scholarly journals Treaty-Making in the Pacific in the Nineteenth Century and the Treaty of Waitangi

2004 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Bennion
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
International Law ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Treaty Of Waitangi ◽  
History Of ◽  
Pacific Island Nations

This paper discusses the history of treaty-making between Pacific island nations and European powers during the nineteenth century in order to assess the validity of the Treaty of Waitangi at international law. The author also draws some brief comparisons with treaty-making in Africa. The particular focus of the paper is an assessment of how the colonial powers would have viewed a document such as the Treaty. The conclusion of the paper is that the signatories would have presumed that the Treaty would have serious effect, and would be binding in international law.Editor’s note: This paper was originally written in 1987 as part of the Administrative Law LLM course at Victoria University of Wellington. After it was recently cited with approval in Sir Kenneth Keith's article "Public Law in New Zealand" (2003) 1 New Zealand Journal of Public and International Law 3, it transpired that access to the paper was very limited. Despite its age, and the fact that much scholarship has been done in the intervening time, on the Treaty in particular, the material is still of considerable interest. Some changes have been made to the original text to cater for the passage of time.

“We Are Our History”: Reviewing the History of Education in Hawaiʻi and Oceania

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 632-643
Author(s):  
Derek Taira
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Islands ◽  
History Of Education ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Pacific Island Nations

There is a “world of difference,” anthropologist Epeli Hauʻofa argued, “between viewing the Pacific as ‘islands in a far sea’ and as ‘a sea of islands.’” The distinction between both perspectives, he explained, is exemplified in the two names used for the region: Pacific Islands and Oceania. The former represents a colonial vision produced by white “continental men” emphasizing the smallness and remoteness of “dry surfaces in a vast ocean far from centers of power.” This understanding has produced and sustained an “economistic and geographic deterministic view” emphasizing Pacific Island nations as “too small, too poor, and too isolated” to take care of themselves. The latter, in contrast, denotes a grand space inhabited by brave and resourceful people whose myths, legends, oral traditions, and cosmologies reveal how they did not conceive of themselves in such “microscopic proportions.” Rather, Oceanic peoples have for over two millennia viewed the sea as a “large world” where peoples, goods, and cultures moved and mingled unhindered by fixed national boundaries.

A Snare and a Delusion (Or, Danger, Europeans at Work)

1978 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 43-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Henige
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Island Group ◽  
History Of ◽  
Derived Data ◽  
Orthodox View ◽  
Remote Past

This minor revision in Polynesian scholarship, the undermining of the authenticity of the traditions as historical … is one of the most significant developments in New Zealand archaeology.This [belief in a Great Fleet] arose out of the desire of European scholars to provide a coherent framework by which to interpret the prehistory of New Zealand.As heavily as historians must rely on orally-derived data for their study of the African past, historians of Oceania are far more in thrall to such materials in attempting to reconstruct the history of the various Pacific island groups. Although archeology and historical linguistics can sometimes help to provide broad sequences and interrelationships as well as evidence concerning origins, neither can, of course, provide circumstantial local detail or close dating. Oral traditions, often supported by genealogies of sometimes extraordinary length and complexity, have been collected in all parts of the Pacific almost since the time of Cook, but the latter part of the nineteenth century was a period of particularly feverish activity. The result is a vast body of material, much of it still in manuscript form. Of this corpus far more relates to the Maori people of New Zealand than to the inhabitants of any other island group.In the course of the first half of this century a homogenized orthodox view of New Zealand's more remote past developed -- an interpretation based on three pivotal events, each of which came to be dated calendrically by means of Maori genealogies. The first was the arrival of the “discoverer” of New Zealand, one Kupe, who was dated to ca. 950. Then, two centuries later, came Toi and his companions. Finally, so this version goes, the so-called Great Fleet, comprising about seven large canoes (the number varies slightly) arrived in about 1350, and New Zealand began to be well and truly peopled by Maori.

