The Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies offers research thesis programmes in MA and PhD as well as undergraduate courses.
(Please note that the information on this page is undergoing updates).
A Pacific Studies Master's degree is research-focused and offers students the opportunity to study contemporary and historic Pacific issues from a range of disciplinary backgrounds.
If you are interested in undertaking Master's study, please contact us to discuss your research interests.
Find out more about undertaking a Master of Arts (MA) at UC.
A Pacific Studies postgraduate degree offers students the opportunity to study contemporary and historic Pacific issues from a range of disciplinary backgrounds.
Eligibility
Prospective PhD scholars need to have achieved a minimum B average Master of Arts or have substantial experience in a relevant field.
How to apply
If you are interested in undertaking PhD study, please contact us to discuss your research interests and we can put you in touch with a potential supervisor.
Find out more about undertaking a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at UC.
The UC Pasifika Doctoral Scholarship is available to Pasifika students.
To apply for PhD funding at MBC complete the Application for PhD research related funding form.
See the Scholarships database for the full list of available UC scholarships.
These are forthcoming courses in 2024.
PACS111: The Global Pacific – Semester 1
Whakamahuki | Course Description:
This course provides a rich foundation of the history, diversity, and contemporary issues of the Pacific, including the diaspora of Pacific communities. Students will learn about Pacific Indigenous epistemologies, world views, cultures, knowledges, identities and experiences. Students will also explore key Pacific structures, systems, cultures and societies in the changing modern world. Pacific agency, the transnationalism of Pacific identity and critical contemporary issues of sustainability & innovation will provide essential knowledge for students that want to explore further into areas of inclusion, diversity, empowerment and positive transformation. Key Pacific community leaders will provide perspectives that have informed Pacific community experiences in Aotearoa, in the Pacific and beyond.
Course Rationale: The interdisciplinary nature of this course will provide students with a solid foundation of knowledge and skills to support their learning in all programs offered at UC. It also will help scaffold students who choose to pursue the 200 and 300 level suites of Pacific Studies courses. Key theoretical underpinnings, concepts and Pacific epistemologies will enrich students wanting to explore and build on their own cultural awareness, competencies and inclusive practices – related to the UC graduate attributes.
Key concepts: interdisciplinary; cultural competency and awareness; foundational knowledge and skills
PACS211: The Contemporary and Transnational Pacific – Semester 1
Whakamahuki | Course Description:
This course examines the contemporary interface of global forces that reconfigure the organisation of power within the Pacific. An exploration of transnational processes, paradigms and conceptualisations of the local, national, regional and global impacts will be explored with a critical lens of inclusion, diversity and empowerment. Students will analyse theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of global politics, education, health, wellbeing, employment, identity and power. Key research about Pacific community engagement and the economic relations between the islands, Aotearoa and the Pacific region will be supported by the perspectives of local and national Pacific community leaders.
Course Rationale: New Zealand’s place and space in the Pacific region is increasingly becoming important, geo-politically, culturally and historically. With this emerges significant contemporary issues relating to the region such as power dynamics, security, foreign aid, and climate change to name a few. Within New Zealand, the growing Pacific population can no longer be ignored, however much is still needed to be done to empower Pacific communities and provide opportunities that are long lasting, sustainable, and beneficial for the nation. Such realities, narratives, cleavages, and opportunities are only discussed on the surface level. This course provides the platform for these contemporary and transnational issues to be discussed, evaluated, analysed, and critiqued in-depth. It will be taught by a number of our Pacific academics from different disciplines, making this a multi and interdisciplinary course relevant for ALL students with valuable lessons for Arts, Science, Digital Screen, Law, Commerce and Engineering students. In addition, the content of this course contributes to UN’s SDGs in particular
Key concepts: Transnationalism, Global forces, Postcolonial, Power paradigms, Contemporary Pacific
PACS221: Pacific Sustainability and Climate Resilience – Semester 2
Whakamahuki | Course Description:
This course examines ways in which community-based and indigenous innovation have been used to build up strategies of adaptation and resilience in oceanic communities, focusing on the Pacific. Deconstructing the deficit narratives characterising the Pacific Islands as inherently susceptible and reconceptualising the concepts of resilience and sustainability for socio-ecological justice is a key component of this course. Through thousands of years of navigation around the largest ocean on the planet and adapting to extreme weather systems such as cyclones and other climate change induced calamities, Pacific peoples have developed a high level of human innovation and resilience, which have formed their cultural strategies for survival. Community and indigenous knowledge relating to buildings, adaptive social organization, food security, farming, environmental restoration, coastal management will be explored. The critical issues of sustainability, resilience and adaptation to climate change and other natural and human created challenges in the Pacific. The Pacific islands are at the forefront of extreme whether patters and their impacts and the course examines the ways in which indigenous knowledge, humanities, science and technology can work together to respond to the expanding and deepening environmental and human impacts.
Course Rationale: The course is interdisciplinary and links together different modes of knowledge, innovation and analysis which will enable students to have a deeper and broader understanding of sustainability in one of the largest geographical spaces and most culturally diverse area of the world—the Pacific. This course also provides students with an opportunity to discuss, analyse and critically engage with sustainability and climate resilience discourses, concepts, frameworks and narratives commonly used in academia, policy and the media. This course will connect with the cutting-edge Pacific Ocean and Climate Crisis Assessment (POCCA) research project will also contribute to connect the course with Pacific scholars from a variety of disciplines that would be contributing to the course as guest lecturers and speakers. This would allow students from a variety of field of studies (Natural Sciences Arts, Health, Community production and Economies, Politics, Agriculture, Social, Law, Engineering) to benefit from a multidisciplinary perspective on sustainability and resilience by exploring knowledge and learn
Key concepts: Pacific Indigenous Knowledge and technological/scientific innovation, sustainability, holistic solutions, human agency, interdisciplinary.
Programme objectives
- To develop a wider understanding of the Pacific Island region. This objective is based on the assumption that the level of scholarly awareness and understanding of the Pacific Islands within UC and in New Zealand generally is limited, especially in view of the fact that geographically and historically New Zealand is a Pacific island. The programme helps fill that gap, as well as contributing to a better understanding of New Zealand's relations with its Pacific Island neighbours, and of New Zealand's Pacific Island communities. For Pacific Island New Zealanders, the programme may contribute to a better understanding and appreciation of, as well as increasing their pride in, their indigenous Pacific Island cultures.
- To provide a Pacific focus to various disciplinary areas in the University. On the basis of the Centre's earlier involvement with students carrying out research under the auspices of other teaching departments, we at the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies came to believe that there is a demand from well-qualified students both from UC and other universities to apply skills from their disciplines to Pacific-related research. A teaching programme on Pacific Studies at postgraduate level will contribute to meeting this demand.
- To better utilise the special resources of the Centre. At the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, we believe that we have special resources which can be used to support a teaching programme in Pacific Studies. For example, the Centre's Research Scholar Programme has attracted a number of reputable scholars from both the Pacific countries and elsewhere.
- To train future scholars with interests in the Pacific. It is hoped that the programme will recruit and train future Pacific Studies scholars and researchers, both from the Pacific Islands and elsewhere, and thus contribute to maintaining scholarly interests in the Pacific Island region.
For more information about the latest Pacific Studies courses, please click here.
