By Patrick Dunagan and Sherise Kimura. With thanks to Nicky Andrews.
In recognition of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we bring to your attention a number of academic journals via Journal Finder offering a range of coverage focused on the history, art, culture, traditions, and achievements of Pacific Islanders, as well as social, environmental, economic, and political topics. Many articles in these journals are written by indigenous scholars and authors. The library subscribes to some of these journals, while others are open access and freely available.
The Contemporary Pacific: A Journal of Island Affairs (available from 2000 in Project Muse; for older issues see Journal Finder results). The Contemporary Pacific draws together articles covering contemporary issues impacting the entire Pacific Islands region, including Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. An especially striking feature in each issue is the highlighting of a Pacific Islander artist. The most recent issue looks at Jasmine Togo-Brisby while also taking a critical survey of “Schooling Journeys in the Southwestern Pacific.”
Journal of Pacific History (available from 1997 in Taylor & Francis, while JSTOR holdings extend back to the first issue published in 1966). The journal offers insights valuable to historians, prehistorians, anthropologists, and others focused upon the Pacific Islands (including Hawai‘i and New Guinea), and the general concerns of all humankind living in the region. While also welcoming “articles on other geographical regions, such as Africa and Southeast Asia, or of a theoretical character, where these are concerned with problems of significance in the Pacific.” The most recent issue includes “Remembrance of Pacific Pasts” a review forum considering the thornier questions facing those writing historically about the area: “How is this research to be conducted? By whom? For what purposes? Whose voices, whose stories, whose perspectives are to be prioritized?”
Pacific Historical Review (available from 2000 in UC Press, while JSTOR holdings extend back to the first issue published in 1932). The Pacific Historical Review takes a broad look, covering all of the American West along with the peoples and cultures of the Pacific world, including Asia, Latin America, and beyond. Encompassing “cross-cultural and comparative studies, race and ethnicity, the history of empire and imperialism, environmental history, gender and sexuality, and other germane topics.”
Hawaiian Journal of History (available from 2015 in Project Muse, back issues are made available open access after five years have passed). The Hawaiian Journal of History contains articles on the history of Hawai‘i, Polynesia, and the Pacific area. The coverage of topics is quite broad. The most recent issue includes “Incarcerating a Nation: The Arrest and Imprisonment of Political Prisoners by the Republic of Hawai‘i, 1895”. Every issue also contains a number of book reviews relevant to Hawaiian historical studies.
Journal of the Polynesian Society (available from its 1892 inception in JSTOR with new issues becoming available after four years have passed, as well as being open access up to 2016). Journal of the Polynesian Society publishes a wide-ranging array of scholarly articles reflecting upon “past and present lives and cultures of peoples of Pacific/Oceanic heritage, including those of the traditional cultural areas of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.” Covered subject areas include “social anthropology, archaeology, history, ethnology, Māori and Pacific Studies, museum and material culture studies, linguistics and biological anthropology.”
Te Kaharoa: the e-Journal on Indigenous Pacific Issues (open access). Te Kaharoa is an electronic journal looking at indigenous issues in the Pacific region. Hosted by Te Ara Poutama (the Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Development) at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. Articles cover a diverse array of academic areas, including but not limited to, “language, culture, art, history, anthropology, development studies, and other disciplines associated with the indigenous peoples of the Pacific.” Emphasis is placed upon providing “a forum for the publication of original research which helps to expand the knowledge of the indigenous peoples and cultures of the Pacific.”
Pacific Asia Inquiry (open access). Issued by The University of Guam College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Pacific Asia Inquiry is an annual peer-reviewed online journal that embraces scholarly work encompassing a vast number of topics covering the larger Pacific Asia Region as a whole. The central theme is consideration of the region’s “intense cultural, political and economic interaction with other world regions.” Multidisciplinary to its core, recent articles include: “Effects of Colonization on the Music of Chamorro Culture: Transformation and Adaptation”, “Wave Riding in Cultural Contexts: He‘e Nalu, Surfing, Film and Discourse,” and “Teaching Women’s Histories in Oceania: Weaving in Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Being within the Relational Mat of Academic Discourse.”
Image: Queen Emma (Emma Kalanikaumakaʻamano Kaleleonālani Naʻea Rooke). Hawaii album, p. 3, portraits of the Hawaiian royal family., ca. 1880. [Photograph]. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2016651375/.