Project MUSE®: The Contemporary Pacific - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in The Contemporary Pacific.daily12026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 12 (2000) through current issueLatest Articles: The Contemporary PacificTWOProject MUSE®The Contemporary Pacific1527-94641043-898XLatest articles in The Contemporary Pacific. Feed provided by Project MUSE®About the Artist: Bridget Reweti
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982158
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Bridget Reweti is a Ngāti Ranginui and Ngāi Te Rangi artist and curator. Her lens-based practice shines light on Māori histories embedded in landscapes through names, narratives, and lived experiences. She has held multiple residencies nationally and internationally, including in Canada, Indonesia, and Singapore. She was the 2020 and 2021 Frances Hodgkins Fellow at the University of Otago, which culminated in an exhibition and artist book, Pōkai Whenua, Pōkai Moana (Hocken Collections, 2023).Photo by Christopher SchelmzReweti is a member of the Mataaho Collective, a group of four wāhine Māori who create atuasized installations. The Mataaho Collective were the first New Zealand artists to exhibit in documenta 14 in
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallAbout the Artist: Bridget Reweti2026-01-31text/htmlen-USAbout the Artist: Bridget Reweti2026-01-312026TWOProject MUSE®161422026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-31Seeking Peace in Religious Teachings: Women’s Responses to Domestic Violence in Rural Vanuatu
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982159
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Pacific Island countries are said to have a substantially high rate of violence against women. While the global average of physical or sexual violence (or both) against women by an intimate partner is 30 percent, the rate of lifetime experience of such violence is much higher in Pacific Island countries, with 79 percent in Tonga, 76 percent in Sāmoa, 73 percent in Kiribati, 72 percent in Fiji, and 72 percent in Vanuatu in 2013 (Jansen and others 2013; see also fwcc 2013; Taylor 2016; UN Women 2016).Reflecting these trends, in the context of Pacific Island countries, several researchers have documented violence against women in relation to topics including gender politics (George 2012; Anderson 2015; Sykes and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallSeeking Peace in Religious Teachings: Women’s Responses to Domestic Violence in Rural Vanuatu2026-01-31text/htmlen-USSeeking Peace in Religious Teachings: Women’s Responses to Domestic Violence in Rural Vanuatu2026-01-312026TWOProject MUSE®1123872026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-31Pacific Studies: Engaging Law, Anthropology, Archives, and the Arts
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982160
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Pacific Studies: Engaging Law, Anthropology, Archives, and the Artskaterina teaiwa, terence wesley-smith, and talei luscia mangioniPacific Studies and Anthropology: Articulations and Disarticulationsapril k hendersonUnsettling Legal Imperialism and Cultivating Homegrown Law: Why Law Schools Need Pacific Studiesrebecca monson, dylan asafo, joseph d foukona, and bridget fa‘amatuainuThe special dialogue and resources sections in this issue of The Contemporary Pacific were inspired by presentations and conversations at the 2023 Australian Association for Pacific Studies (aaps) conference at the Australian National University (anu), convened by Katerina Teaiwa, Talei Luscia Mangioni, Rebecca Monson, and Lisa Hilli
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallPacific Studies: Engaging Law, Anthropology, Archives, and the Arts2026-01-31text/htmlen-USPacific Studies: Engaging Law, Anthropology, Archives, and the Arts2026-01-312026TWOProject MUSE®266442026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-31Pacific Studies and Anthropology: Articulations and Disarticulations
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982161
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As long as we have this thing called Pacific Studies, institutionalized in centers and institutes around the Pacific and the world .. . it is incumbent upon us—its practitioners, its objects, its subjects—to be reflexive about what it means.I was fascinated by stories that anthropologists told and stories that they would not write. . . . I could not write the important things about my experience in the Pacific as an anthropologist.The following essay considers the articulations and disarticulations—the connections and disconnections—between the interdisciplinary field of Pacific studies and the discipline of cultural anthropology as I’ve known and experienced them and as others have written of them. It is intended
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallPacific Studies and Anthropology: Articulations and Disarticulations2026-01-31text/htmlen-USPacific Studies and Anthropology: Articulations and Disarticulations2026-01-312026TWOProject MUSE®1719132026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-31Unsettling Legal Imperialism and Cultivating Homegrown Law: Why Law Schools Need Pacific Studies
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982162
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One of us undertook a postgraduate thesis on critical legal theorizing for Pacific peoples. Due to the author’s lack of training in Pacific studies, they centered their thesis on the work of non-Pasifika scholars at elite US institutions. Epeli Hau‘ofa’s work was briefly mentioned, but the rich contributions of Hau‘ofa and many other Pacific studies scholars went unacknowledged and erased.One of us taught a course on Pacific legal systems at a law school located in a hub of government, diplomacy, and international development. The students were introduced to dominant narratives of law and development in the region, including data demonstrating high rates of poverty and debates about “weak” states. They then turned
