This pioneering project provides a comprehensive scholarly analysis of the dynamics of regional diplomacy in the Pacific Islands region.
Stage 1: The New Pacific Diplomacy
The first stage brought together Pacific Islander and Australian academics, diplomats and journalists to provide an understanding of the innovative and dramatic developments in regional diplomacy in the past decade. The analyses and perspectives gathered in this stage were published by Honorary Associate Professor Greg Fry and his University of the South Pacific co-editor Sandra Tarte in The New Pacific Diplomacy. The response to the book has been great, with 37,000 downloads as at September 2019.
Stage 2: Power and Diplomatic Agency in Pacific Regionalism
The second stage is focused on regional diplomacy in relation to regional security, development and climate change over the past 50 years. It examines the diplomatic agency of the small island states concerning the diplomatic contests in the regional arena. The results have been published by Greg Fry in Framing the Islands: Power and Diplomatic Agency, ANU Press, 2019.
Stage 3: Indigenous Diplomacy in Oceania
The third and current stage of the project explores an under-researched aspect of the dynamics of regional diplomacy, that of Indigenous Diplomacy. This stage of the project is being co-organised by Honorary Associate Professor Greg Fry and Dr George Carter in partnership with the School of Government Development and International Affairs at the University of the South Pacific. It is strongly supported by Dame Meg Taylor, Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.
Indigenous Diplomacy refers to diplomatic protocols and practices that emanate from the long history of engagement between cultural groups in this region and the ways in which they are adapted in current diplomatic engagements; for example, the use of talanoa in Fiji’s global diplomacy or the use of indigenous diplomacy in the reconciliation of Fiji and Vanuatu in the Melanesian Spearhead Group.
The first research workshop was held at the University of the South Pacific in April 2019, with more planned over the next two years. The intended output is a volume on Indigenous Diplomacy in Oceania that will bring together the research of indigenous scholars drawn from Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia, New Zealand, and Torres Strait.
