Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 40, No. 2, August 1999 ISSN: 1360-7456, pp111–135
R. Gerard Ward: quintessential Pacific geographer Richard Bedford and John Overton Abstract: In December 1998 Professor R. Gerard Ward retired after 27 years as Professor of Geography in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University. Ward’s contributions to his discipline, the social sciences, and the discourses about development in the Pacific region have been very considerable. This paper reviews some of the achievements of one of the twentieth century’s eminent Pacific geographers. After establishing his academic roots in the Department of Geography at the University of Auckland in the 1950s, we outline the major clusters of his writing on land use and land tenure, population dynamics and urbanisation, Pacific history and prehistory, Pacific development issues, informal markets, transport systems and tele-cost worlds. The paper concludes with an assessment of three unusual features of Ward’s writing: the breadth of his interests, the range of scales he felt comfortable working at, and the innovative nature of ideas introduced into debates about Pacific development. A comprehensive list of Ward’s publications is attached to this paper. Keywords: Land tenure, population movement, urbanisation, agriculture, development, communications systems In December 1998, R. Gerard Ward retired after 27 years as Professor of Human Geography in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPACS) at the Australian National University (ANU). Ward’s career has been marked by a remarkably consistent and productive record of research with a clear focus on the Pacific Island region. Since the mid-1960s his university appointments have all been in institutions specialising in Pacific studies, and most of his publications are on themes relating to Pacific geography.
Authors: Richard Bedford, Professor of Geography and Head of the Division of Cultural and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Waikato, P.B. 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand. E-mail:
[email protected] John Overton, Professor of Development Studies and Head of the School of Global Studies, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Email:
[email protected] ß Victoria University of Wellington, 1999. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
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Ward is the quintessential Pacific geographer. Even during his years as Junior Lecturer and Lecturer in Geography at the University of Auckland (1956–1961) and Lecturer in Geography at University College London (1961– 1966), he was focusing on Pacific research. In common with a number of fellow Auckland geography students of the 1950s – especially Peter Pirie and Murray Chapman – Ward was never to get ‘seduced’ into switching his personal research focus to other parts of the world. In this overview of the writings of one of the most influential Pacific geographers to date, we comment on Gerard Ward’s formative years as a member of a quite remarkable cohort1 of New Zealand geographers who gained their first degrees in Kenneth Cumberland’s Department of Geography at the University of Auckland. Having established the academic origins of his Pacific research whakapapa (genealogy) we then review briefly some of the main themes in his writing over the 42 years since his first academic publications appeared in 1956. One of the interesting things about Ward’s research career is that he has retained an interest throughout his academic career in all of the research clusters we identify. His first substantive book was on land use and population in Fiji (1965) and his latest book (with Elizabeth Kingdon and others), published in 1995, is on land tenure and land use in the Pacific. His first refereed journal article in 1956 was on Maori settlement in Taupo country and he is currently preparing a manuscript on journeys to Taupo. His first article on migration in Fiji (1961) emphasises the importance of urbanisation as a process in the Pacific Islands while his most recent contribution on this theme (1998b) laments the absence of writing on Pacific towns. The clusters we discuss below do not relate to distinctive periods of research in Ward’s academic career; rather they are indicative of the wide range of interests and specialist expertise of this Pacific geographer. Ward was simultaneously an ‘agricultural geographer’, a ‘population geographer’, an ‘historical geographer’, an ‘urban geographer’, a ‘transport geographer’, a ‘rural geographer’ and a ‘cartographer’. In this regard he was an exemplar of Cumberland’s perspective on the geographer: a specialist in the study of places, not a specialist in the study of a particular systematic branch of geography.
THE FORMATIVE YEARS On the occasion of the University of Auckland Geography Department’s 50th anniversary in 1996, Gerard Ward (1998h: 60) observed: In the early 1950s this Department had been in existence for less than ten years, and its founder Ken Cumberland was well aware that there were obstacles to be overcome in establishing the Department as a strong contributor in Auckland University College. It was not without its critics, some of whom could not see a particular place for the discipline of Geography at the University. . . . [T]his uncertain context was one of the factors which stimulated his strong advocacy of a distinctive point of view of Geography and the Geographer, with stress on
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strong awareness of place, the uniqueness of individual places (elucidated through regional analysis) and the distinct place of Geography as a chorological science. The importance of the study of methodology, linked to philosophy, was always stressed.
Two chance events in the Auckland Department in the mid-1950s were to play a major part in his life. The first was when one of the teaching staff left suddenly to take up a job in the Department of Geography at the University of Otago and the Auckland Department ‘desperately needed someone to teach first year cartography ten hours a week in 1956’ (1998h: 62). The second came early in 1956 when a field assistant was required to work on agricultural change in one of the Department’s major research projects in Western Samoa (see Fox and Cumberland, 1963). Ward (1998h: 62–63) himself observes: ‘as perhaps the only available staff member at the time, I was catapulted into the field of Pacific Island studies where I have remained ever since.’ Early research Ward’s (1998h) recollections of geography at the University of Auckland make no specific mention of his graduate research on land development around the central North Island town of Taupo – an area with which his family has strong connections. These connections extend into the region’s indigenous Maori community and it is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that his first refereed publications are entitled ‘Maori settlement in the Taupo country’ (1956a), ‘Land development in Taupo country’ (1956c) and ‘Taupo and the central North Island’ (1957). The first substantive paper in this special issue of Asia Pacific Viewpoint is on an interpretation of Maori landscape and land tenure in Taupo, written by his contemporary and good friend Professor Evelyn Stokes from the University of Waikato. In the mid-1950s, Ward’s field work in Samoa had a strong focus on agriculture and land tenure. His first international journal article (1959a), plus three chapters which he contributed to Fox and Cumberland’s (1962) edited collection Western Samoa: land, life and agriculture in tropical Polynesia, clearly indicated his research interest socio-economic transformation of rural communities in the Pacific (1962a, 1962b, 1962c). From the late 1950s Ward’s publications were to be dominated by assessments and interpretations of ‘development’ in Pacific societies, a theme which John Overton picks up in his paper on development discourses in Fiji. If it was field research in Samoa which ‘catapulted’ Ward into the Pacific, it was his doctoral thesis on land use and population in Fiji which established his name as a Pacific geographer. Between October 1958 and September 1959 Ward took leave from his Junior Lectureship at Auckland to take up a research assistant’s post in the Department of Geography, University College London, where he completed his doctorate. A revised version of his thesis was subsequently published and quickly became the standard reference on Fiji’s land use patterns and population dynamics (1965). Ward’s early writing on ß Victoria University of Wellington 1999
