Academic literature on the topic 'Cook Islands'

This thesis examines the effects of coastal protection structures upon the sandy coastline of Rarotonga, Cook Islands. The coastline is surrounded by a fringing coral reef which is continuous except for six passages. Water from the open sea enters the lagoonal area by waves breaking over the roof and propagates towards the shore as reformed waves. A detailed analysis of beach change and adjustments in front of and adjacent to coastal protection structures is presented. While there has been a substantial increase in data in the nearshore oceanographic regime and the nearshore coastal zone on Rarotonga, generally there has been a lack of monitoring of coastal structures, and in the effects on tropical coastal environments. Five sites in the west and southern coast of Rarotonga were selected for monitoring. All sites were located on sandy beach coastlines. An examination of the beach sediment at each site by determination of settling velocities in a 2 metre water column using a MacArthur Rapid Sediment Analyser indicated a medium grain size range. This finding differs from earlier measurements for the Rarotongan Resort site when predominantly coarse grain sediments were found. Such a finding has impact implications for the stability of coastal sediments. The principal method of data collection was by repeated profile surveys over a ten week period between May and July 1995. The profiles were examined first, by the conventional method of profile plots and secondly by excursion distance analysis. The excursion distance analysis was used to examine temporal and spatial variations for each site. During the study period a storm of swells originating from a southern source area brought unusually high waves in the seas around the Southern Cook Islands on the 8th and 9th June. All study sites were affected by up to 6 metre swells with energetic wave periods in the range of 10-15 seconds. The impact of the swell storm helped generate results for this study. Five factors were noted from this study as important to the way the beach profile in front and adjacent to coastal protection structures responded in the short term to the incident coastal processes during the study period. These are the position of the coastal protection structure in the beach profile, the structural configuration of the coastal structure, how the structure is tied in with the land behind it, the seaward volume of beach sediment and the sediment characteristic within the foreshore. Most of the foreshore adjustment occurred in the lower and middle foreshore with flattening and steepening respectively taking place during the high energy swell storm. In the recovery period the profiles tended to broaden out. A spatial analysis of the field data showed both along-shore and across-shore variations in the morphology of the beach and the topography of the lagoon floor. Movement of sediment in discrete amounts were identified in generally three positions in the beach profile: lower foreshore, nearshore and the mid-lagoonal area. Following the storms across-shore movement of sediment was identified, presumably rehabilitating areas in front of the coastal structures. Overall it was observed that beach change in front of coastal structures was similar to beaches without structures if there is abundant sediment offshore. The erosional response to storms, however, was typically different with bars forming offshore where coastal structures had been established.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Sydney, 2000.<br>Title from title screen (viewed July 29, 2009) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy to the Dept. of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts. Bibliography: leaves 185-189. Also available in print form.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Sydney, 2000.<br>Title from title screen (viewed July 29, 2009) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy to the Dept. of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts. Bibliography: leaves 185-189. Also available in print form.

This thesis is about tivaivai, which are unquilted quilts made and used by Cook Islands women in the Cook Islands ceremonial economy. They are the paramount form of valuable in ritual exchanges during kinship ���life��� events, and other public gifting events, which draw people together via translocal and transnational kin and wider social networks. How Cook Islands women use tivaivai as the gift and/or as decoration in these ceremonial arenas is part of the way Cook Islanders do economy as a local model of livelihood (Gudeman 2001, 2008). Such a model is founded on the material and nonmaterial aspects of the base, as in the priorities dictated by a group���s cultural framework. This is an expanded, more encompassing notion of economy, and necessarily moves beyond standard Western economic theory and the centrality of the market. I argue that tivaivai are semiotic media of value (Turner 2006b, 2008; cf. Graeber 2001), so they are iconic valuables, and indexical symbols of the structural properties of the Cook Islands system of social relations. As such weighted valuables, tivaivai are models of and models for how to be a Cook Islands woman and mother. As the gift and as decoration of ritual venues, tivaivai materialise the key values of kinship and aro���a (love) which orientate the way Cook Islanders exist and act in the world, so tivaivai are the access to and axis of prestige as mana for women. This relationship among value, values, and valuables is also important, because as such weighted valuables, tivaivai dignify the gifting of lesser valuables in a ritual complex, which is deployed in the various types of Cook Islands ceremonial events to transform people and objects. These lesser valuables include envelope wrapped money and food. I argue that the gifting of envelope wrapped money is as much about the reality of living in a capitalist political economy like New Zealand and the formulation of subaltern strategies to get by and prosper in New Zealand, as it is about the display of Cook Islands values, womanliness, mothering, and the pursuit of mana.

