A new edition of the Okinawan Journal of Island Studies features social justice island activism, including a case study of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific Media Centre, in what the editors say brings a sense of “urgency” in the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion in scholarship.

In the editorial, the co-editors — Tiara R. Na’puti, Marina Karides, Ayano Ginoza, Evangelia Papoutsaki — describe this special issue of the journal as being guided by feminist methods of collaboration.

They say their call for research on social justice island activism has brought forth an issue that centres on the perspectives of Indigenous islanders and women.

• READ MORE: Other Okinawan Journal of Island Studies articles

“Our collection contains disciplinary and interdisciplinary research papers, a range of contributions in our forum section (essays, curated conversations, reflection pieces, and photo essays), and book reviews centred on island activist events and activities organised locally, nationally, or globally,” the editorial says.

“We are particularly pleased with our forum section; its development offers alternative forms of scholarship that combine elements of research, activism, and reflection.

“Our editorial objective has been to make visible diverse approaches for conceptualising island activisms as a category of analysis.

‘Complexity and nuance’
“The selections of writing here offer complexity and nuance as to how activism shapes and is shaped by island eco-cultures and islanders’ lives.”

The co-editors argue that “activisms encompass multiple ways that people engage in social change, including art, poetry, photographs, spoken word, language revitalisation, education, farming, building, cultural events, protests, and other activities locally and through larger networks or movements”.

Thus this edition of OJIS brings together island activisms that “inform, negotiate, and resist geopolitical designations” often applied to them.

Geographically, the islands featured in papers include Papua New Guinea, Prince Edward Island, and the island groups of Kanaky, Okinawa, and Fiji.

Among the articles, Meghan Forsyth’s ‘La langue vient de la musique’: Acadian song, language transmission, and cultural sustainability on Prince Edward Island engagingly examines the “sonic activism” of the Francophone community in Canada’s Prince Edward Island.

“Also focused on visibility and access, David Robie’s article ‘Voice of the Voiceless’: The Pacific Media Centre as a case study of academic and research advocacy and activism substantiates the need for bringing forward journalistic attention to the Pacific,” says the editorial.

Dr Robie emphasises the need for critical and social justice perspectives in addressing the socio-political struggles in Fiji and environmental justice in the Pacific broadly, say the co-editors.

In the article My words have power: The role of Yuri women in addressing sorcery violence in Simbu province of Papua New Guinea, Dick Witne Bomai shares the progress of the Yuri Alaiku Kuikane Association (YAKA) in advocacy and peacebuilding.

In ‘La Pause Décoloniale’: Women decolonising Kanaky one episode at a time, Anaïs Duong-Pedica, “provides a discussion of French settler colonialism and the challenges around formal decolonisation processes in Kanaky”.

Inclusive feminist thinking
The article engages with “women’s political activism and collaborative practice” of the podcast and radio show La Pause Décoloniale.

The co-editors say the edition’s forum section is a result of “inclusive feminist thinking to make space for a range of approaches combining scholarship and activism”.

They comment that the “abundance of submissions to this section demonstrates the desire for academic outlets that stray from traditional models of scholarship”.

“Feminist and Indigenous scholar-activists seem especially inclined towards alternative avenues for expressing and sharing their research,” the coeditors add.

Eight books are reviewed, including New Zealand’s Peace Action: Struggles for a Decolonised and Demilitarised Oceania and East Asia, edited by Valerie Morse.

• The full OJIS edition

New Zealand’s leading daily newspaper has praised the “gift of inspiration” over global cooperation in launching the James Webb space telescope at the Christmas weekend, but has decried the failure of the international community to seriously tackle the growing covid-19 public health crisis cooperatively.

The New Zealand Herald declared today in an editorial that the timing, cooperation, and development work involved launching the successor to the Hubble telescope “is in marked contrast with the still muddled, individual country-based approach to the pandemic”.

The launch also could not help but “signify the yawning gap between what people are capable of and what they commonly settle for”, the newspaper wrote.

• READ MORE: James Webb Space Telescope, world’s largest, lifts off into orbit

The launch of the James Webb telescope was a collaboration between the space agencies of the United States, Europe and Canada with people from 29 countries having worked on the project, reports AP.

“It blasted away from French Guiana on a European Ariane rocket. As with previous space missions, it involves vision, ambition and precise calculations that have to work perfectly to pull it all off,” the Herald said.

“The telescope has a 1.5 million km journey ahead, far beyond the moon, with a task of eventually gazing on light from the first stars and galaxies.

“It all hinges on the telescope’s mirror and sunshield unfolding on cue over nearly two weeks, having been tucked away to fit into the rocket’s nose cone.

“If that goes right, the telescope will be able to look back in time a mind-boggling 13.5 billion years.”

