The KVU Panpipe and Dance Company, from Santa Isabel, Solomon Islands, will perform at the Imin Center (Jefferson Hall) on 11 and 12 November 2006. Panpipe music and the dances associated with it have developed in amazing ways in the Solomon Islands. Although tuned sets of mouth-blown bamboo pipes are found in many Pacific Islands, and in numerous regions worldwide, Solomon Islanders have built a rich culture and repertoire around panpipes, featuring instruments small and large. The KVU Panpipe and Dance Company, which has toured internationally, is one of the finest in the country. The performers hail from the villages of Koviloko, Vavarenitu, and U‘uri, on the island of Santa Isabel.

The Hawai‘i tour, a presentation of the East-West Center Arts Program, is made possible by support from the UHM Center for Pacific Islands Studies. In addition to their two public performances on O‘ahu, the group will perform at the Society for Ethnomusicology meeting banquet, meet with the Study Group on Musics of Oceania, present two performance-demonstrations for O‘ahu school students, and perform on Maui and the Big Island for the public and school students.

Tickets for the O‘ahu performances, at 8:00 pm on 11 November and 4:00 pm on 12 November, are $15 for general admission and $10 for students and senior citizens. They are available at the UHM Campus Center Box Office or telephone 808-944-7341 for Charge-by-Phone. Any remaining tickets will be available at the door.

CPIS AWARDED TITLE VI GRANT

Center for Pacific Islands Studies Director David Hanlon is pleased to announce that the center has been awarded a Title VI National Resource Center Grant for the four-year period 2006–2010. National Resource Center grants, which the center has been awarded continuously from 1978, make possible many of the activities at the center, particularly in the area of outreach, such as visiting artists, international conferences, and teacher workshops. The grant also emphasizes foreign language development and has provided money for teaching, workshops, and conferences related to Māori , Samoan, Tahitian, and Tongan.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Stuart Dawrs Joins UH Library Pacific Collection Staff

UHM Pacific Curator Karen Peacock is delighted to announce that Stuart Dawrs has joined Special Collections as a Pacific specialist. Stu has been working part time with Hawaiian and Pacific reference for the past year and a half and has done collection development work for the Pacific Collection. While a graduate student in library studies at UHM, Stu served as an intern with Special Collections.

Stu is a former editor of the Honolulu Weekly and has recently been the editor of Hana Hou, the in-flight magazine of Hawaiian Airlines. In addition to his work in journalism, Stu has been updating Donald Mitchell’s Resource Units in Hawaiian Culture for Kamehameha Schools Press, and he contributed writing to the recently published Mo‘ili‘ili — The Life of a Community, an oral history of the local neighborhood of Mo‘illi‘ili, in Honolulu.

Topics in the Contemporary Pacific: A New Series

The University of Hawai‘i Press has announced a new series, Topics in the Contemporary Pacific. The general editor is historian Brij V Lal, of the Australian National University. The series addresses issues of pressing concern to the Pacific Islands region as a whole. Its thematic approach is informed by answers to the question “How did this come to be?” Volumes in preparation deal with HIV and AIDS, patterns of corruption, tax havens and sovereignty business, and the state of the state in the contemporary Pacific. Submissions are being invited. Copies should be sent to both the series editor, Brij V Lal, at brijlal@anu.edu.au, and the UH Press editor, Masako Ikeda, at masakoi@hawaii.edu.

PhD Program in Hawaiian Starts at UH Hilo

Hawaiian and Indigenous Language and Culture Revitalization. The PhD program is the first of its kind in several categories. It is the first PhD in Hawaiian, and it is the first PhD in the United States in any Native American language. It is also the first PhD offered at UH Hilo. The PhD program focuses on individuals who are actively involved in the revitalization of Hawaiian and other indigenous languages. The first group of students includes a Māori educator as well as four individuals active in teaching Hawaiian language. For more information on the program, contact the college, Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikolani, at 808-974-7342 or see the website at http://www.olelo.hawaii.edu/dual/orgs/keelikolani.

New Task Force Formed on Ocean Acidification

Scientific data collected over many years show conclusively that oceanic absorption of atmospheric CO₂ is making seawater more acidic. The degree and rapidity of these changes in ocean chemistry have not occurred in millions of years. Early data strongly suggest that this acidification will have a negative impact on many important marine organisms. Given the critical ecological, economic, and cultural function of oceans in the Asia-Pacific region, nowhere is there a greater need for additional research.

In response to this growing threat, the Pacific Science Association has established the Task Force on Ocean Acidification in the Pacific. As part of the task force, an international network of geochemists, biologists, and social scientists will direct linked and coordinated projects in the region. The immediate goals of the task force are to identify knowledge gaps in the scientific understanding of the ocean acidification phenomenon, including an assessment of social and economic impacts. For more information on the task force, see the Pacific Science Association website at http://www.pacificscience.org/tfoceanacidification.html.

