Content and Context: Connecting Oral History and Social History in

Christopher Chevalier

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University

June 2021

© Copyright Christopher Chevalier 2021 All Rights Reserved

i Candidate’s Declaration

This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. To the best of the author’s knowledge, it contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where cited in the text.

Christopher Chevalier

June 2021

ii Acknowledgements

This thesis is the culmination of a seven-year journey in Solomon Islands and involving many people to acknowledge and thank. I would also like to acknowledge the many lands that I have travelled on and the traditional custodians of those lands—past, present and emerging. In Canberra, the Ngunnawal, Ngambri and Ngarigu peoples; in , the Turrbal people and Coorparoo clan; in Melbourne, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people; and the Wiradjuri people of Wagga Wagga, NSW. In Solomon Islands, the Mataniko people, the original landowners of the area on which was settled; the Bauro and Arosi peoples of ; and the Roviana- Kazukuru people in the Vona Vona lagoon.

Next, I would like to thank the participants who have provided the life and career stories that form the core of the thesis, as well as other informants who contributed to the three case studies. Except for those who asked for anonymity, most of the participants can be named. In the first case study: Afu Billy, A.V. (Tony) Hughes, the late John Roughan, and David Sitai. Other interviews with friends and family members included: Lois Mamau, Kuria Hughes, Sasabote P., Warren Paia, Paul Roughan, Mary Sitai, and Frida Sitai. In the second case study: the late Helen Barrett, Pam Goodes, Marion Gray, Pat Halpin, and Helen Morris. Others who provided helpful interviews were Barbara Barrett, Anne Lanham, Alice Watoto, Edith Fanega, and Fr Francis Tohe. In the third case study: George Amo, Sarah Ben, Timoti Daonanita, Joe Denty, Edith Fanega, Verlyn Gagahe, Bolton Hebala, Versilyn Isom, Philippa Kakasi, Margaret Luilamo, the late George Maebata, Adam Oliana, Winston Pitikamoki, Albert P., Annie P., Belshazzar Sasa, Judith S., Charles S., Suhote Sikihi, Olive S., Isiah Tukuvaku, Gabriel Vagi, Stanley Waisi, Stephen Wakataku, and Alice Watoto. Other informants were Prudence Filo, Jacqui Guy, Sir Nathan Kere, Michael Larui, Dr Judson Leafasia, Alby Lovi, Rueben Ma`au, Dr Divi Ogogo, Dr Jimmi Rogers, Dr Elizabeth Rogers, and Rosie Sisiolo.

In Solomon Islands, several government departments, agencies and institutions provided essential support for my research. My thanks to the Ministry of Health and Medical Services and Ministry of Education (especially Undersecretary Timothy Ngele) for permitting the research; to Tony Heo, Director of the National Museum, for supporting my research application; and to the Makira and Ulawa Provincial Government and Premier Thomas Weipu for permitting the research in Makira. I would also like to acknowledge members of the Campbell, Kuper, Mamaloni, and Sitai families, who gave me their time and information for the family history part of the research that was discontinued. My thanks also to Grayham Bercy Tahu, a former colleague and great friend, who

iii filmed and recorded interviews with American war veterans and commemoration services in August 2014.

In Australia, I would like to thank the Australian National University for accepting me into the PhD program and providing financial assistance for fieldwork and oral history training. In the School of Sociology, I would like to thank my supervisors Kevin White and Baptiste Brossard for their patience and wisdom throughout the long thesis production process. I pay tribute to all the fellow PhD travellers at the school who completed or are completing their own arduous journeys, particularly Phillip Ho and Joe McCarthy. I also thank the many other academic staff and administrators, including at the Educational Research Centre, for organising course work, seminars and workshops that were part of the learning process. I also thank the former State Society and Governance in Melanesia (SSGM), now the Department of Pacific Affairs (DPA), and particularly Anthony Regan, for the chance to teach on the annual Pacific Research Colloquium and the opportunity it provided for demystifying research methods and promoting participatory methods for Pacific scholars. Thanks to the fellow students of Melanesia and the Pacific at SSGM and the DPA for their fellowship and shared interest. Also to John Cox, Georgina Phillips, Dan Evans, Joanna Spratt, and Terence Wood—many thanks for your insights and conversations about the Solomons informed by your own research journeys and experience in aid and development. Special thanks to Madeleine Regan at Flinders University, who has completed her thesis on oral histories of Italian (Veneto) market gardeners, and whose monthly Skype calls have been a mutual source of knowledge and encouragement.

Finally, my thanks to friends and family who have helped me to the finish line. To great mates, Paul Cullen in Melbourne for his rude wit and welcome phone calls, and Dick Dabner in England for his humour and sharp insights. My beau-frère (brother-in-law), Ian Lucas, and my sister, Barbara Chevalier, have been enormously helpful with their encouragement and interest in the thesis, their editorial skills and patience, healthy food, walks and talks. To my daughter, Katharine Kakasi Chevalier from , and son, Manoa Satala Chevalier from Viti Levu, I hope you will appreciate how rich is the history of Solomon Islands and the Pacific. Last, but certainly not least, my love and thanks to Maggie Kenyon—wonderful wife, midwife, educator and voyageuse extraordinaire—for all our adventures, from the islands of Kenya, to Sudan, the Pacific, and now the Australian Outback. Hopefully, her mother’s wish might yet come true and her daughter will be married to a doctor, although a medical degree might have provided a shorter route and a more lucrative future.

iv Abstract

‘When a person dies, a library is lost’ is an adage in oral history that underpins and motivates this thesis. Not only is personal history lost but also social history. This thesis explores the use of oral history methods to record personal and professional histories in Solomon Islands and to recover post-war social history that might otherwise be lost or forgotten.

The thesis presents the life histories and oral testimonies of 27 Islanders and seven expatriates who lived and worked in Solomon Islands during the colonial and independence eras, and relates their experiences to the post-war social history of Solomon Islands. The life histories and oral testimonies are presented as three collective case studies. The first case study includes four individuals—two Indigenous and two expatriate—who were prominent in Solomon Islands government and civil society. The second case study includes five Australian missionary nurses and relates to their recollections of their work at Fauabu hospital on Malaita from 1968 to 1984. The third case study records the career histories of 25 nurses who trained during the colonial era and became nursing officers after Solomon Islands achieved Independence in 1978. The interview narratives were summarised and supplemented with other source materials to produce individual, group and collective histories. These histories illuminate multiple connections, changes and continuities in Solomon Islands since the Pacific War ended in 1945.

The thesis includes analysis of the impact that my personal background has had on the research. My career as a health care professional and social researcher in Solomon Islands since 1989 positioned me as a (former) insider to the country’s health care systems. I was an outsider in terms of Solomon Islands identities and cultures. My status as both an insider and outsider has inevitably influenced the contents of the oral histories and social history produced.

The thesis presents a new model of oral history methodology in six ‘domains’—visual, spatial, oral- aural, textual, numerical and digital—covering three phases of oral history—primary (recording and collection), secondary (curating and processing), and tertiary (analysis and interpretation). I also develop a social history framework which enables individual and group lives to be situated within their wider social, historical and geographical contexts, and viewed from the micro (personal and group), meso (social, institutional and cultural) and macro (national and international) perspectives.

v The thesis examines literature from oral history, social history and sociology—in particular, C. Wright Mills’ Sociological Imagination (1959) and R.W. Connell’s Southern Theory (2007). I also draw on, and draw attention to, Solomon Islands history and anthropology, and decolonisation of Pacific history and research. Pacific scholars such as Tracey Banivanua Mar, David Gegeo, Kabini Sanga, Linda Tuhiwai Smith and Teresia Teaiwa argue that Pacific history and research by outsiders often ignore or diminish Indigenous history and peoples. Decolonising oral history methods requires methods and protocols that are culturally appropriate and the engagement of Indigenous people in all phases of the research process. However well-intentioned outsiders might be, using oral history methods in academic research can recolonise (or neocolonise) Pacific oral history by adopting hegemonic academic methodologies and protocols.

The contributions made by this thesis fall into three categories. Firstly, it collects individual and collective histories and illuminates multiple levels and contexts of social history in post-war Solomon Islands. Secondly, it contributes to the history of nursing and medical services, revealing the extent to which they have been shaped by the colonial legacy, as well as the extent to which they continue to be influenced by international agencies in the post-independence era. Thirdly, it presents two heuristics—a conceptual model of oral history and a social history framework—that bring clarity and coherence to the complexities of oral history research and to the social history of Solomon Islands.

vi Table of Contents

Declaration ...... ii Acknowledgements ...... iii Abstract ...... v Table of Contents ...... vii List of Figures ...... xii List of Tables ...... xiiv List of Abbreviations ...... xv Glossary of terms ...... xvii Chapter 1. Introduction to the thesis ...... 1 1.1 Introduction ...... 1 1.2 Background and contexts to the study ...... 3 1.2.1 Solomon Islands—a brief introduction ...... 3 1.2.2 Oral history in Solomon Islands contexts ...... 6 1.2.3 ‘Northern’ oral history methods ...... 7 1.3 Introducing the research process ...... 8 1.3.1 Research questions and methodology ...... 9 1.3.2 Researcher personal history and contexts ...... 12 1.3.3 Contributions and significance of the research and thesis ...... 14 1.4 Thesis structure ...... 15 1.4.1 Chapter synopses ...... 16 Chapter 2. Navigating the literature ...... 20 2.1 Introduction ...... 20 2.2 Key developments and issues in oral history ...... 21 2.2.1 Key developments ...... 21 2.2.2 Oral history practice and life story interviewing ...... 23 2.2.3 Narrative and narrative analysis ...... 24 2.2.4 Memory and reliability ...... 27 2.3 Connecting oral history and social history ...... 29 2.3.1 Social history ...... 29 2.3.2 Sociological perspectives ...... 31 2.4 Navigating post-war Pacific history(s) ...... 34 2.4.1 Navigating post-war history ...... 34 2.4.2 Solomon Islands history(s) ...... 37 2.4.3 Nursing history ...... 41 2.5 Conclusion ...... 42

vii Chapter 3. Research methodologies and methods ...... 44 3.1 Introduction ...... 44 3.2 Designing the research ...... 45 3.2.1 Research problem, objectives and research questions ...... 45 3.2.2 Research methodologies ...... 45 3.2.3 Changes to the research design and case studies ...... 49 3.2.4 Ethics approvals and issues ...... 50 3.3 Research methods ...... 54 3.3.1 Fieldwork ...... 55 3.3.2 Primary oral history: collecting life histories and career histories ...... 56 3.3.3 Secondary oral history: Curating oral history interviews ...... 57 3.3.4 Other source materials ...... 59 3.3.5 Tertiary oral history: analysis and interpretation ...... 61 3.3.6 Social history summary analysis ...... 65 3.4 Conclusion ...... 66 Chapter 4. Four corners—four life histories ...... 68 4.1 Introduction ...... 68 4.2 The life history method ...... 69 4.2.1 Choosing the participants ...... 69 4.2.2 Source materials for the life histories ...... 70 4.2.3 Analysing oral and documentary sources ...... 72 4.3 Four summary life histories ...... 74 4.3.1 Afu Billy ...... 74 4.3.2 David Sitai ...... 77 4.3.3 Tony (A.V.) Hughes ...... 80 4.3.4 Dr John Roughan ...... 83 4.4 Analysis of the life histories as social history ...... 87 4.4.1 Upbringings ...... 87 4.4.2 Marriage and children ...... 88 4.4.3 Education ...... 89 4.4.4 Health ...... 90 4.4.5 Class ...... 91 4.4.6 Gender relations ...... 92 4.4.7 Race, racism and ethnicity ...... 93 4.4.8 Contrasting careers ...... 94 4.4.9 Religious faith and denomination ...... 96 4.4.10 Politics ...... 97 4.4.11 Land and logging ...... 98 4.4.12 Economic development ...... 99

viii 4.4.13 Population growth ...... 100 4.4.14 Aid and development ...... 101 4.5 Conclusion ...... 102 Chapter 5. The Fauabu Sisters—a group history ...... 104 5.1 Introduction ...... 104 5.2 The group history approach ...... 105 5.2.1 Finding the Fauabu Sisters ...... 105 5.2.2 Other source materials ...... 106 5.2.3 Processing oral and documentary sources ...... 108 5.3 Before the Fauabu Sisters came ...... 109 5.3.1 Malaita, the dangerous island ...... 110 5.3.2 The Melanesian Mission ...... 113 5.3.3 Hospital of the Epiphany, Fauabu 1929–1967 ...... 114 5.4 The Fauabu Sisters ...... 120 5.4.1 Helen Barrett MBE, AO, CSI (1921–2019) ...... 120 5.4.2 Her Fauabu Sisters ...... 123 5.4.3 The Sisters at Fauabu 1968 to 1984 ...... 128 5.4.4 Leaving Fauabu ...... 134 5.4.5 The missionary influence ...... 136 5.4.6 Gender relations ...... 137 5.4.7 Class and education ...... 138 5.4.8 Colonial racism ...... 139 5.5 Conclusion ...... 140 Chapter 6. Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history ...... 143 6.1 Introduction ...... 143 6.2 A collective history approach ...... 143 6.2.1 Participants’ demographic characteristics ...... 143 6.2.2 Collecting and curating the oral histories ...... 145 6.2.3 Other source materials ...... 146 6.3 Becoming nurses ...... 148 6.3.1 Getting an education—the first step...... 148 6.3.2 Choosing nursing...... 149 6.3.3 Nurse training in the colonial era ...... 150 6.3.4 Learning nursing ...... 153 6.4 Rising through the ranks ...... 156 6.4.1 Getting posted ...... 156 6.4.2 Getting promoted ...... 158 6.4.3 Retirement—in sickness and health ...... 161

