BP relates to atoll development. Some 4,748 bones of fish, birds, turtles, Pacific rats, lizards, humans, and possible cetaceans, along with nearly 13 kg of shellfish, provide the basis for understanding prehistoric subsistence, human adaptations to the atoll setting, and land use patterns.

La Biblioteca Nacional de España cuenta con un ejemplar de la obra de Antonio Pigafetta titulada Il viaggio fatto da gli spagniuoli a torno a'l mondo, publicado en Venecia en 1536 por L. A. Giunta, referenciado como Edit 16, CNCE 73425 y formado por 104 páginas. Se trata, a mi parecer, de una obra de extraordinaria importancia, no sólo en cuanto su propia calidad y antigüedad, como uno de los fondos más importantes que tratan sobre la expedición de Magallanes, sino también, precisamente porque se trata del relato del cronista de la expedición que, a la postre, se convertiría en la primera en dar la vuelta al mundo en un momento en que acababa de descubrirse que era posible, y llevada a cabo bajo los auspicios de la Corona Española, con el consecuente prestigio imperecedero que para ésta y sus protagonistas reportaría a lo largo de la Historia.

Heraldic rules in the Roman Catholic Church with regard to Missionary countries in Oceania.
The aim of this study is a short excursion into my heraldic work specifically focused on the Oceania region. For a Central European heraldic artist, this is a relatively unconventional space of interest, but providing a large opportunity for heraldic creation. In this region where the Roman Catholic Church operates have been erected many dioceses and archdioceses. Many of these ecclesiastical administrative units have been in operation for over a hundred years, but often they lack a basic identity – the ecclesiastical coat of arms. In the region of Oceania, the Catholic Church seeks a kind of spontaneous diffusion with local indigenous religions. It is one way to get closer to the minds of the locals. They often take over their local habits and external indigenous religious manifestations in the form of costumes, the use of traditional musical instruments, or traditional dance as a part of worship or other local customs. These symbols subsequently enter the composition of church coats of arms.

Discussed and reflected upon are experiences of participant-observation in accounting education in Kiribati intended to inform situations accounting educators face elsewhere. This is set in the context of the third world, the roles of accounting there and particular macro developments in Kiribati. Included are descriptions and explanations of the participant-observer's activities from 1997 to 1999 in this remote country of atolls scattered around the Pacific Ocean, followed by an elaboration of illuminating episodes that occurred while courses were staged for accounting specialists and accounting users. Main outcomes comprise reflections on the interrelated issues of how accounting and accountants are seen in Kiribati, the contrasting merits and demerits of domesticated and imported courses, and the transitory nature of programmes.

Solomon Islands along with other Pacific Islands nations is adopting legislation designed to protect traditional knowledge and expressions of culture from misappropriation, attrition and loss of economic opportunity for owners. These developments require the state to engage across a highly pluralistic customary and social landscape. Ethnographic studies have shown that owing to such plurality unintended consequences may arise from attempts to rationalise indigenous conceptualisations such as customary laws to render them accessible to outside interests. The preservation of intangible cultural heritage requires understanding of the communicative processes that maintain its significance and value and which are involved in its continuation, transformation and transmission. This study approaches this challenge from the perspective of social knowledge; the common-sense and empirical reality experienced by the owners of a representative aspect of the culture. The case chosen for this research is the ritual taukuka tattooing practice of the Bellonese people of Solomon Islands. Social representations theory is used to show that the field of representation of this cultural practice is heterogeneous with consensual and non-consensual features. Whilst revival of the taukuka is unlikely due to prerequisite religious ontology, its preservation as significant heritage where ownership remains with the lineages and families may best be assured through cultural education and artistic representations.

Le colloque Livre Blanc des recherches en Sciences Humaines et Sociales sur le Pacifique (LBSHS), qui eut lieu en mars 2010 et qui est à l' origine de cet ouvrage, fut soutenu par l'InSHS du CNRS et son directeur à ce moment, Bruno Laurioux, et l'EHESS et son président, en 2010, François Weil. Nous les remercions vivement pour leur soutien et l'intérêt qu'ils ont porté aux sciences humaines et sociales océanistes.