UH Awarded Grant to Train Health Workers in Pacific

The UH John A Burns School of Medicine has received a US Health Resources Service Administration grant of $400,000 to continue an interdisciplinary project aimed at improving the training of health-care workers in the Pacific Islands. A major partner in the project is PEACESAT, which enables the medical school to coordinate long-distance health training via satellite and other distance-education technologies. Dr Neal Palafox is the principal investigator on the project, which covers American Sāmoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Palau, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

STUDY GROUP ON MUSICS OF OCEANIA TO MEET AT UHM

The Study Group on the Musics of Oceania (SGMO) will meet 19–21 November at UH Mānoa in conjunction with the 2006 Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting in Honolulu, 16–19 November. The SGMO, a subgroup of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM), consists of researchers specifically devoted to work in the Pacific Islands and Australia. The theme of the SGMO meeting (which Jane Moulin, UHM professor of ethnomusicology, and Barbara Smith, UHM professor emerita of music) are coordinating, is string bands in the Pacific. Little work has been done on the instruments, music, social context, and performers of string bands, and Moulin and Smith are hoping that the meeting will create a better understanding of how string instruments, particularly the guitar and ukulele, have moved around the Pacific and become such an important feature of Islander life and culture. For more information about the SGMO meeting, contact Jane Moulin at Moulin@hawaii.edu or see the ICTM website at http://www.ictmusic.org/ICTM. For more information on the ethnomusicology conference, see the website at http://www.indiana.edu/~semhome/2006/index.shtml.

SCHOLARSHIPS AT UH TARGET PACIFIC ISLANDERS

News that Pacific Islanders from seventeen Pacific Islands entities will face a tuition increase at the University of Hawai‘i beginning in August 2007 has focused attention on the availability of supplemental funding. At UH there are a number of scholarships that specifically target students of Pacific Islander heritage. These include, but are not necessarily limited to the following:

· UH Hilo–DXRX Viva Scholarship. Grantees must be students enrolled full time at UH Hilo. They must either have graduated from a Hawai‘i high school and reside in the state of Hawai‘i, or they must be citizens of the US-affiliated Pacific (American Sāmoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Republic of Palau).

· Gladys Brandt/Bank of Hawai‘i Scholarship. Grantees must be from Hawai‘i, Guam, or American Samoa and must be enrolled full time at the upper division (junior, senior) or graduate level in a degree or teacher certification program in the UHM College of Education. For more information, e-mail osas@hawaii.edu or call 808-956-7849. (On the UH Foundation website, the scholarship is indexed under “Bank of Hawai‘i.”)

· Felix B Limtiaco Engineering Scholarship. Grantees must be enrolled full time in an undergraduate (sophomore, junior, or senior level) or graduate program in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UH Mānoa, with preference given to students from Guam or Micronesia. For more information, e-mail engr@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu or call 808-956-7727.

· Mary Patricia Kulesh Memorial Award. Grantee must be a full-time undergraduate or graduate student from Micronesia enrolled in the School of Nursing at UH Mānoa. For more information, e-mail nursing@hawaii.edu or call 808-956-8939.

· Virginia Pearson Ransburg Delta Kappa Gamma Scholarship. Grantees must be full-time students, either graduate or undergraduate, at any UH campus, and must be native to, or reside in, the former Trust Territory of the Pacific (Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Palau, Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas). For more information, e-mail seed@hawaii.edu or call 808-956-4642.

· Alfred Capelle and Byron Bender Scholarship. Grantee must be a full-time undergraduate student from the Marshall Islands in any area of study at UH Mānoa. For more information, e-mail seed@hawaii.edu or call 808-956-4642.

· Heyum Endowment Fund Scholarship. Grantee must be indigenous to the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, or Polynesia and enrolled for academic credit as an undergraduate or graduate student at a UH campus. A Pacific Islands student enrolled in a non-credit education and/or training program may also be considered. For more information, see the website at http://www.hawaii.edu/cpis or call 808-956-7700.

· D William Wood Endowed Scholarship for Pacific Island Health Administrators. Grantee must be from an independent country in the Pacific and enrolled full time in a UH master’s program leading to a degree in public administration. For further information, contact pubadmin@hawaii.edu, or call 808-956-8260.

For more information on eligibility requirements for these scholarships and information on other scholarships open to Pacific Islander students, see the UH Foundation website at http://www.uhf.hawaii.edu/scholarships/studentscholarships.aspx or the websites of the university departments associated with the scholarships above.

In addition to the scholarships above, the Hawai‘i Biodiversity and Mapping Program has announced the Ka ‘Imi ‘Ike scholarships, for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander undergraduates at UH Mānoa with declared majors in one of the following disciplines: geography, geology, geology and geophysics, global environmental science, meteorology, or natural resources and environmental management. Awardees of these $1,000 scholarships are required to work up to 20 hours a semester with K–12 students interested in learning about the geosciences. For more information, see the website at http://hbmp.hawaii.edu/kaimiike or e-mail kaimiike@hawaii.edu.

Also, candidates from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Sāmoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu who meet selection criteria are eligible for the United States–South Pacific Scholarship Program, which is coordinated by the East-West Center. The program provides scholarships for degree study at the University of Hawai‘i and other US institutions of higher education. For information see the website at http://www.eastwestcenter.org/ann-cs.asp. Other scholarships offered by the East-West Center are listed on the same site.

