Seminar Series

Manuhia Barcham is attached to Synexe, a development consulting firm with operations across the Asia-Pacific region. Previous to this he was the foundation Director of the Centre for Indigenous Governance and Development at Massey University, New Zealand. Francis Hutchinson was awarded a PhD by the Policy and Governance Program of the Australian National University. He has carried out applied research on issues such as governance, state effectiveness, decentralisation, anti-corruption, capacity development and social policy for AusAID, the World Bank, UNICEF, and UNESCO.

Nick Bainton: ‘Personal Viability: The “Complete Idiots Guide to” Possessive Individualistm’. John Charles Cox: ‘Financing the End Time Harvest: Pyramid Schemes and Prosperity Gospels’. Anthony Regan: ‘Challenging the State: U-Vistract and Alternative Governments and Economies in Bougainville’. Nick Bainton is currently a Research Officer in the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (CSRM), in the Sustainable Minerals Institute, at The University of Queensland. His position is part of a three year partnership between CSRM and the Lihir Gold Mine in Papua New Guinea. In the past year he has worked on a range of projects including social impact monitoring and research, community relations training, the development and implementation of a cultural heritage program, and the coordination of baseline research for the Lihir Education Plan (a major multi-year initiative that forms a key part of the Lihir Sustainable Development Plan – the revised Integrated Benefits Package between the mining company, the State and the people of Lihir). Nick spends around 50 percent of his time on Lihir and the balance at CSRM. John Cox is a PhD candidate at the school of Philosophy, Anthropology and Social Inquiry at the University of Melbourne. His thesis explores questions of money, religion and development in Melanesia through an examination of pyramid schemes and their links to churches and other groups in Papua New Guinea. John has some ten years experience of working in the Pacific in a variety of roles including NGO program manager, consultant and researcher. Anthony Regan a Fellow in the SSGM Program, is a constitutional lawyer who has lived and worked in Papua New Guinea and Uganda for nearly 20 years. He has been an adviser to the Bougainville parties to the Bougainville peace process, and is currently an adviser to the Autonomous Bougainville Government.

Anthony Regan, a Fellow in the SSGM Program, is a constitutional lawyer who has lived and worked in Papua New Guinea and Uganda for nearly 20 years. He has been an adviser to the Bougainville parties to the Bougainville peace process, and is currently an adviser to the Autonomous Bougainville Government.

Mike Bourke is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at ANU. He is a specialist in PNG food production and village agricultural systems and has been continuously involved in research and development work in PNG since 1970. He has conducted research on aspects of poverty in rural PNG for over a decade. He has edited and written 10 books or conference proceedings and has written over 200 papers on aspects of agriculture in PNG.

Anthony Regan, a Fellow in the SSGM Program, is a constitutional lawyer who has lived and worked in Papua New Guinea and Uganda for nearly 20 years. He has been an adviser to the Bougainville parties to the Bougainville peace process, and is currently an adviser to the Autonomous Bougainville Government.

completed his PhD in Anthropology at RSPAS in 2004, and a postdoctoral term in Crawford School, on Melanesian governance the following year. He is currently working as a rural development and governance consultant.

is Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Public Health, The University of Sydney, and editor of Gun Policy News. Previously a Senior Fellow in small arms research at the Harvard Injury Control Research Centre, Harvard School of Public Health, he is accredited to the United Nations Programme of Action on the Illicit Trafficking in Small Arms (UNPoA) where he acts as an advisor to government delegations.

is currently the Director of Political Affairs in the Prime Minister’s office (Sikua Government). From 2006 to 2007 he served as Special Secretary to the Prime Minister (Sogavare Government). From 1989 to 1997 Sam was a Member of Parliament for the West Kwara’ae Electorate. He is currently finalising his new book “A Political History of Solomon Islands” which hopefully would be published in 2009.

Peacebuilding Compared is led by John Braithwaite, Hilary Charlesworth and Leah Dunn with Valerie Braithwaite one of many other people who will also hopefully become increasingly involved. The project will run for 20 years and hopes to code and compare 60 cases of peacebuilding after armed conflict. The Melanesian cases are Bougainville, Solomon Islands and Papua (Indonesia). One might say Timor Leste and Maluku are also partially Melanesian cases. A first draft case has finally been produced on Papua. Its findings will be briefly discussed in a way that compares them with other cases. The Papua case will also be used to describe the method of Peacebuilding Compared. John and Valerie Braithwaite completed fieldwork for the case in Jayapura, Timika, Wamena and the Highlands and Jakarta in December 2007, with a few final interviews to be completed with exiled leaders in the Netherlands and Sweden next month.

