A major international research programme hosted by Bergen Pacific Studies research group, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, Norway.

Project leader:
Professor Edvard Hviding, edvard.hviding@sosantr.uib.no

Funded by The Research Council of Norway:
185646 Pacific Alternatives (Major grant 2008-2011)

Project document in PDF

Project Summary

The “Pacific Alternatives” project is founded in a strong scholarly network of mutual commitment to joint research effort, involving key institutions in Europe, North America, Australia and the Pacific Islands. Funded mainly by the Research Council of Norway (Major Grant 185646, 2008-2011), the project is based at the University of Bergen (Department of Social Anthropology). The two key institutional partners cooperating under signed agreements with the University of Bergen are the University of Hawai’i (Center for Pacific Islands Studies and Department of Anthropology) and the East-West Center (Pacific Islands Development Program), both located on the Manoa campus in Honolulu. The project builds on years of expanding cooperation between the Manoa and Bergen campuses in the fields of research collaboration and student exchange. Additional project partners with signed institutional agreements are the Solomon Islands National Museum, Vanuatu Cultural Centre, the British Museum (Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas), University College London (Museums and Collections), James Cook University (Department of Anthropology, Archaeology and Sociology), New York University (Faculty of Arts and Science) and the University of Tulsa (Department of Anthropology).

In this project, internationally leading scholars, research groups, and institutions in the multi-disciplinary field of Pacific Islands Studies join forces across a broad range of interrelated themes centred on the twin analytical concepts of cultural heritage and political innovation. The project aims to examine contemporary connections between expanding perceptions of cultural heritage (including objects, visual representations and ‘intangible cultural heritage’ and grassroots ‘culturalist’ social movements) and the emergence of new political forms in response to challenges of global political economy – all in the context of the Pacific Islands region. The concepts of cultural heritage and political innovation will serve as an analytical platform for understanding social developments in the Pacific with a view to providing more general insights into important global processes, as nation states world-wide are weakened and challenged from local and global agents. Together these concepts stand for the creative forms of ’Pacific Alternatives’ that our experienced group of collaborating scholars aim to grasp, analyze and theorize. A major underlying assumption of our project is that global generalizations are possible on the basis of carefully selected case studies of cultural heritage and political innovation in the Pacific region.

As addressed from the regional vantage point of the Pacific, and from the combined perspectives of anthropology, political science, archaeology and history, the research topics included in this project – in which more than 20 collaborating scholarly investigators pursue fieldwork-based sub-projects individually and in teams – hold the combined potential for theoretical and methodological re-orientations of globalization studies, for providing fresh perspectives on the field of cultural heritage, and for promoting an integrated approach to understanding the interfaces between culture and politics. The case studies examined by the group of collaborating scholars include a range of sites in Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Hawai’i, Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. Several additional components (including graduate student projects and activities by additional scholars) are under way in Fiji and other Pacific Island nations.

The project’s visions and budget include components of training-and-education, scholarship programmes for students and scholars from Pacific Island nations (under the Norway-Pacific Islands Scholarship Program tenable at the East-West Center, Honolulu), scholarly and financial support of local cultural centres and national museums in the Pacific Islands (building on established cooperation with UNESCO), a sequence of co-funded international conferences, and a wide-ranging publication-and-dissemination programme that includes a “virtual museum” and the provision of a range of educational materials for use in schools and distance learning in the Pacific Islands, carried out in cooperation with national and regional educational institutions. In cooperation with Pacific Islands governments, digital databases of research results will be established in order to promote innovative forms of dialogue about research and its uses. A pilot project for this effort is under way for the Western Province of Solomon Islands.

