The Journal of Pacific History

10/08/2026

As the deadline for the 2026 PIGs approaches, we are re-sharing the JPH Publication Incentive grants PDF (attached as an image).

The attached image provides submission guidelines.

Some items of note to consider:

Ensure you submit a recent CV, letters of support from two referees, and a proposal of up to 1,000 words.

No elements are permitted to be AI-generated in this submission.

The deadline for candidates is 30 September 2026.

All submissions are to be sent to the Secretary of JPH Inc.

Good luck!

05/08/2026

BOOK REVIEW
Leveraging Sovereignty: Kauikeaouli’s Global Strategy for the Hawaiian Nation, 1825–1854
By J. Susan Corley. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2022. 292 pp., notes, bibliography, index. ISBN-13: 9780824891039, US$72.00 (hbk); ISBN-13: 9780824893682, US$28.00 (pbk).
Lorenz Gonschor
https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2026.2622004

03/08/2026

BOOK REVIEW
Genealogies, Genomes, and Histories in the Pacific: Genetic Drift
By Matt K. Matsuda. Cham, Switzerland, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023. ix+293 pages, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9783031454486. €119.99 (hbk), 9783031454516 €119.99 (pbk), 9783031454493 €96.29 (eBook). €119.99 (hardcover and paperback).
Erica Newman
https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2026.2630647

03/08/2026

EVENT NEWS:

Pacific Film Dialogues, a free event in the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) Main Theatre exploring storytelling, screen cultures and creative practice across the Pacific.

Friday 14 Aug
5:30pm - 9pm AEST
AFTRS Main Theatre, Sydney, NSW

Presented in collaboration between AFTRS Research Department and the First Nations and Outreach team and in partnership with Western Sydney University and the University of Sydney, the event features a conversation with:
Dr Letila Mitchell (Rotuma/Fiji) - artist, filmmaker, cultural practitioner and founder of Rako Pasefika.
Leonardo Pakarati (Rapa Nui/Chile) - award-winning documentary filmmaker and founder of Mahatua Producciones.

The session will include screenings of Armea (2024) and Ŋa Hinarere [The Children] (2026) followed by a panel discussion.

Attendance is free, but registration is essential:

A conversation with Letila Mitchell and Leo Pakarati + Film screening

30/07/2026

BOOK REVIEW

The Fiji Times at 150: Imagining the Nation (Or, A Scrapbook of Fiji’s History)
By Anurag Subramani. Suva, Fiji Times Pte Limited, 2023. 548 pp., illustrations, index, appendix. ISBN 9789822010251 FJ$87.00 (pbk).
Nicholas H***e
https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2026.2622005

The Journal of Pacific History welcomes scholars interested in contributing reviews. Help keep the field informed on the latest and most important works in Pacific history scholarship, exhibitions and films. Reach out to our editorial assistant at [email protected] to express your interest.

28/07/2026

EXHIBITION REVIEW

Victory in the Pacific: 80th Anniversary
Nicholas H***e, Jareef Ahmed & Harry Eaton
https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2025.2572452

The Journal of Pacific History welcomes scholars interested in contributing reviews. Help keep the field informed on the latest and most important works in Pacific history scholarship, exhibitions and films. Reach out to our editorial assistant at [email protected] to express your interest.

28/07/2026

EVENT NEWS:

Unboxing the Historian: Sources and Surprises in the Neil Gunson Archive

Date and Time
Wed 29 Jul 2026, 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Location
ANU Lectorial 1 (room 1.21) and online

Speaker
Dr David Romney Smith (ANU)

What remains of the scholar when the man is gone?

A great mass of paper is one answer: paper with major potential for future researchers. To realise that potential, by turning an inchoate heap of material into a coherent historical resource, is the job of the archivist.

The mandate of the ANU Archives includes the preservation of personal and research papers of significant ANU researchers. In 2026 the archive began working on what may be the largest ever donation of personal papers from a former ANU faculty member, the late Niel Gunson.

This talk will introduce this new collection, while discussing the processes undertaken to render it intelligible - processes intended, at least in theory, for the benefit of the historian and biographer.

Dr David Romney Smith is an archivist at the Australian National University. He has published and spoken internationally on medieval history.

Join Zoom Meeting: https://anu.zoom.us/j/88902124291?pwd=f9S8I7GgtJwog6OkB0E3BQTxq77WdN.1

Meeting ID: 889 0212 4291

This event was originally published on the School of History website> https://cass.anu.edu.au/events/unboxing-historian-sources-and-surprises-neil-gunson-archive

What remains of the scholar when the man is gone? A great mass of paper is one answer: paper with major potential for future researchers. To realise that potential, by turning an inchoate heap of material into a coherent historical resource, is the job of the archivist.

