Pacific
Head: Professor Margaret Jolly
The geographical and discursive concept of Oceania places Australia and New Zealand within the context of the vast expanse of the world's largest ocean, the Pacific. Oceania covers one third of the planet and is home to people with cultures that retain an extraordinary vitality in an age of globalization. The twenty-two Pacific Islands states and territories are diverse in geography, population size, cultural heritage, political status and economic development. In spite of this diversity there is a shared regional identity built upon hundreds of years of exchanges between island peoples across the vast Pacific.
Australia's understanding of its Oceanic neighbourhood is more important than ever before, and it has recently embarked upon a new, revitalized engagement. Connections with the region are numerous and growing as increasing numbers of Pacific Islanders settle in urban and regional Australia.
The Pacific unit in the School of Culture, History and Language provides education for Australia's only undergraduate Pacific Studies and Pacific Languages majors, a Bachelor's degree in Asian and Pacific Studies and a Masters of Asia-Pacific studies. Offered by the School in cooperation with Pacific scholars across the University, the program is coordinated by the Pacific Studies Convener with the support of the Pacific Studies Board. The undergraduate major emphasizes a regional and integrated approach to Oceania, the study of a chosen Pacific country or area such as Melanesia, Micronesia or Polynesia, and an engagement with indigenous Pacific concepts and Pacific communities in Australia. The program is shaped by theoretical, disciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches and goals that are introduced in core courses: PASI 2001/6001 Learning Oceania and PASI 2002/6002 Pacific Encounters. PASI 1010/6010 is the introduction to Melanesian pidgins and creoles course and PASI 2020/6020 is a linguistics course introducing Pacific languages.
Pasifika Australia is the outreach, access and equity program of the School engaging Pacific communities in Australia and providing opportunities for high school and college students of Pacific descent to experience university life and Pacific Studies. In 2009 this program was awarded the Outstanding Community Award by the New South Wales Council for Pacific Communities at the Pasifika Awards Night in Campbelltown, South West Sydney.
The ANU has a long and proud history of scholarly engagement with the Pacific Islands beginning in 1947 with the founding of the former Research School of Pacific Studies. Pacific specialists within the newly established School of Culture, History and Language are today engaged in internationally leading research activities in their diverse fields. They also provide supervision for PhD students in the areas of Anthropology, Archaeology, History, Language and Linguistics, Politics, Gender, Cultural Studies and transdisciplinary Pacific Studies. Pacific Studies in CHL runs a seminar series showcasing the research of scholars and postgraduate students.
Pacific Studies is now offered as a Bachelors degree, major and minor at the ANU.
