MISCELLANEOUS
Visitors to the Centre for Pacific Studies
We welcomed the following visitors:
Dr. Ian Keen, senior lecturer Department of Prehistory and Anthropology, The Australian National University. Dr. Keen presented a seminar on Metaphor and the meta-language: metaphors in the constitution and description of Yolngu country and groups (Aboriginal society in Arnhem Land, Australia.
Dr. Klaus Neumann, Department of History, University of Newcastle (Australia). The subject of his seminar was: White histories, Black fiction, and Australia's colonial past.
Prof.Dr. Roger Keesing, professor of Anthropology at McGill University, Montreal. Prof. Keesing gave a seminar on Class, culture, custom.
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Cruise of the 'Gipsy'
The Journal of John Wilson, Surgeon on a Whaling Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, 1839-1843 - New publication edited by Honore Forster - is now available in hard cover, xxxii + 404 pp., 31 x 23 cm, with illustrations, maps, appendices, bibliography and index. The price is US$32.50. Orders and inquiries should be directed to Glen Adams, Ye Galleon Press, Box 287, Fairfield, Washington 99012, USA.
(Pambu, February 1992)
Land back to owners
"Some of Australia's most remote Aboriginal people regained ownership of their traditional land. The Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Mr. Robert Tickner, presented title to two areas totalling 3862 ha to the traditional owners at Picaninny Bore, 600 km north-west of Alice Springs in the Tanami Desert. The ceremony ended 11 years of agitating for the land."
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(Northern Territory News, October 28, 1991)
Gurindji Freedom Day
Australia - in August 1991 hundreds of Gurindji and other Aboriginal people celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Wave Hill strike of 1966. The strike was over the bad working conditions experienced by the Gurindji station hands, but quickly developed into a 8 year strike to claim traditional lands. The action of the striking Gurindji was perhaps the first major action by Aboriginal people to gain land rights. One of the politicians who attended the celebration at Kalkiarindji and Daguragu (Northern Territory) was former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. (The Arafura Coastwatcher [Newsletter from Stan Tipiloura MLA], September 1991, Vol.1, No,.2).
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Decrease people of European descent in New Zealand
In New Zealand's population statistics the number of people of European descent has decreased from 82.2 per cent in 1986 to 73.8 per cent now. This can be attributed for the main part to the arrival of immigrants from Asia and the Pacific. One in six persons now acknowledges to be of Maori descent, however, less than two thirds of them identify themselves as Maori (Onze Wereld, januari 1992).
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Federal States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands now UN
members
On September 17th 1991, at the General Meeting of the United Nations, the Federal States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands were admitted to UN membership. Both Pacific Archipelagos have been officially independent from the United States for some time now. The US continued to take responsibility for foreign affairs and defense for the Federal States of Micronesia (pop 90,000 area 720 sq km).
In the vote for the chairperson of this year's session the Papua New Guinean minister for foreign affairs, Sir Michael Somare, lost to the Saudi ambassador to the UN, Samir Shihabi.
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(NRC Handelsblad, 18/9/91)
Commission on Folk Law and Legal Pluralism
The Commission of Folk Law and Legal Pluralism has published (in two volumes) the proceedings of its sixth international symposium, held in Ottawa, August 1990. This contains a number of interesting contributions concerning Aboriginal Australia, Papua New Guinea, Tokelau and Hawaii (see also "Recently Published Literature" this volume).
"Membership of the Commission is open to anyone with a serious and substantial scholarly or practical commitment to or involvement in the field of folk law and legal pluralism. Those interested joining are invited to communicate with the Executive Secretary, Prof.Fons Strijbosch, c/o Institute of Folk Law, Catholic University, Postbus 9049, 6500 KK Nijmegen, the Netherlands."
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Australia must accept Asia Pacific identity
Australia would need to devote a greater effort, and more resources, to maintaining its influence in both north Asia and southeast Asia, according to the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mr. Richard Woolcott.
Australia must fully accept its Asia Pacific identity and address in detail the implications of that destiny, Mr. Woolcott said in an address to the Foreign Correspondents' Association in Sydney on February 11.
"Overarching our approach to our economic and trade policy priorities must be the recognition that Japan, the Republic of Korea, coastal China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, especially Japan, constitute the economically dynamic and dominant region of the world today", he said.
"The ASEAN countries, notwithstanding their own growing confidence and lingering concerns about Japan, are likely to be influenced increasingly by the economics of north east Asia. This trend has important implications for Australia. It means we shall need to devote a greater effort - and more resources - to maintaining our influence in both north Asia and southeast Asia. Our own domestic economic performance will be a factor in these efforts".
Mr. Woolcott said economic factors now played a greater part in determining policies than ideological or political factors.