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Samoa and Fiji remains heavily referenced in studies of land use, agricultural change, internal migration and urbanisation in the Pacific region. If any further evidence of his wide-ranging interest in the historical and contemporary development of the Pacific region was needed in the 1960s it came in the eight volume series of documents on American activities in the central Pacific which he edited between 1966 and 1967. This invaluable archival material, coupled with the strong historical flavour to some of his early writing (1961a, 1968, 1969a), demonstrated that he had a keen awareness of the relevance of the past for understanding the present. As will be seen below, Ward’s research has contributed significantly to our understanding of Pacific prehistory as well as to knowledge about the colonial and post-colonial eras in this region. A DISTINGUISHED CAREER By December 1971, when Ward was appointed to the Chair of Human Geography in the Research School of Pacific Studies (RSPacS as it was called then) at the Australian National University, he was already recognised internationally for his research on both the historical and contemporary geography of the Pacific. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that he was to be the first New Zealand geographer to be admitted to Fellowship of the prestigious Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. His appointment in the same year to the premier research professorship in human geography in Australia at the age of 37 years indicated clearly that Ward was well on his way to a prominent leadership role in his discipline. Administration and professional organisations Over the subsequent 27 years he has demonstrated this leadership both in geography as a discipline as well as in the academy at large through a distinguished publication record and a continuous record of service as a senior administrator. His administrative positions have included: Head of the Department of Human Geography through the 1970s and 1980s and again in the 1990s after he completed just over 12 years as Director of the Research School of Pacific Studies; member of the Australian National University’s Council for several terms between 1978 and 1990; Vice-President and President of the Australian Institute of Geography in the late 1970s and early 1980s; member of the Australian National Committee for Geography between 1978 and 1982; and an active member of the Pacific Science Association for more than 30 years. He was heavily involved in the organisation of the only International Geographical Congress sponsored by the International Geographical Union ever to be held in Australasia (1988), and has been a key player in the organisation of the 19th Pacific Science Congress in Sydney (July 1999). His work has been noted and honoured in many different ways. Although he moved in 1971 to Canberra from Port Moresby, where he had been Foundation Professor of Geography at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) for 114
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just over four years, his formal connection with the University of Papua New Guinea did not cease in 1971. For 11 years between 1985 and 1996 he was a member of the UPNG Council, a position he has also held since 1985 at the National University of Samoa. In 1971, he was awarded the Papua New Guinea Silver Jubilee Medal in recognition of his services to tertiary education in that country. His involvement in professional organisations show a strong bias towards the Pacific. He has been active in the Pacific Science Association for over 30 years (member of the Scientific Committee for Geography since 1967, and currently Vice-President of the Association), and a member of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO (Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Pacific Islands Culture, 1988–94). He has also served on the Conseil d’Administration, l’Universite´ Franc¸aise du Pacifique (Member, 1994–95), Australian National Committee for Pacific Science (Member, 1978–82) and, as noted above, the Councils of the Universities of Papua New Guinea (1985–96) and Samoa (1985 ongoing). Consultancy Another measure of Ward’s standing in the wider community, and especially within the Pacific region, has been his work as a consultant and adviser on public policy. Perhaps his most significant contribution in this regard was as team leader for the Asian Development Bank’s South Pacific Agricultural Survey in 1979, a project which produced a comprehensive review of agriculture in the region (1980d). This study was to stimulate a debate in Pacific Viewpoint in 1984 about processes of and prospects for agricultural change in Pacific countries (1984a). Such a debate was a typical outcome of Ward’s writing; he was not afraid to take strong, often quite provocative stances in his research, and for this reason his work was always ‘noticed’. Other prominent consultancy activities included being an adviser for a World Bank study on South Pacific tourism in 1988–89, a member of the ‘group of eminent persons’ appointed to review the intergovernmental structure of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in 1990, and an adviser on land tenure to the Fiji Constitutional Review Committee in 1995. His breadth of disciplinary expertise made him an obvious candidate for ‘reviewing’ academic programmes. His curriculum vitae lists 24 major reviews of Departments and Programmes since 1974. At the time of writing this review of his career (March 1999) he was involved in a review of Environmental Studies at the University of Auckland – the university where he began his academic career in 1951. A RICH RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION Reference has already been made to the multi-dimensional nature of Ward’s geographical research. He worked from the outset with a broad canvas. In this section, which reviews his writing, we begin with a brief discussion of his ß Victoria University of Wellington 1999
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research on land use and land tenure, followed by somewhat more lengthy observations on his studies of population dynamics and urbanisation. In terms of sequencing, Pacific history and agricultural change come next, followed by a specific interest in rural and urban markets and some concerns over transport and telecommunication systems. Some of these themes, especially those relating to land use, land tenure and development are explored more closely in papers in this volume. We therefore devote rather more attention to some of the other clusters in this overview. Land use and land tenure Although impetus for Ward’s interest in issues to do with the land go back to his earliest work as a research student in the Taupo area, it was Fiji which provided the context for most of his substantive writing on land use and land tenure. His research on contemporary land tenure in Fiji in the mid-1960s for his doctorate at the University of London involved village surveys, analysis of cadastral maps and an examination of official policy. Although his study at this time was mainly concerned with the relationship between land tenure and land use there were some hints of later interests in inequalities and problems of land tenure in the village (1965: 139). Ward’s interest in the history of land tenure in Fiji stems from his doctoral work. In a fascinating study of nineteenth-century land alienation he traced the way early processes of land acquisition by Europeans, and subsequent official ratification or rejection of these claims, created a pattern of land tenure and land use that was ‘fossilised’ for the next century (1969). This was a theme he was to develop further in later work. Land tenure studies in Fiji continued, including an interesting vignette on Indian tenants (1980o), but it was Ward’s work for the Fiji Employment and Development Mission of 1984 that sharpened his analysis of contemporary land tenure in Fijian villages. His published work associated with this Mission (1985c, 1986b, 1987) not only documented changes in the way land was held but also showed, through careful re-surveying of his earlier field research sites, that inequalities were becoming more marked and Fijian village society was being fundamentally transformed. This work also pointed to the rise of informal land tenure practices which were circumventing the official rigid land tenure system (see Overton, this volume). Ward’s editing of, and substantial contributions to, the book with Elizabeth Kingdon, Land, custom and practice in the South Pacific (1995c), marks the academic culmination of his work on land tenure. It brought together several strands. Firstly, it marked the synthesis of Ward’s interests in land tenure in Fiji. In his chapter on Fiji (1995d) he argued strongly that the official system of land tenure, developed in the late nineteenth century, had imposed a rigid social model on what had been a flexible and complex set of practices. Secondly, he developed the theme of customary practices, of the way people had developed their own strategies (often drawn from pre-colonial practices) to deal with the constraints of the official system. 116
