Tarcisius Kabutaulaka is a scholar and teacher who has worked in universities, as well as with governments, inter-governmental organizations, and communities in the Pacific Islands. He comes from the Weather Coast of Guadalcanal in Solomon Islands, and was educated in Solomon Islands, Fiji, and Australia. He received his undergraduate and MA degrees from the University of the South Pacific and a PhD in political science and international relations from the Australian National University. In January 2009, he joined the Center for Pacific Island Studies as an associate professor. Prior to that, he was, for six years, a fellow at the East-West Center’s Pacific Islands Development Program. Before moving to Hawai’i he taught history and political science at the University of the South Pacific. Kabutaulaka’s research interests focus on governance, development, natural resources development, conflicts, post-conflict development, international intervention, peace-making, Australian foreign policies, and political developments in Melanesia in general, and Solomon Islands in particular. He has written extensively on the Solomon Islands civil unrest and the Australian-led regional intervention. He is the co-editor (with Greg Fry) of Intervention and State-building in the Pacific: the Legitimacy of ‘Cooperative Intervention’ (Manchester University Press, 2008). In 2000, following two years of civil unrest in Solomon Islands, Kabutaulaka participated in the peace talks in Townsville, Australia as the chief negotiator for one of the parties in the conflict. Over the years he has worked as a consultant for international and regional organizations and national governments. In his spare time he manages a website that he set up (www.tutuvatu.com). Tarcisius "talks stori" with the Honorable Job Dudley Tausinga, Solomon Islands Cabinet Minister, in Honolulu. Tarcisius interviews Andrew Tohovotu for a film, currently in production, on Solomon Islands civil unrests.
1. 2008 Westminster Meets Solomons in the Honiara Riots, in Politics and State-building in Solomon Islands, edited by Sinclair Dinnen and Stewart Firth, 96-118. Canberra: ANU Press.
2. 2008 Global Capital and Local Ownership in Solomon Islands’ Forestry Industry, in Globalisation and Governance in the Pacific, edited by Stewart Firth. Canberra: ANU Press.
3. 2006 Parties, Constitutional Engineering and Governance in Solomon Islands, in Political Parties in the Pacific Islands, edited Roland Rich, 103-116. Canberra: Pandanus Books, ANU.
4. 2006 Australian Foreign Policy and the RAMSI Intervention in Solomon Islands. The Contemporary Pacific 17:283–308.
5. 2005 Crowded Stage: Actors, Actions and Issues in Post-conflict Solomon Islands. In Securing a Peaceful Pacific, edited by John Henderson and Greg Watson. Christchurch, NZ: University of Canterbury Press.
6. 2005 Footprint in the Tasimauri Sea: A Biography of Dominiko Alebua. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific.
7. 2002 Rethinking South Pacific Security: Fiji and Solomon Islands (with Sandra Tarte). In The Unravelling of Island Asia? Governmental, Communal, and Regional Instability, edited by Bruce Vaughan, 61-82. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
8. 2000 Rumble in the Jungle: land, culture and (un)sustainable logging Solomon Islands. In Culture and Sustainable Development in the Pacific, edited by Anthony Hooper, 88-97. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, ANU.
9. 1997 Deforestation and Politics in Solomon Islands. In Governance and Reform in the South Pacific, edited by Peter Larmour, 117-145. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, ANU.
10. 1997 I Am Not a Stupid Native: Decolonising Images and Imagination in Solomon Islands. In Emerging from Empire? Decolonisation in the Pacific, edited by Donald Denoon. Canberra: Division of Pacific and Asian History, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, ANU.
11. 1997 Political Siege in Papua New Guinea and the Role of the Military in Melanesia. In Challenging the State: the Sandline Affair in Papua New Guinea, edited by Sinclair Dinnen, Ron J. May, and Anthony J. Regan, 129-135. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies and Department of Political and Social Change, ANU.
12. 1996 Thy Will Be Done on Earth: Dominiko Alebua and Cathechism on Guadalcanal. In The Covenant Makers: Islander Missionaries in the Pacific, edited by A. Thornley and D. Munro, 276-289. Suva: Pacific Theological College, in association with Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific.
13. 1994 Cohesion and Disorder in Melanesia: The Bougainville Conflict and the Melanesian Way. In New Politics in the South Pacific, edited by Werner vom Busch and others, 63-82. Rarotonga and Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific in association with the Pacific Islands Political Studies Association.
