Center for Pacific Islands Studies Newsletter

No. 2 April-June 2007

 

CONTENTS

UHM School of Hawaiian Knowledge Established

Sarona Aiono-Iosefa to be Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer

News in Brief

CPIS Seeks Pacific Specialist

Katerina Teaiwa Moves to ANU

The Boys & Girls Club Visits UHM

Norman Meller Award

Craig Severance Retires from UH Hilo

Pacific Journalists Visit UHM and the EWC

UHM Librarians Travel to Pacific

Visitors to the Center

Center Occasional Seminars

Faculty Activities

Student and Alumni Activities

Publications, Moving Images, and CDs

Conferences and Meetings

Bulletin Board

 

UHM School of Hawaiian Knowledge established

 

On 16 May 2007, the UH Board of Regents unanimously approved the establishment of the Hawai'inuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge at UH Mānoa. The new school will consist of three existing units—the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, the Kawaihuelani Hawaiian Language Program, and Ka Papa Lo'i o Kanewai. With the departure of Hawaiian studies from the School of Hawaiian, Asian, and Pacific Studies (SHAPS), the Center for Pacific Islands Studies is now officially part of the School of Pacific and Asian Studies (SPAS). The Department of Hawaiian and Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures has been renamed the Department of Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures.

 

The merger of the Center for Hawaiian Studies and the Hawaiian language program has been under consideration for a number of years, as a way to better serve the needs of UH Mānoa students. The Center for Hawaiian Studies recently inaugurated its new master's degree in Hawaiian studies, and the UH Mānoa Graduate Council has approved a new master's degree in Hawaiian language. The master's degree program in Hawaiian studies offers courses in five fields—Kūkulu Aupuni: Envisioning the Nation; Mo'ōlelo 'Ōiwi: Native Literature and History; Mālama 'Āina: Living in Harmony with Land Resource Management; Hālau O Laka: Hawaiian Academy of Visual and Performing Arts; and Kumu Kahiki: Comparative Polynesian and Indigenous Studies. The master's degree program in Hawaiian language will offer courses in three areas—Kula Kaiapuni: Hawaiian Immersion Curriculum Development and Teacher Training; Kalai'ōlelo: Hawaiian Linguistics; and Mo'ōlelo: Hawaiian Literature.

 

The Center for Pacific Islands Studies will continue to work closely with the Hawaiian programs. The current heads of the Center for Hawaiian Studies and the Hawaiian language program, Jon Osorio and Naomi Losch (CPIS MA, 1980), are members of CPIS's affiliate faculty. Earlier this semester Hawaiian studies and Pacific Islands studies agreed to share a new rotating position in Polynesian studies, which will be based in the Center for Hawaiian Studies. The centers will collaborate on the selection of candidates and jointly sponsor courses and other activities associated with this position.

 

Sarona aiono-iosefa to be fulbright-cnz visiting pacific writer with cpis

 

Sarona Aiono-Iosefa
Sarona Aiono-Iosefa

Sarona Aiono-Iosefa, author of a number of fiction and nonfiction books for children, will be the Fulbright–Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer-in-Residence at the Center for Pacific Islands Studies this fall. Aiono-Iosefa will be with the center from August through October. In addition to being a writer, she is a communications adviser at the Christchurch City Council in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

 

Aiono-Iosefa first started writing for her children, so that they could read stories about Samoan culture. According to an interview with the media, the mother of four said, while raising her children in Aotearoa/New Zealand, "There were no books involving Samoan culture that my children could see themselves in." The residency in Hawai'i will give her uninterrupted time to write and the opportunity to meet other Pacific writers. During her residency, Aiono-Iosefa plans to finish a teenage novella entitled O Se Mea e Tatau.

 

 

 

 

NEWS IN BRIEF

 

Ethnobotany Receives Curriculum Development Grant

The ethnobotany track of the UHM Botany Department has received a three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) curriculum development grant entitled Ethnobotany: Segues to Science. The project will develop ethnobotany modules that provide natural bridges between traditional and global sciences. These modules will be designed to show students that there is high-quality science in traditional cultures and to introduce students to an array of global sciences that they might otherwise never explore. Through grants such as this, the NSF hopes to introduce minority students to careers in science.

