Pacific Dynamics: Volume 2 • Issue 1 • June 2018

FULL EXCERPT: The populations it deals with are, in many instances, still displaced, subject to the same processes of globalisation that produce alienation. But the theme of mobility on evidence in Hermann et al is replaced in this issue by a focus on growing new roots and finding a new sense of belonging…The articles in this collection do not attempt to diminish this important Pacific way of being. But what they do argue for is the importance of creating a place to be still, of taking time and figuring out how to put down roots in new or changing places. In its geographical focus, too, this volume diverges from the primarily Polynesian and New Zealand-based case studies in Hermann et al, looking at identity and belonging primarily in Melanesia and Australia, and asking how non-Islanders in the Pacific might fit in as well…

FULL ABSTRACT: Universities typically host a broad range of students from many different backgrounds and cultural groups. Each of these groups brings with them their own stories, ways of knowing and sensing the world, and experiences that impact upon their relationship with educational institutions as learning and social spaces. Often, students from minority backgrounds face mental, emotional and physical challenges associated with university study alongside the reality of living in two worlds – the first of their heritage cultures, and the other of the university as a Western learning institution. This article explores the experiences of the author, an associate chaplain at Western Sydney University, and the establishment of a monthly event called ‘Fellowship Over Food’. This is a night for Pacific students enrolled at the University based around spirituality, building social networks and, of course, food. It explores chaplaincy through Heshusius’ (1994) notion of a participatory mode of consciousness, alongside the experience of Flinders university chaplain Geoff Boyce (2010), which highlights the role of multifaith chaplaincy within university contexts framed as hospitality to strangers. This article uses the author’s reflections on the first ‘Fellowship Over Food’ night, which took place in August 2017, to consider how a non-Pacific chaplain can engage meaningfully in this cross-cultural space. This night demonstrated the socio-spiritual connections and affirmation that can take place through such practice, and its importance for Pacific students in a university setting.

FULL ABSTRACT: Approximately 60,000 labourers travelled from various parts of India between 1879 and 1916 to Fiji to work in the sugarcane fields. Over seven thousand of these were Muslims who, like their fellow Indians, hoped to return home after earning enough money in Fiji. However, after the end of their tenure, some remained to start a new life in Fiji. Muslims gradually established themselves and their religious life started to flourish. Over time, as Muslims became better organised and more resourceful in Fiji, Islam slowly assumed a public and institutionalised role. However, it also developed in a syncretic manner because of the intimate interactions and mutual support structures between Muslims and Hindus. Over the last several decades, Islam in Fiji has taken a new turn with the arrival of the Tabligh Jama’at. There is a process of de-syncretisation in motion involving the abandoning of certain symbols and practices associated with “popular” Islam and the promotion of strict observance of scripturally based teachings and practices among Muslims. In the literature such a phenomenon is known as Islamic revivalism. This paper investigates Tabligh Jama’at’s revivalist activities in Fiji. It particularly concentrates on the movement’s approach to proselytisation and reconfiguration of Muslim identity in Fiji.

FULL ABSTRACT: In a recent report on Papua New Guinea (PNG), the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) noted its concern at the alienation of land held under customary title through the granting of Special Agricultural Business Leases (SABLs). Its concern centres on the impact of SABLs on human rights, with the UNHRC citing that the granting of these leases “had negatively affected the ability of indigenous communities to maintain customary land use patterns and sustain their traditional way of living” (UNHRC, 2016:12). Yet, I contend, such an Indigenous rights-based approach to the issue is problematic on two levels. First, it is not clear which groups in Papua New Guinea should be considered ‘Indigenous’ given the country’s universal franchise and the lack of a politically or economically dominant identity group. Second, such an approach does not account for the widespread commodification of land held under customary title. The majority of land in PNG is held under customary title and is occupied by Indigenous smallholders producing crops for immediate consumption, the local market and for export. These two problems show that framing the question of land as an Indigenous rights issue glosses over the ongoing struggle between these smallholders and the Indigenous capital class in Papua New Guinea. This means that challenging the use of SABLs to alienate land held under customary title by positing such use as an infringement of Indigenous groups’ rights to traditional or non-capitalist land use would have little potential to protect customary land rights in PNG, seriously circumscribing the capacity for achieving positive development outcomes.

FULL ABSTRACT: Through this short, critical piece, I, as someone who comes from an Indigenous Pacific heritage, aim to challenge the way in which mainstream society positions societal problems as siloed, isolated from a structural, collective understanding of societal problems generally evident in Indigenous epistemologies. I suggest that by using an anti-oppressive social work practice approach where power imbalances are examined and understood within a wider context, we, as a Pacific community, are better equipped to create strategies and solutions that are inclusive of those traditionally not included in the conversation for change. We need to promote the importance of creating a shared, collaborative stance on the social and welfare needs evident in the Pacific diaspora in Australia and to involve diverse voices including the voices of non-Pacific people genuinely wanting to assist our own cultural capital and growth in Western societies. This can positively influence the people with the power to make social change to share control of change-making processes and to create multiple discourses that reflect the cultural diversity of those working for justice; this will allow us to move beyond the traditional, individualistic rhetoric of ‘us and them’ to ‘we’.

