The Contemporary Pacific: An Interdisciplinary Journal

With editorial offices at the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, The Contemporary Pacific covers a wide range of disciplines with the aim of providing comprehensive coverage of contemporary developments in the entire Pacific Islands region and the global Pacific diaspora. It features refereed, readable articles that examine social, economic, political, ecological, literary, and cultural topics, along with political reviews, book and media reviews, resource reviews, and a dialogue section with interviews and short essays. Each issue highlights the work of one or more Pacific Islander artists.

This website serves as a portal to past issues, highlights the work of the current issue's featured artist(s), interviews with authors who have published in TCP, submission guidelines, and more!

TCP News

The Contemporary Pacific is pleased to announce the Professor Brij V. Lal Award, in memory of Dr. Brij V. Lal, as well as the award’s first recipient, Dr. Monica C. LaBriola for her article “Marshallese Women and Oral Traditions: Navigating a Future for Pacific History” published in the journal’s fall and spring 2023 issue.

The award honors Professor Brij Vilash Lal, an eminent Pacific historian and writer and the founding editor of The Contemporary Pacific, who passed away on 25 December 2021. Professor Lal, or Brij as he was fondly known among friends, was a trailblazing scholar who authored numerous books and articles that helped shape the field of Pacific history. His work focused largely on Fiji’s history and politics and on Indo-Fijian/Girmit history and the Indian diaspora. Later in his life, he also published short stories that reflected on his life and journeys.

In honor of Professor Lal’s long-standing and impactful professional career—as an academic, participatory historian, writer, and Pacific Islander who always stood up for democracy, law and order, human rights, and freedom of speech—Professor Lal’s family, the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, and the University of Hawaiʻi established the annual Professor Brij V. Lal Award for the best article or paper published in The Contemporary Pacific on an annual basis. The award reflects Professor Lal’s emphasis on originality, academic rigor, and excellence in research and writing, as well as a depth of understanding and passion in the published article or paper focusing on historical or contemporary lived experience of Pacific Islanders, including their diasporic communities living abroad.

Consistent with the broad-ranging focus of The Contemporary Pacific, and with Professor Lal’s own research and writings, the winning article or paper may come from any discipline, including creative writing, that highlights the very best of critical thinking and scholarship within Pacific studies. Emeritus Professor Terence Wesley-Smith, chair of the review committee noted, “This award represents a wonderful testament to Brij’s scholarly legacy as the first editor of The Contemporary Pacific, as well as the generosity of the Lal family.”

After review, the award committee selected Dr. Monica C. LaBriola, assistant professor of Pacific history at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, to receive the award for her article “Marshallese Women and Oral Traditions: Navigating a Future for Pacific History,” an academically rigorous treatment of an important topic in concert with trends in Pacific historiography. The article’s purpose is to recenter and reinterpret the role of women in Marshallese historicities, drawing on detailed analysis of selected oral and performative traditions. The review committee found that Dr. LaBriola is “thorough in her approach, deals well with the complexities of the subject matter, and is sensitive to issues of positionality.”

Dr. LaBriola is humbled to be selected for the award: “To say it is an honor to be the inaugural recipient of the Professor Brij V. Lal Award is an understatement—he was a true giant in the field of Pacific history. I hope Brij would approve.”

The editor of The Contemporary Pacific, Professor Katerina Teaiwa, shared her excitement at the committee's decision: “The last century of research and writing in the field of Pacific history has been dominated by work in service of patriarchy. It is thus particularly satisfying, as the first woman editor of this journal, to see Dr. Monica C. LaBriola's excellent paper on recentering women in Micronesian histories selected by a distinguished prize committee for the inaugural Brij V. Lal Award.”

From their end, the Lal family is pleased with the selection: “We are delighted the winning article examines a nation’s history from the perspective of previously marginalised voices, and that it is written by an early career academic. I know Brij would also have wholeheartedly supported the Award going to an article that reflects interdisciplinary historiography and embraces non-traditional sources of knowledge to provide a more nuanced understanding of a country’s history.”

