Weaving Stories Across Islands: A Journey Through Communicative Ecologies

​

Twenty-five years ago, I stood at the edge of Europe with a head full of theories about media industries and policies, never imagining that my journey would eventually lead me to the coral atolls of the Pacific, the mountains of Central Asia, and the vibrant communities of Aotearoa New Zealand. What began as academic curiosity has evolved into something far more profound—a lifelong commitment to understanding how stories travel, how voices find their way across oceans, and how communication becomes the heartbeat of social change.

​

From Theory to Practice: Early Wanderings

​

My European education gave me the analytical tools, but it was when I ventured beyond familiar borders that I truly began to learn. In countries emerging from transition, I discovered that communication wasn't just about media systems or policy frameworks—it was about hope, identity, and the fundamental human need to be heard. Teaching journalism in post-Soviet territories, I watched students grapple not just with technical skills, but with questions that cut to the core: Whose stories matter? Who gets to tell them? How do we rebuild trust when institutions have crumbled?

​

These weren't abstract academic questions. They were urgent, lived realities that shaped entire societies. I found myself moving beyond the classroom, working with local communities, understanding that effective communication for development required not just expertise, but deep listening and cultural humility.

​

The Pacific Calling: Islands as Teachers

​

Everything changed when I first set foot on Pacific soil. The vastness of the ocean, the intimate scale of island communities, the intricate relationships between land, sea, and story—this was where my understanding of communication transformed completely. Here, I encountered indigenous ways of knowing that challenged every assumption I'd held about media, technology, and social change.

Over two decades of engagement with Pacific Island communities taught me that communication is never just about information transfer. It's about relationships, reciprocity, and respect. It's about understanding that a tweet might travel instantly across the globe, but a story shared under the frangipani tree carries weight that no algorithm can measure.

​

My fieldwork mapping the communicative ecologies of Amami and Okinawa Islands during my research fellowship in Japan became a revelation. I began to see how indigenous communities create their own communication networks—weaving together traditional storytelling, community radio, social media, and face-to-face gatherings into complex, resilient systems that preserve culture while engaging with global conversations.

​

Building Bridges: From Research to Impact

​

The AusAID-funded baseline research project across 14 Pacific Island countries became one of my most challenging and rewarding endeavors. Managing an international team while working with local researchers wasn't just about coordinating logistics—it was about creating space for authentic collaboration, ensuring that research didn't extract knowledge but built capacity and relationships.

I learned that the most meaningful research happens when academic rigor meets community wisdom, when policy recommendations emerge from lived experience rather than theoretical frameworks. This project didn't just inform AusAID policy; it created lasting networks of researchers and practitioners who continue to shape communication development across the Pacific.

 

Voices at the Margins: Migrant Media and Social Change

​

Moving to Aotearoa brought new dimensions to my work. Collaborating with the Ethnic Media Association, organizing forums that brought together community voices, policymakers, and even the Prime Minister—these experiences reinforced my belief that scholarship must engage with the pressing issues of our time.

​

Working with Generation Zero and NZ Progress on climate change communication, I saw how young activists were creating new forms of political engagement, using digital tools to organize, advocate, and imagine different futures. In Papua New Guinea, watching journalism students report on social and developmental issues with increasing confidence and community connection, I witnessed the transformative power of education that honors local knowledge while building critical skills.

​

Creating Spaces: ePress and Academic Innovation

​

Establishing ePress, our open-access scholarly publishing house, felt like a natural evolution of everything I'd learned about communication and social change. Traditional academic publishing often creates barriers—paywalls, gatekeepers, lengthy review processes that can silence emerging voices. With ePress, we created something different: a space where early career researchers could take their first publishing steps, where innovative scholarship could reach communities that needed it most.

​

Every publication we've released carries the DNA of my Pacific Island experiences—the understanding that knowledge belongs to communities, that scholarship should serve society, and that the most important stories are often the ones that struggle to find platforms.

 

Teaching as Transformation

​

In every classroom I've entered—from Central Asia to Papua New Guinea to Auckland—I've tried to create space for what I call "indigenous pedagogies of possibility." The Communication for Social Change course became a laboratory where NZAID scholarship students could explore how their own cultural knowledge systems intersected with global communication theories.

​

Supervising postgraduate research with students from dozens of countries taught me that the best supervision isn't about imposing frameworks, but about helping students discover their own analytical voice while honoring the knowledge traditions they bring. Some of the most profound learning happened when a student from Samoa explained how fa'a Samoa principles could reframe our understanding of digital activism, or when a researcher from Afghanistan showed how traditional storytelling practices could inform contemporary conflict reporting.

​

Weaving Networks, Building Futures

​

Today, when I look back on this journey, I see it as a massive weaving project. Each experience—from UNESCO Media Freedom Chair positions to editorial board memberships, from research center affiliations to community partnerships—represents a thread in an increasingly complex and beautiful tapestry.

​

My current work in island communicative ecologies feels like a synthesis of everything I've learned. Islands, I've discovered, are perfect laboratories for understanding how communication systems adapt, evolve, and thrive under constraint. They're also metaphors for our interconnected world—seemingly isolated, but actually part of vast networks of relationship and exchange.

 

The Work Continues

​

As I write this, I'm reminded of a Māori proverb: He aha te mea nui o te taiao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.

​

This has been the thread running through my entire career—the understanding that communication technologies come and go, media systems rise and fall, but what endures is our fundamental need to connect, to share stories, to make meaning together. Whether I'm analyzing social media activism in New Zealand, documenting traditional communication practices in the Pacific, or mentoring young researchers from across the Asia-Pacific region, I'm always asking the same questions: How do we amplify voices that need to be heard? How do we build communication systems that serve justice rather than just efficiency? How do we honor indigenous wisdom while engaging with global conversations?

​

The work continues. The stories multiply. The networks grow stronger. And somewhere, on an island I may never visit, a young person is discovering their voice, learning to tell their story, preparing to change their world—one conversation at a time.

​