Title: Social scientists in paradise

Abstract: Social science research in the South Pacific has had its ups and downs. depending on the vagaries of the world economy, wars and other geo-political considerations, academic fads, and the like. By and large, however, it can be argued that it has progressed - at least in terms of specialised complexity, the quantity of research and writing, and the range of theoretical perspectives represented. The South Pacific is no longer the preserve of a handful of anthropologists studying kinship and sexual practices and historians recording the glories of imperial expansion. The heterogeneity of social science research in the region has increased significantly over the past couple of decades. As a result, there are those who now feel that social science in the South Pacific has begun to exhibit a higher level of maturity, who believe that it is on the verge of moving beyond simple description, vaguely informed by theoretical concerns, to a more sophisticated plane. The articles in this special issue of the The Journal of Pacific Studies are drawn from the major fields within social science like history, anthropology, and geography, and to a lesser extent political sciences and economics, which have been present in the region over the years as well as from such relatively new fields of study as accounting, administration, and industrial relations.

Title: Sociology in the South Pacific

Abstract: [ Abstract not available ]