ix 6.5 Changing social and structural contexts ...... 163 6.5.1 Changes to nurse training after Independence ...... 163 6.5.2 Changes to nursing schemes of service ...... 169 6.5.4 Donor influence ...... 172 6.5.5 Epidemiological and demographic transitions ...... 173 6.5.3 Professional rivalries and power ...... 174 6.5.6 Multiple histories and perspectives ...... 177 6.6 Conclusion ...... 178 Chapter 7. Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History ...... 181 7.1 Introduction ...... 181 7.2 Re-viewing oral history ...... 181 7.2.1 The visual domain ...... 182 7.2.2 The spatial domain ...... 185 7.2.3 The oral–aural domain ...... 189 7.2.4 The text domain ...... 191 7.2.5 The numerical domain ...... 194 7.2.6 The digital domain ...... 196 7.3 Practising oral history research in Solomon Islands contexts ...... 199 7.3.1 Difference and dominance between insiders and outsiders ...... 199 7.3.2 Costs, access and inequality ...... 201 7.3.3 Informed consent and copyright...... 202 7.3.4 Recolonising or decolonising oral history in the Solomons ...... 204 7.4 Conclusion ...... 207 Chapter 8. Content and context—recovering Social History ...... 209 8.1 Introduction ...... 209 8.2 Using the Social History Framework ...... 209 8.2.1 The social-structural axis—linking the micro, meso, and the macro ...... 210 8.2.2 The historical axis ...... 211 8.2.3 The geographical axis ...... 212 8.3 Historical contexts ...... 214 8.3.1 The Pacific War 1942–1945 ...... 214 8.3.2 Maasina Rule 1944–1952 ...... 215 8.3.3 The slow boat to Independence 1952–1978 ...... 217 8.3.4 Post-independence 1978–1998 ...... 218 8.3.5 The Tension Years 1998–2003 ...... 219 8.3.6 The RAMSI years 2003–2016 ...... 220 8.4 Social-structural contexts ...... 222 8.4.1 Christianity and the influence of mission churches...... 222 8.4.2 The dominance of western education ...... 223

x 8.4.3 The growth of government and non-government institutions ...... 225 8.4.4 Land and environment ...... 228 8.4.5 Honiara and urbanisation—the elephant in the room ...... 230 8.4.6 Population growth—the elephant in the backroom ...... 232 8.4.7 Epidemiological changes ...... 233 8.4.8 Changes in nursing and medical services ...... 234 8.4.9 Gender relations and the gender order ...... 236 8.4.10 Race and ethnicity ...... 238 8.4.11 Class, status and big-men ...... 240 8.4.12 Colonial continuity and change ...... 241 8.5 Conclusion ...... 242 Chapter 9. Conclusions ...... 244 9.1 Introduction ...... 244 9.2 Answering the research questions ...... 244 9.2.1 Preserving individual and collective histories ...... 244 9.2.2 Recovering social history ...... 245 9.3 Contributions made by the research ...... 246 9.3.1 Contributions to Oral History ...... 246 9.3.2 Contributions to Social History ...... 247 9.3.3 Making contributions accessible ...... 248 9.4 Reflections and lessons learned ...... 249 9.4.1 Practical lessons learned ...... 249 9.4.2 The value of oral history ...... 250 9.4.3 The value of social history ...... 251 9.4.4 Insiders and outsiders in oral history research ...... 252 9.4.5 Recolonising or decolonising oral history research ...... 253 9.5 Recommendations ...... 254 Bibliography ...... 256 Appendices ...... 292 Appendix 1A Information sheet for participants ...... 292 Appendix 1B Consent form for participants...... 296 Appendix 1C Release agreement form ...... 297 Appendix 2 Alice Watoto – an example of a nursing career history ...... 298 Appendix 3 Participants and other informants ...... 312

xi List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Map of Solomon Islands and provinces ...... 3 Fig. 1.2 Six domains and three phases of the oral history model ...... 10 Fig. 1.3 A social history framework ...... 11 Fig. 3.1 Location of participant interviews in Solomon Islands ...... 54 Fig. 3.2 Steps in collecting and curating interview materials ...... 58 Fig. 3.3 An example of materials returned to nursing officer participants ...... 59 Fig. 3.4 A social history framework of central Solomon Islands ...... 65 Fig. 4.1 Four participants—four corners ...... 68 Fig. 4.2 Afu Billy with Maylene Taghoa at the 2011 RAMSI awards, Honiara ...... 76 Fig. 4.3 Afu Billy with Prince William during the 2012 Royal Visit, Honiara ...... 76 Fig. 4.4 David Sitai, 2009 ...... 79 Fig. 4.5 At home Honiara, 2014; inset: Sitai at UN, 1997 ...... 79 Fig. 4.6 Wheelchair bound, 2014; inset: Sitai with Kofi Annan, 1997 ...... 79 Fig. 4.7 Tony Hughes conducting a ‘whispered vote’ in Malaita, 1962 ...... 81 Fig. 4.8 Sikitae Road new settlement, Auki, Malaita 1962/63 ...... 81 Fig. 4.9 John Roughan, Rohinari, 1986 ...... 85 Fig. 4.10 Late photo of John Roughan with SIDT staff ...... 85 Fig. 5.1 Helen Barrett wearing dolphin teeth from Malaita ...... 105 Fig. 5.2 Isabel shell necklace, Queensland Museum, 2016 ...... 105 Fig. 5.3 Malaitan hair comb ...... 105 Fig. 5.4 Helen Morris, Pam Goodes, Marion Gray, Melbourne, 2016 ...... 106 Fig. 5.5 Pat Halpin, Wagga Wagga, 2016 ...... 106 Fig. 5.6 1930s map of Malaita, and Makira (San Cristoval) ...... 110 Fig. 5.7 Wards at Fauabu 1940s ...... 115 Fig. 5.8 A patient arriving at Coleridge Bay, 1940s ...... 115 Fig. 5.9 Dressing a patient and student nurses at Fauabu, 1940s ...... 117 Fig. 5.10 Demonstration dressing of a patient at St Francis leprosarium, 1940s ...... 119 Fig. 5.11 Student nurses and exhibition feeding of orphans at Fauabu,1940s ...... 120 Fig. 5.12 Helen Barret AO, 2002 ...... 123 Fig. 5.13 Cross of the Solomon Islands, 2005 ...... 123 Fig. 5.14 Helen Barrett in 2015 with Mothers’ Union prayer by Mary Sumner ...... 124 Fig. 5.15 Visit by a Mothers’ Union Group from the Solomons in 2017 ...... 124

xii Fig. 5.16 Veronica Kefu doing district work 1970s ...... 128 Fig. 5.17 Helen Barrett, Pam Goodes, Veronica Kefu and Pat Halpin, 1979 ...... 128 Fig. 5.18 The Fauabu Sisters, 1970 ...... 129 Fig. 5.19 Helen Barrett and nurse aides going bush ...... 132 Fig. 5.20 District work—school health clinic ...... 132 Fig. 5.21 Fauabu nurses graduating, 1972 ...... 134 Fig. 5.22 Farewell to Fauabu, 1984 ...... 135 Figs. 6.1–6.3 Three of the ‘old guard’ nursing officers ...... 145 Fig. 6.4 Female nurse-midwives and male medical assistant graduates, Honiara 1964 ...... 152 Fig. 6.5 Nursing levels and years to achieve promotion, by gender ...... 159 Fig. 6.6 Levels of promotion achieved by participants, by gender ...... 160 Fig. 6.7 The leadership group who designed the 2006 nursing scheme of service ...... 170 Fig. 6.8 Contrasting office exteriors at MHMS headquarters, Honiara 2014 ...... 175 Fig. 7.1 Six domains and three phases in the Oral History model ...... 182 Fig. 7.2 Visual domain aspects...... 183 Fig. 7.3 Sue S.1971 escorting Queen Elizabeth II, Honiara 1974 ...... 184 Fig. 7.4 Afu Billy with Prince William, Honiara 2012 ...... 184 Fig. 7.5 David Sitai with Kofi Annan, UN, New York 1997 ...... 184 Fig. 7.6 Pat Halpin, Helen Barrett, Joy Kere, Ann Lanham, Honiara 2006 ...... 185 Fig. 7.7 Timothy Kwaimani and Tony Hughes, Honiara 2014 ...... 185 Fig. 7.8 Spatial domain aspects ...... 186 Figs. 7.9–7.11 Different places and identities: Hughes as Central Bank ex-governor (Honiara), storekeeper (Vona Vona), husband and former naval officer ...... 187 Fig. 7.12 Oral-Aural domain aspects ...... 189 Fig. 7.13 Text domain aspects ...... 192 Fig. 7.14 Numerical domain aspects ...... 194 Fig. 7.15 Digital domain aspects ...... 197 Fig. 8.1 A social historical framework ...... 210 Fig. 8.2 Honiara population growth rate 1959–2019 ...... 231 Fig. 8.3 Solomon Islands population 1931–2019 ...... 233 Fig. A1 Fauabu student nurses 1970–72 intake ...... 310 Fig. A2 Alice Watoto 2015 ...... 311 Fig. A3 Alice Watoto 1989 ...... 311

xiii List of Tables

Table 1.1 Structure of the thesis ...... 15 Table 3.1 Research approval components in Australian and Solomon Islands ...... 52 Table 3.2. Release of interview materials and options for use ...... 53 Table 3.3 Research fieldwork periods and locations ...... 55 Table 3.4 Number and length of interviews by case study ...... 56 Table 3.6 Summary of the research problems, questions, methodologies and methods ...... 66 Table 4.1 Sources of information and methods used for life histories ...... 71 Table 4.2 Steps in analysing life histories ...... 72 Table 4.3 Social history framework from the Four Corners case study ...... 103 Table 5.1 Source materials provided by the Fauabu Sisters ...... 107 Table 5.2 Additional sources for the Fauabu case study ...... 108 Table 5.3 Social history framework for the Fauabu Sisters ...... 142 Table 6.1. Demographic characteristics of the Nursing Officers ...... 144 Table 6.2 Sources of methods and materials used for the case study...... 147 Table 6.3 Registered Nurses by training institution ...... 151 Table 6.4 Estimated completion rates for nursing intakes in the 1970s ...... 155 Table 6.5 Nursing careers spent in Honiara and provinces ...... 158 Table 6.6 Numbers of qualified registered nurses by training institution 1981–2010 ...... 165 Table 6.7 Changes to nursing titles and levels, 1992 and 2006 ...... 171 Table 6.8 Social history framework for the Nursing Officers case study ...... 180

Table 8.1 Social-structural themes from the three case studies…………………………………………… 211 Table 8.2 Participants’ places of origin, training, work and permanent residence...... 213

xiv List of Abbreviations

ADB ANO Assistant Nursing Officer AusAID Australian Agency for International Development1 AUD Australian dollar BEM British Empire Medal BSIP British Solomon Islands Protectorate CBSI Central Bank of Solomon Islands CDC Commonwealth Development Corporation; the area on the north Guadalcanal plains where CDC oil palm plantations were situated COM Church of Melanesia CNO Chief Nursing Officer DON Director of Nursing, head of nursing in each province and Solomon Islands EU European Union, formerly the European Economic Community (EEC) GRA Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army HISP Health Institutional Strengthening Project, funded by AusAID IFM Isatabu Freedom Movement IMF International Monetary Fund IUD Intra-uterine device, a form of contraception KGVI King George Sixth School MBE Member of the Order of the British Empire MEF Malaita Eagle Force MEHRD Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development MHMS Ministry of Health and Medical Services NA Nurse Aide NCD Non-communicable disease NGO Non-government organisation OBE Officer of the Order of the British Empire OPD Out-patient department PHC Primary Health Care PIANGO Pacific Islands Association of Non-Government Organisations

1 A department within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, responsible for delivering Australia’s development aid program. It became an executive agency in July 2010 but was re-integrated into DFAT in 2013.