Fascinating year for science
The US$10 billion telescope project had capped a “fascinating year for space science” after the “incredibly precise landing of a rover and a helicopter drone on Mars, which resulted in the first powered flight on another planet”, said the Herald.

Noting Nasa’s science mission chief Thomas Zurbuchen’s comment welcoming the launch — “what an amazing Christmas present” — the newspaper contrasted the collaborative achievement with the “muddled, individual country-based approach” over covid-19.

“While the rocket was launching humanity’s imaginative time machine, hundreds of thousands of people on Earth were getting a ‘gift’ of covid at Christmas. Both Britain and France hit more than 100,000 cases on Saturday,” the Herald said.

“The cost of the space project is tiny compared to the US$725 billion the US spent on defence in the 2020 financial year — more than the next 11 countries combined. Next year’s bill is US$770 billion.

“It is closer to the US$50 billion amount the OECD has estimated it would cost to vaccinate the world’s population against the coronavirus and protect the global economy.

“Far more money than that — US$12 trillion — was spent by countries in financial support between March and November 2020.

Time to hatch global covid plan
“Although that support was urgently needed, surely there was also time to hatch a US$50 billion global plan for a coronavirus endgame before the vaccines came on stream in late 2020.

“Now, a year later, each country is dealing with the omicron wave its own way, and progress in distributing vaccines to poorer regions is slow. People feel frustrated the vaccines haven’t guaranteed a return to life as we knew it.

“The vaccines themselves are an amazing scientific achievement: developed quickly and still doing their job of protecting the vast majority of vaccinated people against severe covid disease.

“A study by the World Health Organisation and a European Union agency estimated in November that the vaccines had saved nearly half a million lives in a region of 33 countries.

“But it is hard for people to really absorb achievements that involve prevention: When they work as hoped, at least some people believe it’s proof the threat was overblown.”

Singaporean philosopher, former diplomat and academic Professor Kishore Mahbubani has warned the world is entering a global “Asian new order” and he has called on researchers in the Asia-Pacific region to shed Western dominance of the social sciences.

Speaking as a keynote at the Symposium on Social Science 2020 in Indonesia this week, Dr Mahbubani, author of the recent book Has China Won? The Chinese challenge to American Primacy, told more than 200 participants on the webinar that Asian “mental maps” needed to change to address the new reality.

“The world has changed fundamentally – we must understand that,” he said. “But our problem is that the mental maps that we have to understand this new world, our mental maps given to us by our 19th century, 20th century [social scientists] – mostly Western – cannot guide us in the 21st century.”

READ MORE: Unpacking the ‘three myths’ about US lack of wisdom over China

This was because the current century would be far different from the two previous centuries, said Dr Mahbubani, a member of the Asia Research Institute.

“What I have tried to do in my writing is to provide a glimpse of what the 21st century will be like.

“And I have also tried to explain why this is relevant to those studying social science.”

As well as his books, Professor Mahbubani has published extensively in leading journals and newspapers overseas such as Foreign Affairs, the National Interest, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

New trends, new challenges
His wide-ranging speech explored new trends in the world, new challenges and new solutions.

“A shift of power to Asia [is taking place] and the 21st century will be the Century of Asia. We need to be very clear about that. There is absolutely no doubt,” he said.

This was not surprising, he said, because for 18 centuries of the past 2000 years, the world had been dominated by two Asia economies – China and India.

“It is only in the last 200 years that Europe and North America have taken over. So the last 200 years of Western dominance of world history has been an aberration,” he said.

“All aberrations come to a natural end. So it is only natural to see the return of Asia.”

The covid-19 coronavirus pandemic was hastening the world change, partly because the most competent countries in dealing with the global crisis had been in East Asia, he said, echoing what he told BBC Hardtalk’s Zeinab Badawi recently.

He said then that the number of deaths per million in East Asia was less than 10 compared to Europe and the US where it was in the hundreds.

‘Top three out of four in Asia’
“Even today, in terms of purchasing power as a measurement, if you look at the top four economies: number one is China, number two is the United States of America, number three is India, and number four is Japan.

“So three out of the top four economies are already Asian.”

Professor Mahbubani also told the live video symposium participants, hosted by the Centre for Southeast Asian Social Studies at the Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, that Indonesia would be a “big beneficiary” of this global change.

And in market terms it was much harder.

“Indonesia in 2017 was the 16th largest economy in the world. By 2030 it will become the ninth largest economy, and by 2050 it will be the fourth largest – bigger than Japan.

“That is amazing.”

These were the big changes coming, but the world was still outdated with mind maps being set in the 19th and 20th centuries.

‘Dangerous’ to rely on West
“It is dangerous for us to depend on Western social science to understand the Asian century,” he said.