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Finally the work marked a broadening of scope. Having previously extended his work on land tenure more widely in Samoa (1995a) and elsewhere in the Pacific (1992b), the book allowed him to draw some themes not just from across the Pacific (1995g) but also globally (1995f). It is in these two chapters that Ward’s extensive studies of Pacific Island land tenure come to fruition in terms of a major contribution to the wider literature on this theme. It is here that he provides some critical insights into the relationships between custom, law and practice and the interplay between communalism and individualism. These relationships are explored in a very different, but related context, by Elspeth Young in her contribution to this special issue when she reviews indigenous and non-indigenous land tenure and land management practices in Australia. A later episode in Ward’s land tenure research should be noted. In 1995 he was invited to present a submission on land issues in Fiji to the country’s Constitutional Review Commission. His report, subsequently published (1997f), built on his empirical studies to suggest fundamental changes in policy. Critically important here was a major review of the rigid official system for leasing of Fijian land and a recognition of customary practices which allowed greater flexibility and responsiveness as well as empowerment of village landowners. Again, it marked a culmination, but this time an ability to engage in policy debates informed by a deep empirical understanding of the realities of land use and land tenure in the Pacific. Population dynamics and urbanisation In his influential text on the geography of the Southwest Pacific, Kenneth Cumberland (1954) argued that New Zealanders had a responsibility to investigate the impending pressure of population on land and resources, especially in the small island colonies of the eastern Pacific. His Western Samoa project, which included R. Gerard Ward as a research assistant, had, at its core, a concern over the implications of rapid population growth for economy and society. Ward carried this general theme into his work on land use in Fiji and from 1959 papers on population issues in the Pacific began to appear under his name (1959b, 1959c). The demographic process which particularly interested Ward was internal migration, and his earliest papers specifically on this theme appeared in 1961 (1961b, 1961c). By the 1970s Ward’s perspective on internal migration and the urbanisation of Pacific Island peoples had parted company with that of a number of his contemporaries, including fellow Auckland graduate, Murray Chapman. Chapman, amongst others, was placing considerable emphasis on the circulation of Pacific peoples, especially Melanesians, between villages and other locations (including towns) in the island countries (see Bedford (1999) for a review of Chapman’s writing). Urbanisation, in terms of its classical demographic definition as the percentage share of a country’s population living in urban places, remained low throughout the region by comparison with the urban-industrial economies on the Pacific rim. In countries like Papua New ß Victoria University of Wellington 1999
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Guinea the percentage living in towns and cities was below 10 in the early 1970s – a share which encouraged most writers of the time to argue that the future for most indigenous Papuans and New Guineans would be a rural one. Ward (1968b, 1971b, 1971c, 1973e) argued strongly against what he considered was an undue bias towards rural development. A statement he made in an important article on internal migration and urbanisation in Papua New Guinea (1971c, subsequently reprinted in 1977) to the effect that ‘[i]f the towns are stunted, so will be the nation’ was to run through his writing on population movement and the development of towns. Ward has remained convinced that effective rural progress is impossible without considerable urban development – development which would see much larger percentages of Pacific peoples living outside villages. Unfortunately there was not space in this special issue to include an essay on migration and urbanisation in Melanesia which examines Ward’s arguments in a more reflective way. We wish to emphasise here, though, that his contributions to the literature on internal population movements and the development of towns in the Pacific have been of great importance. His paper with the evocative title ‘Migration, myth and magic in Papua New Guinea’ (1980a), contains a powerful challenge to what was becoming a prevailing orthodoxy in Melanesian migration studies of the time that Pacific peoples, including most of those in towns, remained essentially rural peoples (Bedford, 1999). One of Ward’s (1980a: 129) main concerns was with the use of residential intentions as an indicator of whether a person is a migrant, a temporary sojourner or a circulator. Questioning the tendency for researchers to argue rather unproductively about whether town-resident Melanesians were either ‘migrants’ or ‘circulators’ on the basis of their stated intentions about future residence in urban or rural places, he observed: In making assessments of permanency in Papua New Guinea it seems to me that a number of research workers and policy makers have been trapped by their own assumptions. In dealing with a developed world situation, a one or two year period of residence would probably be accepted as indicative of permanence and the socio-economic and policy implications would be accepted. In the Papua New Guinea case it is often taken for granted that if an urban resident indicates that at some time in the future he hopes to return to village life he should be classed as a temporary migrant – a circulator in transit. Maintenance of ties with the village community, in the form of remittances, gifts and occasional visits are also used as indicators of retention of rural orientation, which are similarly interpreted as indicators of impermanence and circulatory tendencies (Ward, 1980a: 129).
Ward foresaw a number of unfortunate policy implications following from an assumption that internal migrants to Melanesian towns were temporary sojourners. The provision of housing and wages for ‘single’ men, on the assumption that their families would remain living in villages and would be supported by their own subsistence production, were areas of policy which Ward (1980a) attributes to the persistence of this assumption. 118
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In his keynote address to the Pacific Science Association’s Regional InterCongress in Suva in July 1997, Ward returned to his long-standing concern about undue emphasis on rural development at the expense of research on urban populations (and problems) in the region (1998b). It is appropriate to conclude this brief comment on Ward’s research on migration and urbanisation with a quotation from this paper because it reveals that distinctive quality of continuity in his writings. Ward rarely changed his mind about key geographical processes over his career. In the development plans or development statements of Pacific Island countries, we find a greater emphasis on rural development and rural areas than on urban development and urban areas. In the speeches of politicians we find that maintenance of traditional ways, which generally means rural ways, gets most prominence. In the work of anthropologists, geographers and other researchers we find the bulk of the research deals with rural areas and rural communities. Yet it is in the urban areas where most of the driving forces which are re-shaping Pacific Island economies, societies, polities and geographies have their sources. Surely it is time to address this disjunction between reality and perception by devoting a much greater proportion of both academic research and government planning attention to the urban areas and rural communities of the region, and to their related groups in the towns and cities of Pacific Rim countries. Twenty-five years ago I wrote that ‘the attitude that rural life is good and urban life is bad . . . ignores the reverse side of the coin’ [1973e: 362]. The need to look again at the urban Pacific is even greater now with the much higher proportion of the population living in towns (Ward, 1997: 1. A shorter version of this paper is published as Ward, 1998b).
Ward’s perspectives on internal migration and urbanisation were not reflective of a particular interest in or focus on Pacific towns, although he did write with colleagues at the Australian National University in the late 1970s and early 1980s about food distribution in urban markets (1979b, 1980c). Indeed, the great bulk of his research was on issues related to the rural Pacific: land tenure, rural production systems, plantation agriculture and the development of Pacific economies. As the next section shows, his ‘reach’ into the rural Pacific was not only extensive in a spatial sense; it also had considerable temporal depth as well. Pacific history and prehistory Gerard Ward, like Oskar Spate, is at once a geographer and a closet historian. The historical dimension to Ward’s work has been implicit throughout his research career but it has come into the open on occasions when he has engaged with Pacific historiography. Thus, his list of publications includes articles in the Journal of Pacific History and the Journal of the Polynesian Society as well as some explicitly historical chapters and monographs. Again the interest in history is a longstanding theme, beginning with the Taupo work (1956a) and pervading nearly all his subsequent writing. ß Victoria University of Wellington 1999
