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The Pacific Islands at the Australian National University
 Oceania The Australian National University is generally recognised as the world's leading centre of Pacific Islands studies, and has established a formidable reputation for excellence in this field. Pacific scholars in the College of Asia and the Pacific are dedicated to understanding the region's history, politics, cultures, economies, international relations and strategic situation. Many are authors of the key books and articles on the region, travel there frequently, serve as consultants on Pacific issues, and offer policy advice to governments and regional organisations at a time when Australia has embarked upon a new Pacific engagement. The ANU College of Asia and the Pacific concentrates this unique pool of expertise by uniting those parts of the university that specialise, in whole or in part, in the study of the Pacific Islands:
The Pacific Centre provides a formal and focused structure to tap the
unmatched strengths of the University in Pacific scholarship and to enhance
its regional outreach activities. The Centres activities are coordinated
through the Learning Oceania initiative.
The College hosts a continuous succession of seminars, workshops and conferences on Pacific Islands issues and produces a number of scholarly journals in Pacific Islands studies, including the Journal of Pacific History, Pacific Economic Bulletin and State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Discussion Papers. Graduate education in the Pacific Islands field is strong at ANU, and undergraduate education is being considerably strengthened.
Anthropology, Archaeology, Prehistory and Linguistics
The Pacific Islands are home to people who speak more than 1,000 languages, whose ultimate origins lie in South-East Asia, and whose cultures continue to display extraordinary strength, variety and complexity. The study of these origins, cultures and languages has long been an important focus of research and publication at the ANU, which remains a key centre of such investigations.
Key Staff
- Professor Matthew Spriggs
- Pacific and Southeast Asian archaeology. Author of The Island Melanesians (1997).
- Professor Peter Bellwood
- Archaeology of SE Asia and Oceania. Author of First farmers: the origins of agricultural societies (2005).
- Professor Margaret Jolly
- Gender, health and the politics of tradition in the Pacific Islands. Author and co-editor of many publications including Birthing in the Pacific: beyond tradition and modernity? (2002).
- Professor Mark Mosko
- Social anthropological theory; cultural change; exchange; religion; Melanesia/Pacific. Co-editor of On the order of chaos: Social anthropology and the science of chaos (2005).
- Professor Andrew Pawley
- Austronesian and Papuan languages and cultures; prehistory of Pacific Island peoples. Co-editor of The Lexicon of Proto Oceanic. The Culture and Environment of Ancestral Oceanic Society: vols. 1 and 2 (1998, 2003)
- Professor Darrell Tryon
- Austronesian linguistics; pidgins and creoles; language contact, language change in the Pacific. Edited Comparative Austronesian dictionary: an introduction to Austronesian studies (1995)
- Dr Chris Gregory
- Political and economic anthropology, anthropological theory, Papua New Guinea, ethnographic film. Author of Savage money: the anthropology and politics of commodity exchange (1997).
- Dr James Weiner
- Papua New Guinea; Aboriginal Australia; language, myth, poetry, art; mining and the state. Author of Tree Leaf Talk: A Heideggerian Anthropology (2001).
- Dr Michael Young
- Anthropology of Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu; history of anthropology, biography of Malinowski. Author of Malinowski: Odyssey of an Anthropologist, 1884-1920 (2004).
- Dr Alan Rumsey
- Melanesia, especially Papua New Guinea Highlands; linguistic anthropology; indigenes and the state. Co-editor of Emplaced Myth: Space, Narrative, and Knowledge in Australian Aboriginal and Papua New Guinea Societies, (2001).
- Dr Susan O'Connor
- Pleistocene colonisation of Island Southeast Asia, Australia and Papua New Guinea by modern humans. Co-editor of East of Wallace's Line: studies of past and present maritime societies in the Indo-Pacific region (2000).
- Dr Janelle Stevenson
- Archaeology, palaeogeography and palaeoclimatology of Southeast Asia, Melanesia, Pacific Islands. Author of 'A late Holocene record of human impact from the southwest coast of New Caledonia', The Holocene, 14(6), 2004: 888-898.
- Dr Katherine Szabo
- Island Southeast Asian and Pacific prehistory
History
The ANU pioneered the academic study of Pacific Islands history, and a steady stream of scholarly publications on the unique past of Island countries and regions continues. The ANU is home to the leading journal in this field, the Journal of Pacific History, which appears three times a year.
Key Staff
- Professor Brij Lal
- Pacific Islands history; Fiji; comparative constitutionalism; plantation systems and labour history; Asian diaspora. Author of numerous books including Broken Waves: A history of the Fiji Islands in the 20th century (1992) and editor of numerous others, including The Pacific Islands: An Encyclopedia (2000).
- Dr Chris Ballard
- Human rights and violence; resource ownership, land rights and autonomy; concepts of 'race'; agricultural transformation in Indonesia and Melanesia. A co-editor of The Sweet Potato in Oceania: a reappraisal (2005).
- Dr Paul D'Arcy
- Pacific maritime, environmental and indigenous history; comparative regional history of the Asia Pacific. Author of The People of the Sea: Environment, Identity, and History in Oceania (2006).