xv PNG PNO Principal Nursing Officer RAMSI Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands RN Registered Nurse ROC Republic of China RRRT Regional Resources Rights Team RSIPF Royal Solomon Islands Police Force SBD Solomons Islands dollar SDA Seventh Day Adventist SIBC Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation SICA Solomon Islands Christian Association SICHE Solomon Islands College of Higher Education SIDT Solomon Islands Development Trust SI Solomon Islands2 SIG Solomon Islands Government SIMTRI Solomon Islands Medical Training and Research Institute SINA Solomon Islands Nursing Association SINM Solomon Islands National Museum SINU Solomon Islands National University, established in 2013 from SICHE SNO Senior Nursing Officer SNS Superintendent of Nursing, formerly head of nursing (now National DON) SPC Secretariat of the Pacific Community SSEC South Sea Evangelical Church, formerly South Sea Evangelical Mission (SSEM) TBA Traditional Birth Attendant UC United Church, formerly Methodist Church VHW Village Health Worker YWCA Young Women’s Christian Association UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UK The (Britain) USA The United States of America USD US dollar

2 Note that the name of the country has no definite article but for variety I also use the term ‘the Solomons’.

xvi Glossary of terms

This glossary is intended to assist the reader by specifying some of the terms and distinctions used in the thesis. Araikwao—white man or person Aurality—the process of listening in oral history. Domain—in this thesis to denote a group of related aspects of oral history methodology, as defined in the Visual, Spatial, Oral–Aural, Text, Numerical and Digital (VSO-ATND) domains of the oral history model developed in this thesis. Heuristic—a hands-on way to discover or learn something; in this thesis, the oral history model and social history framework are heuristic devices to summarise or encapsulate oral history methodology and social history. Oral history—defined in this thesis at three levels: as a sub-discipline or specialised field of history; as the methodology or the process of doing oral history; and as the oral accounts and text versions produced from recorded interviews. Orality—the processes of speaking and telling of oral history. Oral testimony—firsthand accounts of events seen and witnessed. Oral tradition—historical and cultural information transmitted orally from one generation to the next, including origin stories of people, genealogies and places. Life story—the story told by an individual of his/her life or parts of their life and experiences. It is a personal version of the past, interpreted and filtered over time. Life history—an edited account of an individual’s past by a researcher or historian, based on interviews, conversations, and personal documents. It typically follows life stages chronologically, such as childhood, education, marriage, career, and events. Narrative—the way(s) a story is expressed and structured. Narrator—the interviewee or person telling their story. Pijin—the lingua franca of Solomon Islands, a variety of Melanesian pidgin developed in Australian and Fijian plantations to communicate with and between Pacific Islanders. Story—an oral or written account of the life, experience, or story. Tok Pisin—the lingua franca of Papua New Guinea, a variety of Melanesian pidgin. Tok stori— (Pijin) ‘storying’, a natural mode of communication in Pijin or Indigenous language, usually in informal settings and in a group. Wantok— (Pijin) family members, lineage or clan members, members of one’s ethno-linguistic group. Literally translated as ‘speaking the same language’.

xvii

Chapter 1. Introduction to the thesis

1.1 Introduction

A central motivation underpinning this thesis is encapsulated in the aphorism, ‘When a person dies, a library is lost [or burns]’. In Solomon Islands, which is the focus of this research, there is an extensive published and archival record of the colonial period, but it has been written mainly by outsiders for government and missionary purposes. Literature relating to the post-independence era has similarly been written mostly by outsiders, while the approximately dozen biographies about or by Islanders have been of well-known figures such as members of administrative and political elites. Oral testimonies can recover information and perspectives about lives ‘hidden from history’ (Rowbotham 1996), as well as being valuable in and of themselves.

This thesis explores the use of oral history methods to gather testimonies from people who are living (or who have lived) in Solomon Islands in the post-war era, and to relate these to their wider social and historical contexts. Specifically, its objectives are:

1) To examine different oral history methods appropriate to Solomon Islands contexts.

2) To record life histories and oral testimonies from individuals and groups who experienced both the colonial and independence periods.

3) To connect life histories and oral testimonies to historical contexts, social structures and social change in Solomon Islands, particularly since the Pacific War.

The word ‘context’ is central to this thesis. It has two meanings: a) the parts of a text that surround a word or passage and throw light on its meaning (Merriam-Webster 2020), and b) the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement or idea, and in terms of which it can be more fully understood (Cambridge Dictionary 2020). The first meaning of ‘context’ originates from the Latin con-texere, which means to weave or join together words in language or to connect in words. This thesis weaves analysis of the individual and collective histories into their social, historical and geographical contexts, seeking to add to our understanding of both the lives of the participants and the contexts in which they lived and worked.

I present three case studies of people who worked during and after the colonial era in in Solomon Islands. The first case study recovers the lives and career histories of four prominent individuals— two Solomon Islanders and two expatriates. The second provides career histories for two groups of nurses who trained in the colonial era and worked in the post-independence era—a group of 25

1 Chapter 1 Introduction to the thesis

Solomon Islanders in a collective biography. The third is a group biography of a group of 5 Australian missionaries. I have explored how the case studies can be used to add to our understanding of the social history of Solomon Islands in the post-war era.

The thesis presents a model for oral history methodology that I developed in the course of the research, which I have called the Visual, Spatial, Oral-Aural, Text, Numerical and Digital (VSO- ATND) model. The purpose of the VSO-ATND model is to add clarity and coherence to the oral history research process by bringing together its many and complex aspects into a single integrated framework.

The thesis also presents a social history framework, which I developed to connect the testimonies that I have collected to their wider social contexts. The framework situates both the testimonies and the contexts in a unified analytic space comprising three axes—social-structural, historical and geographical/spatial. I use the analogy of a telephoto zoom lens to describe the processes of ‘zooming in’ and ‘zooming out’ along each axis to locate oral history content within its temporal, spatial and social contexts. For the social-structural axis, I use the zoom lens to distinguish between micro-, meso- and macro-levels. The micro-level (personal and group) zooms in close, to the connections arising from shared personal experience, places and events. At the meso-level, the focus shifts to social and cultural factors (including gender, religion, race, ethnicity and island identity), illuminating the ways in which institutions and professions introduced during British colonial rule have both continued and changed in the post-independence era. Zooming out to the macro-level, the focus is on the impacts of imperial, colonial, post-colonial, and neoliberal forces on a small island-state—impacts that may find echoes in other Pacific states as well as in colonial and post-colonial societies elsewhere. The zoom lens analogy is also relevant for the historical axis (where periods and events can be viewed from more immediate or longer-term perspectives) and for the geographical axis (where analysis can move between focusing on specific locations and regions, to Solomon Islands as a whole, to the Pacific region, and so on).

This introductory chapter provides the background to this study and an overview of the thesis. Section 1.2 presents a brief introduction to Solomon Islands and the existing context of oral history in the country. I clarify distinctions between types and levels of oral history, particularly oral tradition, oral testimony, oral histories, and oral history as a discipline. Section 1.3 introduces the research problems and questions addressed by the thesis and outlines the research methodology and methods I developed and employed. Section 1.3.2 describes the influence of my own professional and research background on the research; this includes my dual position as outsider of European background and insider to the health system with extensive experience in the

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Solomons. Section 1.3.3 articulates the conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions made by the thesis and includes suggestions as to how oral history methods might be used to decolonise research in Solomon Islands. Section 1.4 provides an outline and synopsis of the remaining eight chapters. 1.2 Background and contexts to the study

Section 1.2 provides background relating to Solomon Islands geography, history and cultures. It also distinguishes between different types of oral history relevant to this research and Solomon Islands.

1.2.1 Solomon Islands—a brief introduction

Fig. 1.1 Map of Solomon Islands and provinces [in capitals] (source: Vincent Verheyen)

Solomon Islands lies 1800 km north-east of Australia, stretching approximately 1500 km in a south- easterly direction between Papua New Guinea and in the south-west Pacific (see Fig.1.1). The archipelago is formed by 922 islands in a double chain with six large forested islands and 340 inhabited smaller islands and atolls (Strathern et al. 2002, 29). The islands were first occupied around 28,000 years ago by Papuan language-speaking people who had moved gradually eastward from south-east Asia (Bennett 1987, 2000). Austronesian language-speaking people arrived from 3,500 years ago, with ancestors who had originated in Taiwan and began migrating through archipelagic south-east Asia around 5,000 years ago (Spriggs 1996, 2009). Small bands of migrants have settled in the islands over long periods of time, producing great diversity of history, culture

3 Chapter 1 Introduction to the thesis and language—64 Austronesian and four Papuan languages, with some 20 dialect variations (Tryon and Hackman 1983).

Europeans first made contact and named the Solomons in 1567 with de Mendaña’s Spanish expeditions of 1567 and 1595.3 The islands were ‘rediscovered’ by French naval expeditions in the eighteenth century. In the following century, merchant and whaling ships often landed in the islands to careen their ships, procure fresh supplies and barter with Islanders. After 1867, labour traders began procuring Islanders for plantations in Queensland, Fiji and Samoa, initially through trickery and violence (‘blackbirding’) and later by indentured labour subject to regulation, which brought British navy ships into regular contact with the islands.

Britain laid claim to the islands between 1893 and 1899 to pre-empt German and French colonial possession, declaring the British Solomon Islands Protectorate (BSIP) ranging from the Shortland islands next to Bougainville in the north and Reef Islands to the south.4 Resistance to colonial regulations, laws and indirect rule was met with threats or demonstrations of overwhelming punishment. Indigenous societies were impacted by and adapted to colonial authority and violence, Christian missions, the labour trade, cash and barter economics. The population declined— dramatically in some islands—due to diseases introduced by Europeans and returning labourers.

The Pacific War brought catastrophic imperial warfare into what had been a neglected colonial backwater. Japanese forces invaded the Solomons in May 1942 and major land and sea battles soon followed. Allied forces landed on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in August 1942. After narrowly winning the battles for Guadalcanal and Munda in extremely difficult conditions, the Allies drove the Japanese out of the Solomons in 1943, marking the beginning of Japan’s eventual defeat in 1945. The old colonial capital of Tulagi was destroyed during the war. It was later replaced by Honiara, on the north coast of Guadalcanal, utilising the military infrastructure left by departing Allied forces, including airfields and a deep-water port (Foukona and Allen 2019; Moore in press).

Dismantling of the British empire began after the war. In the Solomons, colonial rule was challenged by demands for self-government by the Maasina Rule movement from 1944 to 1952. It took another three decades before Solomon Islands achieved Independence in 1978, at a pace and on terms decided largely by the British. The colonial inheritance included a single-chamber

3 The Spanish named the islands after the legendary gold mines of King Solomon, believing that the alluvial gold found in Guadalcanal promised great wealth. 4 A protectorate was a colonial fiction whereby a stronger power took legal control over territory but without the full status of a colony, for example Fiji. In a form of indirect rule, ‘chiefs’ and ‘headmen’ were appointed to govern local areas under the control of a small number of district officers under a Resident Commissioner backed by the threat of colonial punishment.

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Westminster-style parliament, four-yearly first-past-the post elections in 38 (now 50) electorates, and a legal system based on British common law. English is the official language and Solomon Islands Pijin the informal lingua franca. The country now has nine provinces named after their larger island or geographical locations: Choiseul, Western, Isabel, Malaita, Central Islands, Guadalcanal, Makira/Ulawa, Rennell/Bellona, and Temotu (see Fig. 1.1). Longstanding tensions between provinces, particularly Malaita and Guadalcanal, led to armed conflict from 1998 to 2003 called ‘the Tension’, which included an armed coup in 2000 by Malaitan militants and the police. Effective government, law and order were restored three years later by an Australian-led regional intervention force, the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), which remained until 2016 at a cost of nearly AUD 2.6 billion (Hayward-Jones 2014).

Hviding (1996, xv) describes post-independence Solomon Islands as combining multiple entanglements of ancient cultural systems, Christian religion, the modern nation-state and capitalist systems. Solomon Islands is now highly Christianised, the most direct legacy of the colonial era, reflecting the influence of Christian missions since the turn of the twentieth century. Evangelical sects and denominations have made increasing inroads since Independence, creating competition and divisions within communities (Brown 2005; Timmer 2019). Kastom (Solomon Islands Pijin meaning customary law and ways of life) is strong, especially in rural communities. Kastom is evolving in the context of continual political, cultural and religious changes since the nineteenth century (Strathern et al. 2002, 32; Akin 2013). Kastom and genealogy anchor land and identities, providing a framework to regulate specialised knowledge, general cultural knowledge, social obligations, ownership and inheritance (Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo 2001, 68–69). Over 80 per cent of the population live in rural villages albeit with an increasing influence of urban lifestyles and diet. Most people in rural areas have mixed subsistence and cash livelihoods, including remittances from family members working in towns and overseas.

