This course focuses on aspects of the Geography of the Pacific Islands of interest to individual students. It is a course tailored to a particular student`s interests and/or requirements given their planned thesis topic or interests. This course will provide students with a detailed knowledge of a particular aspect of Pacific Islands geography, for example, land-population relationship in Kiribati, the home gardening potential in urban Vanuatu, or the evidence for recent coastline changes in the Southern Cook Islands, Pacific industrialisation, produce marketing in Fiji. Identifying relevant sources of information, knowledge of appropriate methods of data analysis and interpretation.
This course particularly focuses on individual research that will lead to a literature review and discussion paper as the start point of your own research project.
The class will be conducted as a face-to-face seminar format and the main purpose is to provide an opportunity for individual research and discussion rather than for lectures. This year we will discuss a variety of topics to cover your diverse background and interest.
In the first part of the course, students will work up their own ideas on their own project, which is a literature review and discussion paper of a topic of interest. Your research paper should be a theoretical review your research interest. In consultation with your supervisor and/or the course coordinator, your research paper may form a significant component of the literature review of your thesis. Assigned readings will be provided, while you are also required to identify journal articles relevant to your topic.
Given the diverse nature of course participants, later in the course we will widen discussions based on the different perspectives each of us brings to the classroom. By doing this, students are trained to read academic journal articles and book chapter intensively, and will expand their perspectives on a particular concept of their interest.
Journal articles you will identify should be:
- published recently (ideally over the past decade);
- published in a leading journals in your discipline
- must be a research article, i.e. should not be such articles as book reviews, editorials, obituaries- Lecturer: Naohiro Nakamura