, the famous Russian traveler and ethnographer Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maklai published an announcement in the St. Petersburg Novosti i Birzhevaia gazeta inviting interested parties to join him in settling islands in the Pacific. To the surprise of many, including Miklukho-Maklai himself, the announcement was hugely successful. By September, nearly 500 individuals of all ranks and backgrounds had answered the call, growing to 2,000 by the beginning of the new year. 1 Having expected at most a dozen volunteers, Miklukho-Maklai found himself forced to adjust his plans and make arrangements for a considerably larger undertaking. As one of the ethnographer's leading supporters, the philologist V. I. Modestov, put it in July 1886, "That which he had considered likely to appeal to no more than a handful of the most outstandingly intrepid individuals ended up stirring the interest of hundreds, even thousands, of followers." 2 Some two years later, another announcement calling for Russian volunteers wishing to resettle to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) elicited a similar response. The initiator of this enterprise was the adventurer Nikolai Ivanovich Ashinov, who touted himself as the ataman of the Free Cossacks, a group of exiles supposedly residing in the mountains along the Turkish-Persian border and ready to come to the aid of the "Empire of the Tsars" in advancing its interests in foreign lands. The number of those wishing to join the Free Cossacks, while fewer than the volunteers for Oceania, turned out to be similarly large. "A motley crowd repeatedly besieged the hotel," recalled the retired Captain

Neste artigo, apresentamos um panorama das políticas linguísticas dos países e territórios da Oceania após análise de legislações, planos e programas de governo. Com 22,9% de todas as línguas do mundo, a grande maioria falada por poucas pessoas e ameaçada de desaparecimento, esse continente sofreu uma intensa colonização linguística marcada pela instrumentalização das línguas indígenas por missionários religiosos e pela posterior imposição da língua europeia como única permitida durante o imperialismo europeu e o americano. Tal cenário ampliou a complexa situação linguística da Oceania e impôs aos países da região muitos desafios em torno de qual língua adotar após a independência frente a muitos problemas locais, fazendo com que os oceânicos buscassem diversas soluções políticas e se tornassem povos de fronteiras, fronteiras de línguas, fronteiras de sentidos, fronteiras de memórias entre as línguas colonizadoras, as autóctones e as línguas imigrantes.

Regional inequalities have marked the scope of globalization over time. Currently, underdeveloped Oceania and Sub-Saharan Africa stand out for being uneven and disjointed regions in this process. From this perspective, this article has as main objective to deal with the insertion of underdeveloped Oceania in the globalized world, considering the technical vectors, listed by the theoretician Milton Santos, namely, the energy system, the transport system and the information system, as characteristics of the technical-scientific-informational environment. In order to operationalize the subject in question, bibliographic surveys and research were carried out on international institutes such as the World Bank, the United Nations and the Pacific Community Secretariat were undertaken. Finally, inequality and lack of access to electricity, telephony and, mainly, to the air and maritime transport infrastructure were found for a significant portion of underdeveloped Oceania. In addition, in order to resolve such problems, successive times there has been the participation of the State in the ownership of cell phone companies, ships and airlines.

*** CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2018***
This book integrates a region-wide chronological narrative of the archaeology of Pacific Oceania. How and why did this vast sea of islands, covering nearly one-third of the world’s surface, come to be inhabited over the last several millennia, transcending significant change in ecology, demography, and society? What can any or all of the thousands of islands offer as ideal model systems toward comprehending globally significant issues of human-environment relations and coping with changing circumstances of natural and cultural history? A new synthesis of Pacific Oceanic archaeology addresses these questions, based largely on the author’s investigations throughout the diverse region.

https://www.routledge.com/Archaeology-of-Pacific-Oceania-Inhabiting-a-Sea-of-Islands/Carson/p/book/9781138097179

Aotearoa New Zealand (ANZ) was one of the last land masses settled by humans, with the arrival of Maori ca. 1280 AD. This relatively recent human history allows unprecedented opportunity
to investigate traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in changing environmental and societal contexts. Before European contact, Maori culture had a strongly developed tradition of oral literature, including ancestral sayings (whakatauki). Whakatauki represent one of the main ways of transmitting critical information about all aspects of life and society, including TEK. Our aim in this paper was to analyse information on marine resources contained in whakatauki. We analysed linguistic cues to place whakatauki that refer to marine resources in five time periods, before examining the frequencies of occurrence for these whakatauki, and thus infer the likely importance of these resources through time. References to specific fish reduced through time, in contrast to generic references; we argue that these patterns are associated with societal developments. Naming of fish species during the initial settlement period likely reflects prior Polynesian voyaging experience. Many early fish references are associated with food, but later references to fish do not strongly reflect this pattern. The occurrence of marine resources such as elasmobranchs and shellfish in the whakatauki differ from their occurrence in the archaeological record, reflecting limitations associated with both forms of record.

