The Covenant Makers: Islander Missionaries in the Pacific. Edited by Doug Munro and Andrew Thornley (Suva, Fiji: Pacific Theological College and the Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 1996. xi plus 321pp.)

This is a collection of 19 articles written by educators, policymakers, and linguists addressing the use of Pacific languages in education. The focus is on small island countries, and so Australia is not included. The book, well illustrated and containing many useful maps, is edited by two scholars with extensive research experience in the Pacific. They have grouped the articles around three important themes relevant to local education systems: (a) the roles of vernaculars in formal education; (b) questions of policy, maintenance, and non-governmental programs; and (c) issues, problems, standards, and attitudes. The result is a book that presents a compelling picture of the linguistic situation of various education systems in the Pacific nations. To summarize the situation briefly: Nothing is simple.

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Transcending the colonial gaze: Empathy, agency and community in the South Pacific photography of John Watt Beattie1

Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies ◽

10.1386/nzps_00035_1 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 151-170 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Terry M. Brown

Keyword(s):

Solomon Islands ◽

South Pacific ◽

British Colonialism ◽

The South ◽

The Pacific ◽

Norfolk Island ◽

The Church

For three months in 1906, John Watt Beattie, the noted Australian photographer – at the invitation of the Anglican Bishop of Melanesia, Cecil Wilson – travelling on the church vessel the Southern Cross, photographed people and sites associated with the Melanesian Mission on Norfolk Island and present-day Vanuatu and Solomon Islands. Beattie reproduced many of the 1500-plus photographs from that trip, which he sold in various formats from his photographic studio in Hobart, Tasmania. The photographs constitute a priceless collection of Pacific images that began to be used very quickly in a variety of publications, with or without attribution. I shall examine some of these photographs in the context of the ethos of the Melanesian Mission, British colonialism in the Solomon Islands, and Beattie’s previous photographic experience. I shall argue that Beattie first exhibited a colonial gaze of objectifying his dehumanized exotic subjects (e.g. as ‘savages’ and ‘cannibals’) but with increased familiarity with them, became empathetic and admiring. In this change of attitude, I argue that he effectively transcended his colonial gaze to produce photographs of great empathy, beauty and longevity. At the same time, he became more critical of the colonial enterprise in the Pacific, whether government, commercial or church.

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Migration and Foreign Aid as Factors Restraining Regional Cooperation in the South Pacific

Polish Political Science Yearbook ◽

10.15804/ppsy202125 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 50 ◽

pp. 1-9

Author(s):

Joanna Siekiera ◽

Keyword(s):

Foreign Aid ◽

Regional Integration ◽

Regional Cooperation ◽

South Pacific ◽

Ocean Basin ◽

The South ◽

Legal Personality ◽

The Pacific ◽

Permanent Migration ◽

The 1960S

Cooperation in the South Pacific region is unique due to the characteristics of its participants. Following the period of decolonization (1962-1980), countries in Oceania have radically changed. Achieving independence gave those nations international legal personality, yet complete independence from their former colonial powers. The following consequence was gaining an opportunity to draft, adopt and execute own laws in national and foreign policy. PICT (Pacific island countries and territories) have been expanding connections, political and trade ones, within the region since the 1960s when permanent migration of islanders and intra-regional transactions began. Migrations along with foreign aid are considered as the distinctive characteristics of the Pacific Ocean basin. Since the 1980s, the regional integration in Oceania, through establishing regional groupings and increasing the regional trade agreements number, took on pace and scope. The MIRAB synthetic measure (migration, remittances, aid, bureaucracy) has been used in analyzing the Oceania developing microeconomies. Last but not least, migration and foreign aid have been retaining the region from a deeper and more effective stage of regionalism.