Professor Mahbubani was critical of the double standards in the United States over corruption when it was illegal for American businessmen to bribe foreign legislators while it remained legal for businessmen to influence lawmakers at home, especially over the privatised health system.

He said he believed that the US had lost its moral compass and its current failure under President Donald Trump to stem the coronavirus pandemic and to deal constructively with China and other countries was a warning to the world.

The country was no longer a democracy, it was a plutocracy.

Climate change was an event greater issue than covid facing the globe.

Professor Mahbubani said the world needed a strong US to balance China.

The stimulating two-day webinar had speakers and research papers from all over Asia, but also included foreign presenters such as Australia’s Dr Daniel McCarthy of the University of Melbourne on “another face of power” and New Zealand’s Professor David Robie of Auckland University Technology on climate change and covid-19 – “redefining the relations between humankind and the environment”.

Selected papers will be published in a book to follow the publication from the first Social Science Symposium in 2018.

The Pacific Media Centre was a partner of Indonesia’s Centre for Southeast Asian Social Studies for this symposium.

• (New) Ecological Problems: Post-pandemic climate change an Oceania existential threat
• The sociology of a pandemic: Countering a covid ‘disinfodemic’ with a campus media initiative

In a bold and innovative move for researchers, the two-day inaugural Oceans and Islands conference today brought together the brightest minds of the Pacific to demonstrate what they do.

Oceans and Islands – a showcase for the region hosted by the NZ Institute for Pacific Research (NZIPR) – was opened by the Minister for Pacific Peoples, Carmel Sepuloni, this morning.

“I really do have the privilege of being able to witness the great contribution that Pacific leaders, academics and communities make to Aotearoa and globally,” the minister said.

READ MORE: Pacific aid mapping tool aimed at improving transparency in region

She acknowledged the excellence of Pacific research in New Zealand and welcomed the establishment of research agencies such as Moana Research and commended the leadership of Dr Teuila Percival, Jcinta Fa’alili-Fidow and Dudley Gentles.

The minister also shared some of the research initiatives that she is directly involved with such as the extended funding to the growing up in New Zealand study and Treasury’s Pasifika Economic Report.

“It is critical that Pacific people are meaningfully included in thought leadership and decision making. We must be the authors of our own solutions, and conferences like this support us towards that end,” she added.

Many struggles
Toeolesulusulu Associate Professor Damon Salesa, who was recently appointed pro vice-chancellor (Pacific) of the University of Auckland, said: “Pacific research and Pacific knowledge matters.”

“It’s not simply research about the Pacific, by the Pacific that makes it Pacific research. It’s much more than that…and it has faced many struggles,” he added.

He talked about the struggles that researchers faced, such as not being properly resourced, the lack of opportunities to succeed, and the lack of proper recognition.

“These are the struggles NZIPR embarked on,” he said in a tribute to the institute that he was the founding director of. The achievements of NZIPR were:

• Creating a formal research programme – “five research programmes will be signed off completed or published by the end of this year.”

• Disseminating research through both online and offline platforms, and establishing a research repository to make visible the different kinds of knowledge.

• Building research capability and the research recognition of a diverse range of researchers that includes 12 scholarships and sponsorship for individual researchers and research projects.

He also remarked that NZIPR had “achieved so much so quickly”.

Highlights from Day One of the Oceans and Islands conference. Video: Blessen Tom

Indigenous principles
Dr David Welchman Gegeo led the third keynote session when he gave full recognition to indigenous ethical principles that guide the social construction of knowledge in Pacific island communities.

“Why do we keep doing research on Pacific communities?” and “Are we alone?” asked David Gegeo.

“Pacific Island’s epistemic communities are not alone in the quest for the indigenisation or oceanisation of research and knowledge construction in the Pacific,” he said.

“I think we have a better chance of answering some of our lingering questions in research when we work together as this team.”

He advocated the working together of university epistemic community, metro-centrist epistemic community and Pacific village epistemic community for research and construction of pacific knowledge.

Dr Gegeo holds a research position in the Office of Research and Postgraduate Studies at the Solomon Islands National University.

Dr Kapua’ala Sproat is a professor of law at the University of Hawai’i’s Richardson School of Law and the director of Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawai’ian Law.

Her keynote explored indigenous people’s proactive responses to the pernicious impacts of global warming.

‘Sense of culture’
“I’m incredibly grateful that I grew up with a strong sense of self and culture because I think that really has rooted both myself and but also my work,” she said.

Professor Sprout examined Native Hawai’ians’ potential deployment of local laws that embody restorative justice principles to fashion meaningful remedies for the environmental and cultural damage as a result of the global climate crisis.

“Our identity as indigenous people is inextricably tied to these islands and our natural and cultural resources” said Professor Sprout and “Global Warming threatens our island home and our identity as a people”.