On 14 November 2006, Pacific Magazine and Tihati Productions are sponsoring a Stars of Oceania Recognition Dinner and Scholarship Fundraiser at Hilton Hawaiian Village, to provide scholarship assistance to University of Hawai‘i students who are from the Pacific Islands or who are participating in work that benefits the Pacific Islands. Those to be honored at the dinner include Mau Piailug, Tulone Pulotu, Pulefano Galea‘i, Kupuna Auntie Malia Solomon Craver, Jack Tihati and Cha Thompson, Kalolaine Mataele Soukop, the Honorable Muliufi F Hannemann, Nainoa Thompson, and Lubuw Falanruw. For reservations or more information, contact the UHM Pacific Business Center Program at 808-956-2495.

CPIS AWARDS FOREIGN LANGUAGE FELLOWSHIPS

The UHM Center for Pacific Islands Studies has awarded two more Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships grants for the coming academic year, 2006–2007. The fellowships are made possible by a Title VI FLAS grant from the US Department of Education, which is designed to aid full-time graduate students at UH Mānoa who are involved in programs that combine area studies and foreign language training in Māori , Samoan, or Tahitian.

The center awarded six grants to students for this year, and the first four awardees were profiled in the previous issue of Pacific News from Manoa. The additional awardees, who will be studying Māori , are

· Judith Humbert, a second-year MA student in Pacific Islands studies, who is combining her study of Māori with research into indigenous cultural values and educational philosophy

· Chikako Yamauchi, a third-year MA student in Pacific Islands studies, who is exploring and writing about her relationship with the landscapes of Aotearoa/New Zealand

The fellowships are awarded based on merit and include a $15,000 student subsistence allowance for one year as well as an institutional payment to cover tuition and fees. For more information on FLAS fellowships, see the academic programs section on the center website at http://www.hawaii.edu/cpis.

JANET BELL LIBRARY RESEARCH PRIZE CONTEST

The Janet Bell Pacific Research Prize recognizes the best University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa graduate and undergraduate papers based on research in the Pacific Islands area (Hawai‘i, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia, including Aotearoa/New Zealand). The winning graduate and undergraduate scholars are each awarded $100, and their papers are added to the holdings of either the Hawaiian or the Pacific Collection, depending on the region of focus.

Deadline for submission is 5:00 pm on Thursday, 30 November 2006. Entry requirements are described on the Pacific Collection website at http://libweb.hawaii.edu/libdept/pacific/html/janetbell.htm. Inquiries may be directed to Karen Peacock, curator of the Pacific Collection, at 956-2851, or e-mailed to her at peacock@hawaii.edu.

“CHINA IN OCEANIA” CONFERENCE PLANNED

CPIS Associate Professor Terence Wesley-Smith was in Japan in early October to begin the planning for an international conference to be held at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, 26–27 March 2007, in Beppu, Japan. “China in Oceania: Towards a New Regional Order?” is the first conference in a series, Asia and Oceania, designed to encourage collaborative research and dialogue on the changing configurations of international power and influence in the Pacific Islands region. The series will consider the increasingly important political, economic, and social connections between Asia and the island states of Oceania. It is cosponsored by the Institute of International Strategic Studies, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, and the UHM Center for Pacific Islands Studies.

“China in Oceania” will focus on the emerging role of Beijing, which appears committed to becoming an important actor in the Pacific Islands region. This development is being closely watched by the Western powers most actively involved in Oceania—Australia, New Zealand, and members of the European Union—as well as by Japan, which has established a significant regional presence over the last two decades. Also paying close attention to China’s new assertiveness is Taiwan, which has attempted to further its quest for international recognition using high-stakes “dollar diplomacy” toward the Island nations.

These developments mark a shift in the regional balance of power, perhaps as significant as any since the establishment of European colonies two centuries ago. The conference will bring together researchers and graduate students to consider this shift in regional dynamics and to analyze its implications for the needs and aspirations of the twenty-two Pacific Island nations and territories that constitute the region.

“China in Oceania” is being convened by Edgar Porter, director, Institute of International Strategic Studies, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (porter@apu.ac.jp), and Terence Wesley-Smith, associate professor and graduate chair, Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (twsmith@hawaii.edu), with assistance from Palenitina Langa‘oi, doctoral candidate in the College of Asia Pacific Studies, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (palenitina@gmail.com).

VĀRUA TUPU LAUNCHED, WITH FANFARE, IN HONOLULU

Flora Devatine

Histories were bridged in Honolulu the first week of October, with the launching of Vārua Tupu: New Writing from French Polynesia, published by the University of Hawai‘i Press. The project, which has been five years in the making, is a symbolic joining, through language and literature, of Hawaiian and Tahitian heritages. It is also a tribute, and an introduction, to the blossoming of the Tahitian writing scene. Vārua Tupu, edited by Frank Stewart, Kareva Mateata-Allain, and Alexander Dale Mawyer (CPIS MA 1997), is volume 17:2 of Mānoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing. Its contents include photographic essays, poems, an interview, memoirs, and short stories.

