European Society for Oceanists 2015 Conference

10th ESfO Conference. Brussels, 24 June 2015 - 27 June 2015

The European Society for Oceanists (ESfO) invites you to attend
the 10th ESfO Conference, to be held in Brussels (Belgium) in
June 2015. The conference is sponsored by the European
Consortium for Pacific Studies (ECOPAS).

 NEW Download the full conference booklet

Call for Papers

Download the Call for Papers as PDF

Session details, please click here

Deadline for papers submission: 1 April 2015

ESfO conference paper submissions are now managed electronically. 

Delegates should submit the abstract of their paper to the relevant
Working Session through this conference website. To do so, they will
first need to be registered at http://www.pacific-studies.net.
Delegates are asked to state in their profile their institutional affiliation,
since this will be included in the conference programme.

Conference Organizers

Prof. dr. Toon van Meijl
Dr. Anke Tonnaer

Conference Secretary:
Ms. Maya Turolla

Contact:  esfo2015@ru.nl

Enquiries regarding registration and hotel accommodation
can be sent to Sonia Meys registration@pacific-studies.net

Radboud University Nijmegen

Department of Anthropology and Development Studies

Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies

Europe and the Pacific

European engagements in the Pacific are taking place mainly through connections in trade relations, sustainable development programmes, tourism, humanitarian aid, legal-political relations, new migration patterns, and concerns about the impacts of global climate change. In some respects, however, European connections to the Oceanic region relate uncomfortably to the aspirations and ambitions of Pacific peoples themselves, who wish to engage with peoples of other regions on their own social and cultural terms, and on the basis of their own economic and political interests. Indeed, Pacific Islanders increasingly demand to define priorities in their connections with Europe from their own perspective.

The 10^th  conference of the European Society for Oceanists will focus on the increasing call from the Pacific for a new kind of relationship with Europe (in whatever shape or form Europe may be perceived as a region). At previous ESfO conferences, many academics from the region expressed a desire for European scholars to acknowledge the obligations implied by their relations to Oceania, and to exchange the results of their research into knowledge that is useful for the Pacific. At the same time, European scholars who are doing research in the Pacific are facing the challenge to make their expert knowledge more available for policy-makers, having received calls from some governments and also from representatives of the European Union to help improving connections between Europe and the Pacific. This conference aims at creating an opportunity for new kinds of dialogues and relationships between Europe and the Pacific.

ESfO conferences are renowned for gathering together academics from around the globe. Intense dialogues between Pacific and European perspectives are envisaged, in which exchanges of knowledge and processes of mediation will spark a necessary rethinking of historical, contemporary and future connections between Europe and the Pacific.

The 10^th  ESfO conference will be held in Brussels and aims to put this gathering of inter-personal and conceptual relations to work also by exploring relations  between academics and policy-makers from the Pacific and Europe.