Mr. Woolcott said a priority for 1992 would be the consolidation and further development. including "some modest institutionalisation", of the Asia-Pacific Regional Economic Consultative Forum (APEC), as an important means of strengthening Australia's engagement in the region and of maintaining pressure for regional trade liberalisation. He said an early satisfactory conclusion to the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations was the critical trade priority for the first half of 1992.
Mr. Woolcott said Australia needed to give priority to its projection as a country which was addressing its economic difficulties, which was politically stable, a reliable trading partner and which offered sound investment opportunities.
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(Australia News 20 February 1992).
South Pacific Regional Environment Program
Australia will provide $340,000 to assist the South Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) to establish its new headquarters in Western Samoa, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Senator Gareth Evans, announced in Noumea on February 2.
SPREP is a regional organisation of South Pacific countries and territories which plays a leading role in addressing both regional and global environmental issues. It is currently located in Noumea.
"SPREP's speedy relocation will mean it can recruit the extra staff it needs to implement environmental programs in the South Pacific," Senator Evans said.
"SPREP plays a key role in assisting Pacific Island countries to implement sustainable developing strategies. It coordinates Pacific Island countries' responses to global issues such as climate change. It is also co-ordinating the Pacific Island countries' input for the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in Brazil in June."
The Australian Government donation will help ensure that the secretariat can set up in Western Samoa ion schedule. Other member countries have also pledged their assistance.
Australian assistance to the South Pacific forms part of the development co-operation program administered by AIDAB, the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau.
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(Australia News, 20 February 1992)
Special Issue Visual Anthropology
Visual Anthropology will devote a special issue to Australasia and Southeast Asia Revisited. This is the idea of Paul Hockings, its new editor. Articles included are: Eric Michaels on television among the Warlpiri of Central Australia. V. Pnadya on photographic documentation of the Andaman Islanders, Felicia Hughes-Freeland on Javanese palace performance, A. Jablonko on Maring dance, and Sandra Niessen on the Batak of Sumatra. For subscriptions and individual copies ([[sterling]]12/US$20) contact: STBS Marketing, PO Box 90, Reading, Berks, UK RG1 8JL. (Anthropology Today, December 1991).
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Pacific Manuscript Bureau
The Bureau is always pleased to hear from anyone with (or knowledge of) unpublished material, in particular diaries, journals and letters kept and written by people working or travelling in the Pacific in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Original material is not retained by the Bureau but when copied is returned to the owner who also receives a complimentary copy of any resulting microfilm. Our aim is to preserve, on microfilm, as much of this material as possible for it is lost for all time.
Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, Room 22-I Block, Australian National University, GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT 2601, Tel. (06) 249 2521; FAX (06) 257 1893.
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Regional Realities
Australia is vigorously seeking partnerships with countries in its own region just as Great Britain sought to make her future in the European Community, according to the Prime Minister, Mr Paul Keating.
Speaking at a Parliamentary reception for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh in Canberra on 24 February, Mr. Keating said Australia's outlook is "necessarily independent".
"That independence in part reflected in your becoming in 1973, Queen of Australia" Mr. Keating said.
"In 1992 it is reflected in our growing sense of national purpose: in our conviction that we must move quickly and vigorously make the most of our human and material resources and seize our opportunities in the world.
We must do this so that Australians will be assured of the same freedom and security in the next century as they have enjoyed in this".
Mr. Keating said the men who sat in the Australian Parliament of the Queen's visit to Australia in 1954 had memories of empire.
"This is an altogether different generation, reflecting the profound change in our two countries and the relationship between them.
As our constitutional relationship has evelved, so have the circumstances of our economic and political lives. These days we must both face the necessities of a global economy and global change of often staggering speed and magnitude.
We must also face regional realities".
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(Australia News, Australian Embassy, 18 March 1992)
Pacific climate examined by group
More than 700 scientists and support staff from 15 countries were meeting in Townsville, Australia this week in preparation for a major atmospheric and Oceanic experiment in the Pacific.
The Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere, Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA-COARE) will try to determine how the ocean and atmosphere act together to produce climate variations from season to season.
During the observing period which begins this November and continues until February next year, researchers will investigate the exchange of energy between the ocean and the atmosphere over an area of 7,5 million square kilometres. The area extends from Malaysia to the international date line, focussing on the equatorial area east of Papua New Guinea.
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CAEPR Publications
The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) was established in March 1990 under an agreement between the Australian National University and the Commonwealth of Australia (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander COMMISSION). In accordance with the Agreement, CAEPR operates as an independent research unit within the University's Faculty of Arts, CAEPR's principle objectives are to undertake research with the following aims:
CAEPR Discussion Papers are intended as a forum for the dissemination of refereed papers on research that falls within the CAEPR ambit,. These papers are produced for discussion and comment within the research community and Aboriginal affairs policy arena. Copies of discussion papers are available from Bibliotech, ANUTECH Pty Ltd, GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT, 2601 (Phone: 06 249 2479 FAX 06 257 5088).