Rai a Mai

In Honolulu for the launching of Vārua Tupu were Tauhiti Nena, French Polynesian Minister of Culture; Unutea Hirshon, Member of the Assembly of French Polynesia; and Dorothy Levy; along with volume contributors Flora Devatine, Rai a Mai, Célestine Hitiura Vaite, Kareva Mateata-Allain, and Alexander Mawyer. Overflow crowds greeted the visitors at their various speaking venues. These included a reading and book signing by Devatine, Rai a Mai, Mateata-Allain, and Vaite at Native Books/Nā Mea Hawai‘i and a lively colloquium in which these writers discussed their work and its reception in Tahiti. The visitors were also feted at a gathering at Bishop Museum.

The beautifully produced volume includes brilliantly colored art (including the cover image above) by Hawaiian-born painter and musician Bobby Holcomb, an adopted son of Tahiti. Two essays in Varua Tupu describe his work and the impact it had in the Islands.

The Center for Pacific Islands Studies was a cosponsor of the launching. Others who contributed to the project included the Pacific Writers’ Connection, the UHM Research Council, and the UHM Department of English. For more on Varua Tupu, see the Manoa website at http://manoajournal.hawaii.edu/text/issues/descriptions/frenchpolynesia05.html and the UH Press website at http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/journals/manoa/MA172toc.html.

VISITORS TO THE CENTER

Among the visitors to the center during the period July through September 2006 were

· Alvin P. Adams, United States Ambassador (Ret), Honolulu

· Alifeleti ‘Atiola, Director, Tupou Tertiary Institute

· Keith Camacho, Research Fellow, Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury

· Anton Carter, Arts Advisor, Pacific Islands Art, Creative New Zealand

· Vince Kana‘i Dodge, Wai‘anae Community Re-Development Corporation

· Daniel R Foley, Associate Judge, Intermediate Court of Appeals, State of Hawai‘i Judiciary

· Grant McCall, Department of Anthropology, University of New South Wales

· Shunsuke Nagashima, Research Center for the Pacific Islands, Kagoshima University

· Max Quanchi, Department of History, Queensland University of Technology

· Summer Shimabukuro, Director of Education, Wai‘anae Community Re-Development Corporation

· Victor Uherbelau, Executive Director, Compact Review Commission, Republic of Palau

CENTER OCCASIONAL SEMINARS AND PRESENTATIONS

“Traditional Medicine of the Marshall Islands” was the topic for a seminar given on 29 August by Maria Kabua Fowler, cultural specialist and regent of the College of the Marshall Islands, and Irene J Taafaki, director of the University of the South Pacific Marshall Islands campus. Fowler and Taafaki have been involved in a five-year project in the Marshall Islands to ensure that some of the traditional medicinal knowledge, particularly medicinal plant knowledge, is preserved along with the plants and their ecosystems. Their recent, coauthored book, Traditional Medicine of the Marshall Islands, describes the results of their collaboration with nine expert Marshallese healers and others who are familiar with Marshallese general remedies. The EWC Pacific Islands Development Program, the Ethnobotany Track in the Department of Botany, and the Ethnobiology Society were cosponsors of the talk.

ALUMNI PROFILE: GREG DVORAK

Greg Dvorak

Greg Dvorak

From time to time, the center will profile former students to see where their interests in Pacific Islands studies have led them. In June we talked to recent graduate Greg Dvorak. Greg graduated with his MA in 2004 and immediately took up a position in a doctoral program at the Australian National University.

LH: Tell us what you are doing now, Greg.

Greg Dvorak

GD: Currently [June 2006] I am in Tokyo, at Tokyo University, but officially I am in the third year of my PhD at the Australian National University. My PhD will be in interdisciplinary cross-cultural research, which comprises cultural studies, anthropology, and history, as well as ethnographic filmmaking, political science, Japan/Pacific studies, and gender studies. I have dual affiliation at the ANU with the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research and the Gender Relations Centre and am supported partly by an Australian Research Council Grant called the Oceanic Encounters Project, which explores themes of gender and sexuality in the contemporary Pacific.

My project focuses on the history of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands as a site of significance for Marshallese, Americans, and Japanese over the past century. Essentially, my project is about reconnecting and exploring multiple stories that have been severed, erased, or dislocated, thereby reinstating and empowering a Marshall Islander sense of place and relevance between the United States, Japan, and other countries. And since I grew up on Kwajalein in the 1970s and consider it to be my hometown, and spent my life growing up in both Japan and the continental United States, I am simultaneously exploring my own relationship to all these contexts.

My fieldwork has been extremely exciting, and I am currently in a phase of wrapping it up and heading back to Australia (via the Marshall Islands) to write the dissertation and edit a documentary film that will be part of my dissertation.

LH: How did you first get interested in Pacific Islands studies and doing an MA at UH Manoa?

GD: I was working in Japan at an advertising company in Tokyo and hating every second of it, while I had this very strong, burning desire to reconsider my childhood connections to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, and the implications and consequences of that American lifestyle for the Marshallese people. I was frustrated at how little awareness there was in Japan about the Marshalls and the Pacific in general, and I realized how little I even knew about what Japan was doing in Micronesia in the first place, or about the people who were actually involved — soldiers, colonists, etc.