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Three major clusters of writing appeared in the 1960s and 1970s which marked Ward’s contribution to Pacific history and prehistory. The first involved editing of primary material – mainly newspaper reports – concerning American activities in the Pacific in the period 1790–1870. This resulted in an eight-volume collection (Ward 1966–67), an invaluable source on pre-colonial American contact with the region. His second major contribution to historical geography (really the prehistory of the eastern Pacific), and one of his most imaginative research ventures, was to involve him with geography and computer science colleagues in the United States in an ambitious computer simulation of Polynesian settlement (1969b, 1972a, 1973c). This study demonstrated that the probability of initial human settlement of scattered islands in the eastern Pacific being the result of ‘deliberate voyaging’ rather than ‘accidental drift’ was much greater than previously thought. Not surprisingly, the argument and evidence provided by Ward and his colleagues from the University of Minnesota, where he was Visiting Lecturer in 1964, generated considerable debate in the literature. A footnote to Ward’s computer simulation work was added twenty years later. Addressing the debate in prehistory concerning the origins of the coconut palm and its establishment in the Americas, and drawing on an earlier piece with Allen on floating coconuts (1980p), the paper used a simulation of Pacific Ocean currents and winds to conclude that coconuts were most unlikely to have drifted across the Pacific. Human dispersal of this ubiquitous coastal plant was more probable (1992a). It was a further example of Ward’s ability to engage critically and constructively across disciplinary boundaries. A third piece of historical work was the book Man in the Pacific Islands edited by Ward (1972b). The book contains an impressive collection of the work of historians and geographers addressing some key issues in the Pacific. Ward not only brought the collection together, stimulating the collaboration between historians and geographers, but also contributed a chapter himself on the beˆche-de-mer trade (1972c), which sat alongside two earlier pieces on sandalwood (1968a) and land alienation (1969a), that resulted from his research on mid-nineteenth century Fiji. Ward’s interest in historical dimensions to contemporary development problems is the final aspect of his research on the past that we must acknowledge. An understanding of Pacific history was an essential prerequisite for explaining present patterns and processes associated with land issues in Fiji (1965, 1985c, 1992b, 1995d, 1995h, 1997f), Australian aid in the Pacific (1976, 1977c, 1988b), and transport and communication links in the region (1989, 1995b, 1997b). Pacific development issues Issues of development in the Pacific Island region have constituted one of the main continuing themes in Ward’s work. There are several strands to this theme with agricultural development being the most consistent. From Ward’s first involvement with the Pacific in the 1950s, there was a concern for 120
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agriculture, both in Samoa (1959a, 1962a, 1962b, 1962c) and, with his doctoral research, Fiji (1960a, 1963, 1964a, 1964b, 1964c, 1965). In many respects this early work traced the major changes in Pacific Island agriculture that were taking place in response to the development of cash crops: changes in the organisation of land and labour, production techniques, marketing and the handling of money. These interests broadened over the next decade, especially after Ward led the Asian Development Bank’s South Pacific Agricultural Survey (1980d– 1980n). The work of Ward and others in this survey resulted in a comprehensive survey of agricultural activities and the prospects for further development in a mix of ‘large’ and ‘small’ island states (1980d). Typically, Ward ensured that within this survey there was a profound appreciation of the social, cultural and environmental contexts of the Pacific Island region, for blueprint rural development strategies could not be easily transplanted there. There followed from this work some reflective pieces (Ward 1980q, 1982a, 1982b, 1986a) on the future of Pacific Island agriculture and Ward was drawn into an interesting debate about the role of plantations and the ‘plantation mode of management’ in the Pacific (1984a). His agricultural work then refocused on Fiji, largely as a result of his decision to return to the research sites of his doctoral work in the 1960s. A series of publications in the mid-1980s addressed the issue of changes in Fijian villages, their land use and social organisation (1985c, 1986b, 1987). The opportunity to revisit four rural communities and to reassess agricultural developments over a 25-year period gave Ward new perspectives on the significance of continuity through change. Some of the developments in land tenure, land use, and absentee land ownership were not what he would have forecast in the late 1960s and the 1970s; these are discussed in his chapters with Kingdon and Hooper in Land, custom and practice in the South Pacific (1999d, 1995f, 1995g, 1999h). Overton’s assessment of development in Fiji in this issue of Asia Pacific Viewpoint examines in greater detail some of Ward’s ideas about land tenure and land use. A second interest in development was more general. A chapter in a book on the ‘problems of smaller territories’ (1967), which has become a classic in the literature on the small island countries of Polynesia, marked the start of an interest in the particular characteristics and development potentials and constraints of the Pacific Island region. Ward’s findings were rather bleak, seeing little hope for small, remote islands in being able to satisfy the rising material expectations of their residents. Later this theme was developed further. Following an earlier paper on the ‘Pacific Islands in the 21st century’ (1982b, 1988b), Ward’s keynote address to the International Geographical Congress in Sydney in 1988 was a masterly exposition of the geographer’s art in both looking backwards and forwards (1989a). In this address, titled ‘Earth’s empty quarter? The Pacific Islands in the Pacific Century’, he demonstrated how the region is conceived of quite differently by Europeans and Pacific Islanders – respectively as vast and empty, and a mosaic of islands and connections – and how this has affected its ß Victoria University of Wellington 1999
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past and might affect its future. Although he pointed to the way emigration has increased opportunities for many Pacific Islanders, he was pessimistic about the future of many of the smaller islands and their inhabitants. A later paper (1993) elaborated on these themes and concluded: It seems almost inevitable that the flows of migrants will continue as individuals and families make their choices about where their material, and perhaps social, welfare can best be found. They may choose material prosperity elsewhere, rather than accept an image of paradise or a form of aid-dependent pauperism within the home islands.
These papers stimulated considerable debate in the region and drew criticism from Hau’ofa (1994) for being too pessimistic and not recognising sufficiently the initiative and mobility of Pacific Island peoples. Such debate is timely because the new world order in the final years of this century is fundamentally transforming the way the region is articulated with the rest of the world. This, in turn is transforming the region’s development prospects, a theme Ward picks up in the context of what ‘sustainable development’ and ‘self-reliance’ mean in countries where large shares of their populations live and work overseas (1997b). It is appropriate to conclude this section by quoting from his latest contribution to the literature on development in small island countries. In a provocative paper entitled ‘The expanding worlds of Oceania: implications of migration’ he observes: [O]ne implication of the present form and functioning of Oceania’s diaspora is that we are forced to ask whether it is realistic to expect that the economies of the smaller island states can ever have ‘sustainable development’ if that development is assumed to be related to their territorial boundaries. As Hau’ofa stresses, the ‘resources of Samoans, Cook Islanders, Niueans, Tokelauans, Tuvaluans, IKiribati, Fijians, Indo-Fijians and Tongans, are no longer confined to their national boundaries. They are located wherever these people are living, permanently or otherwise . . .’ It would be more realistic to recognise that the overall islander community, incorporating both those living in the homeland country and those in the rim countries who in fact interact socially and economically should be the unit of assessment (Ward, 1997b: 194).
Informal markets, transport systems and tele-cost worlds The final cluster of writings which we wish to highlight in this overview have a common connection in dimensions of communication. Ward was not afraid to introduce new terms into the literature on processes that interested him. His latest contribution in this regard is ‘anastomosing migration’ (1997b). He considers that the term anastomosis, which is used in geomorphology to refer to river systems and in medicine to refer to systems of arteries ‘which divide and then rejoin in a web of interconnected channels’, can be extended, by 122
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analogy, to the ‘widely scattered members of extended families’ (1997: 186). He goes on to argue that: The maintenance of Pan-Pacific anastomosing patterns of Pacific Islander settlement today is made possible by good communications. Without mail, telephone and relatively easy and affordable travel, the links would atrophy and, in time, be forgotten or cease to be functional. This is what happened in earlier centuries as out-migrants were integrated into their destination communities and gradually ceased to have any role in their natal communities. Today, the maintenance of the links has important results, socially, economically and politically (Ward, 1997b: 187).
