"Science of the Pacific Island Peoples is a series of four volumes which contains a unique collection of traditional scientific and technical knowledge from the Pacific Islands. Traditional knowledge, based on accumulated experience or continuous usage, is usually passed from one generation to the next by work of mouth and demonstration. Having had little attention from the media, education ministries, or development agencies, traditional knowledge is in danger of being forgotten. These books attempt to record some aspects of traditional knowledge before they are lost. This, the fourth volume, on Education, Language, Patterns, and Policy contains chapters on allegory, Australia, tourism, the 21st century, Fijian cosmology, Tongan symmetries, Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands, communication and information, the Crown Research Institutes of Aotearoa/New Zealand, Polynesian thought, Maori knowledge, developmental activities in Western Samoa, Fijian mats, Micronesian development, and Vanuatu games. The other volumes in the series are Ocean and Coastal Studies (volume 1); Land Use and Agriculture (volume 2); and Fauna, Flora, Food & Medicine (volume 3)."--Back cover.

Academic survey of the Pacific Islands. Includes maps, photographs, tables, diagrams, atlas, and detailed index.

An encyclopaedia of information on major aspects of Pacific life, including the physical environment, peoples, history, politics, economy, society and culture. The CD-ROM contains hyperlinks between section titles and sections, a library of all the maps in the encyclopaedia, and a photo library.

Synthesising issues that are at the forefront of local and global politics and social movements of the twenty-first century, this book presents a powerful critique of global western culture, challenging many of its central assumptions and institutions. Hawthorne's detailed analysis is both perceptive and wide-ranging. She unpicks the structures of power and knowledge, law and international trade rules, as well probing into issues that intimately affect us in our daily lives, such as our perception of land, how food is produced and the changing shape of work. The book concludes with a compelling vision for a world inspired by biodiversity, and organised around the principle of diversity.

Small islands have received growing attention in the context of climate change. Rising sea-levels, intensifying storms, changing rainfall patterns and increasing temperatures force islanders to deal with and adapt to a changing climate. How do they respond to the challenge? What works, what doesn’t – and why? The present volume addresses these questions by exploring adaptation experiences in small islands across the world’s oceans from various perspectives and disciplines, including geography, anthropology, political science, psychology, and philosophy. The contributions to the volume focus on political and financial difficulties of climate change governance; highlight the importance of cultural values, local knowledge and perceptions in and for adaptation; and question to what extent mobility and migration constitute sustainable adaptation. Overall, the contributions highlight the diversity of island contexts, but also their specific challenges; they present valuable lessons for both adaptation success and failure, and emphasise island resilience and agency in the face of climate change.

Environmental issues have become increasingly prominent in local struggles, national debates, and international policies. In response, scholars are paying more attention to conventional politics and to more broadly defined relations of power and difference in the interactions between human groups and their biophysical environments. Such issues are at the heart of the relatively new interdisciplinary field of political ecology, forged at the intersection of political economy and cultural ecology. This volume provides a toolkit of vital concepts and a set of research models and analytic frameworks for researchers at all levels. The two opening chapters trace rich traditions of thought and practice that inform current approaches to political ecology. They point to the entangled relationship between humans, politics, economies, and environments at the dawn of the twenty-first century and address challenges that scholars face in navigating the blurring boundaries among relevant fields of enquiry. The twelve case studies that follow demonstrate ways that culture and politics serve to mediate human-environmental relationships in specific ecological and geographical contexts. Taken together, they describe uses of and conflicts over resources including land, water, soil, trees, biodiversity, money, knowledge, and information; they exemplify wide-ranging ecological settings including deserts, coasts, rainforests, high mountains, and modern cities; and they explore sites located around the world, from Canada to Tonga and cyberspace.

Arising from recent developments at the international level, many developing countries, indigenous peoples and local communities are considering using geographical indications (GIs) to protect traditional knowledge, and to promote trade and overall economic development. Despite the considerable enthusiasm over GIs in diverse quarters, there is an appreciable lack of research on how far and in what context GIs can be used as a protection model for traditional knowledge-based resources. This book critically examines the potential uses of geographical indications as models for protecting traditional knowledge-based products and resources in national and international intellectual property legal frameworks. By analysing the reception towards GIs from developing countries and advocates of development in the various legal and non-legal regimes (including the World Trade Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization, and the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Food and Agricultural Organization), the book evaluates the development potential of GIs in relation to ensuing changes in international intellectual property law in accommodating traditional knowledge. Teshager W. Dagne argues for a degree of balance in the approach to the implementation of global intellectual property rights in a manner that gives developing countries an opportunity to protect traditional knowledge-based products. The book will be of great interest and use to scholars and students of intellectual property law, public international law, traditional knowledge, and global governance.

Using case studies drawn from all areas of museum studies, Museums and their Communities explores the museums as a site of representation, identity and memory, and considers how it can influence its community. Focusing on the museum as an institution, and its social and cultural setting, Sheila Watson examines how museums use their roles as informers and educators to empower, or to ignore, communities. Looking at the current debates about the role of the museum, she considers contested values in museum functions and examines provision, power, ownership, responsibility, and institutional issues. This book is of great relevance for all disciplines as it explores and questions the role of the museum in modern society.