Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

Rediscovering our sea of islands was a momentous paper written by Epeli Hau`ofa, the most influential Pacific scholar of his age (read here), where he laid out his ideas for a new Oceania. Indeed during this conference it seemed like the Pacific had rediscovered the lost island of Taiwan and Taiwan had rediscovered the ocean. Mapping and...

Read more: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific: Island Perceptions of an Oceanic Continent

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

Pierre Maranda is a distinguished cultural anthropologist, and his academic career is renowned for its broad scope and the development of highly innovative research methods. His main innovation is concerning the structure of anthropology, which took root early in his career when he worked on the island of Malaita Province in the Solomon Islands...

Read more: New Media in Anthropology and the Lau People

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

Vilsoni Hereniko is a hugely important figure in the Austronesian world charged with the mission of establishing the University of South Pacific's Oceania Centre for Art and Culture and Pacific Studies. He is also one of those inheriting the mission of Epeli Hau`ofa to 'rediscover' Oceania, their sea of islands, removed from its colonial...

Read more: Cultural autonomy: Balancing soul and survival

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

As Chairman of the Council of Indigenous Peoples, Executive Yuan, Professor Sun Da-Chuan is the most influential person in the indigenous movement in Taiwan.

Read more: The final proposition for the indigenous peoples’ movement in Taiwan

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

In this presentation I explore the ways in which performing arts festivals, particularly the Festival of Pacific Arts held every four years, shapes cultural and political relations in Oceania.

Read more: Cultural policy, festivals and the performing arts in Oceania

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

This article below is Grant McCall's full paper: Mapping and unmapping the Pacific –nesias. Thoughts to turn over on a flowing Möbius Strip of knowledge. The paper was prepared to accompany the speech he gave on Feb.16th at National Central Library, Taiwan.

Read more: A Möbius Strip of knowledge

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

The young scholars session at the Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific conference held at the National Central Library, Taiwan gave three promising young scholars the chance to present their highly original work. Yedda Wang was part of a group of Asian students invited by Leiden University's Encompass program to study the history of Asia through...

Read more: Locating a promise land: from Taiwan to Oceania, from History to Literature

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

Selecting from over 30 years of research, from a huge collection of archives all over the world, Hamashita Takeshi was to be one of the most distinguished speakers at the conference. His speech, The Formation and Transformation of the South Pacific Sea Zone from 14th to 18th Centuries, covered a wide range of Pacific History and gave...

Read more: Learning from Ryukyu

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

In this and similar conferences, we are in the process of being reintroduced to one another–like a gathering of a long-lost family. Not just Taiwanese, especially the aboriginal population, and the Island peoples–who are joined by ancient linguistic and cultural ties; but Westerners, Europeans and Americans as well.

Read more: The Other “Ties That Bind”: Christianity in East Asia and the Pacific

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

Debate on the question of how and why music varies cross-culturally was recently reawakened by the provocative claim that traces of the ancient migration of anatomically modern humans out of Africa can be heard in contemporary songs (Grauer 2006). Grauer‟s claim drew on data from the landmark Cantometrics Project (Lomax 1968), which remains...

Read more: Music as a Marker of Human Migrations

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

I contend that Oceania is falling of the map because politicians and economists are pushing it off the map. Only people in academia use the word "Oceania", we use the word "Pacific" or "Asia-Pacific" but it is very unusual to use the word "Oceania".  I claim that one of the largest groups that can help to keep Oceania on the map is the Catholic...

Read more: Falling Off The Map: Global Issues from a Regional Perspective

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

Noai e mauri:  Noaia e mauri is how we greet each other on Rotuma, a Polynesian island 300 miles north of Fiji, and my original homeland. This greeting literally translates as “Thank you for your life.” Let me change that to “Thank you for your lives”, all of you attending this important conference. Your presence brings much prestige...

Read more: Celebrating Connections among our Sea of Islands

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

Yakov Zinberg is a lecturer in International Relations at Kokushikan University in Tokyo, and North East Asia regional editor for Boundary and Security Bulletin (IBRU, Durham University, UK). He has published extensively in Japan's territorial issues in English and Japanese. In this interview he discusses Political power transition in Japan and...

Read more: The 'Kurile Islands': How Far Do They Stretch?

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

Richard Herr has taught at the University of Tasmania since his appointment in October 1972 and has held a variety of positions within the University. He is currently the academic coordinator for the Faculty of Law's Parliamentary Law, Practive and Procedure course. He earned a PhD in Political Science from Duke University and, during his...

Read more: Security and the Cartography of Pacific Islands Regionalism: The Origins and Evolution of Regional Identity

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

The young scholars session at the Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific conference held at the National Central Library, Taiwan gave three promising young scholars the chance to present their work. Nakao, a PhD candidate in history at Leiden University, is one of these young scholars trying to break the academic boundaries, to produce...

Read more: The role of the Inbetweeners

Focus: Mapping and Unmapping the Pacific

Taiwan has diplomatic relations with six Pacific Island Countries (PICs) - Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.[1] This means that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) still faces a challenge in the South Pacific that no longer exists in the other sub-regions of Asia-Pacific. In Asia, the...

Read more: Looking South: Taiwan’s Diplomacy and Rivalry with China in the Pacific Islands Region