The communications revolution which underlies the development and maintenance of the anastomosing channels linking distant communities features in several recent publications (1989a, 1993, 1995b, 1998a). Ward commenced his review of Pacific Island futures in the early 1990s by comparing a trip he made by air from Honolulu to Nadi (Fiji) in 1959 with the last South Pacific flight made by Canadian International (formerly Canadian Pacific) to Fiji and Australia and New Zealand in April 1991 (1993: 1). He observed that ‘[s]ince 1959 the islands and peoples of the South Pacific have changed dramatically, and that the social, economic, and political changes are, in large measure, concomitants of the transport changes’ (1993: 2). A general trend, which he notes at both international as well as national scales in the region, is an increase in ‘spatial disadvantage’ in economic and social life for large parts of every island country (1993: 5). There has been a significant increase in differentiation between places in terms of access both to towns within countries, as well as to overseas destinations. Ward has taken up this theme recently with reference to air transport in Tonga (1998a). Using data on elapsed air travel time, he shows that since the mid 1960s some of the outer islands of the archipelago have become more ‘distant’ from the capital on Tongatapu than Auckland, a major international destination for Tongans. This is despite the fact that the linear distances in nautical miles between Tongatapu and the outer islands are only one-third of the distance between the capital and Auckland (1998a). Relative accessibility, both within and between island countries, remains a key concern for Ward in the late 1990s, just as it was when he wrote on the consequences of smallness in Polynesia in the late 1960s. An interesting experiment, which made use of a combination of classical location theory from geographies of the 1960s and 1970s, and ideas emanating from a third-world literature on periodic markets in rural Africa, demonstrates yet again Ward’s potential for innovation in research. Working with longstanding friend and colleague Diana Howlett, transport geographer Christopher Kissling, and specialist in quantitative analysis Herbert Weinand, Ward developed an argument for the provision of ‘mobile urban services’ in the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea (1975a, 1978a). The concept of market raun was born, and some innovative ‘applied geography’ was brought ß Victoria University of Wellington 1999
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to bear on the complex problem of differential accessibility to services in remote parts of Papua New Guinea. Ward’s experiment did not lead to a permanent transformation in service provision to communities in the Central Highlands, but it did demonstrate yet again the ability of this geographer to challenge conventional wisdom. In a thought-provoking analysis of telecommunications in the Pacific, written for a volume of essays marking the retirement of long-standing friend and colleague, Peter Haggett, Ward (1995b) introduced another term into the Pacific literature: ‘tele-cost worlds’. Using the metric of telephone charges between countries, he explored the proposition that over the past two decades satellites and fibre optic cables had greatly reduced the distance-related component in the cost structure of telecommunications in the Pacific. His analysis revealed that there remained quite complex sub-regional structures of costs in telecommunication which reflected the roles of sociopolitical, historical and technical links. He concluded that, notwithstanding the diffusion of new technologies and access to new telecommunication services in the region, ‘it is unlikely that distance will be eliminated as an important factor constraining development’ (Ward, 1995b: 238). The quintessential geographer remains convinced that we are a long way from what O’Brien (1990) suggested might be the ‘end of geography’ because of the impact of technology and capital flows in ‘the global village’. A MAN FOR ALL SCALES When considered as a ‘package’, R. Gerard Ward’s publications reveal several unusual characteristics. Firstly, there is the range of topics which he has explored and sustained an interest in throughout his research career. As we noted in the introduction to this paper, it is difficult to label Ward in terms of a particular geographical specialism. He is truly a geographer committed to understanding processes responsible for spatial differentiation at a wide range of scales. Secondly there is the range of scales at which he feels comfortable conducting geographical research. His Fiji land tenure work is based upon very detailed analysis of particular village situations. In common with other Pacific geographers of the 1960s and 1970s (such as Murray Chapman – see Bedford, 1999) he has returned to ‘his villages’ to examine change through time as well as over space (1986b, 1995d). The sub-national scale of analysis is one which has not featured large in the geographical literature on the Pacific, especially countries in the eastern and northern parts of the region. Ward (1990c) questions the relative lack of attention by geographers to research on development at this scale. The national and supra-national (Pacific region) scales frequently surface in his writing, sometimes simultaneously as in South Pacific agriculture: choices and constraints (1980d–n). Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Samoa have been the main foci for his national-level studies (including production of some of the first country atlases and land use maps – 1963, 1964a, 1971a, 1998c, 1998i). 124
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Thirdly, there are the innovative contributions to debates about settlement, development and change in the Pacific region. His 1967 paper on the consequences of smallness in Polynesia was the first in a series of reflective assessments of some fundamental geographical dimensions of Pacific countries which have interested him throughout his academic career. In the early 1970s it was the settlement of Polynesia which captured his attention at the supranational level (1972a, 1973c, 1973d). In the late 1970s it was Australia’s role in Pacific development (1976, 1977c, see also 1988b) and the role of the urban informal sector in the development of Pacific towns (1978b). In the 1980s issues of agricultural change (1980d, 1982b, 1984a, 1984b, 1986a, 1988c), rural labour supply (1981b), and the revolutions in transport and personal mobility (1989a) featured in his region-wide assessments. In the 1990s it has been land tenure issues (1992b, 1995c, 1997c, 1997d, 1997e, 1998g), mobility and ‘world enlargement’ (1997b), urbanisation (1998b) and Pacific identities (1998f) which attracted his attention. Clarke’s use of poetry by Pacific Islanders, to capture the essence of debates about development and change in Oceania, is a fitting concluding paper for this special issue of Asia Pacific Viewpoint. In a typically sensitive and original way, Clarke uses his paper to reflect the wide range of themes which infuse the writing of his longstanding friend and colleague, R. Gerard Ward. This writing is detailed in the full list of Ward’s publications provided below. It is quite evident from the substantial burst in publications since the mid-1990s that we have not heard the last of Ward by a long shot. We look forward to reading his forthcoming journeys to Taupo, which are taking him back to where his research career started, and to seeing more of his reflections on the future of the Pacific as we go into the twenty-first century. NOTE 1
We acknowledge Murray Chapman’s suggestion of the cohort analogy for the group of Auckland geographers who were to become specialists in the Pacific from the mid-1950s. Chapman himself is a member of this cohort (see Bedford, 1999 for a brief review of his academic career) along with Peter Pirie, Bryan Farrell, and Marion Ward (ne´e Solly).
REFERENCES (OTHER THAN TO WARD) Bedford, R.D. (1999) Mobility in Melanesia: bigman bilong circulation, Asia Pacific Viewpoint 40(1): 3–17. Cumberland, K.B. (1954) Southwest Pacific: a geography of Australia, New Zealand and their Pacific Island neighbourhoods, Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs. Fox, J.W. and Cumberland, K.B. (1962) Western Samoa: land, life and agriculture in tropical Polynesia, Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs. Hau’ofa, E. (1994) Our sea of islands, The Contemporary Pacific 6(1): 147–163. O’Brien, R. (1990) The end of geography? The impact of technology and capital flows, The AMEX Bank Review 17: 2–5.
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LIST OF PUBLICATIONS: R. GERARD WARD Books, articles, chapters, published reports 1955a
The geographic study of landforms, Proceedings of the First New Zealand Geography Conference, Auckland 22–26 August 1955, Auckland: New Zealand Geographical Society: 21–26.
1955b
Lecture reports, Record: N.Z. Geographical Society 19: 20–21, 20: 1–7.
1956a
Maori settlement in the Taupo country, Journal of the Polynesian Society 65(l): 41–44.
1956b
Geothermal steam, New Zealand Geographer 12(1): 99–100.
1956c
Land Development in the Taupo Country, New Zealand Geographer 12(2): 115–132.
1957
Taupo and the central North Island, New Zealand Geographer 13(1): 56–66.
1959a
The banana industry in Western Samoa, Economic Geography 35(2): 123–137.
1959b
The population of Fiji, Geographical Review 49(3): 322–341.
1959c
(with W. Moran) Recent population trends in the Southwest Pacific, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 50(11): 235–240.
1960a
Village agriculture in Viti Levu, Fiji, New Zealand Geographer 16(1): 33–56.
1960b
(with M. Chapman) Forestry and forest industries, in R.G. Ward and M.W. Ward (eds), New Zealand’s industrial potential, Auckland: New Zealand Geographical Society, pp. 56–74, 179.
1960c
(Ed. with M.W. Ward) New Zealand’s industrial potential, Auckland: New Zealand Geographical Society.
1960d
Captain Alexander Maconochie, R.N., K.H., 1787–1860, Geographical Journal 126(4): 459–468.
1960e
Recent population trends in the Southwest Pacific, New Zealand Geographical Society Auckland Branch Newsletter 2: 1–3.
1961a
A note on population movements in the Cook Islands, Journal of the Polynesian Society 70(l): 1–10.
1961b
Islands of the South Pacific, London: Educational Supply Association (1965 2nd edition; 1969 3rd edition; Ward Lock and Co., London.)
1961c
Internal migration in Fiji, Journal of the Polynesian Society 70(3): 257–271.
1962a
(with B.H. Farrell) The village and its agriculture, in J.W. Fox and K.B. Cumberland (eds), Western Samoa: land, life and agriculture in tropical Polynesia, Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs, pp. 177–238.
1962b
Agriculture outside the village and commercial systems, in J.W. Fox and K.B. Cumberland (eds), Western Samoa: land, life and agriculture in tropical Polynesia, Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs, pp. 266–289.