The final keynote session of the day was addressed by Leina Tucker-Masters, Eliza Puna and by Dr Jamaima Tiataia- Seath.

Their presentation canvassed the journeys of three Pacific women researchers throughout their academic careers.

“Engaging in research as an undergraduate student helped me connect with my Pacific culture while at university,” said Leina Tucker-Masters, a medical student at the University of Auckland.

Research methodologies
Tucker-Masters talked about her experience with Pacific research methodologies and how they influenced literature.

“I learned about Pacific health initiatives that use Pacific ways of thinking to heal Pacific people”.

“Postgraduate research gives you an opportunity to carry out very ethnic specific research and it allows for in depth engagement and helps to bridge academia and our communities,” said Eliza Puna, a doctoral candidate in Pacific Studies at Auckland University.

Dr Jemaima Tiatia-Seath is currently co-head of school and head of Pacific studies, Te Wananga o Waipapa, School of Māori and Pacific Studies, University of Auckland.

She talked about her experience as one of six panelists on the government’s Mental Health and Addiction Enquiry.

The Oceans and Islands conference will conclude tomorrow evening.

Sri Krishnamurthi and Blessen Tom of the Pacific Media Centre are working as part of a PMC partnership with the NZ Institute for Pacific Research.

• The NZ Institute for Pacific Research
• The conference programme

How Indonesian society manages in the face of natural disasters is the focus of a global research collaboration as part of the Indonesian government’s World Class Professor programme.

Spearheaded by the Universitas Gadjah Mada’s Centre for Southeast Asian Social Studies (CESASS), the WCP collaboration centres on ecological communication.

“We tried to find a topic which would facilitate us working together, and two other universities have specifications in tsunami mitigation and focus on maritime coastal disasters,” said CESASS director Dr Hermin Indah Wahyuni.

These are the Universitas Syiah Kuala’s (Unsyiah) Tsunami Disaster Mitigation Research Centre (TDMRC) and Universitas Diponegoro’s Centre for Coastal Rehabilitation and Disaster Mitigation Studies (COREM).

The Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre and its director, Professor David Robie, are also part of the maritime disaster issues research project.

Speaking to Asia Pacific Report, Dr Wahyuni said CESASS and its partners wanted to highlight the “social aspect of maritime disasters” and were interested in three aspects of ecological communication.

“We would first like to know how the society communicates about disasters; understanding about the environment and why media is important in constructing reality and making disasters important; and how infrastructure has developed.

Environment ‘unimportant issue’
“We have the feeling society does not categorise what is happening around a disaster,” she said.

Dr Wahyuni said the problem may lie in people’s perceptions and the mentality surrounding natural disasters.

“It’s unlucky, as as a society we don’t think the environment is an important issue.

“We never discuss about why, for example, the fish are dying. It’s happening, but it’s out of focus for us.”

In an attempt to understand Indonesia’s thinking and hopefully turn the tide on Indonesia’s poor environmental record, Dr Wahyuni and her team are in the midst of investigating the social, political and economic impacts of natural disasters.

The team revealed the findings of their early research at a PMC hosted seminar series while in New Zealand earlier this month.

The focus of CESASS’ Dr Budi Irawanto’s research is how the stories of natural disaster survivors are told by Indonesian media.

Focus on survivors
“The focus of my research is how the media deals with tragedy through the narratives of survivors,” he said.

Although venturing into a “new kind of territory”, Dr Irawanto said his research interest came about after discovering there were a lack of studies on the relationship between natural disasters and the media.

Focusing on weekly magazine Tempo and using the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, the 2006 earthquake in Yogyakarta and 2010 Mount Merapi eruption as case studies, Dr Irawanto’s early research revealed survivor narratives are underrepresented in the media due to a focus on the economic impacts of natural disasters.

The suffering of survivors was brought closer, he said, but “compassion fatigue” existed. 

Dr Wahyuni reflected such a focus on economics may be due to the makeup of Indonesian society.

“The dynamic of our society is mostly in the political system…Business interests are more important than how we conserve our environment.

“With this research we would like to more deeply explore this problem from many perspectives – media, anthropology, economy.”

‘We need journalists’
However, Dr Wahyuni acknowledged the media had a large role to play in bringing environmental issues into focus.

“We need journalists that can translate, for example, climate change. It is very difficult to translate the concept to ordinary people as climate change is very hard to understand,” she said.

Further research by CESASS academics has provided insight into the communication of natural disasters in Indonesia.

Analysing over 45,000 tweets between 2014 and 2015, Dr Bevaola Kusumasari’s research focused on how people use social media platform Twitter during disasters.

Focusing on the Asia-Pacific region, Dr Kusumasari’s research revealed how different sectors of society – government, non-governmental organisations, media and celebrities – use Twitter.