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallUnsettling Legal Imperialism and Cultivating Homegrown Law: Why Law Schools Need Pacific Studies2026-01-31text/htmlen-USUnsettling Legal Imperialism and Cultivating Homegrown Law: Why Law Schools Need Pacific Studies2026-01-312026TWOProject MUSE®1886972026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-31Citing Ourselves
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982163
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In his poignant 2021 essay for the Atlantic, “To Hell with Drowning,” Chamorro human-rights lawyer, writer, and activist Julian Aguon highlighted the importance of storytelling in the age of climate crisis. Writing of a region already egregiously devastated by increasing incidences of storms, tidal flooding, saltwater intrusion, and droughts brought on by a fossil-fuel-dependent world, Aguon moved beyond the current reality and fatalistic prognoses of Western science to call for responses that are concerned with not just “stakes, which we know are high, but stories about the places we call home” (2021). Elsewhere, Aguon has described his own writing as “a love letter to young people. It seeks to call them forth. To
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallCiting Ourselves2026-01-31text/htmlen-USCiting Ourselves2026-01-312026TWOProject MUSE®589832026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-31Resources Editor’s Note: Re-Viewing Archives
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982164
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As seen through the lens of an academic librarian who also stewards archival collections, “Citing Ourselves,” by Talei Luscia Mangioni and Lisa Hilli, fits within a larger body of scholarship addressing the shortcomings of large-scale institutional archives—which are, historically and literally, colonial enterprises—when it comes to Indigenous communities in general and Pacific Islanders in particular. It also points to related work on the history of intellectual property (ip) rights laws and their failure to account for how Indigenous knowledge is created, protected, and shared, as well as the more recent (relatively speaking) rise of the Indigenous data sovereignty movement, which aims to place control of the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallResources Editor’s Note: Re-Viewing Archives2026-01-31text/htmlen-USResources Editor’s Note: Re-Viewing Archives2026-01-312026TWOProject MUSE®268722026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-31Northern Mariana Islands
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982165
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Reviews of the Federated States of Micronesia, Guåhan (Guam), Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, and Palau are not included in this issue.As detailed in Marianas Variety and other reporting sources and summarized here, the year under review saw sustained focus on economic issues. Six months after he was sworn in, Governor Arnold I Palacios acknowledged that the economic slowdown was still the most pressing issue facing the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). “The economy .. . the resources to pay for the critical public services for the CNMI community—our hospital, public utilities, medical referrals, Medicaid, scholarships, our schools, the safety of the public—those are critical and are
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallNorthern Mariana Islands2026-01-31text/htmlen-USNorthern Mariana Islands2026-01-312026TWOProject MUSE®327192026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-31Cook Islands
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982166
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Reviews of American Sāmoa, French Polynesia, Hawai‘i, Niue, Norfolk Island, Pitcairn, Rapa Nui, Sāmoa, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and ‘Uvea (Wallis) and Futuna are not included in this issue.This review covers the two-year period from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2024, including the country’s recovery from the covid-19 pandemic, the reelection for a fourth term of a Cook Islands Party–led government, and reforms of key legislation. Arrangements with international partners were also an important focus during this period.Election politics and campaigning for the Cook Islands general election set the scene for the review period. The Cook Islands general election was held on 1 August 2022. Final results saw the Cook Islands
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallCook Islands2026-01-31text/htmlen-USCook Islands2026-01-312026TWOProject MUSE®459822026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-31Power and Influence in the Pacific Islands: Understanding Statecraftiness ed. by Joanne Wallis et al (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982167
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The Pacific Islands have increasingly become a pivotal theater for geopolitical contestation, with external and regional powers employing a variety of statecraft tools to assert influence. In this context, Power and Influence in the Pacific Islands: Understanding Statecraftiness, edited by Joanne Wallis, Henrietta McNeill, Michael Rose, and Alan Tidwell, provides a timely and methodologically sophisticated exploration of how power and influence are exercised in this strategically significant region. The volume introduces an innovative analytical framework that conceptualizes statecraft as a “web” of interconnected tools—economic, security, diplomatic, and ideational—that interact across diverse contexts. This
