Coming Home to Banaba at ESFO Conference 2010

[Stacey King]

Dates: Wednesday 7th July Times: 1 - 2pm Venue: Gateway Galleries, North Haugh

Dr Grant McCall will be showing a short film - Coming Home to Banaba - about the people of Banaba (Ocean) Island, removed from their land after extensive phosphate development, and forcibly relocated to Rabi Island, in the Fiji group. Today, the Banabans of Rabi island enjoy a special status within the Fiji state, but many still long for their destroyed and lost home in the Central Pacific. In this documentary, a mixed group of Banaban Islanders and Europeans who were employed by the British Phosphate Corporation charter a boat to return to look at the place where they once lived. The film traces the history of the phosphate exploitation, including when the Banabans took legal action against the British Crown, resulting in the longest trial in British legal history.

Following the film, the audience will be asked to consider who has the native right on Rabi Island today? The original Rabians were removed from their island in the 19th century by a Fijian chief after a fierce battle and they remain today without rights on nearby Taveuni Island. The High Chief of Taveuni maintains his authority and control over the conquered Rabians. Whose rights should prevail?

Speaker:

• Dr Grant McCall is a social anthropologist from the University of New South Wales who studies the peoples and cultures of the Pacific Islands, most especially those of Eastern Polynesia from Mangaia, in the Cooks group, to Rapanui (Easter Island).