The first UH course into which the segue modules will be instilled is BOT 105: Introductory Ethnobotany, a course developed by CPIS affiliate faculty member Will McClatchey. Fifty to seventy-five percent of the course material is based on Pacific Island regional examples, and the segue modules are expected to have a similar percentage of Pacific Islands content.

McClatchey is the principal investigator on the grant. Coprincipal investigators are Kim Bridges, Tamara Ticktin, MyLien Nguyen, and David Webb. The project's preliminary Web site is http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/segues/. Faculty and students interested in participating in the project are encouraged to contact Dave Reedy at reedy@hawaii.edu.

First Recipients of Native Hawaiian Law Certificates

The UH William S Richardson School of Law's Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law has named the first recipients of the new Pacific Asian Legal Studies (PALS) Certificates with a Specialty in Native Hawaiian Law. Malina Koani-Guzman, Jocelyn Macadangdang-Doane, and Kalikolihau Hannahs were awarded the certificates, which required courses in international law, human rights and natural resources law, and intensive legal writing on Native Hawaiian Law, in addition to the regular course curriculum. The Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law, which was established in 2005, focuses on education, research and scholarship, community outreach, and the preservation of invaluable historical, legal, and traditional customary materials.

 

CPIS Faculty Meet with Hawai'i State Legislators

Members of the CPIS core faculty met with Hawai'i state legislators on several occasions during the spring semester to lobby for additional resources in support of the center's undergraduate major initiative and its community outreach programs.  Ms Myrna Murdoch, founder of the Children's Rights Council in Hawai'i, was especially helpful in facilitating these meetings.  An immediate result of these efforts was a joint resolution (HCR 129, SD 1) passed by both houses of the Hawai'i legislature that calls on the Center for Pacific Islands Studies to help identify and address problems facing Pacific Islander communities living in Hawai'i.  The center will address this resolution through its spring 2008 conference on the Micronesian diaspora.

 

 

CPIS SEEKS PACIFIC SPECIALIST

 

The Center for Pacific Islands Studies is advertising a position opening at the assistant professor rank. The nine-month, tenure-track position would start January or August 2008, pending position clearance and availability of funds. The duties include coordinating planning for a new interdisciplinary undergraduate major in Pacific Islands studies; developing and teaching interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate courses on issues of social change in the Pacific Islands, such as diaspora, gender, or globalization; supervising MA students; and sharing in advising of students. The minimum qualifications include a PhD in the social sciences or humanities, from a college or university of recognized standing, with an emphasis on Pacific Islands studies. Also required is extensive knowledge of and research experience in the Pacific Islands region outside of Hawai'i, and a strong interest in interdisciplinary research and teaching, especially at the undergraduate level. Details of the position and the application procedure are available at http://www.hawaii.edu/cpis/Assist_Prof2007B.pdf. The deadline for applications is 4 September 2007.

 

 

KATERINA TEAIWA MOVES TO ANU

 

The center has reluctantly said goodbye to Katerina Teaiwa, who resigned in late April to take a position as Pacific studies coordinator at the Australian National University in Canberra.  She will be sorely missed.  Katerina joined the center's faculty in January 2003 and brought a tremendous amount of energy, creativity, and imagination to Pacific studies at UH M'noa.  In her four years with us, Katerina developed and taught new courses on culture and consumption, the body, and women in Oceania.  She played a key role in the revision of the center's MA program and contributed significantly to the redesigning of both its Web site and brochure.  A productive scholar and student advisor, Kati also sat on the editorial board of The Contemporary Pacific and edited Indigenous Encounters, a soon-to-be published volume of graduate student writings.  Perhaps her most notable accomplishment was the international conference "Culture Moves! Dance in Oceania from Hiva to Hip Hop," which Katerina convened with April Henderson and Sean Mallon.  The innovative, highly acclaimed conference took place at Wellington, New Zealand, in November 2005, and was cosponsored by Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the Pacific Studies Program at Victoria University of Wellington.

