Symposia

• Facebook in the Pacific 

• Imaginary Peoples of the Pacific

• Large-scale International Capital and Local Inequalities

• Schools in the Pacific
• Sounds of the Pacific 
• Women and Power in Polynesia

Working Sessions

• Affect and Place in the Contemporary Pacific
• ASAO Histories​
• Health after the Pacific War
• Kava: A Global Phenomenon?
• Mapping, GIS and Social Geography
• Positioning Culture
• The Proliferation of Models
• Stitching New Traditions: Quilting in Polynesia 
• Towards Healthy Islands
• The Urban Pacific

​​Informal Sessions

• Considering Lata: Hero of a Thousand Faces
• Decolonizing Anthropology
• Dreaming in the Pacific
• Growing Old in the Pacific
• New Voices in Pacific Anthropology
• Recounting Alternative Modes of Action and Design
• “The Soul and the Image”: The Story of Film in the Pacific
• Strategic Articulations in Pacific & Samoan Studies
• Transgender Voices in the Pacific Societies and Artistic Creation​

Working Session: The Proliferation of Models: Methods, Models and New Paradigms in Pacific Indigenous Research

Organizers: Tamasa‘ilau Suaalii-Sauni and Albert L Refiti

The proliferation of models is a talanoa session for scholars to present and discuss the multitude of methods and models currently in use and applied in Pacific research. We aim to explore what part these methods play in the larger decolonial project that is currently underway by attempting to describe, critique and unpack how they are being used to understand what type of new knowledge (if any) is being produced by them. Some of these methods and models include kaupapa Māori (Smith), kakala (Helu-Thaman), talanoa (Halapua, Vaioleti), suʻifefiloi (Figiel, Silipa), faʻafaletui (Tamasese ET AL), teu le vā (Anae ET AL), tāvaism (Māhina, Kaʻili ET AL), tāuhi vā (Kaʻili), malie/mafana (Manuatu), fonofale (Pulotu-Endermann), Mana Moana (Mila) to name a few.

We invite researchers and scholars to present their Pacific Indigenous research, fieldwork or ethnography that uses an existing Pacific Indigenous model or a proposed new Pacific Indigenous model as a methodology for gathering and synthesising their research. We especially welcome papers that deal with new and emerging methods, models or paradigms for doing research in the Pacific. 

Send the organizers an email if you're interested, and an abstract later, if you want to be part of the session.

Albert Refiti, Auckland University of Technology <albert.refiti@aut.ac.nz>,
Tamasa‘ilau Suaalii-Sauni <s.suaalii-sauni@auckland.ac.nz>