Symposia

• Rethinking Decolonization in Papua New Guinea

Working Sessions

• 2022-2032 International Decade of Indigenous Languages: Pacific Languages
• Documentation as Relation: Experiments with and Challenges to Knowledge
• Dogs and Their Humans
• Food Sovereignty in the Pacific
• Pacific Sisters at the Crossroads of Discrimination
• Trust and Care in Pacific Health Systems

​

​​Informal Sessions

• Archiving, Preserving and Sharing Ethnographic Research for the Future
• The After/lives of Pacific Plantations
• Ends of Oblivion: Continuities and Discontinuities in Oceania’s Pasts
• Museums and Repatriation
• Pacific Biculturalities
• Possessing the Pacific City: A Comparative Dispossessions Working Group
• "The Soul and the Image": The Story of Film in the Pacific​
• Stories about Birth, Cultural Celebrations, Cultural Observations
• What Matters Now? Navigating Uncertain Futures from Climate Change to Careers
  

Working Session: 2022-2032 International Decade of Indigenous Languages: Pacific Languages 

Organizer: Pefi Kingi (2018pefikingi@gmail.com)

Mahalo from Co-Organisers: Pefi Kingi, Suzanna Tiapula, and Bernie Goulding

Warm Pacific Greetings. According to UNESCO “half of the 6,000 plus spoken languages today will disappear by the end of the century” if the world fails to take action to preserve endangered languages. The situation in the Pacific region is of particular concern, where more than one hundred native languages are vulnerable or endangered. Indigenous Pacific communities have complex systems of knowledge and communication that require support to protect, preserve, retain and maintain their languages, customs and values which have endured to date. ‘Indigenous languages add to the rich tapestry of global cultural and linguistic diversity. Other than waving the flags for our languages, we shall be contributing to the objectives outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development’ (UNESCO, 2019). Pacific languages are pivotal in human rights protection, good governance, peace building, reconciliation, sustainable development and all other areas of our livelihoods.

We support the International Decade of Indigenous Languages and endorse the promotion of Pacific languages in the following key areas: [1] Increasing understanding, reconciliation and international cooperation; [2] creation of favourable conditions for knowledge-sharing and dissemination of good practices with regards to indigenous languages; [3] Integration of indigenous languages into standard setting; [4] empowerment through capacity building; and [5] growth and development through elaboration of new knowledge. Ma’alo/Thank you to our Activists/Leaders of Pacific Languages who offered abstracts and drafts for this Informal Session in 2019 when we paid due respect to the International Year of Indigenous Languages; and most especially going forward as, ‘The United Nations has declared an International Decade of Indigenous Languages, to begin in 2022. This acknowledges the need for further work to protect Indigenous languages worldwide.’ UNESCO 28.02.2020