SICRI Convenors
Dr Evangelia (Valia) Papoutsaki
PhD Cardiff - Valia is the Executive Editor of ePress at Unitec Auckland, New Zealand; former Associate Professor and Program Leader at the University of Central Asia; former Research Associate at the Pacific Media Centre, AUT and International Research Fellow at the Center for Pacific Islands Research at Kagoshima University where she developed a islands communicative ecology mapping approach (ICE). Her professional background and academic interests are on development and communication for social change and island studies. She has extensive experience in the Pacific, including her previous position as Head of Communication Arts Department at DWU in Papua New Guinea, UNESCO Chair for Media Freedom PNG, and involvement in major research projects including a research consortium that conducted a 14 Pacific Islands State of the Media and Communication research project. She is at the editorial/advisory boards of Island Studies Journal, Okinawa Journal of Island Studies and SHIMA, the co-founder of the Contemporary PNG Studies Journal and former Reviews Editor of the Pacific Journalism Review. She has published three edited volumes on Pacific and PNG communication issues. www.epapoutsaki.com
Selected publications:
Papoutsaki, E. & Stanley Niaah, S. (Eds). (forthcoming). Festivals, Tourism and Island Cultures. University of West Indies Press: Kingston.
Papoutsaki, E. & Kuwahara, S. 2018. Mapping small islands communicative ecologies: a case study from Amami Islands. South Pacific Studies Journal, vol 31, vol 1.
Tacchi, J.,Horst, H., Papoutsaki, E., Thomas, V. & Eggins, E. 2013. PACMAS State of Media and Communication Regional Report 2013. Melbourne: PACMAS/ABC International Development and14 separate Pacific Island Country Reports.
Papoutsaki, E. McManus, & M. Matbob, P. (Eds) 2011. Communication, Culture and Society in PNG: you toktok long housat? Pacific Media Centre: Auckland & DWU Press: Madang
Papoutsaki, E. & Harris, U. (Eds.) 2008. Pacific Islands Communication Issues: Local Issues, Regional Perspectives. AMIC/USP/PMC-AUT: Singapore.
Papoutsaki, E. & Rooney, D. (Eds.) 2006. Media, Communication and Development in Papua New Guinea. DWU Press: Madang
Caption: Unitec's Te Noho Kotahitanga Marae, Auckland/Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa/New Zealand
Dr Meng (Mo) Qu
PhD and Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Integrated Global Studies (IGS) at Hiroshima University and Visiting Research Fellow at Wakayama University. He is the board member at Event Management Journal (editorial/advisory), Journal of Responsible Tourism Management (JRTM, editorial), and CREATOUR International (advisory). He is also work as the Design Director at Done-will Tech China, and research director at Art Island Center Japan. He currently oversees an interdisciplinary research project on marginal island communities in the Seto Inland Sea region of Japan. He studied and worked as digital artist, interactive design director and vice president between Shanghai and Beijing in the digital media art and museum design industry (2006-2015). He is focusing on the revitalization of rural communities through international art festivals, by participating as a volunteer, staff member and researcher. Examples include the Xucun international Art Festival (2011-2013) in China, the Setouchi Triennale (2016-2019) in Japan as well as Shiosai Art Festival (2019-2020). Japan's population decrease, combined with its shrinking periphery due to aging, depopulation, and economic stagnation, is part of a global trend of post-growth shrinkage in rural areas on a large scale. His research focuses on how to introduce new innovational assets, art events and creative tourism initiatives and revitalize communities in Japan’s peripheral regions. His interests are gardening, pottery and aikido. Now he lives and researches in Higashihiroshima, Japan.
Selected publications:
Qu, M., & Cheer, J. M. (2021). Community art festivals and sustainable rural revitalisation. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 29(11-12), 1756-1775.
Prince, S., Qu, M., & Zollet, S. (2021). The making of art islands: A comparative analysis of translocal assemblages of contemporary art and tourism. Island Studies Journal, 16(2), 235-264.
Qu, M., & Funck, C. (2021). Rural art festival revitalizing a Japanese declining tourism island. In Cultural Sustainability, Tourism and Development (pp. 51-68). Routledge.
Qu, M., McCormick, A. D., & Funck, C. (2020). Community resourcefulness and partnerships in rural tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 1-20.
