Testing a model to assess women’s inclusion and participation in community-based resource management in Solomon Islands

Community-based fisheries management (CBFM) is a standard management framework in Melanesia. Yet, there is increasing evidence that women, among other marginalised groups, experience barriers to inclusion in decision-making processes. Through a case study in three communities in Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands, we adapted Agarwal’s 2001 participation typology for a Melanesian CBFM context to present a […]

Gender-based violence: Relevance for fisheries practitioners

Attention to human dimensions of capture fisheries involves understanding how harms and benefits are experienced and distributed among different groups or people. Yet, not all harms are well understood or adequately addressed. There is a general (mis)conception that gender-based violence (GBV) is not of relevance for fisheries management or a topic within the remit of […]

Papua New Guinean women lead coral reef conservation work

It can be dangerous work, but a passionate team of young women are at the forefront of marine conservation in Papua New Guinea. Now the Sea Women of Melanesia are inspiring indigenous women in Australia to do the same. In this ABC podcast, ABC Pacific Beat’s Marian Faa speaks to Naomi Longa (Sea Women of […]

Penny Wong dives deep into the audacity of the Oceanic Pacific

‘Ofa-Ki-Levuka Guttenbeil-Likiliki discusses Australia’s new Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s approach to nurturing relationships with the Pacific. Guttenbeil-Likiliki suggests that Wong is being an audacious ocean herself by breaking unequal power dynamics down and welcoming the nurturing of the Vā (relationships).

Engendering the Anthropocene in Oceania: Fatalism, Resilience, Resistance

The concept of the Anthropocene confounds Eurocentric distinctions of natural and human history, as Dipesh Chakrabarty observes. But who are ‘we’ in the Anthropocene, how do notions of our shared humanity contend with the cascading global inequalities of place, race, class and gender. Oceania is often said to have contributed the least and suffered the […]

Pacific Women in Climate Change Negotiations

The contribution of Pacific women to climate negotiations is underacknowledged. Women may have limited roles as heads of delegations or the face of climate negotiations, yet behind the scenes they often play proactive leadership roles either as technical negotiators or coalition coordinators. Using a global talanoa methodology, the article traces the role of Pacific women […]

Sisters of Ocean and Ice: On the Hydro-feminism of Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner and Aka Niviâna’s Rise: From One Island to Another

The video poem Rise: From One Island to Another, a 2018 collaboration between Marshallese poet Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner and Inuk poet Aka Niviâna from Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) raises key questions about the antimonies of climate mitigation and adaptation discourses across oceans and islands. As “sisters of ocean and ice,” the poets reference the climate relationships between […]

Ocean Weaves: Reconfigurations of Climate Justice in Oceania

This article engages weaving as a model of feminist decolonial climate justice methodology in Oceania. In particular, it looks to three weaver-activists who use their practices to reclaim the matrixial power of the ocean (as maternal womb and network of relation) in the face of ongoing US occupation in the Pacific: Marshallese poet and climate […]

Nesor Annim, Niteikapar (Good Morning, Cardinal Honeyeater): Indigenous Reflections on Micronesian Women and the Environment

Women across Oceania are social justice champions and advocates for Indigenous rights, political independence, anti-militarism, a nuclear-free Pacific, climate change justice, and gender equality. Recent studies have shown that Pacific women are empowered by their maternal responsibility to take a leadership role in protecting people, their resources, and the environment. To further expand on women’s […]