Symposia

• Jean Guiart: L’ethnographie comme marathon d’une vie/Ethnography as Life’s Marathon​​

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Working Sessions

• 2022-2032 International Decade of Indigenous Languages: Pacific Languages
• Being and Belonging: Technologies of Reproduction
• Decolonising Sea of Islands 
• Growing Old in the Pacific
• Mana Moana: Protecting Sacredness
• Proliferation of Models
• Race and Power in Oceania
• Rethinking Decolonization in Papua New Guinea
• "The Soul and the Image": The Story of Film in the Pacific
• Vā Moana: Space and Relationality in Pacific Thought and Identity​

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​​Informal Sessions

• Being Pacific Islander Pasifika, Māori, Indigenous Australian during the Era of Black Lives Matter 
• Complexities of Collaboration on Climate Change
• Documentation as Relation: Experiments with and Challenges to Knowledge
• Dogs and Their Humans
• Ends of Oblivion: Continuities and Discontinuities in Oceania’s Pasts
• Food Sovereignty in the Pacific
• Museums and Repatriation
• Pacific Island Politics, Populism, and Democracy
• Pacific Perspectives: The Fluidity of Time, Space and Relations
• Possessing the Pacific City: A Comparative Dispossessions Working Group
• Slouching towards Christian Theocracy in Western Polynesia
• Trust and Care in Pacific Health Systems
• Talanoa on "The Healer and the Psychiatrist"​

Working Session: Women and Politics in Polynesia: Gender Imbalances in Authority on Land Tenure, Chiefly Titles and Political Offices
 
Organizers: Melani Anae and Serge Tcherkezoff ​

Even though the traditional Polynesian systems of social organisation are often mentioned as an exception in the large place of authority that women can exercise in matters of extended family organisation, land tenure and inheritance, and even chiefly offices, a clear imbalance between access given to women versus access given to men is prevalent, and is deepening with the current evolution of land tenure and political systems. In Samoa for instance, a number of cases reveal the limitations imposed on women, as varied as the right for women to hold a chiefly clan title (matai), or to keep an authority over the land if they are living on their husbands' land etc. This panel would analyse a number of varied cases of these limitations, as well as discussing some possible legal or customary regulations that could put in place "affirmative" distinctions, up to the extreme case in place in the French Pacific with the "Parity law" for candidacies in political offices.

An informal session was held in 2020. Our session is entitled..."in Polynesia", as we wished to avoid entering from the start into a too broad areal comparison. But please feel free to join the session even if your work is situated outside Polynesia. During our "informal" discussion, we were able all together to discuss how we can view the future limitations, if any, of this panel at a "working session stage". Probably there would be more to compare between Polynesia with Micronesian and Eastern Melanesian societies (Fiji, Vanuatu, (Kanaky-) New Caledonia, etc.), than with Western Melanesian, but we wish to leave the area limits open to those who wish to commit to an abstract/paper contribution at this session where we will discuss what we wish to propose as your contribution.

Proposals could perhaps address the following:
How can the equality of equal representation through the law on parity (a formal mechanism) as yielding “remarkable results” in France in securing mayoral positions or seats in the French Senate apply to Pacific political contexts/situations? How is political parity played out in the Pacific?



For more information, please contact Melani Anae, University of Auckland <m.anae@auckland.ac.nz> and Serge Tcherkezoff <stcherk@pacific-credo.fr>