We are thrilled to announce that Dr April K. Henderson is joining our 2025 conference as a keynote speaker.
Dr April K. Henderson is a Senior Lecturer in Pacific Studies at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington. Her research focuses on the circulation of music, performing, and visual art forms between the US, Pacific Islands, and Aotearoa New Zealand to understand Pacific aspirations, representations, contexts and practices and to illuminate their political, economic, and social stakes.
Keynote address: Fielding Questions: Articulations and Disarticulations of Pacific Studies and Anthropology
Inspired by genuine curiosity and questions about fields-in-motion, this talk considers articulations and disarticulations between the interdisciplinary field of Pacific studies and the discipline of cultural anthropology as I've known and experienced them, and as others have written of them. I reflect on the interrelated histories of the two fields; review instances where Pacific studies has been named in discussions of the anthropology of Oceania, and where anthropology has been explicitly invoked in discussions of interdisciplinary Pacific studies; and survey the more extensive body of literature that critically interrogates anthropology’s relationships with Pacific peoples. Then, utilizing Teresia Teaiwa’s 2010 prescription for Pacific studies, I attempt to think through whether, where, and how palpable differences emerge between the prerogatives and practices of interdisciplinary Pacific studies and cultural anthropology of Oceania.