Qu M (2020) ‘Teshima - from island art to the art island: Art on/for a previously declining Japanese Inland Sea Island’, Shima v14 n2, 250-265
Qu, M., Coulton, T. M., & Funck, C. (2020). Gaps and Limitations-Contrasting Attitudes to Newcomers and Their Role in a Japanese Island Community. Bulletin of the Hiroshima University Museum, (12), 31-46.
Past Convenors
Founder & Honorary Chair
Prof.Phil Hayward
Philip Hayward is co-founder and initial network convenor of SICRI (in the period 2005-2012) and is also the founder and continuing editor of the online journal Shima. He resides in Sydney, where he is an adjunct professor at the University of Technology, and also works on rainforest restoration projects in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales whenever he can find time. He has researched island and maritime cultures in Eastern Asia, Australasia, the Western Pacific, Europe and in North and South America and has held visiting research professor positions at Kansai and Kagoshima universities (in Japan) and at Pattimura University (Ambon, Indonesia). He is currently involved in research with researchers from Ca’ Foscari University in Venice and the University of Udine into Venice’s lagoon-scape and would welcome invitations to collaborate on other international research projects (once COVID subsides).
He has published a number of books and journal articles, which are detailed on his personal research website: https://www.islandresearchph.com/Some sense of the breadth of his research interests can be gained from the following journal articles:
‘Sanctuary islands in a hostile matrix: the perception, representation, and protection of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, Gulf of Mexico’, Island Studies Journal v13 n1 (2019) pp1-14
'Tanka Transitions: Shrimp paste, dolphins and the contemporary aquapelagic assemblage of Tai O', Locale n7 p1-19 (2016)
'The Aquapelago and the Estuarine City: Reflections on Manhattan', Urban Island Studies n1 (2015) pp81-95
'Sotetsu Heritage: Cycads, Sustenance and Cultural Landscapes in the Amami Islands', Locale: The Australasia-Pacific Journal of Regional Food Studies n2 (2012) pp26-46 (co-authored with Sueo Kuwahara)
'Aquapelagos and Aquapelagic Assemblages', Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures v6n1 (2012) pp1-11
Caption: researching in Lundy Island, UK
Dr Arianne Reis
Senior Lecturer at the School of Health Sciences, Western Sydney University, Australia. Dr Reis completed her PhD at University of Otago, New Zealand, with a study on hunting and tramping experiences on Stewart Island. The thesis focused on human constructions of nature, using environmental philosophy and embodiment as its main theoretical frameworks. Dr Reis was an Assistant Editor for Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Culturesfrom 2010 to 2015 and part of the Editorial Review Board from 2015 to 2018. She was the guest editor for a special issue on island tourism with the Tourism & Hospitality Research journal, and the Chair of the Small Island Cultures Research Initiative from 2014 to 2019. Dr Reis has since moved her teaching and research focus to leisure studies (or returned to, given her original background in Physical Education, Sport Science and Outdoor Recreation) with an increasing focus on social and cultural wellbeing. She is today a member of the Board of Directors of the World Leisure Organization and Chair of the World Leisure Centres of Excellence, a network of universities across the globe who offer high quality postgraduate programs in leisure and recreation studies.
Selected publications:
Fitzgerald, J.; Reis, A.C. (2018). Sounding Northeast Brazil: Musical genre manifestations on the island of Fernando de Noronha. Popular Music and Society, 41(1): 55-70.
Fitzgerald, J., Hayward, P. & Reis, A. (2017). Maracatu Nação Noronha: Embodied cultural practice on an isolated Brazilian island, Shima, 11(2): 205-219.
Fitzgerald, J.; Reis, A.C. (2016). Island intersections: Music and tourism on Fernando de Noronha, Brazil. Tourist Studies, 16(2): 170-191.
Reis, A.C.; Hayward, P. (2013). Pronounced particularity: A comparison of governance structures on Lord Howe Island and Fernando de Noronha. Island Studies, 8(2): 285-298.
Reis, A.C. (2012). Experiences of commodified nature: Performances and narratives of tourists on Stewart Island, New Zealand. Tourist Studies, 12(3): 304-323.
Reis, A.C. (2012). Home and away: constructions of place on Stewart Island. Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures, 6(1): 83-113.