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Understanding the dramatic changes in the world today requires deeper and critical exploration of diverse paradigms of knowledge in their conceptual and applied forms. This involves reimagining the often fiercely guarded dominant disciplinary boundaries, research discourses and methodologies. The synergy between local and global discourses and the multidimensional aspects of modern society require diverse intellectual prisms for more critical scholarly research and knowledge production. Questioning dominant ideas and transcending the traditional boundaries of formal disciplines, while maintaining one’s core area of expertise, can be enriching and reflective of the complexity of the contemporary world.
Pacific Dynamics attempts to respond to this need for critical, open and interdisciplinary approach to research. The journal aims to promote rigorous debates on theoretical discourses, applied knowledge and policy issues regarding the Pacific Islands, including New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Rim using multiple prisms. The journal accepts articles from diverse areas of study including gender studies, indigenous studies, conflict-peace-security studies, minority studies, politics, international relations, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, education, philosophy, literature, development studies, economics, marine studies, environmental studies and others not mentioned here. To ensure wide circulation, the journal is online and open access and for academic rigor, it has a comprehensive peer review process.
Pacific Dynamics is published biannually by the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies in collaboration with the Arts Digital Lab at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
The main website for Pacific Dynamics is at: pacificdynamics.nz
All work in Pacific Dynamics is under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence
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Journal Articles [41]
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Lila
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)Evening. Dye from prayer flags mounted on bamboo poles runs into the western sky. They have fluttered here for over a century now and it is impossible to imagine the landscape without them: the mast of bamboo, the spinnaker ... -
The sea is rising: Visualising climate change in the Pacific islands
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)I begin with our earth island; a concept made possible by the satellite technologies developed in the Cold War; a battle that, while largely invisible to the majority of the people of the globe, was violently propagated ... -
From contrapuntal writing to antipodal carving: Paul Gauguin's Polynesian "Afternoon of a Faun"
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)This article examines the adaptation of Mallarmé’s symbolist poem, “The Afternoon of a Faun,” by Paul Gauguin. During his first trip to Tahiti, Gauguin carved a cylindrical wooden totem that recreates the faun’s lustful ... -
Girmit, postmemory, and Subramani
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)The centenary of indenture in Fiji was celebrated with public displays, speeches, parades, and publications. The momentum for critical and creative response grew in tandem with the wave of publications inspired by the end ... -
“i am the dreams of your tipuna”: constructing Oceanic memory in contemporary anglophone Māori literature
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)Drawing on the creative output of Witi Ihimaera, Apirana Taylor and Patricia Grace, this article examines how memories related to Oceania are woven into these authors’ prose and verse narratives. After a brief introduction ... -
Grace’s interstitial Oceanic memory in Alan Duff’s Once were warriors
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)An exercise in symptomatic reading, this paper studies Alan Duff’s Once Were Warriors (1990) from a postcolonial perspective. It claims that the novel invokes Oceanic memory more than its author is willing to admit. Against ... -
Collective creavity: contemporary art associations in Port Vila, Vanuatu
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)This paper examines the influence of contemporary art on collective memory in Port Vila, Vanuatu. In doing so, two key organisations are introduced – the Nawita Contemporary Arts Association and the Red Wave Vanuatu Arts ... -
The performance of memory in Rapanui theatre
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)This article discusses how memory has been crucial in the production of theatre in Rapa Nui. Histories of colonial powers in Rapanui have foster the use of memory as a real source of information, not only to gather information ... -
Stowaway memory
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)In te ao Māori, the kiore (Pacific rat or Rattus exulans) is a distinguished travel companion who recalls migratory history, Oceanic homelands and distinct ancestral values. Yet for European settlers, kiore are indistinguishable ... -
How do people belong in the Pacific? Introduction to this issue
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)In early 2016, the two editors of this issue met together to discuss our common research interests. At that time, one of us (Jioji Ravulo) was a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences and Psychology at Western ... -
A Shell and a Stone: Pacific Chaplaincy Practice at Western Sydney University
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)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 ... -
The Tabligh Jama’at and Islamic revivalism in Fiji
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)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 ... -
Customary land title and Indigenous rights in Papua New Guinea
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)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 ... -
Connecting and collaborating across Oceania and its diaspora: A shared approach to meaningful development and engagement
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)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, ... -
Sound tracks of the Black Pacific: Music, identity and resilience in Australian South Sea Islander communities
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)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 ... -
Female Japanese Citizens in New Caledonia: Pre-December 8, 1941
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)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 ... -
Food security in Solomon Islands: Preliminary results from a survey of the Honiara Central Market
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)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 ... -
Waves of words: Ancient Asia-Pacific connection with North Australia
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)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 ... -
Language use and language attitudes in New Caledonia with particular reference to French Creole Tayo
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2018)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, ... -
Redefining the Role of the Military in Democratization
(Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 2017)Ka tangi te titi, ka tangi te kaka, ka tangi hoki ahau. Tihei mauri ora. Rau rangatira ma, nau mai, piki mai, haere mai ki te Whare Wananga o Waitaha. No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, kia ora tatou katoa. It is my ...
