Aotearoa New Zealand has experienced significant yet subtle change since the 1970s. Much of this change emerged from the Māori renaissance, the renewed cultural activism that challenged the dynamic between indigenous Māori and settler Pākehā populations. Though its impact on certain areas of modern Aotearoa has been well examined, how these changes affected its attitudes about, interactions with, and behaviour in the Pacific remains overlooked.

The blue economy has burst onto the global stage as the latest trend in ocean governance and management. Promoted as an agenda of sustainable ocean development, the blue economy promises to drive improved engagement with oceans across social, economic and environmental dimensions. Of particular allure is the agenda’s assertion that socioeconomic development can be decoupled from environmental degradation, enabling an expansion and intensification of ocean industries with supposedly minimal impact on marine ecosystems.

Adopting a mixed method approach, this research examines disruptions to Tongan households that participate in Australia’s Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP). The objective of this study is to analyse changes to care arrangements of migrant workers and families and to evaluate the implications of family separation. Although recorded in other international migration spaces, there is little consideration given in academic literature on the SWP to the disruptions of care arrangements for absent migrant workers, families, and communities.

The Department of Pacific Affairs at the ANU is hosting an online conference honouring Emeritus Fellow Ron J. May’s contribution to research, writing and thinking about Papua New Guinea on 16 September 2021 and 01 October. DPA is currently developing an edited collection of papers – a Festschrift – celebrating Ron’s work. Those papers, authored by scholars from Papua New Guinea and scholars of Papua New Guinea based in Australia and New Zealand, will be presented and discussed at the conference.