Symposia

• Positioning Culture within Pacific Christianities  

Working Sessions

• Affect and Place in the Contemporary Pacific
• De-colonising the Sea of Islands 
• Decolonizing Anthropology: A View from Oceania 
• Environmental Resistances in Oceania
• Growing Old in the Pacific
• Mana Moana: Protecting Sacredness
• Pacific Queer Communities and Artistic Creation
• Porgera, Whither and Whence? 
• The Proliferation of Models
• Satan in the Pacific 
• Stitching New Traditions: Quilting in Polynesia 

​​Informal Sessions

• 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages
• Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change 
• Astronomies of Oceania 
• Connecting Wealth and Space: Environmental Intimacy Working Against Capitalism
• Considering Lata: Hero of a Thousand Faces
• Dreaming in the Pacific
• Education and Empowerment: Decolonising Schooling in Oceania​
• Honoring Kale Langlas​   
• Jean Guiart: L’ethnographie comme marathon d’une vie/Ethnography as Life’s Marathon 
• Kava: A Global Phenomenon?
• New Voices in Pacific Anthropology
• Rethinking Labor and Work in the Global Pacific​
• “The Soul and the Image”: The Story of Film in the Pacific
• Stratified Reproduction in a Global Oceania
• Uta ma Tai: Inside looking out in Pacific Island scholarship 
• Vā Moana: Space and relationality in Pacific thought and identity
• We will get over it when it is over: Race and Power in Oceania  
• Women and Politics in Polynesia

Working Session: Growing Old in the Pacific 

Organizers: Marama Muru-Lanning and Hilary Lapsley

This working session builds on informal sessions held at the previous two ASAO conferences. In 2019 in Auckland there was lively discussion about a range of topics and a future publication. For 2020 in Hilo participants are asked to supply an abstract or paper draft by 1 November 2019. These will then be circulated to all workshop participants. Discussion at the workshop will focus on developing each abstract or paper draft for publication. 

Cross-cutting themes arising from the introductory session were categorized as follows:

• Pacific ageing as relational not chronological? 
• Is ageing in the Pacific the same now as it was in earlier times? Role of elders within households, and how it may have been changing over time.
• Ageing and wellbeing...what does wellbeing mean for older people in the Pacific? 
• Documenting social changes in ageing and greater remove from traditions.
• Research on Pacific ageing. Does telling their stories empower communities?
• Conceptions of elderly status as embedded in proverbs, sayings, legends or stories that reflect proscriptions and templates for the elderly in various cultural contexts.

Offers for Hilo 2020 so far include:
Alan Howard and Jan Rensel on changing patterns of old age on Rotuma
Marama Muru-Lanning, Tia Dawes, Hilary Lapsley and Mere Kēpa on supporting the wellbeing of Māori elders in a changing world
Ofa Dewes and Kylah Williams on Pacific ageing in New Zealand, particularly end of life.
Julie Flinn on ageing Pacific peoples in the United States, particularly Marshall Islanders.
Sarina Pearson on digital stories of end of life care from Māori and Pacific New Zealanders.
Makiko Nishitani on ageing Fijian and Tongan migrant orchard workers in Australia.

We would welcome any further offers of contributions to the Workshop Session. Participants listed above who have not yet sent in an abstract or paper draft are urged to do so by 1 November. Any further interested participants should communicate as soon as possible with Marama Muru-Lanning (m.murulanning@auckland.ac.nz ) cc. Hilary Lapsley (h.lapsley@auckland.ac.nz ).



Marama Muru-Lanning, University of Auckland <m.murulanning@auckland.ac.nz>;
Hilary Lapsley, University of Auckland, <h.lapsley@auckland.ac.nz>