Dr Kusumasari discovered NGOs use Twitter for relief coordination, while media and government participate in second-hand reporting and celebrities encourage the public to donate to relief efforts.

Although tweets came from outside the disaster zone, Dr Kusumasari found Twitter’s speed of reach could mean it is the ideal platform for relief coordination.

Future collaboration hope
Dr Wahyuni said she hoped the research collaboration marked the beginning of an ongoing academic relationship between CESASS and its partners, and that the research has real-world effects.

“We are starting with the academic, the university, the student awareness about what we can do to attempt to change this situation.

“We will support the effort to look after the environment better.”

PMC director Dr Robie, who has specialised in environmental journalism and launched the Bearing Witness climate project in 2016, heads to Indonesia next week as part of the WCP programme.

• PMC’s monographs launched on Tuwhera in ‘exciting initiative’ 
• ‘Asia-Pacific uniting, working together’ – Gadjah Mada team arrives in NZ
• More Indonesia stories

By David Robie in Yogyakarta

A vision for a progressive activists, writers and researchers retreat in the lush outskirts of Indonesia’s most cultural city, Yogyakarta, is close to becoming reality.

The Indonesian Community and Activists Library (ICAL) is already an impressive “shell” in the front garden of Australian author and socio-political analyst, intellectual and consultant Max Lane, arguably the most knowledgeable English-language writer on Indonesian affairs.

Dr Lane, who has been writing and commenting about cultural and political developments in Indonesia, Philippines, Timor-Leste and his homeland since the 1970s, is delighted that completing the centre is so close.

“We have almost completed this building, the library, which will have a reading room, an office, and also some accommodation for those who would like to stay for a few days, or even longer to use the library,” he says, gesturing towards the empty rooms at the complex in the rice-producing and tourist village of Ngepas.

“The library will have about 4000 to 5000 books in the field of social sciences, humanities, history, feminism and so on.”

The books have been donated, but they mainly comprise the collections of some of Australia’s leading activists, such as John Percy, over more than five decades of his life.

Percy was a veteran socialist who co-founded the radical youth organisation Resistance and the Socialist Workers Party in Australia. He edited Direct Action for many years and helped establish Green Left Weekly. He died in 2015 and his passing inspired the library project with Lane, a close friend.

Filling a gap
The progressive book collection will help fill a gap in the literature for young activists and lecturers.

“We think the books are going to be very much put to use because this particular collection is probably still very difficult to find in Indonesia because of 35 years of authoritarian rule. Many books were not allowed, or difficult to be positioned, in libraries,” Lane says.

Under the Suharto regime between 1965 and 1998, book acquisitions for Indonesian school, university and community libraries were “underfunded and, when funded, narrow and censored”.

Lane hopes that ICAL will, in a “small but effective way”, help improve the situation.

“The books will comprise the collections of Australian progressive activists and intellectuals,” he says.

“The complex here is a very nice area to work in. It is less than half an hour from the three main university campuses and we expect university students, lecturers, NGO activists, political activists and others to be using the facilities here.

“It’s almost finished. We are still short of funds — we need US$3000 or $4000 to finish the central part of the library so people can start to use it. And probably another $5000 or $6000 to finish the accommodation area so people can stay over.

Team managing
“So I can say it is 80 percent or 90 percent funded and it will only take one or two months for the builder to complete work on it.”

Dr Max Lane and his wife, Faiza Mardzoeki, will manage the centre. She is one of Indonesia’s leading women playwrights and theatre directors, whose works include the 2006 play Nyai Ontosoroh (Madame Ontosoroh). She will be the day-to-day manager of the library programme.

Their home is a bungalow next door, on the banks of an attractive stream. Dr Lane injected about US$25,000 into the project himself and provided the land on their property.

Between them, Lane and Mardzoeki hope to see the centre become a lively base for creative and cultural activity. Classes, forums, discussions, short course training sessions on a range of topics relating to social sciences and humanities, and literature will be on the bucket list.

Dr Lane introduced the English-speaking world to the celebrated revolutionary Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who was imprisoned by Suharto for a decade on the Maluku island of Buru, by translating his classic Buru Quartet novels, starting with Bumi Manusia (The Earth of Mankind) in 1980. He was an officer working at the Australian Embassy at the time and it was not a popular move among his superiors.

According to an Asymptote profile of Dr Lane by Fadli Fawzi and Nazry Bahrawi, it was a dangerous era.

“At this time, Indonesian president Suharto’s New Order regime (the Partai Golongan Karya — Party of the Functional Groups, known as Golkar) was in power, propped up by foreign investment and backed by the army.