 

At ANU, Katerina will be the Pacific studies convener in the Faculty of Asian Studies, College of Asia and the Pacific. The position was created by the vice chancellor and a committee of Pacific research scholars who identified a gap in ANU's teaching offerings with respect to the Pacific. Her duties include research, teaching, program coordination, and public outreach. She is specifically developing an under-graduate curriculum (for a major in Pacific Studies beginning in 2008) and Pacific studies graduate courses as part of the master's in Asia-Pacific studies (beginning next semester). She hopes the latter will soon be followed by a master's in Pacific Studies. There is no other teaching program in Pacific studies in Australia, so this program at ANU will be the first.

 

Everyone at the center joins in thanking Katerina for her many contributions to our program.  We wish her the best at ANU and look forward to future collaborations with her in the field of Pacific studies.

 

 

BOYS & GIRLS CLUB VISITS UHM CAMPUS

 

Boys and Girls Club members visit UHM
Boys and Girls Club members visit UHM

On 26 June, CPIS Director David Hanlon gave a talk on Micronesian history that sparked the interest of fourteen Micronesian teenagers who are recent migrants to Hawai'i. The talk was part of a new program inaugurated by Boys & Girls Club of Hawai'i. According to Dionisialynn Bernard, the program's leader, the program grew out of a grant-in-aid that the Boys & Girls Club received from the Hawai'i State Department of Education (DOE) to do a Micronesian needs assessment. In surveying parents and students in the DOE's Central Honolulu District, the interviewers learned there were needs for after-school programs on topics like computers, for new-student orientations in the high schools tailored to Micronesian students, and for more Micronesian staff resources on campuses.

 

As a result of the survey, Bernard and others are developing a three-part program in conjunction with McKinley High School. The first two-week session, in which CPIS participated, was a life skills class to impart information relating to substance-abuse prevention, classroom norms and expectations, personal hygiene, and college counseling and orientation. The second session is a multimedia program, "My Story." It will involve training with 'Ōlelo Community Television to teach the students, who are from Chuuk, Pohnpei, and the Marshall Islands, technical skills with camcorders and computers so that they can tell their own stories. The third session, which is in the planning stages, is a leadership training program to be held later this year.

 

The group's visit to campus, which was also geared to give the students a brief orientation to UH Mānoa, included a campus tour led by CPIS student Leticia Sisior. Incoming CPIS student Jessica Garlock-Tuiali'i is a volunteer with the program.

 

 

NORMAN MELLER AWARD AT UHM

 

The Norman Meller Research Award of $250 is given annually to the best MA research paper at UH Mānoa that is in the social sciences or humanities and focuses on the Pacific Islands. Both Plan A theses and Plan B research papers and portfolios are eligible. Submissions may be made by students or by nominations from the faculty, and are not limited to students in the Pacific Islands Studies MA program.

 

Dr Norman Meller, a political scientist and founding director of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, who passed away several years ago, bequeathed the gift that makes this award possible. To be eligible for the award, papers completed during the 2006–2007 academic year (including the 2007 summer sessions) must be submitted by 28 September 2007 to Dr David Hanlon, Center for Pacific Islands Studies, 1890 East-West Road, Moore Hall 215, Honolulu, HI 96822.

 

 

CRAIG SEVERANCE RETIRES FROM UH HILO

 

Craig Severance
Craig Severance (photo courtesy of Karen Nero)

After thirty years of teaching and service, Dr Craig Severance has retired from the University of Hawai'i at Hilo. Craig began his career as an assistant professor of anthropology in 1977, after earning a doctorate from the University of Oregon with a dissertation titled "Land, Food and Fish: Strategy and Transaction on a Micronesian Atoll." He served as the chair of the UHH Anthropology Department from 1981–2004 and also as the Social Sciences Division chair for many years.

 

During his tenure at UH Hilo, Craig was honored with many awards for his outstanding teaching and service, including a Merit Award from the College of Arts and Sciences in 1983, an Excellence in Service Award in 1994, and the University of Hawai'i Board of Regents Excellence in Teaching Award in 1998. In 20900, he was also the first recipient of UH Hilo's Outstanding Advisor and Student Mentor Award.

