Teresia Teaiwa

Teresia Kieuea Teaiwa (12 August 1968 – 21 March 2017) was a distinguished award winning I-Kiribati and African-American scholar, poet, activist and mentor.

Teaiwa was well-regarded for her ground-breaking work in Pacific Studies.

Her research interests in this area embraced her artistic and political nature, and included contemporary issues in Fiji, feminism and women's activism in the Pacific, contemporary Pacific culture and arts, and pedagogy in Pacific Studies.

An "anti-nuclear activist, defender of West Papuan independence, and a critic of militarism", Teaiwa solidified many connections across the Pacific Ocean and was a hugely influential voice on Pacific affairs Her poetry remains widely published.

The title of the book is derived from a quote that was requested by Hau'ofa for his 1988 essay The Ocean in Us, in which she stated, "We sweat and cry salt water, so we know the ocean is really in our blood." Teaiwa is profiled in the young readers book titled We are Here.

In 1996, she turned down a job with Greenpeace to take up her first lecturer position at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, at the request of Pacific Studies and Tongan scholar Epeli Hau'ofa.

She taught history and politics for five years.

Throughout this time, Teaiwa was part of intellectual communities that stemmed from the university environment, such as the Niu Waves Writers’ Collective, the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement, and the Citizens’ Constitutional Forum.

In 2000, she moved to New Zealand to teach the first-ever undergraduate major in Pacific studies at Victoria University as programme director.

Of Banaban, Tabiteuean and Rabi descent, Teaiwa was called a Kiribati "national icon" by The Guardian newspaper in 2009.

A bibliography of her published works can be found in the posthumously released book, Sweat and Salt Water, compiled and edited by Katerina Teaiwa, April K. Henderson, and Terence Wesley-Smith.

Her term "militourism" identified the relationship between military and tourism presence in the Pacific.

Teresia Kieuea Teaiwa was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and raised in Suva, Fiji.

Her father was i-Kiribati from Banaba and her mother was African American.

She had two sisters, Katerina Teaiwa and Maria Teaiwa-Rutherford.

She attended St Joseph's Secondary School where she excelled.

Teaiwa received a Bachelor of Arts from Trinity Washington University in Washington D.C. and a Master of Arts from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

With a thesis committee of James Clifford, Angela Davis and Barbara Epstein, she completed a PhD in History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz on, "Militarism, Tourism and the Native: Articulations in Oceania".

Throughout her career, Teaiwa maintained a full teaching schedule.

In 2010 Teaiwa received the Macaulay Distinguished Lecture Award from the University of Hawai’i.

In 2014 she received the Victoria University of Wellington Teaching Excellence Award and was the first Pasifika woman awarded the national Ako Aotearoa Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award.

In 2015 she won the Pacific People's Award for Education,

Teaiwa's legacy at Victoria University of Wellington includes a number of successful teaching initiatives, including ‘Akamai’ for 100-level students, in which students can choose to present their work with a creative interpretation.

Teaiwa believed that Akamai helped students to understand that art and performance are part of the intellectual heritage of the Pacific.

In 2016, she became director of Va’aomanū Pasifika, home to Victoria's Pacific and Samoan Studies programmes.

She was also co-editor of the International Feminist Journal of Politics.

In September 2021 Teaiwa's book Sweat and Salt Water, was published in New Zealand by Victoria University of Wellington Press and simultaneously by the University of Hawai'i Press as part of their Pacific Islands Monograph Series.

The book is a compilation of her most notable essays, poems, and scholarly articles regarding her major contributions and commitment to the Pacific region and its peoples.

Teaiwa died of cancer on 21 March 2017.

She survived by her husband and two children.

In 2017, the Victoria University of Wellington established the Teresia Teaiwa Memorial Scholarship for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Pacific Islander descent who are studying Pacific Studies at the University.

A compendium of Teresia Teaiwa's work available on open access has been compiled by Alex Golub.

In addition, a posthumously published collection of her writings, Sweat and Salt Water: Selected Works, was published by University of Hawai'i Press in August 2021.

Sole-Authored Pieces

Co-Authored