Solomon Islands is rich in natural resources in the form of tropical forests, marine life and some minerals (gold, nickel and bauxite). These have been plundered for minimal returns at the cost of serious environmental damage (J. Bennett 2000). Safeguarding environmental riches from predatory overseas and local companies has proved highly problematic given weak state institutions and environmental regulations combined with the urgent need for revenue by landowners and provincial and national governments (World Bank 2017). By western economic standards, Solomon Islands is one of the poorest and most donor-dependent countries in the world, ranking 153rd out of 181 countries on the Human Development Index in 2018 (UNDP 2018), with a per capita GDP of USD 2160 and high unemployment in urban areas. The population has quadrupled

5 Chapter 1 Introduction to the thesis since Independence, reaching 721,00 in 2019 (SINSO 2020), accentuating poverty and unemployment. This is especially evident in Honiara, which has grown from a small colonial enclave to an unplanned Melanesian city with myriad social and environmental problems (Barbara and Keen 2017; J. Connell 2017).

1.2.2 Oral history in Solomon Islands contexts

Oral history is an umbrella term with multiple aspects and definitions that can create confusion. Morrissey (1984) calls oral history a ‘terminological jungle’, likening it to a hybrid mule combining the pedigree of a racehorse (history) with the utility of a donkey (orality or verbal communication). James Bennett (1983, 13–14) lists 30 variations of techniques that involve orality and history. To create clarity, I first distinguish between oral tradition and oral testimony:

- oral tradition: historical and cultural information transmitted orally from one generation to the next, including origin stories about people, genealogy and places.

- oral testimony: firsthand accounts of events witnessed or experienced.

This distinction is useful in contexts such as Solomon Islands, where language and kinship groups have their own rich oral cultures (Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo 1999, 2001; Sanga 2015, 2019). Oral tradition refers to historical, social and cultural information passed from one generation to the next via language, origin stories, folklore and myths, and can include performance and material culture (Cruickshank 1994, 404, 413; Finegan 2017). It may be transmitted in multiple forms: stories, reminiscences, places and names, songs, proverbs, poetry, family ancestral stories, origin stories (Indigenous and, more recently, biblical), stories about the natural world (stars, norms, sun, animals), ceremonies, dances, theatre, sacred and secular cultural, objects and dreams (Hereniko 2000). Oral traditions have been recorded, including cultural events, music and stories, some of which are archived at the Solomon Islands National Museum, Solomon Islands National Archives and the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC); the latter now has probably the most extensive oral recording archive and has digitised many programs, broadcasts and speeches. A range of wartime oral testimonies by Solomon Islanders and expatriates have been transcribed and published (Kwai 2018; Lindstrom and White 1989, 1995).5

Within oral testimony, I include ‘storying’ and ‘tok stori’, which are Indigenous cultural models of communication, practice and thought in Melanesian cultures (Sanga et al. 2018). ‘Storying’ is done

5 Recordings and materials made by American anthropologists Roger Keesing and Harold Scheffler have recently been digitised by the University of California San Diego library.

6 Chapter 1 Introduction to the thesis together with others and a story is constructed by speakers and listeners. ‘Tok stori’ is focused on purposeful sharing and takes place when people interact and exchange stories, creating a collective experience accompanied by the development of relationships. Indigenous methods of oral transmission place high value on reciprocity and respect for narrators’ knowledge, which resonates with Northern oral history methods (see Section 1.2.3 below).6 These cultural modes of transmission create many linguistically diverse forms of Indigenous knowledge and types of oral education in Solomon Islands (Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo 2001; Sanga and Reynolds 2017).

1.2.3 ‘Northern’ oral history methods

This thesis primarily deals with oral testimony—witness or first-person accounts—and treats oral history as the recording, processing and analysis of oral testimonies. Yow (2005, 3) defines oral history as having three components: the recording of personal history delivered in oral form, the transcript and the research method. I clarify this further by distinguishing between three phases of oral history: primary, secondary and tertiary. Primary oral history is the primary collection of oral testimonies, which includes the original interviews and recordings (audio and video) of the interviews. Secondary oral history is the curating or processing of recordings, transcripts, texts and other products of oral history. Tertiary oral history is the analysis and interpretation of oral testimonies, taking into consideration their social, cultural and historical contexts. Tertiary oral history can draw on other primary and secondary sources.7 It can be done at the time of the telling or interview, at the time of listening to and transcribing the recording, and/or at the time of writing about the interview content and contexts (Shopes 2014; Thomson 2019). All three phases are involved in oral history for academic, institutional and community purposes, but oral history done for personal and family purposes often does not (and does not need to) include the secondary and tertiary phases.

Oral history has developed enormously as a discipline and research method since the 1940s. Alistair Thomson (2007) identifies four paradigm transformations in its development, which are outlined here and explained in more detail in Chapter 2, Section 2.2.2.

6 I adopt Raewyn Connell’s (2006, 2007) term ‘Northern’ to mean ‘western’ and paraphrase ‘Anglo-American- European’, as opposed to ‘Southern’ or non-Anglo-European forms of knowledges and practices. I discuss Southern theory in the next chapter. 7 Primary sources are created by participants who witnessed or experienced events and conditions first-hand. Secondary sources are created by participants who were not first-hand witnesses of events.

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Post World War II to the 1970s—the rise of social history though ‘history from below’ of people and classes previously ignored or silenced in documented history.

1970s—strengths-based approaches to oral history, responding to critiques by historians of the unreliability and subjectivity of memory in oral history by arguing that these are better seen as strengths, providing clues about the meaning of historical experiences, about relationships between past and present, and about the links between individual and collective or social memory.

1980s and 1990s—the cultural, linguistic and theoretical turns, theoretical developments in oral history about the central roles of subjectivity, intersubjectivity and shared authority in interviewing and curating oral history interviews. Developments in interview-based studies, history and biography were influenced by postmodernist and poststructuralist studies in a range of humanities and social sciences.

1990s and 2000s—the ‘digital turn’, developments in digital technology and internet platforms creating new opportunities for recording, archiving, accessing and presenting oral histories.

While the ‘digital turn’ has made oral history more available, the ‘theoretical turn’ has made it harder to understand (and thus more elitist) for non-specialist readers. I endorse the view of Shopes (2014, 264), who argues against obfuscation and that ‘theory needs to be used with discipline to draw out but not drown out meaning’. I also value the dictum of E.P. Thompson, author of The Making of the English Working Class and arguably England’s greatest social historian, that ‘History is not a factory for the manufacture of Grand Theory… Its business is to recover, to explain and to understand its object—real history’ (E.P. Thompson 1993, 454, my emphasis), which in this case is the history of Solomon Islands. I have also applied this dictum to oral history, which I explain and understand through the three case studies in Chapters 4 to 6, and the oral history conceptual model (outlined in Section 1.3.1 below and described in detail in Chapter 7).

1.3 Introducing the research process

In Section 1.3, I introduce and provide an overview of the research process (explained in detail in Chapter 3). Section 1.3.1 sets out the research questions and methodologies used, while Section 1.3.2 outlines my research background and personal history and sets out reflections on ways in which these have influenced the research process. Section 1.3.3 articulates the conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions made by the thesis.

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1.3.1 Research questions and methodology

As explained in Section 1.1, the purpose of this research is to explore the use of oral history methods to record individual and group histories and the light they may throw on the broader social history of the post-war era in Solomon Islands. I have structured the research using two broad and exploratory research questions:

1) How can oral history methods preserve individuals and collective histories in Solomon Islands contexts?

2) What aspects of social history can be recovered using oral history methods?

To address these research questions, I combine case study, oral history and social history methodologies. The three case studies involve 27 Solomon Islander and seven expatriate participants who lived and worked during the colonial and independence eras. These can be classified as exploratory collective case studies (G. Thomas 2011, 516), but due to their different numbers of participants and degrees of connection, the case studies are presented and summarised differently: four individual life histories, a group biography and a collective biography. The life history case study (Chapter 4) examines the extended life histories of four individuals—two Indigenous and two expatriate—who rose to prominence in politics, government, and civil society. The group biography case study (Chapter 5) connects five Australian missionary nurses who worked at the Hospital of the Epiphany at Fauabu on Malaita from 1968 to 1984. The collective biography case study (Chapter 6) combines the career histories of 25 Solomon Islands nurses who trained under the colonial system and subsequently became nursing officers after Independence in 1978.

The oral history methodology involved single or multiple interviews with each participant about their lives and careers. The interviews were recorded with participants’ permission, transcribed and curated into individual life histories and career histories. The curated individual life histories and career histories were returned to participants for correction, along with follow-up questions and requests for any missing information.

To guide the conduct of the oral history process, I developed and employed an oral history model (the VSO-ATND model), shown in Fig. 1.2. The model is based on detailed analysis of the oral history process. It has six domains—visual, spatial, oral-aural, text, numerical and digital (VSO- ATND)—covering each phase of oral history as defined in Section 1.2.3 above: primary (1°), secondary (2°) and tertiary (3°).

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Fig. 1.2 Six domains and three phases of the oral history model

The VSO-ATND model provides a conceptual overview of the oral history process that calls attention to and draws together its multiple aspects. Some of these aspects are not immediately considered or obvious, such as the visual, spatial and numerical, and are explained in more detail in Chapter 3 (Methodology and Methods) and Chapter 7 (Reviewing and Re-viewing Oral History). The framework is flexible and can be adjusted according to the type and purpose of oral history, whether for private, community, institutional or academic research.

A wide definition of social history has been adopted, viz: the history of social groups and whole societies, analysis of the life of social groups, social processes, and forces and factors of change and continuity (Social History 1976, 1–3). The social history methodology involves analysis and interpretation of oral history texts—transcribed interviews, life and career summaries— supplemented by primary and secondary historical sources. Primary sources include curricula vitae, photographs, diaries, letters, newspaper articles, government documents, poems and plays. Secondary sources are mainly articles, published materials and online data sites. Bringing together the oral histories with primary and secondary sources reveals not just ‘history from below’ but also already-documented history that has been lost or forgotten in footnotes and archives.

To connect oral histories and social history, I developed a social-history framework (see Fig. 1.3). The framework features three axes—social-structural, historical, and geographical—enabling oral history content to be contextualised socially, temporally, and spatially. Using a zoom lens analogy, each axis can be viewed at different levels or scales.

The social-structural axis (on the vertical axis in Fig. 1.3) has three broad levels: micro, meso and macro.

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Micro-level: The personal level of individuals and groups, including their immediate social settings and environments (milieux) in which everyday life is experienced (family, workplace, leisure spaces).

Meso-level: The broader social and cultural institutions affecting individuals and groups, including religion, education, organisations, and professions. Included at this level are social variables of class, age or generation, gender, race and ethnicity.8

Macro-level: the larger national and international structures of society: political, economic and institutional structures of the nation-state and international order, including trade, capitalism and neoliberalism.

Fig. 1.3 A social history framework (CartoGIS Services, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University)

Applying the zoom lens analogy to the historical axis (on the horizontal axis in Fig. 1.3), the direct witnessing or lived experience of oral histories of participants can be related to earlier periods and events along the historical timeline. Applying it to the geographical axis (on a diagonal axis in Fig. 1.3), the lens can be zoomed in to focus on specific locations during lives and careers, or on institutions and migrations. A central feature of the geography is the capital Honiara, founded on the site of the Allied naval base and camps and replacing Tulagi, the colonial capital destroyed during the war. The lens can be drawn back to bring into view connections with Papua New Guinea, Australia and the wider Pacific. Both geographic and historical scales can be expanded to cover a wider region or longer time periods depending on the focus of the research.

8 Giddens and Sutton (2009, 28) apply the term meso at the level of family, social group, community and neighbourhood. I allocate this group level to micro-level and the meso-level to institutions and locations beyond the immediate personal environment but with which individuals interact. However, the three levels are adjustable along smaller steps (or stops in the zoom lens analogy).

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The social history framework brings a visual perspective and overview to many aspects of the social history of Solomon Islands, as well as allowing comparison of individual and group histories in the different case studies. It was developed independently of other scaled frameworks, such as Collins (1981, 986). Collins’s framework arranges levels of society on a vertical scale (by the space measured in square feet occupied by individuals, small groups, communities and organisations, and whole societies) and along a horizontal temporal scale (measured from seconds, hours, days, months, years, and centuries). The axes and scales in my framework have similarities but without the quantitative precision, which would be difficult to put into practice. This framework also resonates with interlocking scales of memory in transnational memory studies to connect local, national and global levels of collective memory with migrations, diasporas and events that impact across nation states, such as the Holocaust (de Cesari and Rigney 2014). Kennedy and Nugent (2016) use a multi- scalar perspective with Indigenous Australia histories to connect historical events and changes with memories and meanings from previous generations that reach back into deep history and the Dreamtime. Frameworks such as these are useful conceptual tools to imagine and situate phenomena in time and place.

