"The story of Samoan born, Auckland businessman Filipo Sio's life from his roots in Samoa, arriving in New Zealand, developing a career etc."--Publishers description.

In the late twentieth century, the categorization of individuals in ethnic terms, affected by neoliberal reforms and the prioritization of market forces, has transformed our institutions and wreaked havoc around the world. Especially stark in societies that recognize their bi- or multicultural make-up, such categorization influences how individuals view themselves and are viewed by others in the educational arena. A small town in Aotearoa/New Zealand, with its contemporary shift toward official biculturalism and extensive free-marketization of schooling, is a prime example. This important volu.

Uncovering Indigenous Models of Leadership focuses on Native and Indigenous leadership as an expression of a lived experience––as seen, felt, and heard––from the perspectives provided by Native Pacific Islanders, Polynesians, and, more specifically, Samoans from the Talavou clan. Central to this study is the question: What themes and elements influence Samoan leadership and how might these leaders provide others, elsewhere, with a different model of leadership, to reduce the inequitable effects of capitalism’s insatiable hunger for more power and material gain, so that all people on planet Earth might thrive? This study asserts that alternative models of leadership must be uncovered and that Native and Indigenous People, specifically leaders, hold the keys to moving our species beyond survival so that we can all thrive. Liberating, inclusive, and anchored in self-determinism, it demonstrates that Native and Indigenous People know who they are, why they exist, and that they will continue to thrive, despite the ongoing impositions of colonialization, capitalization, and globalization on their ways of being and knowing. Ultimately, it uncovers an Indigenous model of leadership based on the notion of alofa, or love. As a companion to the study, the author has created an extended play album of original music titled, “Heart of the Matter,” which can be found online. Leiataua Robert Jon Peterson, EdD, is president, CEO, and cofounder of TE2: Education and Engineering Consulting, LLC.

Pacific Voices Talk Story invites Pacific Americans to record their hearts and minds to be turned into pages not only Pacific Americans want to read, but our neighbors up the street. We ve much to learn about ourselves, other Islanders here, and the diversity of America. If we re not talking to each other now, reading Pacific Voices Talk Story will tell you that tribalism and village mentalities followed us to the mainland. Read and join the dialogue of Pacific Americans claiming new identities and finding a place in the mainland that trumps their nostalgic past.

This book explores the first encounters between Samoans and Europeans up to the arrival of the missionaries, using all available sources for the years 1722 to the 1830s, paying special attention to the first encounter on land with the Laperouse expedition. Many of the sources used are French, and some of difficult accessibility, and thus they have not previously been thoroughly examined by historians. Adding some Polynesian comparisons from beyond Samoa, and reconsidering the so-called 'Sahlins-Obeyesekere debate' about the fate of Captain Cook, 'First Contacts' in Polynesia advances a hypothesis about the contemporary interpretations made by the Polynesians of the nature of the Europeans, and about the actions that the Polynesians devised for this encounter: wrapping Europeans up in 'cloth' and presenting 'young girls' for 'sexual contact'. It also discusses how we can go back two centuries and attempt to reconstitute, even if only partially, the point of view of those who had to discover for themselves these Europeans whom they call 'Papalagi'. The book also contributes an additional dimension to the much-touted 'Mead-Freeman debate' which bears on the rules and values regulating adolescent sexuality in 'Samoan culture'. Scholars have long considered the pre-missionary times as a period in which freedom in sexuality for adolescents predominated. It appears now that this erroneous view emerged from a deep misinterpretation of Laperouse's and Dumont d'Urville's narratives.