Pacific conference a great success

21 July 2014

The 2004 biennial Pacific Islands Political Studies Association (PIPSA) conference was held 3-5 June at the University of French Polynesia in Tahiti (UFP).
Dr Steven Ratuva, a Senior Lecturer in Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland and the President of PIPSA, said that the Tahiti conference was a great opportunity to consolidate research links amongst Pacific scholars. It also helped break down barriers between Anglophone and Francophone scholars. This year’s highly successful conference saw the establishment of research networks and relationships between a number of scholars and universities.

The conference was jointly organized by PIPSA and the Gouvernance et Développement Insulaire (GDI), a development and governance research network based at UFP. Its theme was “Political, economic and legal governance in the Pacific” and the papers presented spanned a range of issues, including gender and politics, security, economic development, regionalism, constitutional changes, governance, public policy, environment, foreign policy, education, decolonization and land.

The papers will result in two books. The first, on gender and politics in the Pacific, is being edited by Dr Nicole George of the University of Queensland and the second, on Pacific governance and security, is being edited by Dr Steven Ratuva and Dr Semir Alwardi of UFP.       
          
First established in Hawaii in 1987 and registered in Queensland, PIPSA includes scholars, diplomats and researchers from Australia, New Zealand, US, Asia and the Pacific Islands. The group focuses on research, discussions and publication on political, social and economic issues in the Pacific. The PIPSA secretariat is based at the Australian National University (ANU), which also provides funding.  The 2014 PIPSA conference was co-funded by ANU and UFP. Offers for the next PIPSA conference in 2016 have been received from Hawaii, Cook Islands, Niue and PNG.       

canoes