1.3.2 Researcher personal history and contexts

Historians use the terms ego-histoire (Nora and Agulon 1987) and ego history (Castejon et al. 2014; Docker 2014) to reflect how the researcher’s history—personal, political, intellectual, institutional affiliations, roles and research trajectories—impacts on the content they produce (Cole 2019, 527). My research background, personal history and values have influenced (consciously and unconsciously) the research process, including the choice of research topic and questions, methods used, analysis and interpretation.

I begin my own ego history with my training as a registered nurse at hospitals in Bradford, England, from 1977 to 1980 with the aim of working in international health. After qualifying, I gained experience with the Red Cross in Ethiopia (1980) and then at a mission hospital on Rusinga, a small island on Lake Victoria in Kenya (1981), where I met my wife, Maggie Kenyon. Having learned that I had much to learn, I undertook courses in tropical community health and teaching primary health care at the Liverpool School of Tropical Health. There I met Dr (now Sir) Nathan Kere from Solomon Islands, who helped me research a paper on Village Health Aides in Solomon Islands, which combined my interests in primary health care and small island cultures. I then worked with Maggie in refugee camps and health care in Sudan and rebel-held Tigray from 1985 to 1987, and in 1988 at Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, caring for patients with HIV and AIDS, which was then without effective treatment. Instead of returning to

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Africa, we took the opportunity in 1989 to work in Solomon Islands, Maggie as a midwife and nurse educator, myself as a program manager and trainer of health workers. We worked with Save the Children Australia and subsequently with provincial health services in Choiseul, during which time I completed a master’s degree in health social sciences. After ten years in the Solomons, I returned to Australia with my family, including two adopted Islander children. From 1999 to 2008, I worked with an Australian NGO as a Pacific project officer and social researcher. My research and evaluation experience has involved using both qualitative and quantitative methods in tropical health (malaria, tuberculosis [TB], filariasis, immunisation, Village Health Workers) and other topics such as child protection, vocational education and the 2011 RAMSI People’s Survey. From 2009, I researched and completed a political biography of Solomon Mamaloni (1943−2000), an anti-colonial and controversial three-time prime minister of Solomon Islands. My choice of Mamaloni as a subject was influenced by my own political (and anti-colonial) beliefs, which have also influenced my interest in the deep roots and legacies of colonialism.

This career and research experience has inspired me to explore the history, theory and practice of oral history. The preservation and reciprocity fundamental to oral history made it a research method that I wanted to explore in depth and detail. I am also experienced in qualitative interviewing and analysis. A key attraction for me is that (most) interviews are recorded for posterity and, with permission, can be made accessible to a wider audience. At the same time, the process of curating and returning the interview content to narrators for correction means that they and their families are the first beneficiaries and primary audience.

My years of living in and engagement with the Solomons place me as both an outsider and insider in this research. As a former health worker, manager, and researcher, I am familiar with the Solomon Islands’ nursing profession and medical services, its history and its epidemiology. This gave me good connections with participants, many whom I knew personally or had worked with previously. I am fluent in the Solomons creole, Solomon Pijin, which I respect as a language and enjoy speaking—and which creates a relaxed interview interaction.

My Anglo-European heritage positions me as an outsider and white man (araikwao in Pijin) in a deeply colonised country. I have not learned any of the Indigenous languages and am much less familiar with Indigenous culture than any Solomon Islander. Accentuating my ‘outsider’ position has been my use of oral history methods in an academic research project with Northern academic protocols and requirements that created a distance from ‘storying’ and ‘tok stori’.

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The insider–outsider distinction is typical in ethnographic research and Pacific history but is not a clear-cut binary. On reflection, insider–outsider appears more as a continuum in which positions are relative and can change during the research process. My position shifted depending on who participants were and the stage of the research process. Expatriates such as the missionary nurses regarded me as an insider, but for Islanders I was an araikwao outsider. During research design and ethics approval I was an outsider to the Solomon Islands authorities, yet while doing fieldwork I often had detailed knowledge of the history of the Solomons and systems. As I reflected on my position during analysis and interpretation, I shifted back and forth along the continuum as an insider to the interview who had co-constructed oral histories with participants but then shifted to an outsider as I put together the individual, group, and collective biographies. The four years since my last visit to the Solomons and the process of writing this thesis have created further distance and have crystallised my position as an outsider.

1.3.3 Contributions and significance of the research and thesis

This final section outlines the contributions that this research and the thesis make to oral history methodology and the social history of Solomon Islands. The thesis brings together the content from oral histories into case studies and then connects these with historical contexts, social structures, and social change, including the lived experience of class, age, gender, race and ethnicity, and religion. The zoom lens analogy or process in the social history framework allows us to view social history at multiple levels, at different times and in different locations.

Empirically, the research contributes to social history through preserving ‘libraries’ that would otherwise have been lost. The two nursing case studies contribute to the history of nursing in Solomon Islands and the development of biomedical services, which grew from a few mission and colonial stations to a nationwide system reaching even remote parts of the archipelago. These histories update the existing history of nursing and medical services before Independence. The research also contributes to understanding and explaining some of the major changes and transformations in the post-war era, such as the impacts of population growth and urbanisation on the environment and lives of many Islanders. The individual and collective histories illuminate many economic, cultural, social, institutional, and technological changes, as well as revealing continuities from the colonial era, transmitted externally via institutional legacies and internalised through education and training.

Conceptually, the oral history model and social history framework contribute to understanding and explaining the many aspects and complexity of both oral history methodology and social history.

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The VSO-ATND model brings clarity and cogency to theoretical and practical aspects of oral history methods and aims to make these accessible to non-specialists. The thesis also challenges the appropriateness of Northern oral history conventions of consent, ownership of knowledge, copyright of recordings and access to recordings and texts in in the Solomon Islands context. Although this thesis focuses a great deal on the decolonisation era, it does not result in—and was not designed to produce—decolonised history. However, it recommends ways that oral history can be decolonised by recognising and using Indigenous oral history methods to record and preserve both oral testimonies and oral traditions. Decolonising research requires greater Indigenous control over interviews, recordings and outputs produced from their own histories than this research has included. Oral history appears to be relatively straightforward but is much easier said than done. There are many complexities stemming from the choice of participants, interview logistics, intersubjective dynamics, how stories are performed, what is told and remains untold, the processing and interpreting of interview content—but it is through such complexities that richer, nuanced, and accessible views of the past are revealed. 1.4 Thesis structure

In Section 1.4 I outline the structure of the thesis (see Table 1.1) and provide a synopsis of the remaining eight chapters. The thesis has a tripartite structure. Chapters 1 to 3 set up the research problem and questions, review the literature and describe the methodologies and methods used. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 are empirical, explaining how oral history methods were specifically used, how individual and collective biographies were produced and what aspects of social history were illuminated in each case study. Chapters 7, 8 and 9 discuss the findings to answer the research questions and, using the oral history model and social history framework, summarise what has been learned through the research. The thesis ends with a bibliography and appendices containing information and consent forms used in the research, together with a sample nursing career history.

Table 1.1 Structure of the thesis

Chapter 1. Introduction to the thesis Chapter 2. Navigating the literature Chapter 3. Research design, methodology and methods Chapter 4. Four corners—four life histories Chapter 5. The Fauabu Sisters—a group history Chapter 6. Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history Chapter 7. Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History Chapter 8. Content and context: recovering Social History Chapter 9. Conclusions

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1.4.1 Chapter synopses

Chapter 2 (Navigating the literature) examines literature from a range of disciplines relevant to oral history, social history, and colonial history in Solomon Islands. I first distinguish definitions and different types of oral history in Solomon Islands in more detail than in this chapter. I then describe ‘turns’ in oral history most relevant to Solomon Islands contexts before moving to definitions of social history and its connections with oral history through C. Wright Mills’ Sociological Imagination (1959). R.W. Connell’s Southern Theory (2007) provides an incisive critique of Northern hegemonic social theories and justification for not employing or importing unwarranted theory from Europe and North America. Connell’s wide-ranging work also contributes valuable insights into life histories, education, class and race, and the origins and impact of neoliberalism and globalisation. I then highlight Pacific scholars, such as Tracey Banivanua Mar, Epeli Hau’ofa, Vilsoni Hereniko, Taima Moeke-Pickering, Teresia Teaiwa, and Linda Tuhiwai Smith, who have championed Indigenous agency, knowledge and epistemologies while challenging academic imperialism and colonialism. Finally, I present an overview of Solomon Islands biographical life histories, and then colonial nursing histories that provide relevant historical content to the three case studies.

Chapter 3 (Research methodologies and methods) describes how this research was designed and the methods used in primary, secondary and tertiary oral history. I explain the collective case study approach and how participants were selected, recorded, and engaged in editing their histories. Oral testimonies were supplemented by other source materials to compare with oral evidence and provide context. I explain the process of analysis in moving from individual to collective histories and then to social history to analyse and summarise themes within and between case studies. I also explain why two topics in the design—a folklore tradition from Makira and four family histories, also from Makira—were discontinued after initial fieldwork.

Chapter 4 (Four Corners—four life histories) presents the first of three case studies and empirical chapters. It provides life histories of four unconnected public figures with divergent upbringings and careers. Two were born in Solomon Islands and two were American and British expatriates who became citizens after Independence in 1978. I present summary portraits of their lives that demonstrate the difficulty of compressing many hours of life history interviews into summary texts. Each participant experienced and offered different perspectives of social changes in the pre- and post-independence periods. Their upbringings and public careers in government and civil society reveal different institutional changes and continuities in politics, public service, churches, non-government organisations and professions. Analysis of their life trajectories and

16 Chapter 1 Introduction to the thesis career opportunities bring into view differences of gender, race, ethnicity, class and education. Their personal lives reveal many positive aspects of cross-cultural relationships and, in contrast, the impact of male dominance and domestic violence within Solomon Islands societies. Their writing and advocacy reveal the growing environmental damage from exploitation of natural resources, especially logging and, more recently, mining, part of a larger context of disadvantage within a global political economy.

Chapter 5 (The Fauabu Sisters—a group history) combines oral testimonies from five Australian missionary nurses, personal documents, and archival research to connect individual, institutional and national histories. The nurses worked at the Hospital of the Epiphany at Fauabu on Malaita between 1968 and 1984. Archival materials relate to the histories of Malaita, the Anglican Melanesian Mission and the Fauabu hospital from its construction in 1928 to the Sisters’ departure in 1984. Primary and secondary sources reveal the major changes in medical treatments and expansion of medical services in Malaita as the colonial government took over responsibility for health and education in the lead up to Independence. Social contexts and factors are examined, including the Sisters’ religious faith, professional training, gender, class and race. The Sisters displayed an egalitarianism and empathy with Solomon Islanders that contrasted with the overt racism and apartheid of the colonial system.

Chapter 6 (Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history) is a collective case study of 25 former Solomon Islands nursing officers using a collective biography (prosopography) approach. It was not possible with this number of participants to present individual portraits or summary biographies in a single chapter. The testimonies and career histories span the history of nursing and medical services in the Solomons from the 1950s to 2015. I also draw on documents recovered during fieldwork and from my own work in Solomon Islands and the region.

The nursing officers were the last generation of nurses to train during British colonial rule and later became national and provincial nursing leaders during the post-independence era. They were in the frontline of extensive changes in nursing training and medical services, which changed with increasing professional specialisation and through international health programs, such as primary health care (PHC) donors and emerging diseases, including non-communicable diseases (NCDs), HIV and AIDS. The nurses’ testimonies reveal in detail how their professional power and influence grew during the 1980s and 1990s but declined with the Tension and increasing foreign donor influence after 2003.

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Chapter 7 (Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History) draws together practical and theoretical issues from this research using the oral history model (VSO-ATND). The model brings attention to the complexity of not only verbal speech and text domains but also the importance of visual, spatial, numerical, and digital aspects in primary, secondary, and tertiary oral history. I emphasise visual and spatial aspects of interview settings and dynamics, and the extra value that material objects and photographs bring to oral history processes and products. Oral history creates a ‘shared authority’ (Frisch 1990) between narrator and interviewer/researcher that shifted increasingly towards the researcher in production of interview summaries and life and career histories. I reflect on my positions and how the dominance created by the research process, academic procedures, Northern oral history conventions and my choice of participants recolonises oral history methods. I argue that decolonising oral history methods in research requires greater Indigenous control over interviews, curating the recordings and producing outputs. There are still outstanding issues of copyright and culturally appropriate archiving and access to oral recordings in Solomon Islands contexts that differ significantly from Northern contexts.

Chapter 8 (Content and context—recovering Social History) brings together social history recovered from a multiplicity of events, social interactions and social factors revealed by the case studies. Combining and comparing the social-historical summaries brings into view different scales (micro-, meso- and macro-levels) of society and social change, across time (colonial and post- independence periods), and place (local, national, international). These provide broad descriptions—panoramic photographs, so to speak—that are underpinned by examples from oral histories and bring into view nuanced interactions of gender, class, race and ethnicity at micro- and meso-levels.