- Dr Bronwen Douglas
- Science, art, and the history of race in Oceania; Christianity, gender, and community in Melanesia. Author of 'Slippery Word, Ambiguous Praxis: "Race" and Late 18th-Century Voyagers in Oceania', Journal of Pacific History, 41:1, 2006.
Human Geography and Resource Management
Scholars with intimate knowledge of the Pacific Islands engage in the study of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining, tourism, water and energy, as well as issues of local knowledge, land systems, land disputes, landscapes and economic sustainability. Their scholarly contribution, through academic publication and consultancy, forms the basis for policy-making and aid interventions throughout the region.
Key Staff
- Dr Bryant Allen
- Agricultural change in Melanesia and Southeast Asia. Co-author of Papua New Guinea Rural Development Handbook (2001).
- Dr Robin Hide
- Human ecology of rural society in Melanesia; ethnoscience, subsistence, nutrition and ethnography in Papua New Guinea. Author of Pig Husbandry in New Guinea: A Literature Review and Bibliography (2003).
- Dr Hartmut Holzknecht
- Community-level management of natural and human resources in Melanesia. Author of 'Customary Rights and Economic Development in Papua New Guinea', in T. van Meijl and F. von Benda-Beckmann, eds., Property Rights and Economic Development: Land and Natural Resources in Southeast Asia and Oceania (1999).
- Dr Colin Filer
- Social context and impact of resource management policies and resource conservation or development projects in Melanesia. Co-author of The Thin Green Line: World Bank Leverage and Forest Policy Reform in Papua New Guinea (2000).
- Dr Mike Bourke
- Village agriculture, environment, land use, food in Melanesia. Co-editor of numerous publications including Solomon Islands Smallholder Agriculture Study. Volume 1. Rural Livelihoods Strategy (2006).
Politics, Security and Economics
The Pacific Islands are of critical security interest to Australia, and some Pacific countries face significant political, security and development challenges. The College contributes importantly to the analysis of these challenges through the research of a number of scholars located in different parts of the College: the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Project, the Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government, and the Centre for Democratic Institutions.
Key Staff
- Dr Sinclair Dinnen
- Conflict and peacemaking in Melanesia; cultural criminology; restorative justice; the politics of new states. Author of Law and Order in a Weak State: Crime and Politics in Papua New Guinea (2000).
- Mr Anthony Regan
- Conflict reconciliation and peace processes in Melanesia, law and politics in developing countries, especially Papua New Guinea. Co-editor of Bougainville: Before the Conflict (2005).
- Professor Hank Nelson
- History of Papua New Guinea; relations between Papua New Guinea and Australia; current politics of Papua New Guinea. Author of numerous articles and of a number of key works on PNG history and politics, including Taim Belong Masta: the Australian involvement with Papua New Guinea (1982).
- Dr Ron May
- Ethnicity and ethnic conflict, decentralisation, parties and elections, and civil-military relations, especially in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. Author of State and Society in Papua New Guinea: The First Twenty-Five Years (2004).
- Mr David Hegarty
- Governance and political change; small state diplomacy and security; conflict and conflict-resolution strategies in the Pacific Islands.
- Dr Peter Larmour
- Politics, government and corruption in the South Pacific; author of Foreign Flowers: Institutional Transfer and Good Governance in the Pacific Islands (2005).
- Associate Professor Ben Reilly
- Democracy, elections and governance in the South Pacific. Author of 'State Functioning and State Failure in the South Pacific', Australian Journal of International Affairs, 58, 4, 2004.
- Mr Greg Fry
- South Pacific regional politics; Australia's relations with Pacific Islands states; international relations theory; security in the South Pacific. Co-edited Contending Images of World Politics (2000).
- Dr Nicole Haley
- Conflict, elections, land disputes, small arms proliferation and HIV/AIDS in Melanesia.
- Dr Abby McLeod
- Women and the law in Papua New Guinea; women and conflict in Melanesia; state and non-state mechanisms of social control; cultural impediments to police reform.
- Dr Robert Ayson
- Asia-Pacific security, New Zealand foreign policy. Co-editor of Strategy and Security in the Asia-Pacific ( 2006).
- Dr William Sutherland
- Regionalism and small island states in the South Pacific, politics of Fiji. Co-author of Government by the Gun: The Unfinished Business of Fiji's 2000 Coup (2001).
- Professor Stewart Firth
- Globalisation and regional security in the South Pacific. Author of Australia in International Politics, (2005).
- Associate Professor Satish Chand
- Economic growth, international trade, development in the South Pacific. Editor of Pacific Islands regional integration and governance (2005).
Transdisciplinary Pacific Studies
Pacific Studies is a transdisciplinary field that explores Oceania, a
region that includes the Pacific Islands, West Papua, New Zealand and the
Pacific diaspora across the globe. Drawing upon the ANU College of Asia and
the Pacific's unparalleled pool of regional expertise, "Learning Oceania" is
a dynamic new program incorporating research, outreach, postgraduate studies
and Australia's first undergraduate Pacific Studies major.
- Dr. Katerina Martina Teaiwa
- Phosphate mining in Oceania, Pacific diasporas, popular culture and creative
industries, contemporary Pacific dance. Editor of Indigenous Encounters:
reflections on relations between people in the Pacific (2007)..
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