On Being a Historian of Tuvalu: Further Thoughts on Methodology and Mindset

1999 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 219-238
Author(s):  
Doug Munro
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Doctoral Dissertation ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
Colonial Administration ◽  
Naval Vessel ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial

Over twenty years ago, I started writing a doctoral dissertation on the history of the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu, an exercise that has had enduring professional and personal repercussions. Tuvalu is an atoll archipelago near the junction of the equator and the international date line, and is identified on older maps as the southern portion of a British dependency, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony—now the independent nations of Kiribati and Tuvalu respectively. The nine Tuvalu islands are tiny even by atoll standards, an aggregate 26km2 spread over 360 nautical miles. During the nineteenth century Tuvalu was incorporated into the world economy by a succession of European influences. The early explorers gave way in 1821 to whalers, who, in turn, were superseded by copra traders during the 1850s. From mid-century the pace of events quickened, with the traders being joined by the very occasional labor recruiter and, more to the point, by a concerted missionary drive.Accomplished largely through the instrumentality of resident Samoan pastors, missionization was comprehensive in scope and repressive in character. From the 1870s the occasional naval vessel visited the group and a British protectorate was declared in 1892, interspersed by the occasional scientific expedition and a brief and disastrous interlude in 1863 when some of the atolls were caught in the final stages of the Peruvian slave trade. The dominant European influences were the familiar triad of commerce, the cross, and the flag, with the primacy of trade giving way to missionary supremacy which, in turn, was displaced in local importance by a British colonial administration.

scholarly journals Behind the rankings of Pacific nations in the 2011-12 World Press Freedom Index

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Pearson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Press Freedom ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
Survey Period ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Pacific Island Nations

Commentary: Australia and New Zealand both declined in the 2011-2012 Reporters Sans Frontières/Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index rankings but all other surveyed Pacific Island nations improved their standings. This article reports upon those outcomes and details the methodology used by the international press freedom agency in reaching its annual determinations. It explains that such rankings can never be statistically precise because too many variables are at play between countries and from one survey period to another. Nevertheless, they are indicative and importantly draw attention each year to the widely varying standards applied to media freedom throughout the Pacific region and the wider world.

scholarly journals New Zealand’s ‘Critics of Empire’: Domestic Opposition to New Zealand’s Pacific Empire, 1883-1948

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nicholas Hoare
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
The Public ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of

<p>The recent resurgence of interest in the ‘other side’ of New Zealand’s colonial history has reaffirmed the need to view the nation’s history in its Pacific context. This historiographical turn has involved taking seriously the fact that as well as being a colony of Britain, New Zealand was an empire-state and metropole in its own right, possessing a tropical, Oceanic empire. What has yet to have been attempted however is a history of the ‘other side’ of the imperial debate. Thus far the historiography has been weighted towards New Zealand’s imperial and colonial agents. By mapping metropolitan critiques of New Zealand’s imperialism and colonialism in the Pacific (1883-1948), this thesis seeks to rebalance the historiographical ledger. This research adds to our understanding of New Zealand’s involvement in the colonial Pacific by demonstrating that anticolonial struggles were not only confined to the colonies, they were also fought on the metropolitan front by colonial critics at once sympathetic to the claims of the colonised populations, and scathing of their own Government’s colonial policy. These critics were, by virtue of their status as white, metropolitan citizens, afforded greater rights and freedoms than indigenous colonial subjects, and so were able to challenge colonial policy in the public domain. At the same time this thesis demonstrates how colonial criticism reflected national anxieties. The grounds for criticism generally depended on the wider social context. In the nineteenth-century in particular, critiques often contained concerns that New Zealand’s Pacific imperialism would disrupt the sanctity of ‘White New Zealand’, however as the twentieth-century wore on criticism bore the imprint of anti-racism and increasingly supported indigenous claims for self-government. By examining a seventy year period of change, this thesis shows that at every stage of the ‘imperial process’, New Zealand’s imperialism in the Pacific was a subject open to persistent public debate.</p>

New Zealand’s ties reset with Pacific will take time

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Marine Resources ◽  
World Population ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Pacific Island Nations

Subject New Zealand's foreign policy towards the Pacific region. Significance New Zealand is 'resetting' its relationship and engagement with South Pacific island nations, which includes increasing its financial contribution to the islands’ development and widening interaction, potentially to a genuinely two-way engagement in place of past ‘paternalistic benevolence’. This is important for Pacific security and prosperity. Impacts China is expanding its influence in the Pacific Islands; frictions may rise between Beijing and Wellington. Beijing and Wellington will compete for influence via infrastructure, trade and aid projects, and naval presence. EU, US and Japanese interest in the Pacific will grow; the United Kingdom is already expanding its diplomatic presence. Rich Pacific marine resources including fish will be increasingly important as world population and food demand grow.

scholarly journals Maketu’s Execution and the Extension of British Sovereignty in New Zealand

Te Kaharoa ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Moon
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Treaty Of Waitangi ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Colonial Office

