Transcript
When Pacific scholar, poet and activist Teresia Teaiwa died in 2017, she left behind an immense legacy including one of her works "Salty Blood and Tears: Ocean Stories".
This week scholars, students and others gathered for the Va Moana talanoa session in Auckland to pay tribute and continue to tell her stories.
A professor of culture and anthropology at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Hawaii, Tevita Ka'ili, says it is also the right time to discuss the growth and change in Pacific thinking.
"Beautiful that we have this place for us to talanoa a name for Oceania or maybe the multiple names that we use to sort of identify ourselves but also express our deep history and culture as people from the Moana Nui."
Professor Ka'ili, of Tongan heritage, says it's important Pacific islanders agree on a name.
Moana artist Rosanna Raymond says it's also important to have the knowledge and grounding of who you are.
"So you can take on the responsibility of challenging a very big Western framework that we are constantly inhabiting. So a lot of this talanoa needs to come - not just on the pages but in the way we talk to our children and the way that we express ourselves."
Ms Raymond says there is a lot of work to be done.
Vincente (Vince) Diaz (Daze), of the University of Minnesota, agrees it's not going to be easy.
"The idea that we're all from the same place - that's also an idea that was forced upon us by outsiders. Just like the term Pacific. It's a kind of misnomer, that is also built on certain assumptions that are just way, way off."
But the professor in American Indian and indigenous studies is also hopeful such talanoa sessions will help Pacific islanders take stock and work through their difficulties.
"On the other hand, we also have common histories - not only from that history of colonialism but also there's a lot of evidence that we have shared origins, our languages."
Professor Diaz says more dialogue is needed on the issue and people from other parts of the Pacific need to be included like those from Micronesia and Melanesia.