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1962c
A regional view of Samoan agriculture, in J.W. Fox and K.B. Cumberland (eds), Western Samoa: land, life and agriculture in tropical Polynesia, Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs, pp. 290–309.
1963
Land use map, Viti Levu, Fiji, 1:250,000, London: Directorate of Overseas Surveys. Reprinted 1976.
1964a
Land use map, Vanua Levu, Fiji, 1:250,000, London: Directorate of Overseas Surveys. Reprinted 1976.
1964b
Cash cropping and the Fijian village, Geographical Journal 130(4): 484–506.
1964c
Rural Fijians’ income from export crops, Pacific Viewpoint 5(l): 69–74.
1965
Land use and population in Fiji: a geographical study, London: H.M.S.O.
1966–67 (Ed.) American activities in the central Pacific, 1790–1870, Ridgewood (New Jersey): Gregg Press Inc. (Vol. 1, 1966; Vols. 2–8, 1967). 1967
The consequences of smallness in Polynesia, in B. Benedict (ed.), Problems of smaller territories, London: Athlone Press, pp. 80–96.
1968a
An intelligence report on Sandalwood, Journal of Pacific History 3: 178–180.
1968b
Reshaping New Guinea’s geography, Inaugural lecture, University of Papua and New Guinea, Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea (Reprinted in 1969 in Bulletin (Geographical Society of New South Wales) 1(2): 9–15).
1969a
Land use and land alienation in Fiji to 1885, Journal of Pacific History 4: 3–25. (Shorter version reprinted in The history of Melanesia. Proceedings of the second Waigani seminar, Port Moresby and Canberra: University of Papua and New Guinea and The Australian National University, pp. 253–264).
1969b
(with M. Levison, T.I. Fenner, W.A. Sentance, and J.W. Webb) A model of accidental drift voyaging in the Pacific Ocean with applications to the Polynesia colonization problem, Information Processing 68: 1521–1526.
1971a
(Ed. with D.A.M. Lea) An atlas of Papua New Guinea, Glasgow: Department of Geography, University of Papua and New Guinea and Collins-Longman.
1971b
(with A.V. Surmon) Port Moresby 1970, Port Moresby: Department of Geography Occasional Paper No. 1, University of Papua New Guinea. (Revised and extended editions, 1972 and 1973.)
1971c
Internal migration and urbanisation in Papua New Guinea, New Guinea Research Bulletin 42: 81–107. (Reprinted in 1977 in R. May (ed.), Change and movement: readings on internal migration in Papua New Guinea, Canberra: Australian National University Press, pp. 27–51.)
1972a
(with M. Levison and J.W. Webb) The settlement of Polynesia: a report on a computer simulation, Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 7(3): 234–245.
1972b
(Ed.) Man in the Pacific Islands, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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1972c
The Pacific beˆche-de-mer trade with special reference to Fiji, in R.G. Ward (ed.), Man in the Pacific Islands, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 91–123.
1973a
Papua New Guinea, in Committee for the World Atlas of Agriculture (ed.), World atlas of agriculture vol 2: Asia and Oceania, Novara: Istituto Geografico De Agostini, pp. 654–661.
1973b
(with D.J. Pannett and D. Thomas) Farm patterns in the Stiperstones Mining District: I. Field method and historical analysis, Field Studies 3(5): 763–782.
1973c
(with M. Levison and J.W. Webb) The settlement of Polynesia: a computer simulation, Minneapolis and Canberra: University of Minnesota Press and The Australian National University Press.
1973d
(with J.W. Webb and M. Levison) The settlement of the Polynesian outliers: a computer simulation, Journal of the Polynesian Society 82(4): 330–342. (Reprinted in 1976 in B.R. Finney (ed.), Pacific navigation and voyaging, Wellington: Polynesian Society, pp. 57–68.)
1973e
Urbanisation in the Pacific facts and policies, in R. May (ed.), Priorities in Melanesian development. Proceedings of the sixth Waigani seminar, Port Moresby and Canberra: University of Papua New Guinea and The Australian National University, pp. 362– 372.
1974a
The new New Guinea: constraints and opportunities, (Fifth Griffith Taylor Memorial Lecture), Australian Geographer 12(6): 497–509.
1974b
(with M.W. Ward) An economic survey of west Kalimantan, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 10(3): 26–53.
1975a
(with D.A.M. Lea, and N. Clark) Geographers in Papua New Guinea: A preliminary bibliography, Australian Geographer 13(1): 104–145.
1975b
A comment on obligations in migration research, in R.J. Pryor (ed.), The motivation of migration: proceedings of a seminar on internal migration in Asia and the Pacific, Canberra: Studies in Migration and Urbanization No. 1, Department of Demography, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, pp. 22–24.
1975c
(with D. Howlett, C.C. Kissling and H.C. Weinand) Area improvement and mobile services in Papua New Guinea: a proposal, Proceedings of the International Geographical Union regional conference and eighth New Zealand Geography conference, 1974, Palmerston North: International Geographical Union, pp. 125–131.
1976
(with J.A. Ballard) In their own image: Australia’s impact on Papua New Guinea and lessons for future aid, Australian Outlook 30(3): 439–458.
1977a
(with D.W. Drakakis-Smith and T.G. McGee) Interim report on stores and markets in Vila and Santo, January–February 1976, Canberra: Department of Human Geography, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University.
1977b
(with J.W. Webb and M. Levison) The settlement of Polynesia: drift or navigation? A computer simulation, Sovetskaya Etnografiya 4: 29–43. (In Russian.)
1977c
Australia in the Pacific Islands, in D.N. Jeans (ed.), Australia: a geography, Sydney:
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University of Sydney Press, pp. 543–557. (Revised edition, in D. Jeans (ed.), Space and society: Australia a geography, Vol. 2, Sydney: University of Sydney Press, pp. 385–399.) 1978a
(with D. Howlett, C.C. Kissling and H.C. Weinand) Maket raun: The introduction of periodic markets to Papua New Guinea, in R.H.T. Smith (ed.), Market-place trade periodic markets, hawkers, and traders in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, Vancouver: Centre for Transportation Studies, University of British Columbia, pp. 99–111.
1978b
After the ‘Ball’ is over, in P.J. Rimmer, D.W. Drakakis–Smith and T.G. McGee (eds), Food, shelter and transport in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Canberra: Department of Human Geography Publication HG/12, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, pp. 275–277.
1979a
(with H.C. Weinand) Area preferences in Papua New Guinea, Australian Geographical Studies 17(l): 64–75.
1979b
(with D.W. Drakakis-Smith and T.G. McGee) Food distribution, self-reliance and development in the New Hebrides, in W. Moran, P. Hosking and G. Aitken (eds), Proceedings of tenth New Zealand geography conference and forty-ninth ANZAAS congress (geographical sciences), Christchurch: N.Z. Geographical Society Conference Series No. 10, pp. 208–211.
1980a
Migration, myth and magic in Papua New Guinea, Australian Geographical Studies 18(2): 119–134.
1980b
(with M.W. Ward) The rural–urban connection a missing link in Melanesia, Malaysian Journal of Tropical Geography 1(1): 57–63.
1980c
(with T.G. McGee and D. Drakakis-Smith) Food distribution in the New Hebrides, Canberra and Suva: Development Studies Centre Monograph No. 25, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, and University of South Pacific Centre for Applied Studies in Development.
1980d
(Ed. with A. Proctor) South Pacific agriculture: choices and constraints. South Pacific agricultural survey 1979, Manila and Canberra: Asian Development Bank and Australian National University Press.
1980e
The environmental context, in R.G. Ward and A. Proctor (eds), South Pacific agriculture: choices and constraints. South Pacific agricultural survey 1979, Manila and Canberra: Asian Development Bank and Australian National University Press, pp. 3–25.