I examine macro-social, economic, demographic, and technological changes after the Pacific War. The post-independence era also reveals continuities with colonialism and the difficulties facing Solomon Islands, which, in common with other small island-states and developing countries, is dominated by economic neoliberalism and systems designed by and for rich countries and corporations (Connell and Dados 2014).

Chapter 9 (Conclusions) summarises the contributions made by the thesis to oral history in Solomon Islands, to the theory and practice of oral history more generally, and to Solomon Islands social history. Oral histories cannot be and need not be relied upon exclusively as historical evidence, but they can be woven together and compared with other source materials to gain a richer and more nuanced understanding. In this research, the oral histories help illuminate a range of

18 Chapter 1 Introduction to the thesis social-structural factors operating in post-war Solomon Islands, including lived experiences of the impacts of class, religion, education, employment, gender, race and ethnicity.

Oral history methods are flexible and valuable, not just for academic research but also for personal, community and institutional histories. I recommend oral history as a research methodology, one that can decolonise research provided that Indigenous oral methods, such as tok stori, are recognised and Solomon Islanders are included in each phase of oral history, not just as narrators. Digital technology has created new opportunities for informal and formal recording of oral history but requires culturally relevant consent and safeguards for people’s personal history and knowledge. There is an urgent need to record oral histories from the generation who grew up during the Pacific War and the decade after so that the contents of their ‘libraries’ and contexts of their social history are not lost.

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Chapter 2. Navigating the literature

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter, I navigate through concepts and literature that inform this research in oral history, social history, Pacific studies, and Solomon Islands history. I focus on concepts and readings applicable to Solomon Islands contexts and favour authors who use less academic jargon in order to make the review more accessible and of interest to a wider audience. Where possible, I have given preference to references that can be freely accessed and downloaded via the bibliography.

In Section 2.2, I review developments and key issues in the theory and practice of oral history in the post-war era. In Section 2.3 I examine the perspectives of two sociologists whose work has been very influential in the research journey—C. Wright Mills, whose The Sociological Imagination (1959) links biography and history, and Raewyn Connell, author of Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in the Social Sciences (2007). Connell critiques the limitations of Anglo- Eurocentric (or Northern) social theories, especially their neglect of colonialism and its legacies. Her work directs us towards Pacific and post-colonial scholarship critiquing research by outsiders and championing Indigenous research methods.

In Section 2.4, I explore Pacific historical writing or historiography to examine what Mills (1959, 3) calls the ‘history behind the back’ in this study. Pacific written history (or historiography) has been contested, especially versions by outsiders privileging colonial subjects and documentary sources. Pacific scholars have championed Indigenous histories and epistemologies while challenging academic colonialism (or imperialism) in schools and universities.9 The work of Pacific scholars has challenged me to critique my position and practices as a non-Indigenous interviewer, researcher and interpreter of oral histories. Finally, I outline key sources of historical contexts and events in the post-war period, other sources of recorded oral histories in the Solomons, and sources of nursing history that provide background and reference materials for this research.

9 Postcolonial literature refers to ‘academic imperialism’, the imposition of colonial education and thought and racist attitudes in education of Indigenous people (Said 1993, 8; Hereniko 2000). I prefer the term ‘academic colonialism’ because it links to the concept of decolonisation (discussed in Section 2.4), which involves not only political independence but also independence from imposed ideas, education, and research.

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2.2 Key developments and issues in oral history

In Section 2.2, I explore developments and issues in the theory and practice of oral history that I have found most relevant in my research.

2.2.1 Key developments

Although oral history can be said to be ‘as old as the first recorded history and as new as the latest digital recorder’ (Ritchie 2012, 1), it originated as a research methodology in the twentieth century within the Chicago School of Sociology, featuring the use of life history interviews with single individuals and groups to create detailed analyses of urban social life and changes (Bornat 2008).10 Oral history research has since become widespread throughout the world and its theory and practice have developed profoundly. There is now an extensive literature on oral history theory and practice, with key contributors including Thompson (2000), Grele and Terkel (1985), Passerini (1979, 1987), Frisch (1990), Portelli (1981, 1991, 1997), Thomson (2007, 2011), Ritchie (2012), Bornat (2008), Hamilton and Shopes (2009) and Abrams (2016).

Developments in the theory and practice of oral history can be usefully reviewed using the four transformations identified by Alistair Thomson (2007) and presented earlier in Chapter 1 (Section 1.2.3). Thomson’s first paradigm transformation—the rise of social history through ‘history from below’ of people and classes previously ignored or silenced in documented history— is central to this research. But, interesting and insightful as oral history accounts are, many historians mistrusted the accuracy, reliability, and representativeness of personal memory as historical evidence (Moore 1978; Hobsbawm 1983). Thomson’s second paradigm transformation—a strengths-based approach to oral history—emerged as a response to these concerns. Methods such as sampling in sociology and history fact-checking have been incorporated from other disciplines, and the potential sources of unreliability have come to be regarded as opportunities for deeper analysis of oral histories (Thomson 2007, 54). Oral histories provide clues to the subjective meaning of historical experiences, personal identity, and relationship between personal or autobiographical memory and social memory. In a highly influential article in 1981, oral historian Alessandro Portelli argued that the weaknesses attributed to oral history by historians were in fact its strengths—orality (the quality of being verbally communicated) and subjective experience (Portelli 1981/2003).11 Oral history includes ‘not just what people did but what they

10 Two famous studies from the Chicago School were The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (Thomas and Znaniecki 1918) and The Jack Roller: A Delinquent Boy’s Own Story (Shaw 1930). 11 Portelli’s seminal article is reprinted in Perks and Thomson’s The Oral History Reader (2003 and 2015), an invaluable collection of key articles. Both editions are downloadable online but the 2015 edition is not free.

21 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature wanted to do, believed they were doing and what they think they did’ (Portelli 1981/2003, 36).12 However, oral history research will often use other data sources to corroborate and contextualise the personal testimony of participants (Shopes 2014, 267).

Thomson’s third paradigm transformation—the cultural, linguistic, and theoretical turns—saw a shift from recovering history as a collection of historical evidence to analysis of oral histories as constructed narratives. Key to this transformation was understanding the importance of the relationship between the narrator and interviewer, the interpersonal dynamics of the interview and the process of creating a shared narrative (Abrams 2016, 176). Testimonies are ‘co-constructed’ by the narrator based on questions and cues from the interviewer (Sarkar 2012, 67–68). Frisch (1990) terms this co-construction ‘shared authority’, which involves not only sharing authorship but also being alert to power and positionality between the narrator and interviewer/researcher. Similarities and differences in gender, sexual identity, race, ethnicity, community, class and age affect how and why a specific account of a life is produced (Sarkar 2012, 584). Considerations of subjectivity, intersubjectivity and shared authority are part of the hidden complexities of oral history methodology and further reason for not accepting oral histories at face value.

Thomson’s fourth paradigm transformation—the digital turn—has dramatically changed primary, secondary and tertiary oral history, and indeed the whole oral history research process. Digital recordings can be made at minimal cost. The smart phone has made audio and video recording far more accessible.13 Digital cameras facilitate video interviewing, allowing visual detail and the performance aspects of interviews to be captured (Kaufman 2013). Curation, analysis and archiving of recordings have been transformed. Automated voice recognition for transcription has improved considerably in the past decade but remains problematic for different voices in multiple interviews.14 Recordings and transcripts can be digitally indexed by topic and timing, electronically searched and linked to quotes, excerpts or full interviews (Shopes 2002b; Boyd 2013). The ease with which interviews can be replayed, analysed, edited and archived has brought orality to the fore, challenging the convenience and dominance of transcripts (Thomson 2016). It is now possible to give detailed attention to performance and oral features in interviews, including accent, emotion and use of language (Perks and Thomson 2015, 445–450; Abrams 2016). Qualitative analytical

12 Portelli’s books, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History (1991) and The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory, and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome (1999), have been extraordinarily influential for their fascinating content and brilliant analysis of memory and meaning. His narrative analysis reflects his academic expertise in Anglo-European literature studies and folk music. 13 Mobile phones, email and internet have made oral history research process far easier (for example in arranging interviews and corrections). 14 A practical ‘work around’ with standard voice recognition software on computers is to repeat the narrator’s words while listening to the recording though headphones.

22 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature software such as NVivo and spreadsheets has transformed analysis. The growth in internet communication speeds has made sourcing online collections, historical information and factchecking far more accessible. Recordings, images and texts can be readily shared with participants, families, friends and the public via social media, websites, history courses and museums. Media platforms have created multiple ways in which personal biography, identity, photographs, opinions and stories can be told and shared.15

Against these advantages, there are new dangers from misuse of access without narrators’ explicit permission (Shopes 2002b, 4). Digital archives create new ethical issues relating to intellectual property rights and ownership of recordings, informed consent and permission for secondary use (Bornat 2012; Thomson 2016). The convention in Northern oral history practice is to obtain signed permission of release of the recording at the time of the interview, but whether consent is properly informed is questionable when participants are unfamiliar with the internet and electronic archives, an issue that has proven problematic for this research.

While oral history has been democratised through digital technology (Shopes 2014, 258), it has also become more theoretically sophisticated, which can make it less accessible to non-specialists. Shopes (2014, 264) urges oral historians to write and speak in terms that narrators and public can understand. Pacific historians also argue that ‘[h]istory should be written to be read and enjoyed, not to bewilder and repel’ (Munro 1996, 57) and that ‘[w]e do ourselves no good as historians if we offer jargon laden discussion about text’ (Howe 1995, 231). I prefer to avoid unnecessary jargon and dense theory that obscure what is often most compelling about oral history—its direct access to experience and first-person testimony (Portelli 1991, vii). With this caveat in mind, I next examine three important issues related to oral history practice and theory—life story interviewing, narrative analysis and interpretation, and memory.

2.2.2 Oral history practice and life story interviewing

The interview is fundamental to oral history, which involves the art, practice and interpretation of dialogue based on asking questions (Bornat 2019, 4). In-depth interviewing (and recording) can reap rich insights and afford mutual satisfaction to both narrator and interviewer (Yow 2005, 172). Life history interviews encourage narrators to talk about themselves and reflect on their lives, while interviewers seek to understand their stories within the contexts (social, cultural, political and economic) that have shaped them. The interviewer is also ‘listening with the third ear’ (Reik 1983)

15 Media platforms include Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram, Yahoo, Flickr, iTunes; Twitter, LinkedIn and Wikipedia.

23 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature for silences, elisions and what is not responded to from questions (Anderson and Jack 1991/2003, 165). Interviews usually follow the chronology of a person’s life and the priorities of the narrator, with the interviewer gently probing and stretching the account for added detail, depth and complexity (Thomson 2016, 296). The best and most effective oral history interviews allow narrators to shift backwards and forwards through time and space, allowing the individual’s subjective experience to come to the surface (Hitchcock and Hughes 1995, 20; Yow 2005, Chapter 4). More than one interview is often needed to complete a life history, depending on the time available and focus of a particular project. Compared with other forms of social research interview, a defining feature of oral history interviews is that there is usually no need or request for anonymity or the use of pseudonyms by narrators.

Oral history interviewing has evolved from semi-structured interviews with thematic and chronological questions to a more open ethnographic approach to create narrator flow (Thompson 2004, 83). Oral historians prefer to use broad questions on indicative topics, such as family, growing up, school, careers and significant events, with specific follow-up questions to expand upon issues and explanations (Yow 2005, Chapter 8).16 An oral history interview is unique in time and place, with specific versions and details of emerging at different times and in different places. If interviews take place in a narrator’s home or office, the interviewer can take advantage of available photographs, documents and objects to ask questions and to prompt stories, not only about the past but also the present.

Oral history interviewing is more democratic and less extractive than other types of interviewing that I have done in 30 years of social research. The narrator enjoys immediate benefits, first by having the opportunity to reflect and talk about their life story, and subsequently by receiving the products of the interview, in the form of recordings, transcripts, interview summary or edited life history. These outputs contribute to personal, family and community histories independent of the research outcomes. Within academic research, recordings can be kept permanently and archived rather than destroyed as is often required by ethics protocols.

2.2.3 Narrative and narrative analysis

Thomson’s third paradigm of cultural, linguistic, and theoretical turns stem from recovering oral history as historical evidence to detailed analysis of the ways that life stories are constructed, or micro-narrative analysis (Thomson 2019b). Lives are constructed and presented to listeners in

16 There are helpful guides from oral history organisations, in publications—see, for example, Robertson et al (2006), Yow (2005) and Abrams (2016)—and online (Moyer 1999; Zusman 2016).

