This research engages with the work of afakasi American-American Samoan playwright John Kneubuhl. As a polycultural, pan-Pacific dramatist, Kneubuhl’s work explores post-colonial discourses, power structures and social and cultural hierarchies. An afakasi playwright also concerned with authenticity, Kneubuhl wrote from both inside and outside these contesting dialectics of power and his unique dramatic voice fuses...

Using contemporary and traditional forms of technology and textiles, this project aims to give the South Auckland community a voice, and to share the community’s unique nature. Within a participatory design approach and an action research framework, South Auckland residents contributed stories, thoughts and perspectives of their community through creative and expressive storytelling activities. These...

How does the next generation of Pacific diaspora from ‘blended backgrounds’ construct and maintain their identities through the spaces they inhabit? The aim of this research is to highlight the importance of space in relation to identity for Pacific diasporic communities in Auckland, specifically looking at the identities of blended backgrounds of ethnicity, culture and...

How might the cultures of psychotherapy and Samoa intersect and clash? In order to further understand my own New Zealand-born Samoan identity, I have attempted to ground myself in psychodynamic theory, eliciting questions about my professional identity. As ways of understanding the self and patterns of relating with the world can be viewed through the...

To Tālanoa, you have a personal encounter with another person in conversation. To begin this project, the process of Tālanoa is used in a respectful journalistic mode and sensibility for collecting stories of the everyday. This project enacts narratives that have been collected through everyday interactions with people, both within my community and abroad.