Schooling, Knowledge and Power: Social Transformation in the Solomon Islands

This paper compares traditional education with national schooling in the Solomon Islands, concentrating on the nature, meaning, and transmission of knowledge, and the impact of an imposed Western model of schooling on social change. We examine: micro-level structuring of teaching-learning interactions which embody knowledge as content, and teach important social values and ways of thinking; and macro-level processes in formal education as it developed in the Solomons, together with societal changes contributed to by schooling as a social institution. Our primary focus is rural West Kwara'ae, where for the past ten years we have conducted research on culture and children's language socialization. Our discussion of schooling is based on historical sources, government publications, observations at a rural primary school, interviews with headmasters, teachers, and parents, and data we collected on children's socialization

Whose Knowledge? Epistemological Collisions in Solomon Islands Community Development

We show in this article how modernization, disguised as “community development,” continues to fail rural villages in Solomon Islands despite the supposed movement toward a more people-centered, bottom-up philosophy in development education and practice. We focus on the case study of a Kwara‘ae (Malaita island) rural, locally owned and operated project aimed at giving unemployed male youth a stake in the community and preventing their off-island migration. Successful for a decade, the project was destroyed by the intervention of a retired government official who, because of his education, training, and work with outside development agencies, imposed a modernization framework, including centralization of leadership and the valuing of Anglo-European knowledge over indigenous knowledge. While agreeing with the theoretical argument for indigenous knowledge in development, we argue that it is equally important that development be guided by people’s indigenous epistemology/ies and indigenous critical praxis for (re)constructing and applying knowledge

Labour mobility and diaspora: An overview of Solomon Islands’ historical regulatory experience, 1850s-2013

With less than 4,500 of its population of around 600,000 living overseas in 2013, the Solomon Islands ranks 138th in the world for diaspora formation. At these levels the scale of the diaspora as a proportion of population (0.8 percent) remains lower than it was in the early 20th century, when more than 5,000 Solomon islanders were compulsorily repatriated from Queensland under early Australian Commonwealth legislation. This working paper retraces and reframes the history of Solomon Islands labour mobility and diaspora formation since the 1850s, considering it in relation to the wider institutional and macro-regulatory machineries of three phases or regimes of economic, trade and mobility regulation. These regimes are referred to in this paper as: 1.liberal imperial, 2. national territorial and 3. International neoliberal. We argue that Solomon Islanders’ participation in labour mobility has been substantial under all three phases, but that international mobility and diaspora formation only developed significantly under the liberal imperial regime. Even then, however, its development proved precarious. The ways regional actors and governments acting within the different regimes have framed and segmented labour markets continue to powerfully shape mobility and diaspora outcomes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the situation to date for future economic development and security in Solomon Islands

Critical community language policies in education: Solomon Islands case

This chapter first offers an overview of critical community language policy and planning in education (CCLPE). It provides an example of CCLPE, focusing on Malaita in the wake of the Tenson (ethnic conflict) between Guadalcanal and Malaita in Solomon Islands (SI) (1998–2007). The authors contextualize their analysis by tracing the turning points for LPP in SI history, and discuss implications of the SI case for CCLPE and the future of SI education. The analysis focuses on local processes of uncertainty and instability in times of rapid social change that undermine community faith in the nation-state. The chapter shows that indigenous communities have learned that they can exert their agency to shape LPP from the bottom up, and that the shaping must be grounded in indigenous language(s) and culture(s). This argument is consistent with the call for epistemological and ontological diversity in development theory, education, and related studies

Formative Research Using Settings and Motives to Explore Child Faeces Disposal and Management in Rural Solomon Islands.

Unsafe child faeces management can lead to adverse health and wellbeing outcomes for children. In Solomon Islands, diarrhoeal disease is a leading cause of under-5 mortality, though there is limited research into CFM practices and promotion of safe behaviours. The formative research applied a Behaviour-Centred Design framework to investigate the habits, motives and settings related to child faeces management in rural Solomon Islands villages. Data were collected through structured recall demonstrations by caregivers (n = 61), household infrastructure observations (n = 57), semi-structured interviews with caregivers (n = 121) and community leaders (n = 30), focus group discussions (n = 26), and three participatory activities with caregivers. The findings identified a range of CFM-related behaviours, some of which would be considered safe and some, such as outside defecation and disposal to a waterway, as unsafe. Convenience is important in shaping CFM practice and may help health benefits to be achieved without women bearing the cost of an increased work burden. Nurture and disgust may provide the basis for behaviour change communication in SI as they have elsewhere. Critically, the participation in and promotion of safe CFM by fathers in households should be promoted, and motivating such behaviours might be achieved through focus on nurture as a motive

"How We Know": Kwara'ae Rural Villagers Doing Indigenous Epistemology

We examine Kwara‘ae (Solomon Islands) indigenous epistemology and indigenous critical praxis, including sources of knowledge and strategies for validating and critiquing evidence and knowledge construction. To illustrate indigenous epistemology in action, we focus on the Kwara‘ae Genealogy Project, a research effort by rural villagers aimed at creating an indigenous written account of Kwara‘ ae culture. In recording, (re)constructing, and writing Kwara‘ae culture, project members are not only doing indigenous epistemology, but also reflecting on and critiquing their own indigenous strategies for knowledge creation. We hope that the work illustrated here will inspire other Native Pacific Islander scholars to carry out research on their native or indigenous epistemologies

Indigenous Knowledge and Empowerment: Rural Development Examined from Within

The argument that rural development serving the needs of rural villagers in the third world should be based on indigenous knowedge is not new. In practice, however, development projects continue to be based on Anglo-European models. In this paper I examine what development anchored in indigenous knowledge and indigenous epistemology entails as seen from the perspective of an indigenous Pacific Islander. I show that the Kwara‘ae of Malaita, Solomon Islands, have a rich and complex conception, body of knowledge, and discourse about development, much of which precedes western contact

Cultural Rupture and Indigeneity: The Challenge of (Re)visioning "Place" in the Pacific

What does it mean to be “indigenous”? Is indigeneity a matter of physical “space”? Or is it a cognitive-cultural “place”? Or both? How do Islanders negotiate indigeneity in a time of transnational and interisland migration and cultural conflict? I examine these and related issues through the lens of recent events in the Solomon Islands, including the historical pattern of interisland migration, the recent ethnic cleansing cultural rupture, and the resulting dialogue about identity and indigeneity among Solomon Islanders living abroad and at home via the internet