1980f
(with E. Hau’ofa) The demographic and dietary contexts, in R.G. Ward and A. Proctor (eds), South Pacific agriculture: choices and constraints. South Pacific agricultural survey 1979, Manila and Canberra: Asian Development Bank and Australian National University Press, pp. 27–48.
1980g
(with E. Hau’ofa) The social context, in R.G. Ward and A. Proctor (eds), South Pacific agriculture: choices and constraints. South Pacific agricultural survey 1979, Manila and Canberra: Asian Development Bank and Australian National University Press, pp. 49–71.
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1980h
(with A.S. Proctor) The political context, in R.G. Ward and A. Proctor (eds), South Pacific agriculture: choices and constraints. South Pacific agricultural survey 1979, Manila and Canberra: Asian Development Bank and Australian National University Press, pp. 137–155.
1980i
(with E. Hau’ofa, A.S. Proctor and D.E. Yen) Other infrastructural conditions, in R.G. Ward and A. Proctor (eds), South Pacific agriculture: choices and constraints. South Pacific agricultural survey 1979, Manila and Canberra: Asian Development Bank and Australian National University Press, pp. 181–193.
1980j
(with L.V. Castle) Kiribati, in R.G. Ward and A. Proctor (eds), South Pacific agriculture: choices and constraints. South Pacific agricultural survey 1979, Manila and Canberra: Asian Development Bank and Australian National University Press, pp. 353–367.
1980k
(with L.V. Castle) Tonga, in R.G. Ward and A. Proctor (eds), South Pacific agriculture: choices and constraints. South Pacific agricultural survey 1979, Manila and Canberra: Asian Development Bank and Australian National University Press, pp. 381–394.
1980l
(with L.V. Castle) The Solomon Islands, in R.G. Ward and A. Proctor (eds), South Pacific agriculture: choices and constraints. South Pacific agricultural survey 1979, Manila and Canberra: Asian Development Bank and Australian National University Press, pp. 407–420.
1980m
(with L.V. Castle) Fiji, in R.G. Ward and A. Proctor (eds), South Pacific agriculture: choices and constraints. South Pacific agricultural survey 1979, Manila and Canberra: Asian Development Bank and Australian National University Press, pp. 421–429.
1980n
(with D.E. Yen) Regional Prospects, in R.G. Ward and A. Proctor (eds), South Pacific agriculture: choices and constraints. South Pacific agricultural survey 1979, Manila and Canberra: Asian Development Bank and Australian National University Press, pp. 451–460.
1980o
Plus c¸a change ... plantations, tenants, proletarians or peasants in Fiji, in J.N. Jennings and G.J.R. Linge (eds), Of time and place, Canberra: Australian National University Press, pp. 134–152.
1980p
(with B.J. Allen) The viability of floating coconuts, Science in New Guinea 7(2): 69– 72.
1980q
Agricultural options for the Pacific Islands, in R.T. Shand (ed.), The island states of the Pacific and Indian oceans: anatomy of development, Canberra: Development Studies Centre Monograph No. 23, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, pp. 23–39. (Reprinted in N.A. Shilo and A.V. Lozhkin (eds), Ecology and environmental protection in the Pacific region, Moscow: Publishing Office ‘Nauka’ and UNEP, 1982, pp. 188–201.)
1980r
Highlights of discussion, in R. Chandra (ed.), Food distribution systems in the South Pacific, Canberra and Suva: Development Studies Centre, and University of the South Pacific Centre for Applied Studies in Development, pp. 7–11.
1981a
Decision makers in migration Papua New Guinea, Population Geography 3(1–2): 69– 76.
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1981b
(with G.W. Jones) Rural labour shortages in Southeast Asia and the Pacific: a review of the evidence, in G.W. Jones and H.V. Richter (eds), Population mobility and development: Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Canberra: Development Studies Centre Monograph No. 27, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, pp. 387–405.
1982a
Les dilemmes de l’agriculture dans le Pacifique Sud, L’Espace Ge´ographique 11(4): 269–280.
1982b
The Pacific Islands in the 21st century: land, people, agriculture, Journal of the Pacific Society 14: 6–20. [Japanese translation 36–44.]
1982c
Dilemmas in South Pacific agriculture, The South Pacific Journal of Natural Science 3: 9–30.
1982d
Closing address, The South Pacific Journal of Natural Science 3: 134–141.
1984a
Production or management where is the problem? Pacific Viewpoint 25(2): 212–217.
1984b
Agriculture, size and distance in South Pacific Island futures, in T.J. Hearn, G.M. Broad and J.D. Campbell, (eds), XV Pacific Science Congress Formal Proceedings, Dunedin: Royal Society of New Zealand, pp. 103–109. (Reprinted in A.L. Dahl and J. Carew-Reid (eds), Environment and resources in the Pacific, New York: UNEP Regional Seas Reports and Studies No. 69, 1985, pp. 19–27.)
1985a
On Cooke’s Second Law, Area 17(4): 322–324.
1985b
(with H.C. Brookfield and F. Ellis) Land cane and coconuts: papers on the rural economy of Fiji, Canberra: Department of Human Geography Publication HG/17, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University.
1985c
Land, land use and land availability in Fiji, in H.C. Brookfield, F.E. Ellis and R.G. Ward, Land, cane and coconuts: papers on the rural economy of Fiji, Canberra: Department of Human Geography Publication HG/17, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, pp. 15–64.
1986a
Reflections on Pacific Island agriculture in the late 20th century, Journal of Pacific History 21(4): 217–226. (Reprinted in H.J. Buchholz (ed.) New Approaches to development co-operation with South Pacific countries, Saarbrucken: Verlag Breitenbach, Papers of the Institute for International Relations, 11, 1987, pp. 129– 137.)
1986b
Change in land use and villages Fiji: 1958–1983, Symposium U.G.I. No. 33, Developpement Rural dans les Pays Tropicaux, Bordeaux 22–24 August 1984, Travaux et Documents de Ge´ographie Tropicale, Centre d’Etudes de Ge´ographie Tropicale, 55, pp. 109–120.
1987
Native Fijian villages: a questionable future?, in M. Taylor (ed.), Fiji: future imperfect, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, pp. 33–45. (Revised version in R. Crocombe and M. Meleisea (eds), Land issues in the Pacific, Christchurch and Suva: University of Canterbury and University of the South Pacific, pp. 133–144.)
1988a
L’utilisation du sol a` Fidji, in B. Antheaume and J. Bonnemaison (eds), Atlas des Iles et Etats du Pacifique Sud, Montpelier and Paris: GIP Reclus, pp. 76–77.
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1988b
(Ed. with M. Brookfield) New directions in the South Pacific: a message for Australia, Canberra: Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.
1988c
The future role of agricultural research in the South Pacific, in International Service for National Agricultural Research (INSAR) (ed.), The planning and management of agricultural research in the South Pacific, (Report of a Workshop held in Alafua, Western Samoa, 5–16 October 1987), The Hague: ISNAR, pp. 33–39.
1989a
Earth’s empty quarter? The Pacific Islands in the Pacific century, Geographical Journal 155(2): 235–246.
1989b
(with J. Overton) The coups in retrospect: the new political geography of Fiji, Pacific Viewpoint 30(2): 207–216.
1990a
Contract labor recruitment from the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, 1950–1974, International Migration Review 24(2): 273–296.
1990b
Guest Editor’s introduction, Regional Development Dialogue 11(4) iii–vii.
1990c
Subnational development in Pacific Island countries: a dimension forgotten? Regional Development Dialogue 11(4): 1–17.