LH: Can you tell us a little bit about your MA studies at the center, what you accomplished, and maybe what some of the challenges were?

GD: At the center, I feel I really satisfied that curiosity of mine and finally got the clarity, courage, and support to contemplate my childhood at Kwajalein and the multiple, complex, contradictory circumstances and contexts that spiraled out of that. I connected myself with a positive-minded, exciting, creative, unconventional family of scholars, and I feel like I got a much clearer sense of my own personal connection to the Pacific.

I felt challenged most by the personal emphasis on my own connections to the Pacific — by exploring my own personal connection to the legacies of colonialism and my “nonindigenous” past — and that really opened me up to hearing how other people, indigenous and nonindigenous, felt related to Oceania.

Returning to Epeli Hau‘ofa’s “Sea of Islands” notion of interconnectedness between islands, I feel like more than anything the center and its approach to learning Oceania helped me to see how I fit within the bigger genealogy. It empowered me to take responsibility and initiative and begin to think passionately about new and creative approaches, not only toward this region, but also toward relations between the local and global, the personal and political, and between myself and the world.

FACULTY ACTIVITIES

Associate Professor of Political Science Noenoe Silva is on sabbatical for academic year 2006–2007. She will be in residence through 31 May 2007 at the School of American Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on a Katrin H Lamon Fellowship from the school. While in Santa Fe, Silva will be working on a book on indigenous Hawaiian political thought, focusing initially on influential Native Hawaiian writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Associate Professor of Education Margaret Maaka is chair of the Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific Special Interest Group, of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). She is currently working to put together a program for the AERA meeting in 2007 in Chicago and working to increase the membership base of the Pacific special interest group.

Professor Vilsoni Hereniko’s play with Teresia Teaiwa, Last Virgin in Paradise, was produced in French at the Tjibaou Cultural Center in New Caledonia in August 2006.

Assistant Professor of English Robert Sullivan was featured as a workshop leader at the Bamboo Ridge Writers Institute 2006 in Honolulu in the first part of October 2006. His workshop was “Writing Poetry in the Pacific.”

Congratulations to John Mayer, who has been promoted to associate professor in the Department of Hawaiian and Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures, and to Terry Hunt, who was promoted to professor in the Department of Anthropology.

The center regrets the passing of former affiliate faculty member Edward Beauchamp, who died 8 August 2006. Beauchamp was a professor emeritus of the College of Education, where he specialized in comparative and international education. He maintained a keen interest in the center and was an enthusiastic supporter of Pacific Islands workshops for K–12 teachers.

STUDENT AND ALUMNI ACTIVITIES

The center faculty and staff welcomed eight new MA students and a new certificate student in August 2006:

· Siniva Marie Bennett graduated from the University of Oregon in 2006 with a BA in ethnic studies and philosophy. She was born in Samoa but grew up in California and Oregon. In her graduate research she is examining the ways in which Pacific Islanders occupy agency, preserve cultural integrity, and resist neocolonialism, with a focus on public institutions of education in American Samoa.

· Madonna Castro-Perez graduated from the University of California–San Diego in 2006 with a BA in political science and history. Born and raised in Guam, she was introduced to Chamorro politics at an early age, through the activities of her parents. She is specializing in Micronesian politics and, in particular, Micronesia’s relations with Polynesia and Melanesia.

· Ann Marie Nalani Kirk graduated from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa with a BA in liberal studies. Since her graduation she has worked in media, particularly film, in the Pacific, as a director, producer, writer, and editor. She is using her graduate study to broaden her knowledge of the Pacific, with the ultimate goal of helping Pacific Islanders tell their stories in film.Trisha Sue Shipman graduated from Northeastern State University in Oklahoma with a bachelor’s in elementary education. After graduation she worked for three years with the Vanuatu Ministry of Education as a Peace Corps Volunteer, developing a culturally appropriate literacy program for the primary level. She is focusing on traditional and contemporary aspects of Pacific societies and the implications for developing educational policies and programs in the Pacific.

· Elfriede Daniel Suda, from Chuuk, graduated from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa with a BA in speech communication in 2005, after attending the College of Micronesia in Pohnpei. She has lived in Fiji, as well as various places in Micronesia, and is focusing her studies on social changes brought about by missionaries in Micronesia.

· Andrea Marata Tamaira graduated from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 2006 with a BA in anthropology. Prior to moving to Hawai‘i, she worked in the New Zealand television broadcasting industry for twelve years. Her graduate studies involve conducting a critical analysis of current museum practices as they pertain to the representation of Māori taonga (artifacts).

· Andre Tuiravakai graduated from Brigham Young University–Hawai‘i Campus in 2005 with a BA in Pacific Islands studies. Originally from the Cook Islands, he has worked in government and business in the Cooks and in New Zealand. He intends to eventually apply his Pacific Islands studies graduate research on housing policies and practices in the Pacific to developing housing designs that incorporate cultural identity.

· James Perez Viernes graduated from the University of Guam in 2003 with a BA in English. He is concentrating on Pacific history at the master’s level and plans to go on to doctoral work in Pacific Islands studies, with the goal of returning home to Guam and engaging in teaching and service at the University of Guam.

