Those of you attending this year’s annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association are warmly invited to attend the annual Business Meeting of the Melanesia Interest Group, which will be held on Thursday, November 17, from 6:15-7:30pm, in Convention Center room 206AB.
The agenda is as follows:
- Expanding the mandate of our interest group from Melanesia to the wider Oceania/Pacific region:
(a) Vote for a new name (MIG? OIG? PIIG? Other suggestions?)
(b) New guidelines for our expanded interest group (including how to ensure our invited session represents our newly expanded mandate) - Ideas for our 2017 invited session
- Election of Convenor
- Member updates
At last year’s MIG Business Meeting in Denver we discussed expanding the scope of the MIG to include Polynesia, Micronesia, and possibly Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. This is because there is currently no section or interest group representation for scholars of the Pacific more generally within the AAA. We agreed to open up the MIG to AAA members who work elsewhere in Oceania, and that I would begin work on this process.
This newly expanded AAA Interest Group will proceed as the MIG has done in the past by offering a space within the AAA for scholars of Oceania, hosting a business meeting at the annual AAA Meetings, and sponsoring an invited session at each AAA meeting.
Earlier in the year I completed a survey of MIG members and other anthropologists who work in Oceania. 57% of respondents currently belong to the MIG and 92% of respondents indicated that they would join an Interest Group of the AAA that represented scholars of the Pacific region. Just over 50% of respondents indicated that they work in Pacific regions other than Melanesia. These results indicate that an AAA Interest Group focused on Oceania would attract a number of new members.
This meeting will be of interests to all AAA members whose work involves Oceania in some form. All are welcome!
Lorena Gibson 