 

Craig was instrumental in establishing a certificate program in Pacific Islands Studies at UH Hilo.  Outside of the classroom, he served as advisor to the Chuukese Student Association and as a mentor to countless Micronesian students and anthropology majors over the years.  Student Sunny Williams commented that he "shows a lot of concern for his students, especially the Micronesians, making sure they're doing well in their classes, checking to see if their health is okay."  With a keen interest in applied anthropology, Craig was also an effective resource for other faculty members at the university, and for individuals and organizations in the community, by helping them better understand Micronesian values and culture. "It will be a great loss not only to the Anthropology Department, but also to this university and its students.  He is a wealth of information," said student Danielle Takeshita.

 

Craig's interest in and connection with the Pacific began when he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chuuk from 1967–1969.  With great aloha for his newfound family on the island of Pis Losop (Piis Emwaar), Severance helped to protect the drinking water and wrote grants to allow men to build a salt-fish co-op community.  He also met his wife Carol, an award-winning novelist, in Micronesia.  In his retirement, he plans to occasionally teach a course at the university, to continue fishing and building fishing rods and lures, and to actively support local organizations such as Micronesians United.

 

(Excerpted from an article by Agnes Leilani Chow in the 13 April 2007 edition of Ke Kalahea, the University of Hawai'i at Hilo student newspaper)

 

 

PACIFIC JOURNALISTS VISIT UHM AND THE EAST-WEST CENTER

 

In April 2007, the East-West Center's Pacific Islands Development Program, the UH Office of International Education, and the Center for Pacific Islands Studies hosted eight Pacific journalists who were visiting Hawai'i on the way to Washington, DC, where they were to provide coverage of the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders. The journalists' visit was sponsored by the US State Department Bureau of Public Affairs, Washington Foreign Press Center.

 

The visiting journalists were

á       Suzanne Marie Chutarro (Marshall Islands Journal)

á       Antari Elbon (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Republic of the Marshall Islands)

á       Berna Gorong (The Yap Networker)

á       Bill Jaynes (Kaselehlie Press)

á       Nasayau Miriam Lurang (FM 100, Papua New Guinea)

á       Fermin Meriang (Island Times, Republic of Palau)

á       Laisa Taga (Islands Business International)

á       Greg John Tourelle (New Zealand Press Association)

 

The journalists toured the island of O'ahu; heard presentations by CPIS Director David Hanlon and others, including UH Pacific Business Center Program Director Dr Failautusi Avegalio; and had a chance to meet with UHM Pacific Islander students at an afternoon reception.

 

 

UHM LIBRARIANS TRAVEL TO MICRONESIA, TAHITI, AND THE COOK ISLANDS

 

In April 2007, Pacific Specialist Stu Dawrs and Pacific Curator Karen Peacock traveled to Micronesia, visiting Majuro, Pohnpei, Guam, and Saipan.  The two UHM librarians were on a mission to replace items lost in the flood of 2004 and to acquire new publications and materials. Peacock's travel was funded by CPIS's Title VI National Resource Center grant, another of the many ways in which CPIS supports library activities and acquisitions. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sponsored Dawrs's travel.  Law compilations, statistical reports, books from local presses, newspapers, and CDs of Micronesian music were among the items purchased or received during a very successful trip.  During their travels Dawrs and Peacock were pleased to have the opportunity to visit with librarians at the College of the Marshall Islands, Alele Museum, the College of Micronesia, the FSM Law Library, Micronesian Seminar, the University of Guam, the College of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Joeten-Kiyu Public Library (Saipan), among others.

