Western Cape Futures Symposium Update
The future of the Western Cape York region was the focus of the recent symposium in Weipa which attracted around 200 people attended across 2.5 days. To date, much of the focus on Northern Australia h...
Jayshree Mamtora, JCU Manager of Scholarly Communications and Researcher explaining the developments around Open Ac… https://t.co/aA8gdLTKRd
02:15 PM May 11thFirst Keynote for Day Two of the CASE HDR Conference Dr Ann Lawless presents “Bridge Building for Social Scientists… https://t.co/G82tMOfC6K
10:20 AM Nov 25thSara Mohamed, PhD Candidate in Session Three - Perspectives from across the environment, presents “Rifts & Reconnec… https://t.co/vRXATQf6EX
04:39 PM Nov 24thPhD Candidate Nita Alexander in Session Three - Perspectives from across the environment, presents “(In)Action: Har… https://t.co/ec2rBGbBT6
04:06 PM Nov 24thMPhil Candidate Ellie Bock opening Session Three - Perspectives from across the environment by presenting “Biocultu… https://t.co/ehwtclWmTm
03:49 PM Nov 24thPhD Candidate Elizabeth Smyth finalizing Session Two - Beyond Language, Identity and Narratives by presenting “Writ… https://t.co/SvTg2K4hER
02:59 PM Nov 24thPhD Candidate Dom Orih finalizing Session One ‘Navigating Wellbeing’ theme by presenting “The feasibility of the Fa… https://t.co/D3VXkvujkn
01:09 PM Nov 24thPhD Candidate Rebekah Lisciandro kicks off Session One ‘Navigating Wellbeing’ by presenting “The Unbalanced Researc… https://t.co/kGANHi7kR9
11:49 AM Nov 24thToday!!! To register for this event, please use the link https://t.co/VAQqetiVTL All welcome #coralspawning #abctv… https://t.co/iSap7R1xp3
08:55 AM Nov 17thPhD Candidate Tanya Volentras arrived into Samoa for fieldwork and sent us her reflections. Her supervisors are Professor Rosita Henry and Associate Professor Simon Foale.
Arriving in the early morning and driving through the slowly wakening villages towards Apia, the capital of Samoa, chicken and pigs roam freely, fishermen paddle canoes, old ladies and men tidy up leaves that have fallen overnight, and school kids await colourful buses in their formal lavalavas (sarongs) and school tunics. We pass countless churches, all shapes and designs, a clear indication of the Christianisation and early missionisation of Samoa, with Samoa’s motto being ‘In God We Trust’.
I am here to try to determine how everyday Samoans are responding to the challenges of climate change, and whether, like the I-Kiribati, as written about by Kempf (2011), they are using music and performance as a means of expression, negotiation and sharing of concerns about climatic events. Yet, climate change is just one aspect that is concerning about Samoa.
There is a lot of rubbish, not around the neatly tended houses in the villages, but everywhere else, and numerous throwaway shops selling cheap plastic knickknacks and toys. There are a lot of cars in Apia, more than when I lived here as a child, and a McDonalds with a queue of cars snaking onto the street.
I want to buy food, and the supermarket items are expensive, giant triffid-like chicken thighs and legs (twice the size of those found in Australia) are imported from the US, cereals and cans of mackerel from NZ and Australia. Only onions, garlic, ginger and carrots are affordable in the supermarkets, with lettuce and broccoli too overpriced to bear buying, though the local market has vendors selling cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes, beans and bok choy, as well as sweet finger bananas, pawpaw and a crunchy tart fruit called vi.
On our trip to Manono, a small island halfway between the two larger islands of Upolu and Savai’i, we catch a rickety boat squashed in between about 10 chiefs of my extended family, and climb the incline where our family houses are located.
The old matriarch, Lesa, 90 years old, hugs and kisses me, remembering me as a child, her blue-cataract eyes gleaming, as she shows us in to her fale/house. It’s breezy here, a lovely respite from the humidity and heat and I adore the way she has decorated her ceiling with multiple colourful tropical print cloths. In her fale, there’s only a bed-frame with a mat on it, 3 wooden chests which likely contain some of her personal items - perhaps some fine mats, some precious photos - and a small table with a tumble of items on it, mosquito coils, a plastic bag, a newspaper. I notice a neat bundle of pandanus, wound and ready for drying in preparation for weaving, and I say to Lesa, ‘’I would really like to come back and stay for a while. I’ll help out, maybe with the weeding, or gardening, the harvesting and preparation of cocoa, taro or breadfruit, and also your weaving’’. Her delight and surprise is plain to see, ‘’You want to learn faa’Samoa (way of being Samoan)? ‘’Yes’’, I say, ‘’yes please’’.
The future of the Western Cape York region was the focus of the recent symposium in Weipa which attracted around 200 people attended across 2.5 days. To date, much of the focus on Northern Australia h...
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander International Engagement Organisation (ATSIIEO) has successfully begun its foray into the international sphere in advocacy of Indigenous responses to cli...
The SymposiumAssociate Professor Robyn Glade-Wright convened the Falling from the Sky Symposium earlier this month on Nguma Bada campus at Smithfield. Participants were diversely represented; from aca...
JCU Scholarly Communications Manager Jayshree Mamtora recently presented to The Cairns Institute researchers on why there is a strong global push from government, research agencies and funde...
PhD Candidate Tanya Volentras arrived into Samoa for fieldwork and sent us her reflections. Her supervisors are Professor Rosita Henry and Associate Professor Simon Foale. Arriving in the early mornin...
A group of researchers at James Cook University (JCU), the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) and PNG’s National Research Institute (NRI) are seeking interested former kiaps (both Austra...
The Tropical North Queensland Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub (TNQ Hub), led by JCU, is paving the way to deliver drought resilience activities in tropical north Queensland. The TN...
In collaboration with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), University of Queensland (UQ), Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial ...
© 2023 The Cairns Institute | Site Map | Site by OracleStudio | Design by LeoSchoepflin