24 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature storied forms or narratives (Bornat 2008, 348), ‘we are by nature storytellers creating ourselves as we create the narrative’ (Andrews 2013, 17). Narratives shape the ways we think about ‘the past’ and become cornerstones of identity (Borofsky 2000, 21). Because ‘story’ and ‘narrative’ are often used interchangeably and theorised in complex ways by various disciplines, I use the following distinction:17

- Story is the oral or written account of an event and experience. - Narrative is the way(s) a story is expressed and structured. A life story is regarded as a telling of a life, not as it was but as a creative version of life that has been interpreted and re-interpreted over time (Abrams 2016, 176). Goodson (2001) also makes clear a distinction between life story—life experiences interpreted and told by the narrator—and the life history—the account constructed by the researcher from the life story and placed in historical contexts. He writes:

Moving from life story to life history involves a move to account for historical context—a dangerous move, for it offers the researcher considerable colonizing power to locate the life story, with all its inevitable selections, shifts, and silences. Nonetheless, we hold to the need for providing historical contexts for reading life stories. (Goodson 2001, 139) Oral history narratives create ‘composure’ in two senses (Linde 1993; Thomson 1994; Dawson 1994; Summerfield 1998). First is the composing of narratives using available language with cultural meanings that vary with the social context of the telling.18 Second is the composing of narratives acceptable to oneself and an audience, real and imagined. Certain memories may be smoothed over or avoided, consciously or unconsciously. Composure can also originate if an interviewer is unwilling to intrude or embarrass a narrator. In this research, there were instances of unfortunate events, negligence, shameful deeds, unhappy relationships and domestic violence, which I knew of but did not interrogate in order to preserve composure for narrators and their narratives.

Narratives are influenced by collective identities, histories, traditions, and institutional histories (Bornat et al. 2011; LaPointe 2010). The two nursing case studies in this research show how individual narratives were situated in a collective identity of nurses that was shaped, socialised, and disciplined by their colonial hospital training. There was a collective identity of hospital-trained nurses in Solomon Islands who regarded themselves as professionally superior and more disciplined than later college-trained nurses.

17 Narrative also became a central concern throughout the humanities, social science and applied social research during the last quarter of the twentieth century (Denzin 2013, xi). 18 For example, a narrator speaking in Solomon Pijin might say mi ‘lez, which can convey a range of meanings in English, such as ‘don’t care’, ‘disagree’, ‘dislike’, ‘hate’.

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2.2.3.1 Narrative analysis

Narrative analysis focuses on how narratives (oral and text) are shaped by memory, intersubjectivity and language. Portelli in particular has contributed to the development of narrative analysis in oral history—‘I was interested in narratives in the meaning and the subjectivity as well as the facts of what actually happened—the relationship between what happened and what it means’ (Portelli, in Brinson 2001, 108).

There are many methods for analysing biographical and life stories (Andrews et al. 2004; Bornat 2008).19 Oral historians may adopt an eclectic approach, paying attention not only to the way stories are told and structured but also to how they are co-constructed by the interview and editing process (Shopes 2015, 487). Narratives can be analysed and interpreted at the time of telling, the time of listening or in the written text version as it is being produced (Thomson 2019b). In a 2019 oral history workshop, Alistair Thomson made a helpful distinction between micro-narrative analysis of the interview and macro-thematic interpretation of social relations and social structures revealed by the oral history. Micro-analysis looks internally at the interview, the spoken word and performance. It requires ‘listening in stereo’ for content meaning and for the way in which people tell their stories and experiences (Anderson and Jack 1991, 179). Thomson (2019, 4) lists a range of clues for micro- analysis of narratives, including:

- visual clues: including facial expressions, body language, hand gestures - aural clues to emotion and meaning: pauses, silence, emphasis, vocal to.ne, and volume - linguistic clues: key words, pronouns used to refer to self and others, verb tenses - metaphors and specific cultural references: with both explicit and implicit meaning20 - narrative structure: the way the life story is told, any story-telling genre or formula, e.g., life cycle, time, location - rehearsed narrative: fluent stories with longer and shorter versions - metanarrative: the overarching story or storyline that shapes the life story, for example, as hero, victim, survivor - interview context: how the setting and interactions (including dynamics, questions and interruptions) between narrator and interviewers influence the narrative.

19 Denzin lists different ways that that narratives can be analysed: through content, discourse, cultural, literary, psychoanalytic, structural, semiotic and feminist analyses (Denzin 2000, xi). 20 Such as kastom (custom) and mana (power), which have a range of meanings in different Pacific contexts.

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Macro-thematic analysis looks externally towards what individual accounts tell us about local and national institutions and structures, social relations and differences, including class, gender, race, ethnicity and inequality (Reissman 1993, 5; Lummis 2003, 282; Thomson 2019b, 5). Generalisations are formed by reassembling and interpreting patterns of behaviour and events across a series of interviews (Thompson 2000, 269). Macro-level thematic interpretation features prominently in this thesis in analysing connections between oral history and social history.

While micro- and macro-analysis of oral history narratives provide rich insights, they also risk over- analysis of the narrator’s words and misinterpretation by the researcher. Narratives can be mistranslated or misunderstood if told in a different language and cross-cultural setting, as mine often were in Solomon Islands. A further danger is overly imposing present-day values on earlier times, which becomes especially relevant in the analysis of life stories in the colonial era from a post-colonial perspective. However, oral history interview recordings exist independently of analysis and (subject to appropriate permissions) can be made available for others to draw their own conclusions.

I am wary of narrative analysis for several reasons. First is the risk that over-analysis and over- interpretation of words uttered in the moment will override the meaning that a narrator has given to their experiences. Second is the risk of academic colonialism, of imposing Northern literary concepts in non-Northern cultural contexts. Third, and closely related, is the risk of the often complex theory and jargon of literary analysis obfuscating and distancing us from the clarity of first-person accounts and testimony.21 While academic analysis can reveal the complexity of individual life stories, I argue that in oral history it should not be at the expense of clarity and coherence.

2.2.4 Memory and reliability

Individual, family and collective memory are central to oral history, which set it apart from other forms of documentary history (Fentress and Wickham 1992). Memory is difficult to review briefly because it is an extraordinarily complex topic, as revealed by modern cognitive neuroscience and memory studies in a range of disciplines (Olick and Robbins 1998; Wood and Byatt 2008). Remembering is a complex psychological and physiological act formed across multiple neural networks in the brain. Memories are recalled in the present and slightly altered every time they are reimagined (Rose 2008, 65). Long-term memories are reconsolidated with each recall rather than

21 Narrative analysis of oral traditions that focus on literary genres and devices can be comprehended by a limited audience, such as folklore and literary scholars; see, for example, Ashplant’s The Oral, the Aural and the Written Genre and Discourse in a British Working-Class Life Narrative (2016).

27 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature permanent and can be changed by leading or suggestive questions. Indeed, Loftus (2008) has shown that false memories of trauma and abuse can be implanted during counselling sessions. Neisser (2008) has studied faulty memories of earthquakes in California and the 9/11 attacks in the United States. Memories may be lost through simple forgetting and physical deterioration. Meaning and emotions attached to events also colour memory, detail, and the performance of oral history (Lacey 1981; Thomson et al. 1994). Events associated with negative emotions are more readily remembered than those associated with positive emotions (Thomson 2019a).

Remembering is also a social process drawing upon language and cultural templates (Thomson 2016, 299). All societies articulate and transmit social memory in some form of ‘how we got where we are’ (Knapp 1989, 131). Social memory (and history) is passed down by word of mouth, narratives and memorials, often linked to landscapes, shrines and place names. Oral cultures, especially pre-literate societies, use a range of memory techniques or memory codes (Kelly 2017) to maintain detailed practical and sacred knowledge across many generations. Oral tradition records a great deal of information in memorised stories encoded with metaphors and legends. Families, kinship groups and communities also have their own histories and ‘community of memory’ (Glassberg 1996). Modern education and technology can contribute in new ways to the preservation of oral tradition and social memory of groups, institutions, and nations. For example, the Kwara`ae Genealogical Project, located in the same area of Malaita as the Fauabu case study, has since the 1990s recorded and transcribed complex genealogies, oral traditions, and Indigenous cultural knowledge (Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo 2001).

Like personal memory, social memory is constructed, contested and fallible (Olick & Robbins 1998). Memory can be contested between groups, manipulated and invented—for example, through traditional stories or genealogies (Keesing 1982; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). As Keesing points out regarding Pacific societies, the real past was highly political. Cultural histories of ancestors, origin stories and myths serve to maintain power (Keesing 1989, 35-37). The French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs is often quoted in theories of collective memory. His translated work On Collective Memory (Halbwachs and Coser 1992) is complex, but most relevant is his emphasis on presentism—that the past is reconstructed in and influenced by the present—a concept widely accepted by oral historians. Presentism is neatly summarised by Hirsch and Stewart (2005, 268): ‘We cannot remove the blinkers of the present and we cannot see the past exactly as it is’. In this research, participants often remember life and times during colonial rule from the perspective of, and disappointment with, the present.

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The credibility of oral history is often doubted because both personal and social memory are fallible. But as Portelli has brilliantly shown, the discrepancies between fact and memory helps us to see how people makes sense of events and what makes them significant—‘errors, inventions, and myths lead us through and beyond facts and to their meaning’ (Portelli 1991, 2). In The Order Has Been Carried Out’ (1999), he analyses the personal and social memories of a reprisal massacre of Italian partisans by German troops in 1944. According to personal memories and collective memory, everyone who fought was valiant and no one was wrong except the German enemy, thus absolving partisans for triggering retaliation or Italian fascists for complicity. Similarly, in this research, nurses’ memories create benign and sometimes heroic narratives that ignore past errors and mistakes that undoubtedly occurred.

Oral history projects should not, and usually do not, rely only on memory and oral narratives to recover the past. In this research, I combine life history interviews with primary and secondary documents,22 such as published and unpublished articles and histories that provide background and context to individual lives. Documented texts are often treated as more reliable than oral histories, but documents can be ascribed an objectivity that ignores biases of the authors, the purposes for which they were written and the underlying assumptions of the time (Prakash 1994, 26–27; Thompson 2000, 272–274). I adopt the position that both oral and documented sources of the past are fallible constructions, some more plausible and reliable than others, some less. Combining and comparing oral and written sources allows us to assess the validity of different sources and seek explanations for any differences. 2.3 Connecting oral history and social history

A central purpose of this research was to connect oral histories to social history in Solomon Islands. In this section, I examine definitions of social history and the work of key sociologists that resonate closely with and inform my research approach. I distinguish between micro-, meso- and macro- levels of society using the metaphor of the zoom lens, through which we can view or imagine connections between individual and groups and social structures that influence their lives.

2.3.1 Social history

Oral history interviews can provide the means to understand social history—the context of a historical period, a locality, or the experience of a community (Thompson 2000, 260). Social history

22 A primary source provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, object, person or work of art. Primary sources include historical and legal documents, eyewitness accounts, results of experiments, statistical data, pieces of creative writing, audio and video recordings, speeches and art objects (https://library.ithaca.edu/; Freund 2009, 40).

29 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature includes the history of social groups and whole societies, analysis of the life of social groups, social processes, and forces and factors of change and continuity (Social History 1976, 1). I use an older definition of social history that is readily understood and avoids some of the ‘tides and eddies’ of historical research, the theoretical debates that have bedevilled professional academic history since the 1980s (Gassan 2003,157). Social history is a subset of history that deals with social structures, processes and experiences among classes, social strata, racial, ethnic and religious groups, migrants and families, business structures, gender relations, urbanisation and patterns of rural life (Kocka 2003, 21–28). Such a broad definition provides a wide canvas on which to explore oral history methods.

Social history combines sociology and history to explain continuities and changes in social relations and structures. Social history research may engage with a variety of sources and data on social, cultural, political and economic variables that affect groups—for example, nurses (d’Antonio 2008, 37; Lewenson and Herrmann, 2008, 25). The pasts and experiences of ordinary people, movements and events can be re-examined through social categories, such as class, gender and race (Buck, 2008, 46). Both ‘history from below’ and ‘history from above’ provide insights into the social processes and historical forces impacting individuals, groups, and societies. As ‘history from below’, social history seeks to uncover and understand the experience and perspectives of groups that have otherwise been invisible in the formal historical record. ‘History from above’ can be found in a wide range of sources: biographies of leaders and elites, colonial documents, political and social histories and archival documents.

My research aligns broadly with the model of historical sociologist Charles Tilly, who distinguishes twin goals of social history—the reconstitution of history and the connection between the individual and the collective (Tilly 1987, 322). He argues that the central method of social history is collective biography, in which individual lives and events are aggregated into collective portraits and supplemented with primary and secondary documents. Social history can be understood at different levels through individual and collective biography. Daniel Bertaux (1981) characterises individual and family life stories as ‘microclimates’ revealing intimate memories, the meanings of events and decisions, individual and collective values, myths and beliefs.

