AAPS Epeli Hau’ofa Annual Memorial Lecture 2027
Dr Emalani Case &
Dr Rachel Kuata Yates
To Island Pacific Studies: A Conversation with Emalani Case and Rachel Yates.
In her short piece, “To Island”, Teresia Teaiwa asks us to consider the transformative power of making island a verb. “Let us ‘island’ the world!”, she says. Taking inspiration from her prompting, Emalani Case and Rachel Yates will situate their conversation in and for a Pacific Studies that acts upon the challenge to “island”. In the first AAPS to be hosted outside of Australia, they will consider how the “island” can both disrupt and inform notions of time, space, connection, and responsibility, and how it may guide our work in ever-changing, and sometimes turbulent, waters.
Moving between personal reflections and wider questions about Pacific Studies, our sea of islands, and the islands of the world, their dialogue will explore what we carry forward from those who have shaped us–or those who islanded before us–and what we carry into the challenges we face today, and the possibilities emerging for our ocean and island futures. In the spirit of Mei ‘Avaiki Mai, this conversation will consider how Pacific peoples continue to imagine and claim futures on their own terms, and how Pacific Studies might contribute to that work as it islands the world.
Dr Emalani Case
Associate Head of School: Postgraduate, Māori and Pacific Studies, Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland
Dr Emalani Case is a lecturer in Pacific Studies in Te Wānanga o Waipapa, the School of Māori and Pacific Studies at Waipapa Taumata Rau, The University of Auckland. As a Kanaka Maoli activist, teacher, and writer, she is deeply engaged in issues of Indigenous rights and representation, settler colonialism and decolonisation, militarism and demilitarisation, and environmental and social justice. Her work, including her teaching, is motivated by a desire to draw on Pacific and Indigenous knowledges and histories to reflect upon the past, promote action and solidarity in the present, and envision better futures. She is the author of Everything Ancient Was Once New: Indigenous Persistence from Hawaiʻi to Kahiki (2021, UH Press). She is now based in Aotearoa from Waimea, Hawaiʻi.
Dr Rachel Kuata Yates
Senior Pacific Historian
Manatū Taonga - Ministry for Culture and Heritage
Dr Rachel Kuata Yates is a Pacific researcher whose gafa connects her to the Sāmoan villages of Vaisala and Sataua, and to English heritage from Merseyside. A graduate of the Va‘aomanū Pasifika Pacific Studies Programme at Te Herenga Waka--Victoria University of Wellington, she is also a former Curator Pacific Cultures at Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand and co-editor of Te Papa Press titles Flora: Celebrating our Botanical World (2023) and Tapa: Pacific Histories in Cloth (2026). As a historian at Manatū, she leads the Understanding Dawn Raids history project. Rachel is currently co-authoring a manuscript with Massey University Press based on newly uncovered state archival records on the Dawn Raids era in Aotearoa New Zealand history.
2027 AAPS Postgraduate
Early Career Researcher (ECR) Workshop
Working in the deep trenches of Pacific research and writing.
The Pacific is home to the deepest oceanic trench in the world, the Mariana trench. Located within it is the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the ocean. Despite being nearly 11,000 meters below the surface of the ocean, in what is often considered to be extreme conditions–dark, freezing, and with a pressure that would crush the human body–it is also home to life.
Often described as the “trenches”, research and writing can be overwhelming, the pressure of it insurmountable, and the processes of it both challenging and frustrating. When reframed, though, the trenches can also be where life begins, where ideas can thrive despite harsh conditions, and where we can plumb the depths of our own “Challenger Deep” to find meaning and purpose in what we create. This masters class is an opportunity to explore the trenches and the highs and lows of the research and writing process with fellow postgraduate students and researchers.
Facilitators Emalani and Rachel will share insights from their own research journeys, discuss a range of writing projects, and offer some tips and strategies to help keep momentum and overcome writing obstacles. Whether you are developing a thesis, article, or working on another specific writing project, this session provides an opportunity to “press pause” and reflect, learn from others, and make some progress on your own work.
