The Pacific Post

When considering how to trigger interest for Sciences Po students whilst covering the most noteworthy subjects, ones we are most used to tackling in class seems like an obvious choice. Not only is the Pacific usually a pertinent choice of example in many domains, but this will allow students to test their knowledge and analytical skills on cases they have perhaps never heard of before. Hence, we would like to showcase articles on politics (governance issues, innovations, pertinent elections etc.), international relations (with regions we are already familiar with, seeing how strategic Oceania is becoming), law (looking at historically inherited specificities deriving from polynesian tribal culture), the pre-colonial and colonial histories, and the economic issues of the region. Looking at the overarching goal of this project, we can see that the artistic and cultural dimension of the Pacific is crucial to it’s understanding. Hence, some artistic subjects that will be touched upon are culture as a whole (diving into practices, ceremonies, different customs and spirituality), music (as it is plays a key role in the identity and history of the Pacific), and other art forms (dance, tattooing, sculpting, fashion etc.). For instance, it’s fun to see a Spotify barcode to scan on the newspaper in order to access a curated playlist of songs of the Pacific in different languages…