The execution of a minor chief in 1842 in Auckland Prison for the crime of murder would normally be of little significance in the evolution of a nation’s statehood, unless it triggered some form or rebellion or even revolution.  The history of colonial rule in the British Empire in the nineteenth century contains many examples of murderers receiving capital punishment for their crime. However, the constitutional significance of the Governor’s determination to execute the criminal was of substantial, principally because it signified the Crown’s willingness – at this relatively early stage in Crown Colony Government in New Zealand – to extend its jurisdiction so that British law would apply to Maori communities.  Too often, it has been taken for granted that the Treaty of Waitangi asserted (initially in principle and gradually in practice) British sovereignty over Maori as well as Europeans in the country.  However, what the Maketu example illustrates is that the limits of British sovereignty in New Zealand prior to 1842 were confined exclusively to the non-Maori population, as had been the expectation of the Colonial Office in the two years leading up to the conclusion of the Treaty.

scholarly journals Walking the Palagi/Pasifika edge: The va of mediated dialogic research

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-42
Author(s):  
Martyn Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Educational Research ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
European Origin ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Teacher Researcher ◽  
Research And Education ◽  
Pacific Island Nations

Like all acts of naming, the term ‘Pasifika’, which is used to refer collectively to persons with connections to Pacific Island nations living in Aotearoa New Zealand, can be used to represent or to misrepresent, to enable or to control. Consequently, the notion of a field of Pasifika educational research is contested. This article provides a discussion of the potential contextual justification and consequent theorisation of Pasifika education. It pays attention to developments in the literature and to the usefulness of theory based on wisdom from the Pacific. It suggests that a relational edge-walking methodology framed through va is one way of making Pasifika educational research catalytically powerful. Located in recent PhD study, this account is by a Palagi (European-origin) teacher- researcher seeking to navigate the intercultural and positional edges of both Pasifika research and education. The aim is to facilitate respectful dialogue and thus enhance understanding and harmony. The article suggests that while power makes a mediated methodology helpful, methods configured to address relationality directly have the potential to achieve these valuable aims.

scholarly journals New Zealand’s ‘Critics of Empire’: Domestic Opposition to New Zealand’s Pacific Empire, 1883-1948

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nicholas Hoare
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
The Public ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of

<p>The recent resurgence of interest in the ‘other side’ of New Zealand’s colonial history has reaffirmed the need to view the nation’s history in its Pacific context. This historiographical turn has involved taking seriously the fact that as well as being a colony of Britain, New Zealand was an empire-state and metropole in its own right, possessing a tropical, Oceanic empire. What has yet to have been attempted however is a history of the ‘other side’ of the imperial debate. Thus far the historiography has been weighted towards New Zealand’s imperial and colonial agents. By mapping metropolitan critiques of New Zealand’s imperialism and colonialism in the Pacific (1883-1948), this thesis seeks to rebalance the historiographical ledger. This research adds to our understanding of New Zealand’s involvement in the colonial Pacific by demonstrating that anticolonial struggles were not only confined to the colonies, they were also fought on the metropolitan front by colonial critics at once sympathetic to the claims of the colonised populations, and scathing of their own Government’s colonial policy. These critics were, by virtue of their status as white, metropolitan citizens, afforded greater rights and freedoms than indigenous colonial subjects, and so were able to challenge colonial policy in the public domain. At the same time this thesis demonstrates how colonial criticism reflected national anxieties. The grounds for criticism generally depended on the wider social context. In the nineteenth-century in particular, critiques often contained concerns that New Zealand’s Pacific imperialism would disrupt the sanctity of ‘White New Zealand’, however as the twentieth-century wore on criticism bore the imprint of anti-racism and increasingly supported indigenous claims for self-government. By examining a seventy year period of change, this thesis shows that at every stage of the ‘imperial process’, New Zealand’s imperialism in the Pacific was a subject open to persistent public debate.</p>

A Short history of the post-graduate surgical training in Fiji - where to from here?

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jitoko Kelepi Cama ◽  
Sonal Singh Nagra
Keyword(s):  
Surgical Training ◽  
Training Programme ◽  
Post Graduate ◽  
School Of Medicine ◽  
Postgraduate Training Programme ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
National University ◽  
History Of ◽  
Training Of Surgeons ◽  
Pacific Island Nations

Post-graduate surgical training at the Fiji National University (FNU), previously known as the Fiji School of Medicine) has recently been updated by incorporating elements from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) training curriculum. The revised curriculum maintains strong contextual relevance to the needs and pathologies of the Pacific Island nations.  This paper outlines why the FNU surgical postgraduate training programme should be applauded as a successful programme in the training of surgeons for the region.

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