 

In June 2007, Dawrs spent a week in Tahiti and a week in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, acquiring new materials and older items needed as flood replacements. On his trip, Dawrs met with librarians, archivists, and staff at l'UniversitŽ de la PolynŽsie Francaise (UPF), the Service des Archives (Tahiti's national archives), the SociŽtŽ des Žtudes OcŽaniennes (which also maintains an archives), the National Library of the Cook Islands, the Cook Islands Library and Museum, and other institutions. Special thanks go to Justina Nicholas, librarian of the National Library of the Cook Islands, who arranged in advance for a week's worth of meetings with key ministry officials in the Cook Islands. UH English Professor Paul Lyons also played an integral role in Dawrs's trip, introducing him to UPF Professor Sylvie Maurer, who arranged for a UPF student to accompany Dawrs as an interpreter on several of his government agency visits.

 

 

VISITORS TO THE CENTER

 

Among the visitors to the center during the period April through June 2007 were

 

á       Frederic Bassat, Visiting Fellow, Research Program, East-West Center

 

á       Guigone Camus, L'ƒcole des Hautes ƒtudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris

 

á       Pi'ikea Clark, Te Uru Maraurau, School of Māori and Multicultural Education, Massey University

 

á       Ian Conrich, Director, Centre for New Zealand Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London

 

á       Ofa Dewes, MBA, Obesity Prevention in Communities and Pacific Helath Research Workforce Development, University of Auckland

 

á       Francis X Hezel, SJ, Director, Micronesian Seminar, Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia

 

á       Brendan Hokowhitu, Te Tumu School of Māori, Pacific, and Indigenous Societies, University of Otago

 

á       Lisa Kitione, Policy Analyst, New Zealand Ministry of Health, Pacific Health Branch

 

á       Ann Kumar, Director, International Centre of Excellence in Asia-Pacific Studies, Australian National University

 

á       David Kupferman, Dean of Academic Affairs, College of the Marshall Islands

 

á       Peter Larmour, Reader/Convenor, Policy and Governance Program, Australian National University

 

á       Lila Lelepali, Teacher, Roosevelt High School, Honolulu

 

á       Selina Tusitala Marsh, Department of English, University of Auckland

 

á       Sela Panapasa, Research Fellow, Population Studies Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan

 

á       Sailau Sua'ali'i-Sauni, Deputy Director, Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Auckland

 

á       Shari Tamashiro, Cybrarian, Kapi'olani Community College

 

á       Debra Tuifao, Lawyer, Aotearoa New Zealand

 

á       Imiola Young, Teacher, Roosevelt High School, Honolulu

 

 

CENTER OCCASIONAL SEMINARS AND PRESENTATIONS

 

A poetry reading by five Pacific poets on 4 April 2007 featured visiting poet Selina Tusitala Marsh (University of Auckland) reading with Albert Wendt, Caroline Sinavaiana, Brandy Nālani McDougall, and Robert Sullivan, all of UH Mānoa. An overflow crowd listened to Marsh (who was in Hawai'i doing research for a critical anthology of the first Pacific women poets to publish in English) read a selection of her poems. Albert Wendt read from a novel, in poetic form, that he is working on. Caroline Sinavaiana read a piece in which she reflected on her experience with cancer. Brandy McDougall's poetry movingly explored traumatic events in her childhood, and Robert Sullivan read a selection of poems that reflected, with humor, on the natural world. The reading was organized by Robert Sullivan and the UH Department of English, and was cosponsored by the Center for Pacific Islands Studies and the Department of Hawaiian and Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures.

 

"Oceanic Expressions: Work from the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture" was the title of a talk on 25 April 2007 by graduating CPIS MA student and artist Katherine Higgins. As a graduate student, Higgins spent two residencies at the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture, at the University of the South Pacific. In her talk, she presented a selection of art works by the Red Wave Collective artists at the Oceania Centre and talked about the center's integrated programs in painting, sculpture, dance, and music. In addition to her slides, Higgins displayed a variety of paintings by center artists, accompanied by collaborative biographies of the artists, which she produced during her second residency. The East-West Center Pacific Islands Development Program (EWC-PIDP) and the UHM Museum Studies Graduate Certificate Program cosponsored the talk.