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Genetic structure of the Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle (Oryctes rhinoceros) population and the incidence of its biocontrol agent (Oryctes rhinoceros nudivirus) in the South Pacific Islands

10.1101/2020.07.30.229872 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Kayvan Etebari ◽

James Hereward ◽

Apenisa Sailo ◽

Emeline M Ahoafi ◽

Robert Tautua ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Biocontrol Agent ◽

New Caledonia ◽

Solomon Islands ◽

South Pacific ◽

The Philippines ◽

Mitochondrial Lineage ◽

The South ◽

Oryctes Rhinoceros ◽

Rhinoceros Beetle ◽

The Pacific

Incursions of the Coconut rhinoceros beetle (CRB), Oryctes rhinoceros, have been detected in several countries of the south-west Pacific in recent years, resulting in an expansion of the pest's geographic range. It has been suggested that this resurgence is related to an O. rhinoceros mitochondrial lineage (previously referred to as the CRB-G biotype) that is reported to show reduced susceptibility to the well-established classical biocontrol agent, Oryctes rhinoceros nudivirus (OrNV). We investigated O. rhinoceros population genetics and the OrNV status of adult specimens collected in the Philippines and seven different South Pacific island countries (Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu). Based on the presence of single nucleotide polymorphisms (snps) in the mitochondrial Cytochrome C Oxidase subunit I (CoxI) gene, we found three major mitochondrial lineages (CRB-G, a PNG lineage (CRB-PNG) and the South Pacific lineage (CRB-S)) across the region. Haplotype diversity varied considerably between and within countries. The O. rhinoceros population in most countries was monotypic and all individuals tested belonged to a single mitochondrial lineage (Fiji, CRB-S; Tonga, CRB-S; Vanuatu, CRB-PNG; PNG (Kimbe), CRB-PNG; New Caledonia CRB-G; Philippines, CRB-G). However, in Samoa we detected CRB-S and CRB-PNG and in Solomon Islands we detected all three haplotype groups. Genotyping-by-Sequencing (GBS) methods were used to genotype 10,000 snps from 230 insects across the Pacific and showed genetic differentiation in the O. rhinoceros nuclear genome among different geographical populations. The GBS data also provided evidence for gene flow and admixture between different haplotypes in Solomon Islands. Therefore, contrary to earlier reports, CRB-G is not solely responsible for damage to the coconut palms reported since the pest was first recorded in Solomon Islands in 2015. We also PCR-screened a fragment of OrNV from 260 insects and detected an extremely high prevalence of viral infection in all three haplotypes in the region. We conclude that the haplotype groups CRB-G, CRB-S, and PNG, do not represent biotypes, subspecies, or cryptic species, but simply represent different invasions of O. rhinoceros across the Pacific. This has important implications for management, especially biological control, of Coconut rhinoceros beetle in the region.

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Sailing into the Anthropocene

Environmentalism of the Rich ◽

10.7551/mitpress/9780262034951.003.0002 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Peter Dauvergne

Keyword(s):

South Pacific ◽

The Political ◽

Pacific Island ◽

The South ◽

Large Numbers ◽

The Pacific ◽

History Of ◽

The Pacific Ocean ◽

Starting Date ◽

History Of The South

Chapters 2–6 survey the political and socioeconomic forces underlying the global sustainability crisis. Understanding the scale and depth of contemporary forces of capitalism and consumerism requires a close look at the consequences of imperialism and colonialism on patterns of violence and exploitation. This chapter begins this process of understanding by sketching the history of ecological imperialism after 1600, seeing this as a reasonable starting date for the beginning of what many scholars are now calling the Anthropocene Epoch (or the age of humans, replacing the geologic epoch of the Holocene beginning 12,000 years ago). It opens with Captain Pedro Fernandes de Queirós’s voyage across the Pacific Ocean in 1605–06 to “discover” modern-day Vanuatu, before turning to look more globally at the devastation of imperialism – and later colonialism – for the South Pacific, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Over this time conquerors enslaved and murdered large numbers of indigenous people; cataclysmic change came as well, however, from the introduction of European diseases, plants, and animals. This chapter’s survey of imperialism, colonialism, and globalization sets the stage for Chapter 3, which explores the devastating history of the South Pacific island of Nauru after 1798.

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