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallPower and Influence in the Pacific Islands: Understanding Statecraftiness ed. by Joanne Wallis et al (review)2026-01-31text/htmlen-USPower and Influence in the Pacific Islands: Understanding Statecraftiness ed. by Joanne Wallis et al (review)2026-01-312026TWOProject MUSE®96952026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-31Ol Sing Blong Plantesen: South Sea Island Spirituals from the Queensland Canefields and Beyond by Michael Webb (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982168
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The Wantok Musik Foundation supports artists from Australia and Oceania by publishing their music and booking concert tours with the aim of promoting their cultural practices and languages. The foundation also undertakes community projects, such as the one from which Ol Sing Blong Plantesen (Plantation Songs) emerged.In Ol Sing Blong Plantesen, Michael Webb presents a collection of choral songs, an old repertoire he tracked down in central Vanuatu, specifically the islands of Uluveu and Epi. In the booklet, his descriptions of the recordings refer to three interrelated genres: salvesen ami (Salvation Army); bonani (bonne année, or Happy New Year); and congregational hymns. The genres, which originated in the second
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallOl Sing Blong Plantesen: South Sea Island Spirituals from the Queensland Canefields and Beyond by Michael Webb (review)2026-01-31text/htmlen-USOl Sing Blong Plantesen: South Sea Island Spirituals from the Queensland Canefields and Beyond by Michael Webb (review)2026-01-312026TWOProject MUSE®94532026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-31The Chinese in Papua New Guinea: Past, Present and Future by Anna Hayes, Rosita Henry, and Michael Wood (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982169
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This collection focuses attention on a neglected dimension of society in Papua New Guinea (PNG), namely, the shifting circumstances of the Chinese diaspora in that country’s colonial and postcolonial eras. As the book’s three editors state, they seek to “displace dualistic accounts” of Chinese peoples in Papua New Guinea, to decolonize these narratives from views that have privileged Indigenous peoples and their relations with white colonials (249). The book resulted from a workshop held at James Cook University in 2020 that was originally meant to make a start at using the Laurie Bragge papers, a huge, Sepik-oriented archive that the retired patrol officer assembled over several decades of work in Papua New Guinea
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallThe Chinese in Papua New Guinea: Past, Present and Future by Anna Hayes, Rosita Henry, and Michael Wood (review)2026-01-31text/htmlen-USThe Chinese in Papua New Guinea: Past, Present and Future by Anna Hayes, Rosita Henry, and Michael Wood (review)2026-01-312026TWOProject MUSE®85562026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-31Connecting the Kingdom: Sailing Vessels in the Early Hawaiian Monarchy, 1790–1840 by Peter R Mills (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982170
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In Connecting the Kingdom: Sailing Vessels in the Early Hawaiian Monarchy, 1790–1840, Peter R Mills provides a rich social history of Hawaiʻi’s ships and maritime activities in a formative period of nation building and intensive cultural change— a period in which the purchase of foreign ships has often been seen as wasteful and not understood as intentional and in the service of the kingdom. His work dives into the context of advancing Hawaiian trade over five decades, touching on sixty Hawaiian-owned schooners, brigs, barks, and peleleu canoes and some two thousand interisland and foreign port voyages. Clearly, for island kingdoms around the world in the age of sail, vessels of all sorts had a heightened
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallConnecting the Kingdom: Sailing Vessels in the Early Hawaiian Monarchy, 1790–1840 by Peter R Mills (review)2026-01-31text/htmlen-USConnecting the Kingdom: Sailing Vessels in the Early Hawaiian Monarchy, 1790–1840 by Peter R Mills (review)2026-01-312026TWOProject MUSE®100672026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-01-31Māori Issues
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982626
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Reviews of American Sāmoa, French Polynesia, Hawai‘i, Niue, Norfolk Island, Pitcairn, Rapa Nui, Sāmoa, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and ‘Uvea (Wallis) and Futuna are not included in this issue.The aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle and other extreme weather events that disproportionately impacted Māori in early 2023 continued through to 2024 and resulted in scathing reports from the ombudsman, as well as government-appointed and independent reviewers. The United Nations Committee Against Torture questioned the New Zealand government over the torture of children in the Lake Alice psychiatric facility in the 1970s, for which no one has been prosecuted. Campaigning for the October 2023 general election saw white supremacists
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/37/image/coversmallMāori Issues2026-02-03text/htmlen-USMāori Issues2026-02-032026TWOProject MUSE®846222026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-02-03