 

On 27 April 2007, Peter Larmour gave a talk titled "What Counts as 'Corruption' in the Pacific Islands." Larmour, an associate professor in the Policy and Governance Program at the Australian National University, looked at legal and popular understandings of corruption, using results from studies of "National Integrity Systems" in fourteen Island states. Larmour was a visiting scholar with the EWC-PIDP, which cosponsored the talk.

 

On 17 May 2007 John Reid and Tim Jenkins, from Lincoln University, Christchurch, Aotearoa/New Zealand, gave a talk titled "He Whenua Whakatipu—Creating Abundance on the Land." The seminar described an indigenous sustainable land development project with ancestral Māori landowners of Ngai Tahu descent. Reid and Jenkins, scientists at Lincoln University, discussed their experiences with participatory action research on the project and some of the development lessons they learned. The seminar was arranged by the UHM Environmental Center and cosponsored by CPIS and the UHM Department of Ethnic Studies.

 

The center's Occasional Seminar Series will resume when next semester begins, at the end of August 2007. To be put on the e-mail announcement list, please contact Tisha Hickson at ctisha@hawaii.edu.

 

 

FACULTY ACTIVITIES

 

A celebration of Rotuma Day (commemorated annually by Rotumans on 13 May) was held a few days early, 11 May 2007, at Brigham Young University Hawai'i. It was organized by BYUH Associate Professor Hiagi Wesley. A Native Hawaiian chant of welcome was offered by Uncle Bill Wallace, Director of Hawaiian Studies, and Academic Vice President Keith Roberts also extended the university's welcome. Special guests were Alan Howard (UHM anthropology professor emeritus) and Jan Rensel (CPIS editor), to launch their book, Island Legacy: A History of the Rotuman People (Trafford Publishing 2007); and Vilsoni Hereniko (CPIS professor) and Jeannette Hereniko, who showed their film The Land Has Eyes. Afterwards the guests joined the Rotuman and Fijian students to sing Rotuma's anthem ("Atumotu Helava La Kele"), and then adjourned to enjoy a festive potluck with more island-style singing and dancing.

 

Anthropology faculty member Heather Young Leslie will spend the month of August as a visiting professor with the Tupou Tertiary Institute (TTI), Tonga. She has been assisting TTI with the development of curriculum and will be working with their faculty to finalize articulation agreements with UH West O'ahu and Hawai'i Pacific University. The plan is to have Tongan students do their first two years of university at TTI and then complete their degrees in Hawai'i.

 

Nancy Lewis, director of the Research Program at the East-West Center, just returned from the twenty-first Pacific Science Congress in Okinawa, where she was elected vice-president of the Pacific Science Association (PSA).  The next Inter-Congress will be 2–5 March 2009 in Tahiti, French Polynesia. The overall theme will be "Pacific Countries and Their Ocean: Facing Local and Global Changes."

 

Ethnomusicology Professor Jane Moulin spent a week in June 2007 in Lenox, Massachusetts, at the Tanglewood II Symposium. Tanglewood I, in 1967, focused on the role of music education in an evolving American society. Since then, much has been learned about how the human community processes music. The goals of Tanglewood II were to cultivate a new understanding of music learning appropriate to the twenty-first century; to examine values of music in culture and its effect on transmission processes; and to think about how schools, public and private at all levels, can meet the decades ahead with a deeper understanding of the role they can play in supporting a musical future. Moulin was among the 32 international music educators and distinguished scholars invited to the symposium.

 

After the symposium, Moulin traveled to Europe to present a paper, "Hold Fast to the Sacred Words of Ta'aroa: Constructing and Transmitting a Sense of Place," at the International Council of Traditional Music conference in Vienna, Austria, 4–11 July 2007.

 

Best wishes to Sa'ili Lilomaiava-Doktor, CPIS alumna (MA, 1993; PhD, geography, UHM 2004) and visiting assistant professor with CPIS this semester. Sa'ili has accepted an appointment as an assistant professor at UH West O'ahu, where she will begin teaching in August. She will help develop Pacific Islands studies and Samoan language at West O'ahu. Sa'ili is also part of a UH Pacific Business Center Program team that has been contracted by the American Samoa Government to conduct a study of the quantity and quality of the labor pool available in American Samoa and Samoa. This summer she is working to establish relationships and resource connections with government officials, institutions of higher education, the private sector, and local villages, to lay the groundwork for the full team's arrival.

