Top appointment for Samoan historian

Press, 3 December 1987, Page 42

Top appointment for Samoan historian

Malama Meleisea, a Samoan historian at the University of the South Pacific, has been appointed the first director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific studies at the University of Canterbury. The centre, established under the will of John Macmillan Brown, a founding professor of the university, will encourage research into the history, traditions, customs, laws and ideas of the people of the Pacific, especially the indigenous people of Oceania, including New Zealand.

Mr Meleisea, who has had a decade of research experience on the Pacific and close contacts with other researchers, plans to establish a publications programme, a research and training fellowship scheme, research projects, consultancies and seminars.

The emphasis will be on research co-operation among universities, gov-

emments and regional agencies such as the South Pacific Commission, the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-opera-tion and other Pacific studies centres in Suva, Papua New Guinea, Hawaii, Canberra and Auckland.

He also knows many Maori scholars and plans to co-operate with Maori studies departments in New Zealand universities. Mr - Meleisea, who has been appointed for a fiveyear term, has a multicultural background. His early education in Samoa was followed by a B.A. at the University of Papua New Guinea and an honours programme at the Australian National University. His thesis, on Melanesians in Samoa, was published as a book. He taught'for two years in Samoa, and then headed the Ministry of Youth Sports and Culture, laying foundations for new national programmes for youth and cultural de-

velopment. For the last seven years he has taught history at the University of the South Pacific and worked in 10 of the 11 countries in the university’s region. He expects to graduate with a Ph D. soon with a study of the effects of colonial policies and Western law on traditional Samoan authority and customs. His Ph.D. thesis, which is in press, has been described as a unique blend of oral and written history. It is one of four books he has written or edited. His work has also appeared in eight different anthologies and he has published six articles. Mr Meleisea, who is 39, married an Australian, Dr Penelope Schoeffel, an anthropologist who is head of continuing education in extension services at the University of the South Pacific. They have four children.

He will take up his appointment in April.