Free Thursday 28th March Free Lectures
Mangoro market meri: Women guardians of the mangroves in PNG
Presented by Barbara Masike-Liri, Papua New Guinea Country Director, The Nature Conservancy and Robyn James, Director Conservation, Melanesia, The Nature Conservancy.
Papua New Guinea is frequently featured within the Australian media, as a country of corruption, violence and exotic spectacle. A focus on stories such as Government representatives spending taxpayers money on buying expensive cars often overshadows the work of community groups and NGO’s focussed on creating culturally appropriate and sustainable models of development. Despite a historical and cultural predominance of men in roles of leadership, women are playing a key role in the fight against the large-scale land and coastal clearing that threaten their local ecosystems and livelihoods. One particular concern is still largely intact mangrove forests that protect the shorelines of Papua New Guinea’s island and coastal provinces.
The Nature Conservancy is an international NGO working with women across PNG to address mangrove loss and women’s empowerment through the Mangoro Market Meri (MMM) project. Melanesia is a challenging place to work on gender. Globally, Melanesian countries have some of the highest rates of violence against women and the lowest rates of Parliamentary participation by women. There are many cultural and historical issues that can stifle a woman’s opportunities to be educated, and to be part of decision making. Using MMM as a case study, this talk will engage with the current status of mangroves in Papua New Guinea, the results of research into how women and communities currently utilise mangrove livelihood and techniques being developed to empower women to develop a scheme to link them to larger scale economic benefits for conservation such as the blue carbon economy.
Barbara Masike-Liri is a strong Bougainvillean woman who began her career as a journalist covering issues in Bougainville. She has been with The Nature Conservancy for over fifteen years supporting community conservation in Papua New Guinea.
Robyn James has been with the Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Melanesia since 2010 and leads conservation work as well as addressing issues with mining and extractives. She also leads women’s empowerment work across the organisation.
More information about the speakers can be found online.
Thursday 28 March 2019, 6.00-7.00pm (doors open at 5:30pm).
Cinema B, Gallery of Modern Art, Stanley Place, South Bank
In Conversation @ the UQ Anthropology Museum
Pacific Connections, Creative Collaborations
Interconnectivity is not just a part of life, it is a form of politics
Oceanic writer, anthropologist, and educator Epeli Hau’ofa advocated for ‘Big Ocean thinking’ – calling attention to an independent, vibrant, and socially networked Oceania from Australia and New Zealand in the southwest, to the United States and Canada in the northeast. [1,2] Big Ocean thinking is an important rejection of colonial ideologies that try to confine Pacific peoples to small islands lost in a vast sea, and other Indigenous peoples to the past, to reservations, or to romanticised ideas of tradition and nature.
Does interconnectivity also define a way forward? If so, what does it look like in creative practice, in scholarship, in the anthropology museum, in education, and in everyday ways? What sort of collaboration does it entail? What are the points around which Indigenous Australia and the Pacific (or Oceania) converge? What are the politics and ethics of interconnectivity? How can we do it better?
Join us for an exciting public panel and discussion with Dr. Frances C Koya Vaka'uta, Dr. Kalissa Alexeyeff, Michael Aird and Lindy Allen
Date and Time: Thursday 28 March 2019, 5:15pm for 5:30 pm start
Venue: UQ Anthropology Museum, Level 1, Michie Building #9, St Lucia
Frances C. Koya Vaka'uta is Director of the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies at the University of the South Pacific in Suva. She is passionate about Pacific art, heritage and Indigenous knowledge systems and has worked on policy writing, community development, Indigenous research approaches, and Pacific research ethics.
Kalissa Alexeyeff is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow at the University of Melbourne with interests in gender and sexuality, globalisation, Pacific performing arts and material culture.
Michael Aird is Research Fellow, UQ School of Social Science, Director of the Anthropology Museum and Co-curator of the current UQ exhibition, Palm Trees and Tropical Sunsets: The Inspection Tour of Aboriginal Stations in North Queensland and Torres Strait 1931. He has curated over 20 museum and gallery exhibitions, as well as a number of photographic displays examining aspects of Indigenous presence and experience in Australian society.
Lindy Allen is a freelance curator, researcher & anthropologist with over 40 years experience in the cultural heritage/arts sector, a Research Associate at Museums Victoria and Co-curator of the current exhibition with Michael Aird.
1.Hau'ofa, E. 1994. Our sea of islands. The Contemporary Pacific 6 (1):148-161.
2.Hau’ofa E. 1998. The ocean in us. The Contemporary Pacific 10(2):391–410
Presented by: Anthropology, School of Social Science