This past May, Dr Matthew M. Booker and Dr Kjell Ericson presented on how movements of oysters enable us to trace trans-Pacific patterns and practices of labour, migration, and environmental change. This paper forms part of their current project on the remarkable story of the trans-oceanic trade in live “seed” oysters between Northeastern Japan and […]
Dr Madi Williams (Ngāti Kuia, Ngāti Koata, Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Rangitāne o Wairau) is a lecturer at the University of Canterbury where she researches the boundaries of history and the inclusion of Indigenous and non-Western perspectives in Aotearoa New Zealand and South Pacific histories. Her 2021 book, Polynesia, 900-1600: An overview of the history
This past March, Dr Sophie Chao presented on how Indigenous Marind communities in West Papua sense and make sense of the temporal transformations wrought by the agroindustrial expansion of oil palm plantations. Drawing on one of the chapters of her recent monograph, Dr Chao argued that Marind’s explicit disavowal of hope in the face of
For the Pacific Circle’s opening lecture of 2023 this past January, Dr Sebestian Kroupa presented his research on the Indo-Pacific networks that underpinned the global circulation of bezoars and other healing stones in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This paper forms part of his current book project, titled Plants on the Move: The Making of
This past September, Dr Frances Steel presented on her new research project concerned with the history of refrigeration in the modern Pacific. Dr Steel’s lecture examined how the industrial innovation of chilling or freezing perishable produce transformed relationships between climates, foods, and peoples. The core of the talk focused on the marketing, appeal and reach
This past May, Dr Ricardo Roque presented on his research project concerned with the Timor Anthropological Mission in the late Portuguese colonial empire. Dr Roque’s lecture revolved around the concept of “scientific occupation”, a prominent approach in Portuguese late imperial policy, and considered the histories of the anthropometric and racialized projects undertaken by Portuguese imperial
This past January, Dr Mary X. Mitchell gave the Pacific Circle Annual Lecture. Dr Mitchell presented on her in-progress manuscript, “Unsettling Sovereignty,” which traces the sociolegal history of US nuclear blasting in the Marshall Islands. The lecture explored several key episodes in which Islanders and others used legal claims to challenge US blasting, reshaping US