Heavy-handed repression
“It was also when heavy-handed repression was the norm in Southeast Asia, and Suharto’s New Order government was no exception. In the early 1980s, corpses began surfacing in public places as a result of extrajudicial killings.”

This was also a period when the Indonesian military was involved in bloody repression in East Timor after the country was invaded at the end of 1975.

Dr Lane’s own extraordinary literary outputs, apart from his translations, include his Unfinished Revolution: Indonesia Before and After Suharto (2008), Catastrophe in Indonesia (2010), and Unfinished Nation (2014) and collections of poetry.

Currently, Dr Lane is visiting senior fellow at the Institute for Southeast Asia Studies in Singapore. Previously he has lectured at universities across the region, including the University of Sydney in Australia and Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, and internationally.

The ICAL venture will be supported by a membership drive with the original members being invited on the basis of recommendations from of a panel of university professors and social justice activists.

Prospective new members will need to be recommended by two existing members.

More information about ICAL and a donations link are on the centre’s crowdfunding page.

• Green Left Weekly

Students and staff filed their first two stories this week for the innovative website published in partnership with Evening Report.

Roy Abrhamn Narra and Carlo Casingcasing reported an exclusive story showing how Canada’s latest global terrorism blacklists were tagging the Philippines as having the third highest number of “individual terrorists” behind Saudi Arabia and Iraq while journalism coordinator Assistant Professor Jeremaiah M. Opiniano covered Philippines Environment Secretary Regina Lopez’s crackdown on mining companies in a bid to encourage a “green economy”.

Twenty three mining companies have been been served with closure notices and  five others face suspensions. One company involved has assets in New Zealand.

Opiniano was pleased with the collaboration and said UST was working towards a more comprehensive partnership with the PMC and School of Communication Studies.

Professor David Robie, director of the PMC and editor of Asia Pacific Report, welcomed the development, saying: “We are delighted to have UST on board and their input will help boost coverage of the Philippines, especially with more depth.”

He said that since the live feed of the Philippines presidential election last year, the website had experienced a strong Filipino interest and this was reflected by the growing audience among the Philippines diaspora in New Zealand.

Asia Pacific Report also collaborates with other journalism schools around the region, including at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji and Wansolwara newspaper.

• Two new journalism degrees in Philippines

The AUT Food Network has celebrated the commercial launch of the Nothing Else bar, a milestone achievement after years of rigorous research and taste trials.

The Nothing Else bar is a healthy snack bar, made up of just eight simple ingredients – the date and almond flavour contains oats, dates, almonds, oat bran, manuka honey, sunflower oil, flaxseed (linseed) and cinnamon.

The bars are not only more nutritious than typical muesli bars, but also have a low glycaemic index (GI) to keep hunger pangs at bay for longer.

The bars are now being manufactured and distributed by South Auckland food manufacturer AB Foods, in consultation with Auckland University of Technology’s professor of nutrition Elaine Rush and advertising creativity lecturer Dave Brown, who created the Nothing Else brand.

The product has been four years in the making, and was commercialised through AUT Enterprises Ltd (AUTEL).

Professor Rush says the collaboration brought organisations, experts and partners from many disciplines together, with the goal of providing a healthier food choice for consumers.

“Globally, there is a call for better value food. Yet there’s no shortage of unhealthy food in the market, so we need to work harder to improve the nutrition of New Zealanders – one bar at a time,” she says.

Ingredient transparency
On the creation of the Nothing Else brand, Brown explains it was specifically designed to be transparent about products’ ingredients.

“Consumers are surrounded by product labels with tempting yet questionable health claims. By being upfront and displaying the familiar, natural ingredients that go into Nothing Else products, we’re making it easier for customers to make their own choices,” he says.

The Nothing Else team has also introduced a vegan option for consumers, adding to the original date and almond bar with the addition of a cranberry and cashew version.

“The new flavour contains the sugar in the sweetened cranberries, rather than honey, making this bar a suitable option for consumers following a vegan diet,” says Professor Rush.

For decades activists and intellectuals as diverse as Bruce Jesson, Annette Sykes, Brian Easton, Jane Kelsey and Bryce Edwards have lamented the lack of any progressively oriented policy institution capable of mounting a serious challenge to the neoliberal hegemony which has dominated New Zealand’s political life since the 1980s.

The NZ Business Round Table, the Maxim Institute, the NZ Institute and more recently the NZ Initiative have all played major roles as think tanks influencing and advocating on economic and social issues.

When I commenced doctoral research (2010 – 2013) exploring the reasons why we had no major left think tank in New Zealand, two of the most frequent responses received were that we’d never succeed because we don’t have the money and because the left is too fragmented and factionalised.

On the question of money, there is no question that ESRA is very much on the back foot.  There is no secret source of funding for ESRA and so far no substantial donors have emerged, although of course such support will always be welcomed as long as our kaupapa remains uncompromised.

