CURRENT AND RECENT RESEARCH
           
The Research Group is currently focussing its efforts towards the initiation of a new major collaborative project of multi-disciplinary nature, entitled “Cultural Heritage and Political Innovation in the Pacific Islands”. Having entered into cooperation with scholars and research groups at the University of Hawai’i, James Cook University and the British Museum, in 2006 the Research Group moves this project into its first phase of exploratory meetings, workshops and other joint activities towards the submission in 2007 of a proposal for international funding.

Members of the Bergen Research Group in Pacific Studies (in alphabetical order Cato Berg, Annelin Eriksen, Edvard Hviding, Knut Rio and Rolf Scott) are currently engaged in, or have recently completed, the following projects (* denotes full or significant partial external funding obtained for group members’ activities; all doctoral projects supervised by Edvard Hviding):

• Leadership and Resource Management: Relationships between Town and Village in Solomon Islands (Cato Berg, doctoral project, ongoing from 2001) *
• Christianity, Gender and the dynamics of Community beyond the State: A study of urban Christian movements in Vanuatu (Annelin Eriksen, post-doctoral project, ongoing from 2005) *
• Women and Development, Kastom and Christianity: Ambrym women on the move in post-colonial Vanuatu (Annelin Eriksen, doctoral project, 2000-2004) *
• Safeguarding the Biological and Cultural Diversity of Tropical Island Systems: Palau, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. (Edvard Hviding, adviser and research professor, multidisciplinary research-and-education project under UNESCO [SC/CSI/LINKS], ongoing from 2005) *
• Rescuing the Rural, Replacing the Government? The Christian Fellowship Church in the Western Solomon Islands (Edvard Hviding, collaborative book project, ongoing from 2005)
• Working Relations: Royal Navy interactions in 19th-century New Georgia (Edvard Hviding, individual project in historical anthropology, ongoing from 2003)
• Challenging the State: Transmutations of Power in Contemporary Global Realities (Edvard Hviding, individual project [“Transformations of Political Economy in the Western Solomon Islands”] in major strategic departmental programme, ongoing from 2003) *
• Islands Connected: Making Pacific Worlds (Edvard Hviding, co-organizer and co-editor, collaborative conference-and-publishing project with several international partners, 2001-2005) *
• Agricultural Systems and Histories of Human Influence in Solomon Islands Rainforests (Edvard Hviding, multi-disciplinary project based at the University of Cambridge, 1999-2002)
• Melanesian Art: Objects, Narratives and Indigenous Owners (Edvard Hviding and Knut Rio, major collaborative project based at the British Museum, ongoing from 2005)
• In the wake of colonialism: Norwegian commercial interests in colonial Africa and Oceania (Edvard Hviding and Knut Rio, major collaborative project based at the University of Bergen, ongoing from 2005) *
• Anthropological Films from Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands (Edvard Hviding and Rolf Scott, research-and-documentation project in collaboration with Solomon Islands National Museum, ongoing from 1996)

• Social technologies/ Material capacities (Knut Rio, multi-disciplinary institutional project, ongoing from 2005)
• CREW – Christianity and religious encounters worldwide  (Knut Rio, multi-disciplinary institutional project, ongoing from 2004)
• Hierarchy: new considerations from anthropology (Knut Rio, co-editor of collaborative book project, 2003-2005)
• Money, copyrights and value transformations in Ambrym Island, Vanuatu (Knut Rio, doctoral project, 1998-2002) *
• The Polynesian Construction and Contestation of Global Space (Rolf Scott, doctoral project, 2005-2009) *