 

STUDENT AND ALUMNI ACITIVITIES

 

Congratulations to our five newest graduates! With their final papers and projects, they are

 

á       Teresa A Brugh—Thesis: "Beliliou, Beluu el Omechelel a Tekoi (Peleliu, the Place Where Things Begin): Possibilities for the Re/use of Traditional Marine Conservation Practices in the Republic of Palau" (with DVD)

 

Terry Brugh's interest in and knowledge of the marine environment in Palau date to her experiences living and working there as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 2002 to 2005. In her thesis, she proposes using the traditional knowledge that is extant, but is not currently widely in practice, to improve marine conservation efforts in Peleliu. The application of this knowledge, she argues, is not only necessary to conserve resources, but is also fundamental to maintaining the culture and identity of Palauans.  As part of her argument, Brugh reviews the extent of environmental problems and the local dialogue that takes place around marine conservation issues.

 

á       Sara B Lightner—Thesis: "Ples Blong Olgeta Sista: Ni-Vanuatu Catholic Sisters Navigating Places and Spaces"

 

Sara Lightner, who lived for two years in 2001-2002 at la Mission de Melsisi, on the island of Pentecost, explored the individual stories of Vanuatu's Catholic Sisters to examine their role within the "places and spaces of life in contemporary Vanuatu." In the summer of 2006 she returned to Vanuatu and traveled to various missions on Santo, Efate, Ambae, and Pentecost to spend time with the sisters and to hear their stories. She explored their reasons for joining the missions and how they meld their familial and community relationships and lives as Ni-Vanuatu women with service to the mission and its congregation.

 

á       Nicole Kau'i Baumhofer—Thesis: "For the Health of a People: The Recruitment and Retention of Native Hawaiian Medical Students at the University of Hawai'i's John A Burns School of Medicine, A Genealogical Approach"

 

Nicole Baumhofer, who is on her own journey toward becoming a physician, explored the issue of culturally competent Native Hawaiian physician workforce development and the recruitment and retention practices at the John A Burns School of Medicine. Her interviews with twelve Native Hawaiian doctors, medical students, and premedical students led her to propose programs such as formal mentoring for premedical students in order to keep students from "falling through the cracks."

 

á       Katherine Higgins—Portfolio Project: "Biau Kula: Space, Process, and Creativity at the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture, with DVD (A Tour of the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture)"

 

Katherine Higgins, an artist who has always been intrigued by the process of artistic creation and spaces for art, began her relationship with Pacific art during her volunteer experience in the Marshall Islands. As a student she became interested in the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture at the University of the South Pacific, in Fiji, eventually spending two residencies there. In her in-depth look at the center she highlights possibilities for spaces for art in Oceania. As a part of her second residency, she worked on biographies of the artists, as a tangible way of reciprocating the center's generosity in hosting her. Her portfolio project includes a DVD with scenes from the center and interviews with the artists.

 

á       Mariana Ben—Plan B paper: "My Mwoakilloa: Self-Concept of the People of Mwoakilloa"

 

Mariana Ben is on the Social Science Faculty at the College of Micronesia–FSM, where she is the coordinator of the Micronesian Studies Program. She has a special interest in Micronesian politics, women's issues, and gender in the Pacific.

 

The spring brought a wealth of news from CPIS alumni about their activities and the contributions they are making to their communities.

 

Alumna Joanna Jacob (MA, 2002) is working as a Chuukese school/home assistant with the Hawai'i State Department of Education (DOE). She is also partnering with the DOE's Parent Community Network Center to facilitate a class, "Parent Project," which works with parents of children who are at risk academically or who have been in trouble with the law. Joanna is also involved with other projects in the community including the "Micronesian Cultural Awareness Project," which she and others in the community (Lilllian Segal, Canisius Fillibert, Ruth Truce, Gloria Lani, and Josie Howard) started. This project, which is funded through the Hawai'i State Office of Community Service, consists of workshops in the O'ahu public schools about the cultures of Micronesia and ways of working with Micronesian students.