1990d
Introduction to O.H.K. Spate, ‘Thirty years ago: a view of the Fijian political scene’, Journal of Pacific History 25(1):103–104.
1991
Introductory address – culture and development: issues for island countries, in UNESCO, Culture des ˆıles et de´veloppement (Islands’ culture and development), Paris: United Nations, pp. 19–33.
1992a
(with M. Brookfield) The dispersal of the coconut: did it float or was it carried to Panama? Journal of Biogeography 19(5): 467–480.
1992b
Pacific Island land tenure: an overview of practices and issues, in D.G. Malcolm and J. Skog (eds), Land, culture & development in the aquatic continent: cultural values in the age of technology, Kihei: Kapalua Pacific Center, pp. 29–40.
1992c
Summary of land tenure issues, in D.G. Malcolm and J. Skog (eds), Land, culture & development in the aquatic continent: cultural values in the age of technology, Kihei: Kapalua Pacific Center, pp. 261–263.
1993
South Pacific island futures: paradise, prosperity, or pauperism? The Contemporary Pacific 5(1): 1–21. (Reprinted in Land tenure in the Pacific Islands: selected readings, Kihei: Kapalua Pacific Center, 1992, pp. 49–57.)
1994
Davidson’s contributions to the ‘Admiralty Handbooks’, Journal of Pacific History 29(2): 238–240.
1995a
Deforestation in Western Samoa, Pacific Viewpoint 36(1): 73–93.
1995b
The shape of tele–cost worlds: The Pacific Island case, in A.D. Cliff, P.R. Gould, A.G. Hoare, and N.J. Thrift (eds), Diffusing geography: essays for Peter Haggett, Oxford: Blackwell, Special Publication Series No. 31, Institute of British Geographers, pp. 221– 240. (Revised and shortened version in Development Bulletin 37, 1996, pp. 41–47.)
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1995c
(Eds. R.G. Ward and E. Kingdon) Land, custom and practice in the South Pacific, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1995d
Land, law and custom: diverging realities in Fiji, in R.G. Ward and E.B. Kingdon (eds), Land, custom and practice in the South Pacific, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 198–249.
1995e
(with E.B. Kingdon) Introduction, in R.G. Ward and E.B. Kingdon (eds), Land, custom and practice in the South Pacific, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–6.
1995f
(with E.B. Kingdon) Land use and tenure: some comparisons, in R.G. Ward and E.B. Kingdon (eds), Land, custom and practice in the South Pacific, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 7–35.
1995g
(with E.B. Kingdon) Land tenure in the Pacific Islands, in R.G. Ward and E.B. Kingdon (eds), Land, custom and practice in the South Pacific, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 36–64.
1995h
(with A. Hooper) Beyond the breathing space, in R.G. Ward and E.B. Kingdon (eds), Land, custom and practice in the South Pacific, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 251–264.
1995i
(with J. Bonnemaison, J. Overton, B. Antheaume, R. Lawrence and J–F. Dupon) Au sein de la culture oce´anienne, in M. Bruneau, C. Taillard, B. Antheaume, J. Bonnemaison (eds), Asie du Sud–Est, Oce´anie, Paris: Belin/Reclus, pp. 388–411.
1997a
(with R. Chandra) Fidji, un nouveau de´part. De´veloppement et proble`me ethnique, Revue Tiers Monde 38(149): 157–176.
1997b
Expanding worlds of Oceania: implications of migration, in K. Sudo and S. Yoshida (eds), Contemporary migration in Oceania: diaspora and network, Josaka: CAS Symposium Series No. 3, The Japan Center for Area Studies, National Museum of Ethnology, pp. 179–196.
1997c
Land tenure, in D. Denoon et.al. (eds) The Cambridge history of the Pacific Islanders, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 90–96.
1997d
Changing forms of communal tenure, in P. Larmour (ed.), The governance of common property in the Pacific Region, Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, Pacific Policy Paper No. 19, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, pp. 19–32.
1997e
Land tenure: the gap between law, customs and practice, in Asian Development Bank, Sociocultural issues and economic development in the Pacific Islands, Manila: Vol. II, Asian Development Bank, pp. 39–48.
1997f
Land in Fiji, in B.V. Lal and T.R. Vakatora (eds), Fiji in transition, Suva: Research Papers of the Fiji Constitution Review Commission, Vol 1, School of Social and Economic Development, University of the South Pacific, pp. 247–258.
1998a
Remote runways: air transport and distance in Tonga, Australian Geographical Studies 36(2): 177–186.
1998b
Urban research in the Pacific Islands: a brief review, Development Bulletin 45: 22–26.
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No 2
1998c
Land tenure, in R. Chandra and K. Mason (eds), An atlas of Fiji, Suva: University of the South Pacific, pp. 92–97.
1998d
(with E. Young and C. Hunt) The environment, traditional production and population, in G. Thompson (ed.), Economic dynamism in the Asia–Pacific: the growth of integration and competitiveness, Milton Keynes: Open University Press, pp. 303–334.
1998e
(with D. Denoon and G. Ward) Pacific Island studies, in Knowing ourselves and others: the Humanities in Australia into the 21st century, Vol. 2, Canberra: Australian Research Council, pp. 209–214.
1998f
Polynesie: divisions et identite´s, in D. Tryon and P. de Deckker (eds), Identitie´s en mutation dans le Pacifique a` l’aube du troisie`me mille´naire, Bordeaux: Centre de Recherches sur les Espaces Tropicaux de l’Unversite´ Michel de Montaigne, pp. 21–33.
1998g
The link with land: questions about change, in D. Guillaud, M. Seysset and A. Walter (eds), Le voyage inacheve´ a` Joe¨l Bonnemaison, Paris: E´ditions de l’ORSTOM and PRODIG, pp. 521–525.
1998h
The 1950s – professional and personal recollections, in A. Fowler and H-K Yoon (eds), Celebrating fifty years: Department of Geography in the City of Sails, Auckland: Occasional Publication No. 39, Department of Geography, University of Auckland, pp. 60–63.
1998i
(with P. Ashcroft) Samoa: mapping the diversity, Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, Suva and National University of Samoa.
Major Consultancy Reports 1973
Structure and landforms; Population, in Preliminary regional survey for road network identification in Kalimantan Barat Indonesia, Volume 2: Environment and population, Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation [Cooma]. Client: Government of Australia, pp. 5–7, 22–68.
1974
(with N. Clark, D. Howlett, C.C. Kissling and H.C. Weinand) Growth centres and area improvement in the Eastern Highlands District: a Report to the Central Planning Office, Papua New Guinea, Department of Human Geography, The Australian National University, Canberra. Client: Central Planning Office, Government of Papua New Guinea.
1974
(with D. Howlett, C.C. Kissling and H.C. Weinand) Maket raun pilot project feasibility study, a report to the Central Planning Office, Papua New Guinea, Department of Human Geography, The Australian National University, Canberra. Client: Central Planning Office, Government of Papua New Guinea.
1979
Pacific Island choices: rural limits and opportunities. Client: Asian Development Bank.
1981
(with M.W. Ward) South Pacific special area study, ESCAP Special Study on Food Supply and Distribution Systems. Client: ESCAP.
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Quintessential Pacific geographer
1986
(with M.W. Ward) The development of Social Science in the National University of Samoa. Client: National University of Samoa.
1991
(with Unku Aziz and Te’o Fairbairn) Report of the Committee to Review the University of the South Pacific. Client: Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation.
1991
Data on the subsistence sector, Western Samoa, Vols. 1 and 2. Client: South Pacific Forum Secretariat.
1995
(with M. Perkinson and C. Aikman) Fiscal Strategic Plan for the National University of Samoa. Client: National University of Samoa.
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