Dr Wolfgang Thumser is a Lutheran Pastor of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Bavaria (Germany). He has been working since 2000 in Papua New Guinea as a lecturer at the Senior Flierl Seminary Logaweng, Finschhafen, an institution of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea. Currently he is a Visiting Fellow with, State, Society, and Governance in Melanesia in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University.

Clive Moore is author of Happy Isles in Crisis: The Historical Causes for a failing State in Solomon Islands, 1998–2004 (Canberra 2004).

Steffen Dalsgaard is a PhD student at the University of Aarhus and at present a visiting scholar with the Dept. of Anthropology, RSPAS, ANU. ` He is writing his thesis on conceptualisations of State and Leadership in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea, for which he has done fieldwork on vil lage governance, provincial administration and the national parliamentary elections in 2007."

Lynda Newland is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology who has studied Christian Churches in relation to Fijian identity since 2001 when she first taught at the University of the South Pacific (USP) in Fiji. She returned to USP in 2005 and has lived in Fiji since. Aside from Christianity, politics and indigenous identity in Fiji, Lynda is currently also researching kava consumption across Fiji Islands. Lynda may be contacted at newland_l@usp.ac.fj

Maj Nygaard-Christensenis is a PhD student from the Department of Anthropology at Aarhus University in Denmark, visiting RSPAS until the end of May 2008. Her fieldwork was conducted in Timor Leste between February and December 2007, during the time of the presidential and parliamentary elections. The PhD focuses on the shaping of ideals about political leadership and power. [maj.nygaard-christensen@anu.edu.au]

Jon Fraenkel is a Research Fellow in the State, Society & Governance in Melanesia Program, Research School of Asian and Pacific Studies at The Australian National University.

Jonathan Schultz is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at the University of Melbourne. His research topic is the making of Australian policies towards the Pacific states since 1980.

Susanna Barnes is a Field Researcher working on the ARC Project \'Waiting for Law: Land, Custom and Legal Regulation in East Timor. She has a background in History, Spanish and Anthropology of Development. Previously Susana has worked as an Adviser to the Reception, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CAVR) in East Timor and for Jesuit Refugee Service in East Timor and Rome Adérito Soares is a PhD scholar in the Centre for International Governance and Justice, RegNET. He holds a bachelor of law degree from Satya Wacana University in Indonesia and a Master of Law from New York University. Prior to the 1999 referendum, Adérito worked for human rights NGOs in Indonesia. He returned to Timor- Leste in 1999, actively campaigning for independence and worked for several NGOs in Timor-Leste. In 2001 he was elected to East Timor’s Constituent Assembly and was instrumental in drafting East Timor’s first constitution. From 2003 to 2007 he worked for various national and international NGOs in Timor; as a consultant to the UN; and a law lecturer at Timor’s university. He has published extensively on Timor-Leste and Indonesia and is regularly interviewed as a commentator on Timor-Leste by international media. Hugh White is the Professor of Strategic Studies and the Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University. Before taking up that position he was the first Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), an independent non-partisan centre established by the Australian Government to provide fresh ideas about Australia\'s strategic and defence policy choices.

researches the social science of fisheries, especially tuna fisheries in the Asia Pacific region, using methods from anthropology, history and politics. Her PhD project was an ethnography of a Solomon Islands-Japanese joint venture tuna fishing and canning company. Since then she has done a comparative study of governance of southern bluefin tuna fisheries in Japan and Australia, an analysis of economic development opportunities using tuna resources in PNG, Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Fiji and Cook Islands, and her most recent project is a modern history of northeast Asian fisheries interactions. Kate teaches in the International Studies program at the University of Technology Sydney.

a Fellow in the SSGM Program, is a constitutional lawyer who has lived and worked in Papua New Guinea and Uganda for nearly 20 years. He has been an adviser to the Bougainville parties to the Bougainville peace process, and is currently an adviser to the Autonomous Bougainville Government.