Call for papers on: “how much are we able to reconstruct even a very tiny part of the early encounters between Oceanic/Pacific Peoples and Europeans?”

Workshop: 11-12 July 2011

Venue: ANU campus, College CAP (contact: serge@pacific-encounters.net or serge.tcherkezoff@anu.edu.au) and in the National Museum of Australia (contact: Jenny Newell)

This workshop aims to be foundational towards an Oceanic/Pacific Encounters research project. (Anyone interested can attend, even without offering a presentation, is mostly welcome).

A number of us working in anthropology, archaeology, history, linguistics, etc. have been involved in programmes around that topic: identifying, retrieving and, when textual material, translating into English / French all available data, and creating an on-line access to the data for everyone, which then gives some basis for studying and debating questions such as: how much are we able to reconstruct even a very tiny part of the early encounters between Oceanic/Pacific Peoples and Europeans?

See, among recent edited collections: Oceanic Encounters (ANU E Press: http://epress.anu.edu.au/oceanic_encounters_citation.html) Foreign Bodies…The Science of Race(ANU E Press: http://epress.anu.edu.au/foreign_bodies/html/frames.php) and the presentation in progress on www.pacific-encounters.fr; on the welcome page, near the logo, click on the UK flag for accessing the English language version; see end of this message for links to other programmes.

A first goal of this workshop is to give a state-of-the-art presentation of what has been done, what is in progress, in relation to which part, region, islands group of Oceania/Pacific. A second goal is to list the methodological questions involved into this kind of research. Thus presentations can be around either or both genres: presenting (even if only listing) works achieved/in progress and raising methodological questions.

The results of this workshop will allow formulating research project(s) that will be presented to various funding agencies. For instance: on the same month of July, a call for projects will be announced by a Vanuatu-New Caledonia intergovernmental commission for cooperation (on all matters). Towards the end of the year, a proposal can be submitted to the French Pacific Fund with only one condition: that it involves together one or more francophone and one or more Anglophone communities of the Pacific. Of course, the francophone/ Anglophone cooperation are only examples and in no way a limitation to possible projects that could result from this workshop.

For various reasons linked to logistics, and with all my apologies, this call is very much a last minute call. Thank you in advance if you can answer asap (paper: just mention the firm intention of presenting one; or just mention your “attendance”): we have to plan the number of seats, to see in which room we can fit, and the length of the event: 2 whole days, one and half…?

I know that a number of you are far away from Canberra. We will have a very small budget for inviting overseas colleagues. If you wish to be considered for that scheme, please send a more detailed abstract of your planned presentation. Should you wish to contribute but be unable to come, or if you wish to only receive information on the development of that programme, let us know: we will set up a list of all colleagues interested, and you will be able to send your contribution (short or long, or just proposal for future debate) or receive the news on the list.

During the workshop, there will also be a brief presentation of a research done about Samoan materials and about Tahitian materials (under cosupervision by Dame Anne Salmond who will be with us during these 2 days), and we hope to have the presence of officials from Samoa and French Polynesia (see the entries "Samoa" and "Tahiti" in www.pacific-encounters.fr)