This multi-media art project investigates the notion of Cook Islands humour, and subsequently place, through the context of the religious pageant Nuku. This pageant has been practiced annually in the Cook Islands for over one hundred and sixty years. While it is not a pageant based on humour, I suggest, through experience and research, that many of the characteristics of Cook Islands humour are revealed in Nuku. The aim of this project is not to recreate the narrative set out in the Nuku pageant but to use this event to explore ways to visually express the humour of the Cook Islands. After researching and experimenting in two dimensional mediums, my emphasis changed to experimenting with three dimensional mediums, incorporating materials that have connotative meanings in Cook Islands society.

This multimedia visual arts project investigates, from a personal perspective, changes in the context of Cook Islands’ women’s adornment. In a modern world, changes in adornment have become disconnected from cultural traditions and so this study explores how over time evolving patterns of adornment are employed by women to identify their place in society. Observations have been drawn from the developing relationship between the researcher and the women in Rarotonga, the Cook Islands’ community where this project took place. These observations are documented explored and articulated primarily through the medium of photography, and principally by way of the snapshot and the portrait. This examination of Cook Islands’ women and their adornment from traditional adornment to the contemporary influences of modern day fashion has further been explored through a visual response to the relationships between the women and the layers of their adornment. This visual arts project is compromised of an exegesis with a value of 20% and a practical component of 80%.

This research is an exploration of the politics and governance of resource use and environmental conservation in the geographical context of Tongareva – a remote atoll in the northern Cook Islands, eastern South Pacific – with a specific focus on the harvest of a species of giant clam, pasua (<i>Tridacna maxima</i>). The thesis examines a range of management practices, social relations and ecological conditions in order to demonstrate the socio-political-ecological nexus that produces pasua management on the island. Theoretically, the dissertation engages with recent debates around the social and the environmental as mutually constitutive domains, elaborating this relation by demonstrating that the use and conservation of pasua is negotiated in and through space. In particular, the thesis examines the complex interplay and co-constitution of so-called customary mechanisms for resource management by examining the politics surrounding the practice of rahui, a form of harvest closure. I explore how exchange networks, authority structures and economic changes intersect to determine and shape the politics of pasua harvest and rahui on Tongareva and place both the island and pasua in very specific ways. The research combines an analysis of oral ecological histories, key player interviews, participant observation along with findings from a comprehensive survey of pasua abundance and distribution in the lagoon. It pursues this combination of data collection not in order to use ecological ‘facts’ to verify social ‘beliefs’ but because it sees such knowledges as different but equally valid – if differently empowered – forms of resource knowledge.  The dissertation also concludes that conservation in particular localities is never limited to events that occur in that context alone, but rather is connected to myriad other places by the movement of people, ideas and species.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are having remarkable effects and promise potential solutions to many of the South Pacific islands’ geographic, economic and social challenges. Access to ICTs is also an increasingly important factor for education and training in the region. While the Pacific eLearning Observatory, supported by the University of the South Pacific, has been monitoring the development and access to ICT in education across the 12 university’s campuses, studies that specifically examine the attitudes and understanding of educators working on the islands of the South Pacific towards the use of ICT in their profession, as well as for their professional development, are rare. This study aims at addressing the gap in the literature by examining the professional development of facilitators working in blended learning environment across the remote islands of the Cook Islands. The research outcomes of this study are based on the analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews, and the theoretical foundation of this thesis is grounded in the social and situated theory of learning. By closely examining the facilitators’ perceptions, the project sheds new light on the still little recognised concept of online communities of practice in teaching and learning. The central finding of the study is that participation in online communities of practice offers on-going opportunities for learning, development and support, and reduces the feeling of remoteness and isolation associated with the geographical conditions of the South Pacific region.