The Northwest Pacific Ocean (NWP) is one of the most vulnerable regions that has been hit by typhoons. In September 2018, Mangkhut was the 22nd Tropical Cyclone (TC) over the NWP regions (so, the event was numbered as 1822). In this paper, we investigated the highest amplitude ionospheric variations, along with the atmospheric anomalies, such as the sea-level pressure, Mangkhut's cloud system, and the meridional and zonal wind during the typhoon. Regional Iono-sphere Maps (RIMs) were created through the Hong Kong Continuously Operating Reference Stations (HKCORS) and International GNSS Service (IGS) data around the area of Mangkhut typhoon. RIMs were utilized to analyze the ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) response over the maximum wind speed points (maximum spots) under the meticulous observations of the solar-terrestrial environment and geomagnetic storm indices. Ionospheric vertical TEC (VTEC) time sequences over the maximum spots are detected by three methods: interquartile range method (IQR), enhanced average difference (EAD), and range of ten days (RTD) during the super typhoon Mangkhut. The research findings indicated significant ionospheric variations over the maximum spots during this powerful tropical cyclone within a few hours before the extreme wind speed. Moreover, the ionosphere showed a positive response where the maximum VTEC amplitude variations coincided with the cyclone rainbands or typhoon edges rather than the center of the storm. The sea-level pressure tends to decrease around the typhoon periphery, and the highest ionospheric VTEC amplitude was observed when the low-pressure cell covers the largest area. The possible mechanism of the ionospheric response is based on strong convective cells that create the gravity waves over tropical cyclones. Moreover, the critical change state in the meridional wind happened on the same day of maximum ionospheric variations on the 256th day of the year (DOY 256). This comprehensive analysis suggests that the meridional winds and their resulting waves may contribute in one way or another to upper atmosphere-ionosphere coupling.

Abstract: Between 1860 and 1920, a creole language, Tayo, emerged as the community language of Saint-Louis a former Marist mission in southern New Caledonia. This article briefly introduces the demographic history of Saint-Louis and the arrival of Melanesian neophytes from different ethno-linguistic areas of the colony before discussing the influence of education on the development of Tayo, the Pacific’s only French-lexified creole language. It closely examines the role played by the mission-educated Saint- Louis girls in the formation of this language of intra-village communication, exploring the teaching conditions at Saint-Louis at both the boys’ and girls’ schools and comparing these with other mission schools in New Caledonia. Highlighting the exceptional nature of the linguistic ecology of Saint-Louis, it considers the reasons why a French-based creole evolved in Saint-Louis as opposed to an indigenous language-based creole or the adoption of one of the Kanak languages spoken by the neophytes as a vehicular language.

Currently, three broad approaches to doing research into human phenomena are competing across Oceania. The dominant approach, introduced to the region by westerners, relies on discipline-based concepts, theories, and methods. Despite various independence and decolonization activities, disciplinary thinking still guides most formal projects and research-based publications. Though as yet considerably less common, an alternative perspective emphasizing indigenous interpretations is receiving increasing attention. This approach encourages researchers to rely on place-specific values, pedagogies, philosophies, and epistemologies unique to Pacific Islanders. A third approach, focused on concrete activities, is also available to researchers, although this perspective has as yet sparked relatively little discussion. Activities-focused research illustrates what some continental scholars call "the practice turn" (Schatzki 2001). This approach generally de-emphasizes not only disciplinary concerns but also efforts to compose interpretations.

Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) was formally established through signing of an agreement in 2015. The two previous gatherings were informal and did not bring any legally binding documents. The 3 rd summit, entitled "Building Climate Resilient Green Blue Pacific Economies" introduced not only the constituting agreement, being an international treaty, what in turn made PIDF an intergovernmental organization having its own legal personality, but also created the pivot for the new wave of the Pacific regionalism. The regional cooperation among the small island states is being made ineffectively and economically inefficiently due to many reasons. The most relevant of which are the over fragmentation of the existing regional organisations and constant creation of ad hoc institutions which have no personality, powers or sanctions for non-fulfilment of the jointly adapted agreements.