Learning Oceania in Oceania: Pacific Studies students travel to American Samoa

Students from ANU's new Pacific Studies program were inspired to attend the 10th Festival of Pacific Arts in Pago Pago, American Samoa. The convergence at the Festival of 22 Pacific nations and territories provided a spectacular array of cultural expression, allowing students to learn about Pacific peoples, places, histories, geographies and cultures through direct experience and interaction.

Having been introduced to the contemporary Pacific through ANU's inaugural undergraduate Pacific Studies course, students were able to contextualise and thus better understand what they saw and heard in Pago Pago. However, this learning experience worked both ways: students' experiences at the Festival breathed life into what must always be second-hand accounts of the reality of Pacific lives as provided in Canberra. As a result of the resounding success of the trip to Pago Pago, in 2012 the Pacific Studies Program will offer a field-work course based on the 11th Festival of Pacific Arts, to be held in the Solomon Islands.

A seminar will be held this Thursday 28 August, 1-2pm, to present what students learnt from the Festival and to discuss the following four issues, which stood out as central to the students’ experience:

How does one study the Pacific?

Who is the Pacific? How should we define this region – and is Australia in or out?

* The hierarchy of interactions between Melanesia and Polynesia, and the influences of Christianity and colonialism on these complex relationships.

*How could, and why should, people fight to preserve indigenous epistemologies and tradition in the context of globalisation and modernity?

All members of the ANU community are invited to attend what promises to be an entertaining and intellectually stimulating seminar. For further details please contact Ruth Barraclough (x53438) or Scott Pacey (scott.pacey@anu.edu.au).