· New certificate student Fusae Kikuchi, a graduate student in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, graduated from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 2006 with a BA in liberal studies. Her engagement with the Pacific began with her experiences living abroad in Australia and New Zealand. She is particularly interested in developing programs to foster leadership skills in Pacific Islander young people in Hawai‘i.

The center would also like to welcome four new students at the University of Hawai‘i who are recipients of the US–South Pacific Scholarship administered by the East-West Center:

· Mr Michael Berry, from Solomon Islands, is working on his MA in agriculture and natural resources economics

· Ms Alissa Afiza Dean, from Fiji, is working on a BA in accounting

· Mr Penihulo Simeti Lopati, from Tuvalu, is working on a BA in information and computer science

· Ms Filifotu Va‘ai, from Sāmoa, is working on an MA in information and computer science

A fifth student on scholarship, Mr Muse Dason Opiang, from Papua New Guinea, will be working on a degree at the University of Missouri at St Louis.

Congratulations to our newest graduate, Monica LaBriola, who graduated in August 2006. Monica’s thesis was Iien Ippan Doon (This Time Together): Celebrating Survival in an “Atypical Marshallese Community.” The thesis celebrated the “many and overlapping histor(ies) and traditions that have converged to form and shape the island community known today as Ebjā or Ebeye” and “re/constructs a story of the island as a site of “creative survival.” Monica is currently a first-year doctoral student in the UHM Department of History.

THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC, 18:2

The Contemporary Pacific

The center is pleased to announce the availability of issue 18:2 of the center’s journal, The Contemporary Pacific, a special issue titled Melanesian Mining Modernities: Past, Present, and Future. The issue, guest edited by anthropologists Paige West and Martha Macintyre, includes

· Grass Roots and Deep Holes: Community Responses to Mining in Melanesia

Colin Filer and Martha Macintyre

· Hinterland History: The Ok Tedi Mine and Its Cultural Consequences in Telefolmin

Dan Jorgensen

· Who Is the “Original Affluent Society”? Ipili “Predatory Expansion” and the Porgera Gold Mine, Papua New Guinea

Alex Golub

· Environmental Conservation and Mining: Between Experience and Expectation in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

Paige West

· Local Laborers in Papua New Guinea Mining: Attracted or Compelled to Work?

Benedict Y Imbun

· Cannibalistic Imaginaries: Mining the Natural and Social Body in Papua New Guinea

Jamon Halvaksz

· The Ecology and Economy of Indigenous Resistance: Divergent Perspectives on Mining in New Caledonia

Saleem H Ali and Andrew Singh Grewal

The issue also includes political reviews for Melanesia and book and media reviews.

The issue’s featured artist is Larry Santana, a Papua New Guinean graphic designer and painter whose work is nationally acclaimed. According to Pamela Rosi, who wrote the artist’s note, Santana’s work displays a “style that combines Western realism with traditional designs, motifs, and shading techniques. . . . Santana’s deepest concern is with imagery inspired by environmental concerns for preserving his country’s natural resources for future generations of Papua New Guineans.” For readers whose universities subscribe to Project MUSE, Santana’s artwork can be seen on the journal’s page at http://muse.jhu.edu.

PUBLICATIONS AND MOVING IMAGES

Available from UH Press

Pacific Encounters: Art & Divinity in Polynesia, 1760–1860, by Steven Hooper, brings together for the first time many stunning Polynesian objects collected by voyagers and missionaries during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Hooper, who is director of the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, University of East Anglia, discusses the pieces in the contexts of their local use and meanings and their journeys to museums all over the world. 2006, 288 pages. ISBN 978-0-8248-3087-7, paper, US$42.00.

A Grammar of South Efate: An Oceanic Language of Vanuatu, by Nicholas Thieberger, presents topics in the grammar of South Efate, an Oceanic language of central Vanuatu, as spoken in Erakor village on the outskirts of Port Vila. 2005, 416 pages. ISBN 978-0-8248-3061-8, paper, US$39.00.

Earth, Sea, Sky: Images and Māori Proverbs from the Natural World of Aotearoa New Zealand, by Patricia and Waiariki Grace. Patricia and Waiariki Grace’s lyrical translations and explanations of Māori poetry and traditional wisdom are presented alongside Craig Potton’s evocative natural Aotearoa/New Zealand photographs. Patricia Grace is an acclaimed short story writer and novelist. Distributed for Huia Publishers. 2006, 100 pages. ISBN 978-1-877283-99-4, paper, US$25.00. For other Huia books distributed by UH Press, including children’s books, see the UH Press website at http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu.

UH Press books can be ordered through the Orders Department, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2840 Kolowalu Street, Honolulu, HI 96822-1888; website www.uhpress.hawaii.edu.

Other Publications

American Pacificism: Oceania in the U.S. Imagination, by UH Manoa Professor of English Paul Lyons, provides an analysis and critique of American representations of Oceania and Oceanians, from the nineteenth century to the present. It ranges from first contact and the colonial archive through to postcolonialism and global tourism. Published by Routledge, the book is part of their Research in Postcolonial Literatures Series. 2006, 256 pages. ISBN 0415351944, cloth, US$105.00.