28/07/2026

NARRATIVES AND DOCUMENTS / OPEN ACCESS

MANUSCRIPT XLIX: Macmillan Brown Lectures 1998, Introduction
Bruce Harding
https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2025.2600309

Abstract: This is the introduction to the first publication of Sir (Tā) Tipene O’Regan’s lectures on the Ngāi Tahu Claim (Te Kerēme), delivered in late 1998 as that settlement came onstream legally with the New Zealand Crown. The essay seeks to put into historical context these vital developments for the future of the main tribe of New Zealand’s South Island (Te Waipounamu) and of Aotearoa New Zealand itself.

Image caption: Dame Cindy Kiro (New Zealand Governor-General) presenting Tā Tipene with the Order of New Zealand, November 2022. Reproduced by permission of Government House, New Zealand.

’Regan NgāiTahu

The Journal of Pacific History Narratives & Documents section focuses on primary sources, featuring archival materials, photographs, and oral histories. It includes the "From the Archives" series, which highlights specific records, and the "Manuscript" series, which reproduces primary documents, often with translations. Visit our journal page to find out more: https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/cjph20/about-this-journal or start a conversation with our editorial team today [email protected] to discuss content options.

08/07/2026

ARTICLE

Tonga’s Monarchy and the Country’s Coconut Industry, c. 1945 to Independence
Judith A. Bennett
https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2025.2571471

Abstract: Coconuts were the basis of Tonga’s economy before and after the Second World War. After that war, Queen Sālote’s eldest son, Prince Tungī, sought to speed modernization partly by investing in processing coconuts and copra in Tonga and overseas. Tonga’s Copra Board was pivotal to this. Although it found markets after the British Ministry of Food (M*F) contracts ended, the Board permitted a proportion of its copra price stabilization fund to be expended on diverse investments, unlike other comparable territories. From the early 1960s, it supported Prince Tungī’s plans to extend coconut processing. British CDW grants from 1965 financed wider modernization, including coconut replanting. By then, as King Taufa‘ahau Tupou IV, Tungī’s plan to gain entry to the US market via a copra processing plant in American Samoa, along with other enterprises, came under increasing accounting scrutiny. The King too long ignored this and failed, with significant losses for the Board and Tongans.
Image caption: The double wedding of the sons of Queen Sālote of Tonga, Nuku‘alofa, June 1947. Prince Tungī with his intended spouse, Halaevalu Mataʻaho ʻAhomeʻe in the foreground behind Queen Sālote and his brother, Sione Ngū Manumataongo (Tu‘ipelehake) and his betrothed, Melenaite Tupoumoheofo Veikune to the rear. Princess Te Puea of Waikato’s King movement with her characteristic scarf is in the doorway. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, 1/2-005252-F. Permission granted by the National Library of New Zealand.

Board

The Journal of Pacific History invites article submissions. This is a valuable opportunity to contribute original research to a respected scholarly journal. Visit our journal page to find out more: https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/cjph20/about-this-journal

06/07/2026

ARTICLE / OPEN ACCESS

Tupaia’s Wind Positioning System: (Re)Modelling Ancestral Polynesian Voyaging
Lars Eckstein
https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2025.2562855

Abstract:
This essay reconstructs a complex ‘wind positioning system’ which the Ra’iātean tahu’a Tupaia shared with James Cook and select officers of his crew in 1769. It sets an array of scattered traces in the colonial archive in conversation with the more recent teachings of Te Aliki Koloso Kaveia of Taumako. The essay systematically compiles and connects evidence that Tupaia’s rua mata’i and Kaveia’s te nohoanga te matangi offered related cognitive models for navigation. Attention will be given to the ways in which signature wind positions are tied to astronomical events involving sun, moon, and star positions; how wind and astronomy provide ritualized calendrics and seasonality for voyaging; how knowledge of complex swell patterns further calibrates a multi-variable tool kit; how detailed accounts of specific island-to-island voyaging paths are built into the system; and finally how such particularities also involve primordial cosmogonic axes of (island) migration in Tahitian traditions.

Image caption: Tupaia, ‘Tupaia’s Map’ (1770), British Library, London, Add MS 21593.C, © British Library Board.

Kaveia ’i

The Journal of Pacific History invites article submissions. This is a valuable opportunity to contribute original research to a respected scholarly journal. Visit our journal page to find out more: https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/cjph20/about-this-journal