Yumi tok stori: A Papua New Guinea Melanesian research approach

The tok stori research approach is described as a Melanesian informal meeting including a storytelling session that enables embedded information to be released through conversation and, as the literature suggests, is contextually flexible. This paper looks at using the tok stori approach in research contexts with Papua New Guinea (PNG) communities in Aotearoa New Zealand and endeavours to contextualise tok stori by explaining how it is used in the PNG community contexts from where it originated. When the term tok stori is used alone, it is a verb that indicates an informal storytelling meeting in a social context with conversation. When contextualising tok stori using PNG Tok Pisin in most group meeting settings, the term tok stori alone does not convey invitation and inclusivity; therefore, a pronoun must be added to convey this for an informal (or formal) meeting. In this case, the pronoun yumi (you and me, you and us) is used. Yumi tok stori can be used for oneon- one and group meetings. Writing about tok stori and its application in various contexts and situations will enable this approach to be revised and rendered relevant in its applicability rather than used only as a generic approach given the variations in the pidgin creoles spoken in the different pidgin-speaking countries in Oceania.

Applying an intersectional lens to addressing gender disparities and disadvantage in rural Melanesian agriculture

Agricultural research and development projects face structural barriers to the equitable participation of women. Applying an intersectional approach can facilitate women to freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development within the existing patriarchal and colonial structures, ultimately challenging and subverting these structures. This paper argues that development initiatives must seek to understand the ways of being within specific localised projects, to tailor support and mitigate disadvantage. Through an exploration of two female-led agroforestry projects in Vanuatu and Fiji, this paper demonstrates how centring the sovereignty of women over their own experience and livelihood aspirations can lead to familial, community and regional wellbeing.

Creating community‐based indicators of gender equity: A methodology

It appears that an almost unquestioned development pathway for achieving gender equity and women’s empowerment has taken centre stage in mainstream development. This pathway focuses on economic outcomes that are assumed to be achieved by increasing women’s access to material things, including cash income, loans, physical assets, and to markets. Gender equity indicators, which measure […]

Gender equality and economic empowerment in the Solomon Islands and Fiji: a place-based approach

The economic empowerment of women is emerging as a core focus of both economic development and gender equality programmes internationally. At the same time, there is increasing importance placed on measuring outcomes and quantifying progress towards gender and development goals. These trends raise significant questions around how well gender differences are understood, especially in economies dominated by the informal sector and […]

Sistas, Let’s Talk Podcast: Decolonising Hair in the Pacific

Like many women of colour around the world, Pacific Island women and girls often grow up thinking their hair isn’t beautiful in its natural state. It’s common for European beauty standards to colour self-perception, and many women go to great lengths to alter or ‘tame’ their natural hair. But a movement to decolonise hair is […]

Challenging Violence: Kanak Women Renegotiating Gender Relations in New Caledonia

Both ethnographic investigation and the results of a questionnaire survey on violence among the general female population show that, today, a majority of Kanak women no longer legitimise rape or physical violence, even if the perpetrator is their partner. The now-widespread challenging of such violence from an ideological standpoint by the youngest Kanak women, and […]

“Kanaky, my land, for your liberty I will never stop fighting”: Investigating Kanak women activists’ roles, experiences, and strategies within the independence movement in Kanaky, New Caledonia

This thesis research uses a post-colonial feminist lens to investigate how development towards gender equality and equity can be promoted alongside processes of decolonisation in Kanaky-New Caledonia. In particular, it explores the ways that Kanak women in the pro-independence movement negotiate gender and indigeneity, and how these interactions subsequently influence society and the movement. Three […]

Kindy and grassroots gender transformations in Solomon Islands

Very often in Solomon Islands and other Melanesian countries, ideas of equality between men and women are represented as inherently foreign and incompatible with kastom, the venerable set of social norms that include assemblages of Christian and neotraditional practices and ideals. The opposition of women’s rights and Melanesian culture is not simply the position of […]

Taking Care of Culture: Consultancy, Anthropology and Gender issues

In Papua New Guinea the use of anthropologists as consultants for government development projects has a long and respectable history. From the early colonial period there were official Government Anthropologists to colonial administrations whose ethnographic writings remain ‘classics’ and over the past sixty years many of the anthropologists who have undertaken project consultancies have been […]

Voicing the voiceless: textual representation of women in Melanesia

This dissertation examines literary representations of women in Melanesia. In particular, it seeks to assess the nature and extent of a minority female voice in Melanesian literature. Through the writings of the Papua New Guinea male and female writers and the writings of women from the other Melanesian countries, this dissertation examines the male image […]