Pacific Dynamics is an online open access journal published by the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies with the support of the UC Arts Digital Lab, University of Canterbury, New Zealand http://hdl.handle.net/10092/13585 2018-01-23T17:17:49Z 2018-01-23T17:17:49Z Willis, Jeff http://hdl.handle.net/10092/14904 2018-01-03T14:02:24Z 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z

When the ‘tuna wars’ went hot: Kiribati, the Soviet Union, and the fishing pact that provoked a superpower Willis, Jeff In 1985 the Republic of Kiribati, a low-lying island nation in the central Pacific, entered into a fisheries access arrangement with the Soviet Union. Coming at the height of renewed Cold War tensions between the USSR and the West, this unprecedented manoeuvre provoked a significant international uproar and briefly placed Kiribati at the forefront of international geopolitics. Although the Cold War has long since passed, Kiribati‟s Russian gambit remains a unique example of how confronting and impactful small state foreign policy can be, given the right circumstances. Drawing on media reports and academic writing of the day, as well as interviews conducted with relevant officials during 2017 fieldwork in the Pacific, this article offers an analysis of the Kiribati/Soviet fishing pact. It examines the issues – both at home and abroad – which motivated Kiribati to engage with the USSR; the international and domestic reactions to the Government of Kiribati‟s actions; and what occurred in the aftermath of the agreement being signed. Finally, it considers the changing nature of foreign policy in the Pacific in the present day – and suggests that Kiribati‟s 1985 actions provide an insight into what might be seen in Pacific international relations moving forward.

2017-01-01T00:00:00Z Small, David http://hdl.handle.net/10092/14902 2017-12-21T14:02:45Z 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z

Education, colonisation and Kanak aspirations in New Caledonia: Historical contexts and contemporary challenges Small, David This is an analysis of the role that education has played in the development of colonial relations in New Caledonia. It examines the historical impact of French colonialism and particularly colonial education, and details some of the ways that Kanak educational resistance became a focus of the radicalisation of the Kanak indepedence movement during the 1970s and 80s. It includes a discussion of the rise and eventual demise of the independent school initiative, les Ecoles Populaires Kanak (EPK), and explains how intimately connected the EPK was to the FLNKS policy of rupture with French colonialism. In its discussion of the post-conflict era which began with the 1988 signing of the Matignon Accords and looking towards the 2018 referendum on self-determination, this article considers the state of Kanak languages and the extent to which the challenge of Kanak educational underachievement is being met.

2017-01-01T00:00:00Z Ramesh, Sanjay http://hdl.handle.net/10092/14901 2017-12-21T14:02:46Z 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z

Hegemony and counter hegemony in Fiji Ramesh, Sanjay The article analyses Fiji politics by utilising the analytical framework established by neo-Gramscian scholars, who emphasise the role of social forces and constitutive moments in the making of history. Elite hegemony in Fiji was founded on the hegemony of indigenous chiefs, local and transnational capital and indigenous nationalism. These three pillars of elite hegemony are central arguments of critical and cultural neo-Gramscian theories on power, social forces and neoliberal economic discourses and this neo-Gramscian approach provides both ontological and epistemological frameworks for the study of both hegemony and counter-hegemony in Fiji and reflect convergence, divergence, mobilisation, resistance, and control, and inform counter history and social reframing, where ethnic social forces collide with inter-ethnic alliances, creating new political counter-hegemonic paradigms that usher in new historical and social trajectories.

2017-01-01T00:00:00Z Gorohouna, Samuel Ris, Catherine http://hdl.handle.net/10092/14900 2017-12-21T14:02:48Z 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z

Twenty-five years of inequality-reduction policies in school achievement in New Caledonia Gorohouna, Samuel; Ris, Catherine New Caledonia, the largest French Territory in the South Pacific, enjoys a high standard of living but is marked by huge social inequalities as a result of geographic and ethnic origin. In New Caledonia, as in the rest of the world, we are witnessing an extension of the duration of studies. It is important to ascertain that this ―massification of schooling‖ comes hand-in-hand with a reduced correlation between gender and ethnic origin on the one hand and education destiny on the other; in other words, that schooling is being ―qualitatively democratised‖. This study highlights the differences in school achievement between Kanak (indigenous people) and non-Kanak, female and male, as well as a combination of those groups. Using data from the four most recent censuses (1989, 1996, 2009 and 2014), we show that dramatic progress has been made in the area of school achievement; this improvement is particularly marked within the Kanak population. However, at all census dates, there have been fewer Kanak than non-Kanak diploma holders. When using odds ratios, we observe a strong decrease of inequalities in access to education since 1989. However, this decrease has slowed down since 2009, and there is stagnation for the 20- to 30-year-old age group. The general assessment of inequality reduction should therefore be nuanced when focusing in detail on the types of diplomas obtained (in particular the range of higher education diplomas) and on the level thereof (the higher the education level, the greater the inequality).

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