 

Alumna Brooke Nevitt (MA, 2005) just finished the year as director of Northern Marianas Academy, a small private high school on Saipan and Brooke's alma mater. Because of Saipan's economic problems, the year has not been easy for the school, but working with young people on Saipan to try and make positive changes has been very rewarding for Brooke.

 

Alumna Portia Richmond (MA, 2003) is a research administrator for ethics and internal research grants at Unitec Institute of Technology in Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand. With others, she has started a Māori and Pacific Islanders support group, which has grown quite large. The group is exploring networking, the research culture, funding, indigenous methodologies, and the cultural ethics of research, among other areas.

 

Alumna Katie Wright (MA, 2005) is working for the Kokua Hawai'i Foundation, which was started by singer Jack Johnson and his wife to support environmental education in the schools and communities of Hawai'i. Among the foundation's many programs are field trips, recycling, and a number of hands-on projects.

 

Alumna Aurelia Kinslow (MA, 2005) will soon begin teaching Pacific Islands studies across grades at Honoka'a Elementary School on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Aurelia is also teaching Tahitian dance at the Waimea Community Education Center and plans to begin teaching French and Pacific Islands studies later in the year at the UH Hilo Honoka'a Extension.

 

Recent alumna Sara Lightner (MA, 2007) has returned to Vanuatu as a program officer for AusAID's Governance for Growth Program. The program's overall theme is generating economic growth and improving service delivery through good governance, especially in the rural areas outside of Vila. Sara's work involves organizing communications and information dissemination and designing a research fund that will accept applications for research on topics such as service delivery and economic growth.

 

Alumna Faustina Rehuher (MA, 1989), director of the Belau National Museum, has been awarded a Pacific Islands Visiting Fellowship by Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, England. The fellowship is an annual program under which mid-career scholars who are citizens of the Pacific Islands nations can spend eight weeks in Cambridge. Tina's study topic is Palauan artifacts and items in museums in England. She will spend the latter part of this summer in England identifying objects, looking at collections management, and investigating how to establish and maintain partnerships with other museums. For more information on the fellowship, see the Web site at http://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/oldmembers/news.php?newid=112.

 

CPIS alumnus Greg Dvorak (MA 2004) was interviewed on Radio Australia's "In the Loop" podcast segment on 3 July 2007. Dvorak talked about the research he is doing as part of his ANU Interdisciplinary Cross-Cultural Research PhD on the multilayered history of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. As a part of his thesis, he is making a movie as a way of making Kwajalein peoples' stories accessible to a wide audience in the Pacific.

 

As part of a service-learning program through ethnic studies at UH Mānoa, incoming CPIS student Jessica Garlock-Tuiali'i is volunteering in the Micronesian Community Youth Program, run by the Boys & Girls Club of Hawai'i. The program introduces Micronesian high school students to a range of activities, from life skills to training in technology.

 

Former UHM ethnomusicology student Brian Diettrich has accepted a position as music instructor with the College of Micronesia in Palikir, Pohnpei. He will begin teaching in the fall.

 

Finally, warm wishes to CPIS alumnus Scott Kroeker (MA, 1999) and Julie Walsh Kroeker (PhD, anthropology, UHM 2003) on the birth of their second son, Max Andrew Kroeker, on 14 April 2007.

 

 

PUBLICATIONS AND MOVING IMAGES

 

UH Press Publications

 

House Girls Remember: Domestic Workers in Vanuatu, edited by Margaret Rodman, Daniela Kraemer, Lissant Bolton, and Jean Tarisesei, gives voice to the women who worked as maids—known as "house girls" in Vanuatu and elsewhere in the Pacific. The stories they tell resonate with the experiences of domestic workers around the world. The book includes workshop reports by eleven ni-Vanuatu women fieldworkers and ten others who spoke about their lives as house girls during the colonial period and more recently. 2007, 176 pages. ISBN 978-0-8248-3012-0, cloth, US$45.0