Migration Happens: Reasons, Effects and Opportunities of Migration in the South Pacific, edited by Katarina Ferro and Margot Wallner, provides an overview on migration issues in the South Pacific, including issues of gender, history, conflict, and challenges for second-generation migrants. Published by Lit Verlag. 2006, 194 pages. ISBN 3825869989, paper, EUR24.90.

Longitude and Empire: How the Voyages of Captain Cook Changed the World, by Brian Richardson, a librarian at Windward Community College, explains how the ability to accurately measure longitude connected to a profound reorganization of the way that Europeans understood the world. Published by University of British Columbia Press. 2006, 256 pages. ISBN 0774811897, cloth, US$85.00; ISBN 0774811900, paper, US$29.95.

Aching for Mango Friends, by Jacinta Galea‘i, is a new chapbook published by Tinfish Press. The writing crosses genres and, according to the publishers, “straddles, with equal courage and precision, geographic, linguistic, and cultural boundaries” including intersections between Samoa and the United States. In English and Samoan. For more information see the Tinfish website at http://tinfishpress.com. 2006, US$10.00.

Alive in Christ: The Synod for Oceania and the Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea 1998–2005, edited by Philip Gibbs, SVD, documents the development of the Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea from 1998 to the present. Published by the Melanesian Institute, PO Box 571, Goroka, EHP, Papua New Guinea; fax: (675) 7321214. For more information, e-mail mi_books@online.net.pg.

Journals

The Journal of the Polynesian Society, volume 115, number 1, March 2006, contains articles on Polynesian number systems and Solomon Islands culture history, as well as shorter communications and book reviews.

The latest issue of the online journal Micronesian Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, volume 4, number 2, contains articles on Monsignor Olano, post-WWII teacher training efforts in Micronesia, early European visitors to Wake Island, Guam striptease in Pacific Studies, and the capture of the Koga Papers in the Philippines. It also contains a viewpoint article and resource pieces and book reviews. It can be read at http://micronesia.csu.edu.au/MJHSS.

The latest issue of Pacific Economic Bulletin, volume 21, number 2, focuses on Fiji, with articles on public expenditure management; ethnic heterogeneity and economic integration; the Fiji Sugar Corporation; the effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policies in Fiji; the relationship between budget deficits, money supply, and inflation in Fiji; and efficiency gains in the Fiji sugar industry. It also contains articles on Tuvalu and Papua New Guinea. Individual articles may be downloaded free of charge from the website at http://peb.anu.edu.au.

Films, Videos, and DVDs

Sione’s Wedding (2006, 97 minutes, DVD), directed by Chris Graham and set in Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand, is a “feel-good comedy about four 30-something guys who must each find a girlfriend before their best friend’s wedding—or be left out in the cold.” It is being released in the United Kingdom and North America as Samoan Wedding. It was shown at the Montreal World Film Festival in August 2006 and will be shown at the Hawai‘i International Film Festival in October 2006. The DVD is currently available only in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

No. 2 (2006, 94 minutes), directed and written by Toa Fraser, is a screen adaptation of Fraser’s award-winning stage play of the same name. The story focuses on Fijian-Kiwi matriarch Nanna Maria, who organizes a feast with her family, at which she will name her successor. The film won the World Cinema Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006 and will be shown at the Hawai‘i International Film Festival in October 2006.

The following Pacific films were on the program of the Pacifika: New York Hawaiian Film Festival in May 2006. For a full list of the films, see the website at http://hawaiiculturalfoundation.org.

· Eniwan I Luk Rose? (2005, 52 minutes) is directed and produced by Peter Walker, of the Wan Smolbag Theatre in Vanuatu. The story focuses on Rose, who has run away from an arranged marriage on her island. Disguised as a boy, she hides at her sister’s house in town where all the men from her island are involved in a corrupt political campaign. In Bislama with English subtitles.

· Ka Haka Rongo (2005, 2 minutes), directed by Sergio M Rapu, is a short film about the past, future, and identity of a Rapanui man.

· Mama Tere (2004, 44 minutes), directed by Paula Whetu Jones, tells the story of Mama Tere, a transgender sex worker who eventually becomes a political campaigner for transgender rights.

· Matta Saina — Ta Hurao (2005, 1 minute), directed by Alex Munoz, is a short film that tells of the return to Guahan (Guam) of Hurao, one of the first chiefs to unify the people against the Spanish.

The Land Has Eyes (Pear ta ma ‘on Maf), the award-winning feature film by CPIS Professor Vilsoni Hereniko, is now available on DVD. Hereniko and Alan Howard, UHM professor emeritus of anthropology, have developed study guides with lesson plans for use in secondary-school and undergraduate classes. For more information on the DVD and the study guides, see the website at http://www.thelandhaseyes.com. The DVD also contains a documentary on indigenous justice in Rotuma, by filmmaker Esther Figueroa, and a commentary on Rotuman culture, by the director.

CONFERENCES

Collaborative Research in Vanuatu

“After 26 Years: Collaborative Research in Vanuatu Since Independence” will bring together local and international researchers of Vanuatu society, language, and history. The conference will take place in Port Vila, 6–10 November 2006. For more information see http://www.vanuatuculture.org/events/.