Papers eligible to be considered for this year’s award appeared in the 2023 calendar year in the article or dialogue sections of the journal. The review committee consisted of two former editors and founding editorial board members, Emeritus Professor Terence Wesley-Smith (chair) and Emeritus Professor David Hanlon, along with the journal’s long-standing Resources editor, Senior Pacific Librarian Stu Dawrs.

– TCP Staff, 20 August 2024

Current Issue Contents 35(1&2)

ARTICLES

Toward Cognitive Justice: Reconstructions of Climate Finance Governance in Fiji, Kirsty Anantharajah and Sereima Volivoli Naisilisili

Marshallese Women and Oral Traditions: Navigating a Future for Pacific History, Monica C LaBriola

“It Will Be Like a Town Here, Things Are Really Coming Up!”: Inequality in Village-Based Cruise Ship Tourism in the Trobriand Islands, Michelle MacCarthy

DIALOGUE

Blue-Washing the Colonization and Militarization of “Our Ocean,” Craig Santos Perez

Our Islands, Our Refuge: Response to Craig Santos Perez’s “Blue-Washing the Colonization and Militarization of ‘Our Ocean,’” Theresa (Isa) Arriola

Moana Nui Rising: A Response to “Blue-Washing the Colonization and Militarization of ‘Our Ocean,’” Nālani Wilson-Hokowhitu

OCEANIA IN REVIEW

Oceania in Review Editor’s Note, Lorenz Gonschor

The Region in Review: International Issues and Events, 2022, Nic Maclellan

Melanesia in Review: Issues and Events, 2022, Volker Boege, Mathias Chauchat, Rui Graça Feijó, Joseph Daniel Foukona, Budi Hernawan, James Stiefvater, and Jope Tarai

Micronesia in Review: Issues and Events, 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022, Kisha Borja-Quichocho-Calvo, Guigone Camus, Zaldy Dandan, Kenneth Gofigan Kuper, Gonzaga Puas, and Herman Semes Jr

Polynesia in Review: Issues and Events, 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022, Brian T Alofaituli, T Melanie Puka Bean, Peter Clegg, Mililani Ganivet, Margaret Mutu, Christina Newport, Lisepa Paeniu, ‘Umi Perkins, and Forrest Wade Young

BOOK AND MEDIA REVIEWS

Moving Islands: Contemporary Performance and the Global Pacific, by Diana Looser
Reviewed by Kalissa Alexeyeff

Indigenous Pacific Islander Eco-Literatures, edited by Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, Leora Kava, and Craig Santos Perez
Reviewed by Mylast E Bilimon

In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua, by Sophie Chao
Reviewed by Jamon Halkavsz

The Indigénat and France’s Empire in New Caledonia: Origins, Practices and Legacies, by Isabelle Merle and Adrian Muckle
Reviewed by David Chappell

Cartooning History: Lai’s Fiji and the Misadventures of the Scrawny Black Cat [exhibition]
Reviewed by Ariela Zibiah

Leveling Wind: Remembering Fiji, by Brij V Lal
Reviewed by Tarisi Vunidilo

Radiation Sounds: Marshallese Music and Nuclear Silences, by Jessica A Schwartz
Reviewed by Aanchal Saraf

Navigating CHamoru Poetry: Indigeneity, Aesthetics, and Decolonization, by Craig Santos Perez
Reviewed by Monique C Storie

Placental Politics: CHamoru Women, White Womanhood, and Indigeneity under U.S. Colonialism in Guam, by Christine Taitano DeLisle
Reviewed by Ha'åni Lucia Falo San Nicolas

CHamoru Legends: A Gathering of Stories / Lihenden CHamoru: Rinikohen Hemplo Siha, by Teresita Lourdes Perez
Reviewed by Arielle Taitano Lowe

Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future: Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartographies in Hawai‘i, by Candace Fujikane
Reviewed by Drew Kapp

Desire, Obligation, and Familial Love: Mothers, Daughters, and Communication Technology in the Tongan Diaspora, by Makiko Nishitani
Reviewed by David Lipset