FULL ABSTRACT: Australian South Sea Islanders, the descendants of the Melanesians from (primarily) Vanuatu and Solomon Islands who were ‘blackbirded’ to Queensland and New South Wales (1847-1904) for their labour, have, through music and dance practices, come to identify as part of a global black ‘transnation’. Studies of the ‘Black Atlantic’ point both to the transnational character of slavery and the importance of music as a medium of resistance. This article proposes that Australian South Sea Islanders’ musical cultures might usefully be understood in terms of a parallel concept, the ‘Black Pacific’, in relation to which the Pacific’s colonised and decolonised peoples have developed their own expressions of black pride and performed resistance. It argues that a more nuanced appreciation of Australian South Sea Islander performance culture as part of the Black Pacific will allow all Australians to better understand some of the vitally important yet obfuscated consequences of Australia’s blackbirding past.

FULL ABSTRACT: In January 1941, the Japanese female population in New Caledonia included the Japan-born as well as former French citizens and subjects, Dutch subjects (primarily Javanese) and local Indigenous Kanak women who were married to Japanese men. Before the enactment of a new French Nationality Law in August 1927, French women who married non-French citizens became citizens of their husband’s country and therefore French women who married Japanese men became Japanese. After the change in the law, French women who married Japanese retained their French citizenship. Kanak and Dutch women who married Japanese men also became Japanese. The number of Japan-born women was low compared to the number of Japanese men, primarily because the French authorities did not permit yobiyose (proxy marriages by correspondence). This article is an exploratory study of the three categories of Japanese women who were resident in New Caledonia at the time of the outbreak of the Asia-Pacific theatre of war in December 1941: heritage, Japan-born and Japanese-by-marriage. It discusses the different effects that marriage had on the women depending on their backgrounds.

FULL ABSTRACT: This article presents preliminary descriptive data findings from a study focusing on vendors and produce at the Honiara Central Market (HCM), the largest fresh food market in Solomon Islands and the main source of fresh produce for Honiara’s growing population. The study aims to map the supply of fresh produce to HCM to provide baseline data that will enable the assessment of risks and vulnerabilities to the human and food security of Solomon Islands. This article first presents an overview of the relationship between human security and food security in Solomon Islands. It then provides a summary of the study method, before presenting descriptive data on HCM vendors and their produce. Data show that female vendors are most common at HCM by a factor of four to one over males. Most vendors are married and sell the food they grow. Most vendors sell leafy vegetables, fruits or root vegetables, and stay for between half a day and a day at market. The majority of most produce categories come from East Guadalcanal, and are transported by truck to HCM. The data supports the contention that the HCM provides an opportunity for rural farmers to earn income through the sale of produce as well as helping urban Honiara residents meet their food security needs.

FULL ABSTRACT: In the 19th and (for most of the) 20th centuries, Europeans saw the Pacific as a sea of static, isolated islands. Recently Pacific Studies scholars have argued instead that it is interconnected and dynamic, a place where the sea forms roads, not barriers (see e.g., Hau’ofa 1993; Kirch 2002; Teaiwa 2007). Australia sits amidst these roads, and its languages and cultures, like those of the Asia-Pacific region, still hold traces of significant historical interactions. Uncovering, collating and understanding these traces will allow us not only to better understand our region’s past, but also to understand how long-term intercultural contact plays out. In this article we argue that this kind of research requires us to draw together threads from a variety of fields: linguistics, anthropology, archaeology and genetics. We discuss the challenges and advantages of doing so, in particular the need to develop shared ‘languages’ for description and analysis. Such comparison of linguistic with non-linguistic patterns of change sheds new light on the story of Oceania’s past as well as societal consequences of political, cultural, economic and technological change.

FULL ABSTRACT: New Caledonia has an unusual language dynamic in comparison to other French overseas territories. In most of these islands, a French Creole is usually the lingua franca and has a lower status than French. In contrast, in New Caledonia the French Creole, called Tayo, is a minority language and comes in contact with French, English and 28 Indigenous languages (also called Kanak languages). The 2014 census population revealed a multi-ethnic and multicultural New- Caledonian population. It did not, however, record the rate of multilingualism in speakers. Results from a recent sociolinguistic study on patterns of language use and language attitudes revealed that French is perceived as the ‘cement language’ that binds all Neo-Caledonians. English on the other hand, is considered the global language of the Pacific, and as such is more valued than Indigenous and migrant languages by the younger generations. In contrast, Creole Tayo, the only French Creole in the Pacific, acts as an identity marker and ‘code’ amongst its small group of speakers when they do not want ‘outsiders’ to know what they were saying.