What has enabled us to commence and sustain the project so far has been the tremendous goodwill, time and commitment shown by a large group of skilled activist and academic volunteers, backed by a comparatively low but steady stream of donations and automatic payments from supporters.

We don’t have enough money, but we make the most of what we have… and every dollar you contribute is another step towards our sustenance and growth.

At the core of ESRA’s being we are the opposite of the major think tanks mentioned above. While we don’t have their financial resources, we do have the ability to harness and nurture a collective determination to build a counterhegemonic institution capable of quality research, acute comment, and the generation of lively public debate and thoughtful policy development.

In touch with realities
We will become a very different kind of think tank to those which already exist, grounded in the unions and community-based organisations whose interests we wish to serve, and closely in touch with the realities of life for the ever growing numbers of people who are paying the price in poverty, homelessness, alienation and despair for New Zealand’s love affair with neoliberal capitalism.

The second barrier raised to the potential development of a major think tank on the left was that traditional left factionalism had the potential to impede such a project right from the start.  This has not proved to be the case at all.  In the slow, careful process of establishing ESRA we have aimed to put a stake in the ground, inviting those who support the initiative to become part of it, but not seeking to colonise or take over people and organisations whose political interests lie elsewhere.

ESRA in fact looks forward to the day when other substantial left think tanks will emerge.  Meanwhile, we will always welcome debate and interaction with other entities, no matter their place on the political spectrum.

It is cautious, deliberative work building an organisation without major funding support.  Our ability to progress all the activities in which we would ideally like to engage is inhibited by a lack of paid staff and resources.

But we have come a long way already and feel sure that our current model of quiet, determined long-haul organising will lay the groundwork for a thriving ESRA, working for the better, more hopeful future to which we are committed.

Sue Bradford is a former Green MP, researcher and activist. She gave this address at the launch of ESRA at the Counterfutures conference at Victoria University of Wellington on Friday night.

• ESRA – Economic and Social Research Aotearoa
• Counterfutures – left thought and practice Aotearoa
• Talkin’ bout a revolution, in NZ – Bryce Edwards
• Sue Bradford talking in a Radio Waatea interview
• The first real left-wing think tank in NZ
• ESRA ‘a lemon’ – Chris Trotter

She said it was a popular journal globally as well as in the Asia-Pacific region, and noted the presence of many international contributors to the latest edition at the launch.

“This journal has progressed through the persistence of Professor David Robie, Dr Philip Cass and Professor Wendy Bacon with support of the wonderful production efforts of Del Abcede and proof reading of Susan O’Rourke,” said Dr Nakhid, who is an associate professor in AUT’s School of Social Science and Public Policy at Auckland University of Technology.

She said this latest issue of the journal, the only one regularly publishing New Zealand journalism research, was timely as it coincided with the WJEC conference and an Australian and Pacific Preconference.

There had been much attention on alleged corruption in New Zealand under the current government, particularly in reference to the Panama Papers, and ongoing corruption in the Pacific and wider Oceania region.

“This issue of the journal covers articles by those journalists and media researchers who have brought these issues to light,” she said.

“The articles also discuss the lives of journalists and their risks and dangers, our damage to the environment and many other issues.

“We need young journalists to live to become old journalists and so we very much welcome this journal and the launch of this current issue theme titled ‘Endangered Journalists’.”

• Pacific Journalism Review
• Full text articles from the latest edition
• Still stealing the generations
• PJR at AUT Shop

The World Journalism Education Congress preconference for JERAA and the region began today and brought together Pacific journalism educators to improve the role of the Fourth Estate in the region.

Toeolesulusulu Associate Professor Damon Salesa, director of the New Zealand Institute of Pacific Research, opened the preconference, saying journalism was important for bringing the community together for people to engage in the public sphere.

“Journalism is central to the public interest of the Pacific, it protects culture and especially language,” Toeolesulusulu said.

“However the world has changed drastically, making it difficult for journalists to keep up with the scale of some of the issues affecting Pacific.”

He referred to health issues, like the Zika virus where communities are struggling to understand how the media are easing the issue.

This was an “exciting” time for educators to gather and face these issues together at the conference.

The day-long preconference was organised by the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA), Pacific Media Centre (PMC) and the Media Educators Pacific (MeP).

The NZ Institute of Pacific Research was the main donor for the preconference, funding five media educators from Fiji, Papua New Guinea (2), Samoa and Tonga to attend JERAA and WJEC.

The institute is a collaboration between the University of Auckland, Auckland University of Technology and Otago University.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully has welcomed the launch of a New Zealand-based Pacific think-tank aimed at supporting sustainable development in the region.

