Between Knowledges: Pacific Studies and Academic Disciplines

In this paper, I critically examine a number of notions about interdisciplinaryresearch approaches to the challenges posed by the world today. I juxtapose thiscritique with a discussion of interdisciplinary developments in Pacific studies, rais-ing questions as to how deeper dialogues between academic disciplines and theworldviews of Pacific Islanders may be reached. While interdisciplinarity is widelyseen as a politically correct agenda for contemporary research on processes ofglobalization and development, caution is needed against prevailing optimismabout the potential for solving multidisciplinary problems through interdiscipli-nary innovation. Such optimism may overrate the potentials of broad (as opposedto deep) research approaches and may reflect disregard, if not arrogance, towardthe complexity of the matters addressed. The drive in some European countriesfor research on “sustainable development” indicates close ties between interdis-ciplinary aspirations and the bureaucratic ambitions of research administrators.Under such circumstances interdisciplinarity becomes an object of institutional hviding •pacific studies and academic disciplines73 conflict and internal debate between institutions, as well as between bureaucratsand scientists, more than a question of creative epistemological contact betweenplural knowledges in and beyond academic disciplines in a search for increasedknowledge more generally. The avoidance of such pitfalls in the further develop-ment of Pacific studies requires close attention to and appreciation of initiativesfrom within Oceania, coming from beyond the domains of conventional disci-plines. In this paper, such paths toward interdisciplinarity are exemplified in a dis-cussion of epistemological encounters between Oceanic and western knowledges,and with reference to the emerging currents of “Native Pacific Cultural Studies.” keywords: anthropology, globalization, indigenous epistemologies, interdisci-plinarity, Pacific studies, research policy