The Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies offers research thesis programmes in MA and PhD as well as undergraduate courses.
(Please note that the information on this page is undergoing updates).
PACS111: Pacific Peoples and Societies – Semester 1
Whakamahuki | Course Description:
This course provides a rich foundation of the history, diversity, and contemporary issues of the Pacific, including the diaspora of Pacific communities. Students will learn about Pacific Indigenous epistemologies, world views, cultures, knowledges, identities and experiences. Students will also explore key Pacific structures, systems, cultures and societies in the changing modern world. Pacific agency, the transnationalism of Pacific identity and critical contemporary issues of sustainability & innovation will provide essential knowledge for students that want to explore further into areas of inclusion, diversity, empowerment and positive transformation.
PACS211: The Transnational Pacific – Semester 1
Whakamahuki | Course Description:
This course explores the contemporary Pacific with a special focus on the dynamic and complex interplay of its cultures, identities, and economies. Students will use the lens of transnationalism, to examine the historical and contemporary movement of people, ideas, and resources across the Pacific Ocean, and reflect on how these flows have shaped societies locally, regionally, and globally. Students will engage with themes such as power relations, decolonisation, migration, diaspora, gender, art, sport, cultural hybridity, security, racism, the impacts of climate change, the digital Pacific, and future thinking. Through interdisciplinary readings, case studies, and critical discussions, this course offers a comprehensive understanding of the Pacific peoples’ resilience and innovation in the face of global challenges. Embedded in the course are the perspectives of several community, national, and regional leaders whose expertise will be sought to speak on the course themes.
PACS221: Pacific Sustainability and Climate Resilience – Semester 2
Whakamahuki | Course Description:
This course examines some of the ways in which community-based indigenous innovation has been used to build up strategies of adaptation and resilience in the Pacific’s oceanic communities. The course offers a critique of the deficit narratives that often characterise Pacific peoples as inherently susceptible to failure, and instead frames sustainability, resilience, and innovation as core features of Pacific peoples’ knowledge and practice for the millennia that they have occupied the Pacific Ocean – the largest single geographical space on the planet. The course acknowledges the rich histories of Pacific communities’ resourcefulness in adapting to environmental pressures and changes. It also explores such aspects of sustainability and resilience as adaptive social organization, coastal management, environmental restoration, food security, adapted building and architecture, and sustainable farming, and reviews how these are used to combat unsustainable economic practices, as well as rising sea levels, extreme weather systems, and other calamities brought about by human induced climate change. Several themes run through the course including the politics and economics of climate change, climate finance, mobility, food sovereignty, health and wellbeing, cultural safe-guarding and transformation, and socio-ecological justice. The course also reflects on the ways that indigenous knowledge, humanities, science and technology can work together to respond to the climate crisis and other existing unsustainable practices.
PACS311: Pacific Cultures and Digital Innovation - Semester 2
Whakamahuki | Course Description:
This course explores the nexus between Pacific Indigenous cultural innovation and digital transformation and how they relate to contemporary socio-economic and environmental challenges. The use of cultural innovation is examined together with mainstream technology including the growing digitalization of Pacific life through financial transfer, communication, art, performance, and family connections across the Pacific, and globally. It looks at how the two engage with each other, and how the new digital transformation has impacted on Pacific communities in profound ways. The course is designed to equip students with a comprehensive understanding of the digital age, the ways that Pacific peoples are engaging with this complex and rapidly changing phenomenon, and how they are preparing for an intensely digital future. It is also designed to encourage students to use the power of their creativity to develop and lead practical digital projects. The course is trans-disciplinary and encourages creative innovation. It may integrate new elements at short notice to reflect the dynamic nature of both Pacific cultures and digital technology, and their constant state of flux.
A Pacific Studies Master's degree is research-focused and offers students the opportunity to study contemporary and historic Pacific issues from a range of disciplinary backgrounds.
If you are interested in undertaking Master's study, please contact us to discuss your research interests.
Find out more about undertaking a Master of Arts (MA) at UC.
A Pacific Studies postgraduate degree offers students the opportunity to study contemporary and historic Pacific issues from a range of disciplinary backgrounds.
Eligibility
Prospective PhD scholars need to have achieved a minimum B average Master of Arts or have substantial experience in a relevant field.
How to apply
If you are interested in undertaking PhD study, please contact us to discuss your research interests and we can put you in touch with a potential supervisor.
Find out more about undertaking a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at UC.
The UC Pasifika Doctoral Scholarship is available to Pasifika students.
To apply for PhD funding at MBC complete the Application for PhD research related funding form.
See the Scholarships database for the full list of available UC scholarships.
Programme objectives
- To develop a wider understanding of the Pacific Island region. This objective is based on the assumption that the level of scholarly awareness and understanding of the Pacific Islands within UC and in New Zealand generally is limited, especially in view of the fact that geographically and historically New Zealand is a Pacific island. The programme helps fill that gap, as well as contributing to a better understanding of New Zealand's relations with its Pacific Island neighbours, and of New Zealand's Pacific Island communities. For Pacific Island New Zealanders, the programme may contribute to a better understanding and appreciation of, as well as increasing their pride in, their indigenous Pacific Island cultures.
- To provide a Pacific focus to various disciplinary areas in the University. On the basis of the Centre's earlier involvement with students carrying out research under the auspices of other teaching departments, we at the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies came to believe that there is a demand from well-qualified students both from UC and other universities to apply skills from their disciplines to Pacific-related research. A teaching programme on Pacific Studies at postgraduate level will contribute to meeting this demand.
- To better utilise the special resources of the Centre. At the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, we believe that we have special resources which can be used to support a teaching programme in Pacific Studies. For example, the Centre's Research Scholar Programme has attracted a number of reputable scholars from both the Pacific countries and elsewhere.
- To train future scholars with interests in the Pacific. It is hoped that the programme will recruit and train future Pacific Studies scholars and researchers, both from the Pacific Islands and elsewhere, and thus contribute to maintaining scholarly interests in the Pacific Island region.
For more information about the latest Pacific Studies courses, please click here.
