How do religious and political elites in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands see the modern state? This thesis addresses this question. The thesis shows that these two countries do not fit with the ideal structure of the modern state provided here. This is despite the state building efforts of Australia as the two countries largest aid donor. It shows that there are a number of ways that the state can be seen by elites. Amongst both groups of elites can the state can be seen by some as something for the security and betterment of the population. It can be seen as a structure to oppose by some religious groups. Other religious leaders see the state as a partner for the development of both countries. Political elites can see keeping the state weak as being beneficial to finance its operations. Some leaders see the state as an item of capture. It finds that though religious leaders have generally good intentions for the state, they are limited in their authority and influence. The thesis also finds that though political elites are much more important than religious elites in shaping the state, their role is limited by and tied to the people. It finds that the two societies are extremely fragmented and competitive with many differing interests. This leads to the state being seen as an item of competition. This competition does not create the conditions that the state as a structure depends on to reach its ideal form. It concludes that for the state to succeed in both countries there needs to be a shift in attitude towards it.

The thesis explores the roles and reponsibilities of New Zealand Police deployed under the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, established in 2003. Their work under this banner continues a growing trend that sees the deployment of constabulary police officers to post-conflict societies to re-establish order and build a framework for sustainable peace. Where the existing literature considers the normative dimensions of this trend, this thesis looks more closely at the micro-level interaction between international police officers and citizens of post-conflict societies. In particular, it asks questions about the suitability and sustainability of the community policing model; a model that has developed over several decades in an internal law-enforcement context but is relatively new to the peace-building sphere. The research focus is drawn from the extensive literature on the use of community policing in domestic contexts but is adapted in order to speak back to the literature on peace-bulding and international policing. The everyday experiences of New Zealand Police were deployed to Solomon Islands were explored through semi-structured interviews. In particular, the thesis found that officers experiences little of the ethnic conflict that had, according to international media, been the hallmark of the Tension period and that they showed a nuanced understanding of the social and political climate of the communities they operated in. It further found that, while officers were often keen to show respect for local tradition and local power structures, they also saw that in some cases these structures needed to be broken down for the safety and well-being of local people, particularly women and children. The New Zealand style of community policing sometimes clashed with that other contingents but overall the strength of the personal and professional relationships they had with those they worked with was the most decisive factor influencing their experience. While much of the discussion centres on the community model, the findings highlight the importance of people in the peace-building process. The model played an important role in facilititating a broad-based policing initiative in Solomon Islands but it was the personal investment by individual officers going about their everyday work that was often crucial in breaking down the barriers to peace. The finding points to the importance of empowering communities in exercising ownership over the peace-building process and the role that police officers from another country can play in encouraging that process.

Thesis (M.A.)--Concordia University, Montreal, 1998. / "December, 1998." Includes bibliographical references (p. 178-188).

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(地域研究) / 甲第24017号 / 地博第296号 / 新制||地||114(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院アジア・アフリカ地域研究研究科東南アジア地域研究専攻 / (主査)教授 古澤 拓郎, 准教授 坂本 龍太, 教授 竹田 晋也 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Area Studies / Kyoto University / DGAM

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Københavns universitet, 1988. / Summary in Danish. Part 2 consists of Rennellese texts with parallel English translations. Some geneal. tables on folded leaves of plates in pt. 1. Includes indexes. Includes bibliographical references (pt. 1, p. 269-276).

No description available.

This thesis investigates how peace operations work. It contributes to the larger study of peace operation effectiveness by analysing the processes through which these institutions influence local actors in postconflict societies. Looking beyond traditional concerns with mandates and resources, it aims to understand how a peace operation seeks to achieve its goals, focusing on why local populations might cooperate with or obstruct its activities. The thesis draws on theories of social power, compliance and legitimation to answer four central questions: what power do peace operations have to achieve their objectives? From where do peace operations derive power? How do local perceptions of an operation enable or constrain its effectiveness? How are peace operations legitimised at the local level, and with what effect? It begins by critically reviewing the academic literature, arguing that existing approaches are unable to account for important dimensions of peace operation effectiveness because they neglect the local setting in which operations pursue their goals, and the extent to which the achievement of those goals requires local cooperation. It then develops an analytical framework to examine the processes of coercion, inducement and legitimacy through which peace operations seek to shape the decisions and actions of local actors. This power-legitimacy framework is applied to study the effectiveness of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) and the Regional Assistance Mission in Solomon Islands (RAMSI). By comparing variation in local cooperation between and within these cases, the thesis shows that the way a peace operation is locally perceived is an important but often overlooked determinant of its effectiveness. In particular, when local actors perceive a peace operation to be legitimate, they are more likely to behave in ways that assist the operation to achieve its goals. The thesis concludes by discussing the implications of this finding for the future study and practice of peace operations.