China in Oceania

“China in Oceania: Towards a New Regional Order?” will be the first conference in a series designed to encourage collaborative research and dialogue on the changing configurations of international power and influence in the Pacific Islands region. The conference will be held at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Beppu, Japan, 26–27 March 2007. For more information, contact Dr Edgar Porter at porter@apu.ac.jp.

21st Pacific Science Congress to be Held in Okinawa

The twenty-first Pacific Science Congress will be held 13–17 June 2007 at the Okinawa Convention Center in Naha, Okinawa, Japan. The theme of the congress is “Diversity and Change: Challenges and Opportunities for Managing Natural and Social Systems in the Asia-Pacific.” The co-organizers are the University of the Ryukyus and the Pacific Science Association. Those interested in proposing symposia and sessions should get in touch with the congress organizing committee or the Pacific Science Association: Makoto Tsuchiya at tsuchiya@sci.u-ryukyu.ac.jp or Burke Burnett at burnett@bishopmuseum.org. For more information, see http://www.pacificscience.org/congress2007.html.

Conferences Announced in Previous Newsletters

· “Pacific Transnationalisms,” a conference to be held 20–22 November 2006 at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, will explore the multiple ties between Pacific diasporic peoples and their homelands in the Islands. Conference convener is Helen Lee at h.lee@latrobe.edu.au.

· “Te Moana-Nui-a-Kiwa (The Great Ocean of Kiwa — Oceania),” the Pacific History Association’s seventeenth biennial conference, will be held at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 7–9 December 2006. For more information, see the website at http://pacifichistoryassociation.com.

BULLETIN BOARD

Anthropology Vacancy at UH Hilo

The University of Hawai‘i at Hilo is advertising a tenure-track position for an assistant professor of anthropology to begin approximately August 2007. Review of applications will begin 15 January 2007 and will continue until the position is filled. Duties include teaching undergraduate courses in cultural anthropology. Minimum qualifications include demonstrated expertise in the cultural anthropology of the Island Pacific, with an emphasis in applied anthropology. Inquiries regarding the position (# 82557) should be sent to Peter Mills, e-mail millsp@hawaii.edu; telephone: 808-974-7465; fax: 808-974-7737.

Department of English Vacancy at UH Manoa

The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa is advertising a tenure-track appointment in Hawaiian literature. The closing date for applications is 15 November 2006. Duties include teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in Hawaiian literature written in or translated into English. Minimum qualifications include proficiency in written and spoken Hawaiian. Letters of application and CVs should be sent to Cristina Bacchilega, chair, UHM Department of English, 1733 Donaghho Road, Honolulu, HI 96822.

Hawaiian History Position Advertised at UHM

The History Department at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa invites applications for an assistant or associate professor of Hawaiian history (# 84524). The tenure-track position begins 1 August 2007. Duties include teaching lower-division survey courses in Hawaiian, Pacific, and/or world history, and upper-division and graduate courses in the person’s area of specialization. Application deadline is 15 December 2006. For more information, contact Dr Karen Jolly at histch@hawaii.edu or by phone at 808-956-7687, or see the website at http://workatuh.hawaii.edu.

Indigenous Politics Position at UHM

The UHM Department of Political Science is advertising a tenure-track assistant professor position (#84109), to begin 1 August 2007. Duties include teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in indigenous politics and contributing to the development of an indigenous politics concentration. Review of applications will begin on 15 January 2007. For more information, see the website at http://workatuh.hawaii.edu or contact Jon Goldberg-Hiller at hiller@hawaii.edu.

Law Librarian Position at USP Emalus Campus

The University of the South Pacific is seeking to fill the position of law librarian at the Emalus Campus Library in Port Vila, Vanuatu. For information, contact Jawal Mangal at mangal_j@usp.ac.fj or telephone 679-323-2324. Closing date for applications is 28 November 2006.

Asian Pacific American Studies Position at UCSC

The Department of American Studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz invites applications for a tenure-track associate professor or professor position in Asian Pacific American studies. The department is especially interested in candidates with significant program building and administrative experience. The application deadline is 15 November 2006. For more information, see http://www2.ucsc.edu/ahr/employment/bulletin/06-07/261-07.pdf.

Call for Papers: Globalization and Human Dynamics

Papers are being sought for a session at the 21^st Pacific Science Congress on globalization and human dynamics. The organizers seek papers on either the theme of livelihood and cultural preservation or the theme of human challenges and survival strategies. For more information, contact Lan-Hung Nora Chiang, National Taiwan University, e-mail nora@ccms.ntu.edu.tw, or Rebecca Stephenson, University of Guam, e-mail stephera@uog9.uog.edu.

Call for Articles on Pacific Dress and Fashion

An Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion is being planned by Berg Publishers. The editor for the Australia and Pacific volume has put out a call for proposals for a range of essays on the many aspects of Polynesian, Micronesian, and Melanesian dress and adornment. Please send short expressions of interest (450 words) to Margaret Maynard (m.maynard@uq.edu.au or 61-7-33797640) by 30 November 2006.