This PhD thesis in creative writing explores women’s marginalised or
under-represented public voices in Vanuatu, focusing on literary
writing. The thesis is in two parts and uses the dual lenses of fiction
and critical thinking to explore the factors that define women’s
realities and circumscribe the avenues for their voices to be heard and
for their creative work to be published. The creative component is the
main research element and consists of a novel, Sado,set in Vanuatu. The
critical component addresses the invisibility of Ni-Vanuatu women
writers and the ways in which they have attempted to overcome and
challenge existing social and traditional power structures that silence
women. The critical enquiry includes oral history interviews with three
generations of Ni-Vanuatu women writers. This thesis is practice-led and
uses an applied research approach, rather than a theoretical approach.
The novel dramatises and articulates the moral and ethical
dilemmas,regarding women’s place in society and the challenges posed by
customary traditions rooted in a specific place for an increasingly
mobile and urban population. The ethos guiding this project is to hold
the space for Ni-Vanuatu women writers to tell their own stories.The
thesis sits within the inter-disciplinary frameworks of Pacific Studies
and Cultural Studies. It draws on Pacific literature and uses feminist
theory and methodology,in combination with articulation and oral history
methods,to examine the enabling and constraining factors, the actions,
motivation and themes of three generations of Ni-Vanuatu writers,
established and emerging, and the alliances they are attempting to
forge. The thesis finds, firstly, that gendered norms, certain policies
and aspects of customary traditions that use the male position as a
default have contributed to limiting the public space for Ni-Vanuatu
women’s voices to be heard and given due recognition. It furthermore
finds that colonial language policies, particularly in education, have
contributed to a reluctance to consider Bislama an appropriate literary
vehicle. Finally,literary efforts in Vanuatu continue to be hampered by
the absence of a community of writers, supportive institutions,
publishing outlets, editorial support and a lack of finance for
self-publishing work in printed form. An exploration of the significance
of the poetry and non-fiction of two published Ni-Vanuatu writers,
Grace Mera Molisa and Mildred Sope, anchors this research project
historically. A creative writing workshop and oral history conversations
constitute an extension of my research methodology into decolonising
methods of research embedded in indigenous knowledge and local context.
They likewise provide a generative and more collaborative form of
meaning-making. In the spirit of Lisa King’s ideas on rhetorical
sovereignty and rhetorical alliance, I explore various opportunities to
generate more published writing from Vanuatu in collaboration with
Ni-Vanuatu writers.
Message in a Bottle: Scenic Presentation of the Unsayable