This thesis concentrates on the Kwara'ae people of a peri-urban settlement named Gilbert Camp. Originally from Malaita (hom), they migrate and settle in Honiara, capital city of Solomon Islands. They articulate their condition in relation to two sets of value oppositions. The first opposes hom as their primitive, isolated, and hopeless province of origin; and Honiara as the modern, all-promising, all-fulfilling arrival city. The second juxtaposes hom as the epitome of unity, cooperation, and sameness, where life is easy; and Honiara as the place where diversity, competition, and separation reign, and life is hard. The Kwara'ae people leave hom and settle in Honiara because they value what lacks in the former and can be found in the latter. But in Honiara they despise some of the things they must confront, and miss what they can have at hom but not in Honiara. For these reasons, they repeatedly declare, "Honiara is hard" (Honiara hemi had). However, rather than interpreting their statements about life in town as the symptom of a negative evaluation, I try to capture the extent to which the Kwara'ae people of Gilbert Camp value their urban life in a positive way. The starkest illustration of their commitment to town life is in their daily efforts to deal with the tensions over the meaning and use of their values in the urban context. I analyse these tensions, challenges, and negotiations in a series of ethnographically grounded case studies. In a peri-urban village of a shrinking Pacific economy where there is a general disproportion between income and mouths to feed, a tension between the priorities of kinship and the need to make ends meet is almost inevitable. Secondly, the confusion surrounding the issue of land causes tensions concerning how land must be dealt with. There is also a tension between customary and state law, and between historical and recent forms of Christianity. Kwara'ae people use their creativity and cultural knowledge to find viable solutions to these tensions, which I argue is an illustration of how much they try to live according to their values on the outskirts of Honiara. It follows that the statement "Honiara is hard" indicates the measure of their efforts, of how intensely they want to live in Honiara according to their values, rather than the measure of how much they want to go back hom. This interpretation has important implications for the anthropology of urban Melanesia. Previous urban ethnographies in Solomon Islands emphasised the reproduction of hom values, rather than the creation of a new hom through the manipulation of contemporary cultural logics. Although the former approach coheres with negative evaluations of the urban context, it does not account for why people leave a place where life is "easy", and settle in a place where it is "hard". In contrast, an approach emphasising the hom-making process inherent in daily value negotiations reveals the contingent, unpredictable, and contested construction of the sense of homeliness with which Kwara'ae people are turning Gilbert Camp into their new hom.

There is convergence at the international level that conserving biodiversity can contribute to poverty alleviation, but empirical evidence for this relationship is scarce. In this thesis I assess the relationship between poverty and biodiversity, within the context of land use change, using a case-study from the Solomon Islands. This interdisciplinary study is based on both social and ecological data, primarily collected through focus groups, household surveys and avian line transect surveys. Poor households in Kahua were characterised by fewer members of a working age and fewer male members. They were also found to own fewer assets, which were correlated to lower land tenure. Natural resources, including wild foods, were a crucial resource for the consumption and income for poor households, with evidence of wild foods buffering shortfalls in household consumption. The livelihoods of poor households were dependent on natural resources, whereas wealthier households relied on cash crops. The lower involvement of poor households in cash cropping suggests that the poor have less access to such income sources, possibly through a lack of initial land holding assets. Cash crop areas of monoculture cocoa were the most intensive land use in Kahua and were found to be a poor habitat for many bird species, including most endemics. Overall, the relationship between poverty and biodiversity was found to be complex, context dependent and influenced by various social and institutional factors. Household inequalities in access to land and resources indicate that a social-ecological trap may be occurring for poorer households in Kahua, possibly perpetuated by the livelihoods of wealthier households. More research is required in translating the concept of social-ecological traps into management actions, but this thesis concludes that this could be a useful concept for improving poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation initiatives.

The goal of agricultural training is the adoption and diffusion of introduced agriculture techniques. New subsistence agricultural techniques have been introduced mainly to the male population in many developing countries, even though most subsistence farmers are women. Therefore, an understanding of how new subsistence agricultural techniques can be introduced and adopted by women would be important to achieve. This study focuses on women's adoption of agricultural techniques. It takes place on the island of Malaita, in the Solomon Islands. The study looks at the adoption of agroforestry and several other subsistence techniques that were introduced under a joint program by Peace Corps and the Malaita Agriculture Division between 1983 and 1989. Two Peace Corps volunteers were posted in North Malaita at Malu'u from 1983 to 1986. The Malu'u volunteers lived in the village of Karu for two and one-half years while introducing and teaching new agricultural practices. Two other Peace Corps volunteers were posted at the Dala Agricultural Training Center from 1987 to 1989, and worked with the residents of the nearby village of Kakara. In 1991, a two-month survey was conducted in the areas where the Peace Corps volunteers were posted, as well as in an area that did not have any Peace Corps volunteers posted. The findings of this study indicate that adoption of new agroforestry techniques is based on several factors. Who introduced the technology, the farmer's wealth, and being able to obtain income from market vegetables and other identified factors improved a respondent's chances of adopting new agroforestry techniques.