Alphabetical list of research group members, research partners, and proposed sub-projects

* Denotes individually participating scholar
** Denotes scholar at partner institution with signed agreement

Dr. Cato Berg (research fellow, University of Bergen; member of Bergen Pacific Studies group)
Melanesian kinship and Westminster law: customary land disputes in the Solomon Islands legal system (co-investigator: Edvard Hviding)

** Dr. Lissant Bolton (Head of Oceania Section, Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, The British Museum, London)
“Town Chiefs” and Law-and-Order in Urban Vanuatu

Dr. Annelin Eriksen (post-doctoral fellow, University of Bergen; member of Bergen Pacific Studies group)
“New Unity”: Evangelical movements and the healing of the nation in Vanuatu

** Mr. Lawrence Foana’ota (Director, Solomon Islands National Museum; and Adjunct Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology, Archaeology and Sociology, James Cook University)
The misuse of traditional compensation payment practices in Solomon Islands
Cultural policy and the Solomon Islands National Museum: A history of practice (co-investigator: Geoffrey White)

** Dr. Haidy Geismar (Assistant Professor in Anthropology and Museum Studies, New York University)
Treasured possessions, cultured resources: indigenous values in the face of the free market in Vanuatu and Aotearoa-New Zealand

** Dr. David Hanlon (Professor of History and former Director, Centre for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai’i at Manoa)
Nan Madol: a Micronesian example of heritage and history as innovation

** Dr. Rosita Henry (Senior Lecturer and Head of Department of Anthropology, Archaeology and Sociology, James Cook University, Australia)
Intangible cultural heritage and the innovative politics of indigenous cultural festivals in Australia and the Pacific

** Dr. Vilsoni Hereniko (Professor of Pacific Islands Studies and Director, Centre for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai’i at Manoa)
Land in Rotuma

Dr. Edvard Hviding, Project Leader (Professor and Acting Chair, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen; Convenor of Bergen Pacific Studies group; Adjunct Professor, Department of Anthropology, Archaeology and Sociology, James Cook University)
Melanesian kinship and Westminster law: customary land disputes in the Solomon Islands legal system (co-investigator: Cato Berg)
Solomon Islands artefacts between museums: the Western Solomons war canoe in contemporary political scenes
From shrine to museum: centralizing cultural heritage in North New Georgia, Western Solomons (co-investigator: David Roe)

* Dr. Jon Tikivanotau Michael Jonassen (Professor of Political Science and Chair of Pacific Islands Studies, Brigham Young University—Hawai’i)
Free Association and “Cultural Development”:The Cook Islands as a Political Experiment

** Dr. Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka (Fellow, Pacific Islands Development Program, East-West Center, Honolulu)
Global Forces & Local Responses in Solomon Islands Natural Resource Development

* Dr. Lamont Lindstrom (Professor and Chair of Anthropology, University of Tulsa)
Chiefs: Cultural Heritage and Political Innovation in Vanuatu

** Mr. Ralph Regenvanu (Director, Vanuatu National Cultural Council)
Traditional economy in an urban Melanesian setting

Dr. Knut Rio (Associate Professor of Anthropology and Chair of Department of Cultural History, Bergen University Museum; member of Bergen Pacific Studies group)
Sorcery, the Law and the Nation in Port Vila and Tongoa, Vanuatu
A Virtual Museum for Pacific Islanders: Digital pilot projects in collections of artefacts from Oceania (co-investigator: Graeme Were)

** Dr. David Roe (Adjunct Associate Professor of Archaeology, James Cook University)
Inter-island systems of conflict avoidance in Solomon Islands: connections and re-connections from archaeological past to post-coup reconstruction
From shrine to museum: centralizing cultural heritage in North New Georgia, Western Solomons (co-investigator: Edvard Hviding)

Mr. Rolf Scott (doctoral fellow 2005-201, University of Bergen; member of Bergen Pacific Studies group)
The Reconstruction of an Ocean: Politics and transformation in the becoming of a New Pacific Space

** Dr. Graeme Were (Lecturer and Curator, University College London Museums and Collections)
A Virtual Museum for Pacific Islanders: Digital pilot projects in collections of artefacts from Oceania (co-investigator: Knut Rio)

** Dr. Terence Wesley-Smith (Associate Professor and Graduate Chair, Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai’i at Manoa)
New Beginnings: Re-placing the State in Bougainville

** DR. Geoffrey White (Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai’i at Manoa)
Custom, Christianity, and the Solomon Islands State: political innovation in the “Tripod” of Isabel Province.
Cultural policy and the Solomon Islands National Museum: A history of practice (co-investigator: Lawrence Foana’ota)

* Dr. Stephen Wickler (Associate professor, Department of Archaeology, Tromsø University Museum)
Road development and cultural heritage in Western Micronesia: material culture and sociopolitical responses in Palau and Rota, CNMI.