“We have identified the need for more targeted research on the Pacific, to underpin development initiatives and support Pacific decision makers,” said McCully, who launched the new institute at Auckland University’s Fale Pasifika last night.

“The New Zealand Institute for Pacific Research will work in support of Pacific governments and regional agencies, and will focus on producing the kind of hard-headed analysis that can support sustainable economic development.

“Our aim is for the NZPIR to become a centre of excellence for research on Pacific development, governance, public policy, and security issues.

“The government has provided a cornerstone investment of $7.5 million over five years to establish the Institute and develop an initial programme of research,” McCully said.

The NZPIR will be based at the University of Auckland.

The research programme will be delivered by a consortium led by the University of Auckland, and including Auckland University of Technology and Otago University.

• Pacific Media Watch’s TJ Aumua reports on the new institute
• New NZ think-tank launched to advance Pacific research

The University of Auckland, Auckland University of Technology and the University of Otago have collaborated to form the New Zealand Institute for Pacific Research (NZIPR).

The institute is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to deliver a world-class research programme focused on Pacific development, investment and foreign-policy issues.

Drawing on further support from a range of international partners across the Pacific region, the NZIPR will advance New Zealand’s thinking on Pacific research.

The Ministry is contributing $7.5 million over five years to the NZIPR, which was launched at the University of Auckland’s Fale Pasifika tonight by Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully.

By joining forces, the three universities have created a consortium that brings together their multi-disciplinary expertise. The NZIPR will be hosted at the lead institution, the University of Auckland.

The University of Auckland’s Vice-Chancellor, Stuart McCutcheon says that the NZIPR marks a milestone both in Pacific research and New Zealand’s relationship with its Pacific neighbours.

“The New Zealand Institute for Pacific Research will be a national and global focal point for research in the Pacific region, a chance to highlight and develop innovative research and engagement,” he says.

“This is an exciting opportunity to collaborate with our New Zealand partners, and with researchers in the Pacific region and beyond, in order to offer thought leadership on Pacific research.”

Founding director
The University of Auckland’s head of Pacific studies, Associate Professor Damon Salesa, has been appointed the NZIPR director.

“The University of Auckland is honoured to be hosting the NZIPR, an innovative collaboration with AUT and the University of Otago, which also includes researchers from the Pacific and the US.

“The NZIPR is a groundbreaking initiative to develop research and understanding about the Pacific and its opportunities and challenges.

“The collaborative model of the NZIPR means it is committed to research that is anchored in the relationships that come from New Zealand’s unique position as a Pacific nation itself, a country with a rich Pacific heritage.”

AUT Head of Pacific Advancement Walter Fraser says the formation of the NZIPR consortium is a significant step in enhancing New Zealand’s Pacific research capacity.

“AUT is proud to be a key partner in producing world-class multi-disciplinary research on the Pacific,” Fraser says.

“Together, we look forward to advancing a much deeper understanding of the issues and challenges that face the communities in the entire Pacific region, so that we can collectively provide tangible, sustainable and durable solutions and recommendations for the region.

“AUT students and researchers already conduct world-leading research in and on the Pacific – across the areas of health, nutrition, media, tourism, culture, environment, and more. Our strengths in Pacific research, together with University of Auckland and University of Otago, will help ensure national policy in the Pacific is informed and effective.”

Long tradition
Professor Tony Ballantyne, pro-vice-chancellor of humanities at the University of Otago, says the university is keen to be involved in this initiative because of its long tradition of research on the Pacific.

“The creation of the NZIPR means that Otago researchers have the opportunity to bring their expertise into much more direct engagement with the complex processes that frame government policy and aid strategies.

“The institute will enable our researchers and students to build new research connections, to undertake more fieldwork in the Pacific, and to participate in a research consortium that will regularly bring leading international and national experts on the Pacific to Otago.”

The three universities educate 75 percent of all Pacific Island university students in New Zealand, and produce 60 percent of Pacific PhDs.

They also employ 90 percent of the 175 Pacific academics working in universities across New Zealand.

The consortium will work to make the NZIPR a focal point for the sharing of knowledge in the Pacific region to governments, businesses, community groups and other stakeholders.

The aim is to produce research that charts the changing shape of Pacific Island societies, the challenges they face and the opportunities for their future development.

Five-year programme
Over the next five years the three universities will deliver a five-year programme of world-class research on Pacific development.

Research projects set to start in 2016 include mapping donor contributions in the Pacific and their impact on the region, an analysis of labour markets and the skills needed to underpin economic development, and a study of the drivers and barriers to private sector investment in the region.

The three universities will also work with associated universities and organisations including the University of Hawai’i, University of the South Pacific, Australian National University and Peking University.

Visit the New Zealand Institute for Pacific Research here, and follow them on Twitter.

McCully welcomes launch of new Pacific think-tank