Covering a vast expanse of the globe, the Pacific Ocean and Islands is an area of interconnected regional societies and identities. In this course, we build students’ core knowledge by introducing key debates and interdisciplinary methods, drawing on different media and texts produced within and outside the Pacific. In approaching the region as the global Pacific, we learn about local issues and challenges within a global context, including world views, languages, and knowledge frameworks; sovereignty, land use, and sacred spaces; transnationalism and globalisation; development and aid; creative expression and cultural production; and activism.
In the first part of the course, Unit 1, we set our foundations with approaches to studying the Pacific. In this section, a particular focus is on how knowledge about the Pacific and its peoples is created, and the emergence of Pacific Studies as a discipline. In Unit 2 we test the depth and breadth of the currents of Pacific thought through the writings of key Pacific thinkers. We employ project-based learning, where student-led research groups choose a Pacific thinker and develop their own projects around the thinker’s work. In Unit 3 we focus on current issues and debates. We may, for example, examine and discuss issues of media and representation; land development and sovereignty; militarism and Pacific solidarity; and cultural revitalisation and renaissance.