Life histories provide windows between personal and public worlds—what Ohnuki-Tierney (1990, 23) calls ‘micro-macro linkages’. Individual experience and character are mediated by family, peers, community and institutions with which individuals are personally engaged (Thompson 2000, 305). In this thesis, I add the meso-level to distinguish three social-structural levels (micro, meso and macro) to situate features revealed by individual and collective histories. Between the micro- and

30 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature macro-level lies the meso-level of broader groups, organisations, and social institutions where social and structural forces impact on and interface with individuals, groups, communities, organisations and institutions. Life and career histories reveal how groups and institutions cope with changes in social institutions and forces, illuminating the influence of social factors such as class, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and education. At the macro-level, social history focuses on national and international political and economic structures and events that create ‘macro-climates’ that shape and often determine collective actions and individual lives. Adopting the zoom lens analogy permits flexible adjustment between the three levels, allowing experiences and events to be viewed in closer detail or from a broader perspective. A salient example in each case study is education: at the individual and group (micro) level, where education had a decisive impact on lives and careers; at the institutional (meso) level, where schools, training institutions and professional organisations disciplined and socialised individuals and groups; and at the national and international (macro) level, where the mission churches and colonial government systems were instruments of colonialism and imperialism. I turn next to two sociological perspectives that have been particularly useful in connecting oral history and social history in this research.

2.3.2 Sociological perspectives

Among the wide range of sociological theories and perspectives, two sociologists have proved particularly accessible and relevant to connecting oral history and social history. The first is C. Wright Mills, who insisted on the inseparability of sociology and history, which find common ground in social history. In The Sociological Imagination (1959), Mills’ triad of biography, society and history connect individual and group lives with historical events, social structures and social change.

The life story and humans’ attitudes, values and hopes cannot be divorced from the social, cultural, and historical moment. The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. That is its task and its promise. (Mills 1959, 6) Mills links ‘the personal troubles of milieu’23 with ‘the public issues of social structure’, as the most fruitful aspects with which the sociological imagination works (Mills 1959, 8). He also provides straightforward advice on the ‘craft of sociology’ and the ‘simplicity of the clear statement’ in an appendix to The Sociological Imagination, called ‘Intellectual Craftsmanship’ (Mills 1959, 211–223). I have developed the zoom lens analogy in the social history framework from his suggestion of shifting back and forth between different levels of perspective on society, categorising data and using data displays. Adding further relevance to this research is his vigorous critique of American

23 Milieux are the immediate relations and areas of which a person is directly and personally aware, i.e., the social setting that is directly open to personal experience (Mills 1959, 8).

31 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature imperialism and colonialism in Listen, Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba (1960), which can be related to the American, British, French and German colonial rule that inflicted immense damage on Pacific Islands cultures, lands and lives, as well as triggering resistance (Banivanua Mar 2016).

The second influential sociologist in this research journey is Raewyn Connell. In Southern Theory (2007), Connell examines how Anglo-European (Northern) social sciences and history have dominated in the global ‘South’ while ignoring their roots in, and the influence of, colonialism and imperialism. Sociological accounts of modernity and values are universalised and erase the experiences of the colonised majority of humankind (R. Connell 2007, 44–47). Colonialism and imperialism have shaped, and continue to constitute, gender, race, class, religion, cultural domination, resource exploitation, international trade, and neoliberalism.

Connell examines ‘subaltern sociology’24 and the critical contributions of social theorists from sub- Saharan Africa, Latin America, Iran and India. The works of Indian subaltern studies25 and scholars, such as Guha and Spivak (1988) and Chakrabarty (2000), are part of a much broader post-colonial critique, including two highly influential texts: The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1963) and Orientalism by Edward Said (1978). Connell includes critical analysis of Australia and its brutal settler-colonialism and genocidal treatment of Aboriginal peoples. In her wide-ranging survey of Southern postcolonial literature, she only briefly mentions Pacific scholars Epeli Hau’ofa and Linda Tuhiwai Smith, whose work I take up in more detail in Section 2.4.1 below.

In later works, Connell further examines globalisation and neoliberalism, the macro-level structures and processes by which former and continuing colonial powers perpetuate the destructive political, economic, environmental, social and cultural impacts of capitalism and empire (Connell and Dados 2014; see also Ghosh 2016). These continuities of colonialism impact not only as background contexts but also in the foreground of individual lives through changes in diet, communications technology and trade. Development paradigms and donor funding have shifted from helping poor countries with their basic needs to blaming poverty on lack of good governance and corruption (Chambers 1983, 2012). Economic structural adjustment programs imposed by international institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on developing nations like Solomon Islands have worsened economic inequality and poverty (George 1988, 1992; Grieg et al. 2007; Klein 2007).

24 ‘Subaltern’ (meaning ‘of lower status’) sociology is the study of social groups excluded from power structures by (neo)colonial, socio-economic, patriarchal, linguistic, cultural and/or racial structures (J. Scott 2014). Subaltern history is similar to ‘people’s history’ and ‘history from below’ but situated in colonial and neocolonial contexts. 25 Subaltern studies recognised the efforts of subordinate people to deal with their situations (Leckie 1992, 160).

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At the meso-level, Connell’s work on gender relations and dominant masculinities also influences this research. Beginning with her work Masculinities (1995), Connell uses life history case studies26 to examine similarities and differences to categorise types of dominant (hegemonic) and subordinate masculinities, and to reveal complexities in the social construction of gender. Connell’s 2014 analysis of gender in colonial situations and colonial inheritances is particularly relevant (R. Connell 2014a, 2016). Gender and race were embedded in beliefs about racial superiority and masculinity in the British empire and missionary Christianity, which intersected with Indigenous beliefs and social formations. These constructions of gender and race can be clearly seen operating in individual and collective biographies in this research.

Making connections between micro-, meso- and macro-levels allows us to view or imagine contexts—that is, the circumstances and settings of individual and group lives, and the social structures that they experienced and were influenced by. Connections abound when using oral histories to recover social history. With Solomon Islanders’ great capacity for personal and kinship connections, there are multiple micro-level connections between individuals in each case study and between case studies, particularly those involving nurses. The case studies reveal connections in the histories of people, places, islands and countries. For example, the Fauabu case study (Chapter 5) shows connections in the history of Malaita with the labour trade in the nineteenth century, Christian missions and Maasina Rule in the twentieth century, and the Tension in the twenty-first century. Population and demographic changes at the macro-level connect to meso-level growth of government institutions and non-government organisations, and to micro-level impacts on family and community. Meso-level connections can be seen between the growth of secondary education in the post-war period and the rise of different professional groups. The connections spread beyond the boundaries of the nation state to the wider Pacific contexts of decolonisation, trade, and nuclear testing, promoted by personal connections, regional travel, education and work (Banivanua Mar 2016).

Raewyn Connell’s work convinced me of the dangers of inappropriately applying Northern social theory and instead to look towards Southern scholarship critiquing colonialism and imperialism. I turn next to consider to Pacific scholarship and developments in Pacific history and decolonisation relevant to Solomon Islands.

26 ‘The life-history method always concerns the making of social life through time. It is literally history. This makes life-history a first-class method for the study of social change’ (R. Connell 1995, 89).

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2.4 Navigating post-war Pacific history(s)

In Section 2.4 I examine sources from within Pacific literature and history that provide background contexts to the oral histories and social history in Solomon Islands. I also refer to more specific sources of Solomon Islands history, including oral history collections, as well as nursing history. What follows is a necessarily condensed mapping of key sources from several large fields of literature and sources.

2.4.1 Navigating post-war history

Colonial rule and decolonisation in the post-war period provide the historical backdrop to the oral histories and social history in this study. Pacific Islanders were educated and trained in colonial educational systems and spent most of their careers working within structures that, despite political decolonisation, remained colonised due to the political, economic and cultural influence of former colonial powers and new aid and development ‘partners’ (Greig et al. 2007, 50). The post-war global order saw American and Soviet global rivalry replace European imperial powers, accompanied by worldwide demands for decolonisation and support from the newly formed United Nations for self-determination. Decolonisation proceeded slowly and unevenly in the Pacific, with only half of the Pacific colonies and territories achieving independence. Political or procedural decolonisation in the Pacific began with Western Samoa in the 1962 but the 1970s was the crucial decade when Melanesian nations achieved independence: Fiji (1970), Papua New Guinea (1975), Solomon Islands (1978) and Vanuatu (1980). Half of the Pacific colonies and territories achieved independence from the 1960s onwards while 12 remain dependencies of France, New Zealand, and USA (Firth 2000, 315).

The legal and constitutional process by which colonies and territories gained independence was largely controlled by colonial powers themselves. Colonial authorities were intent on maintaining territorial integrity and implementing conservative constitutional development along the road to independence. Britain, France and USA kept control of some territories in pursuit of their own strategic interests, including nuclear testing; ‘for as long as dominant powers wanted decolonisation, it happened’ (Firth 2000, 331). Although new constitutions, flags and identities were formally created, the new nations were far from economically and politically independent. According to Yash Ghai (1985), the constitutional expert who helped draft the constitutions of Fiji and Solomons, independence consolidated the final victory of colonialism with westernised, Christianised, urbanised elites gaining control of the formal structured states. The transfer of political power to Indigenous leaders left colonial borders, imported legal systems and economic

34 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature dependency largely in place (Bennett 2013). Rather than breaking with colonialism, so-called post- colonial states remained colonised due to political and economic and cultural influence of former colonial powers (Greig et al. 2007:50). Colonialism controlled not only physical bodies, politics and resources but also minds and languages, which continued subordination even after former colonies gained independence (Kohn 2014). Writing in the era of decolonisation, a Solomon Islands educationalist wrote: [I]n the colonial era we were treated as boys rather than men... the psychology of neo-colonialism is disguised and often silent. Its strength lies behind clever and effective manipulation and planned role playing on the part of the colonialist causing confused passivity. (Bugotu 1973, 79)

It is helpful to distinguish the term ‘post-colonial’—which has chronological meaning and refers to the post-independence period—from the term ‘postcolonial’, which refers to the various social, cultural, political and economic effects of colonisation. The field of postcolonial studies has been strongly influenced by Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1963), Said's Orientalism (1978), and postmodernist and poststructuralist literary theory (Go 2013). Much postcolonial theory has become highly theoretical and abstract, for example Spivak (1988) and Bhambra (2007, 2014). As Kohn (2014, 12) notes, this makes it difficult to understand. I prefer the less abstract and more specific examples from Pacific historians and scholars such as Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999), Teresia Teaiwa (2001, 2010, 2011), Katerina Teaiwa (2014) and Tracey Banivanua Mar (2016), who specify how colonialism was constituted and resisted in former Pacific colonies and settler colonies.

The interpretation and writing of Pacific history have altered with post-war decolonisation and growing recognition of Indigenous peoples in the settler colonies of Australia and New Zealand. Pacific history first became a specialist academic discipline in the 1950s within universities in Australia, New Zealand and the USA, and later Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Guam (Leckie 1983; Firth 2003; D’Arcy 2011). The Canberra School of History under Jim Davidson at the Australian National University (ANU) shifted from the history of European expansion, annexation and interactions in the Pacific to island- and Islander-centred historiography (Raman 2015). This shift in Pacific history to recovering histories of cultural resilience and of Islanders’ agency has challenged or contested the ‘fatal impact’ thesis that portrayed Islanders as passive victims of European contact, introduced disease and colonialism (Chappell 1995).

By the 1970s, Pacific historical research became increasingly multi-disciplinary and more attuned to the many diverse cultures of the Pacific (Whimp 2008; D’Arcy 2011). From the 1980s, it became increasingly influenced by historical anthropology27 and cultural histories, part of a wider ‘cultural

27 Historical studies using anthropological methods.

35 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature turn’ in history (Gallant 2003, 12–13). New approaches analysed cultural contact as a shared past, highlighting cultural traditions and memories of historical experience (Dening 1980; Sahlins 1983). ‘Historicity’, which conventionally means historical authenticity or factuality of what has actually occurred, took on fresh meaning in the succinct phrase: ‘other cultures; other historicities’ (Sahlins 1985, x). Although jargonistic, this newer concept of ‘historicity’ usefully distinguishes ‘culturally patterned ways of experiencing and understanding history’ from conventional documentary history (Ohnuki-Tierney 1990, 4; Ballard 2014, 104). Historicities are recalled through oral testimonies of people, places and place names, through migrations, through culturally ordered and gendered ways of remembering and forgetting (Ballard 2014, 109). They open up new ways of writing and validating specific Indigenous histories by accepting the authenticity and meaning of Indigenous accounts expressed through oral and cultural transmission.

Eminent Pacific historian Ron Crocombe described as ‘demeaning, the spectacle of Pacific Islanders having “their” history almost exclusively depicted by outsiders’ (Munro 1994, 232). New vigour and fresh insights have come from Indigenous Pacific historians and writers, most notably Albert Wendt who said, ‘[t]he papalagi [Samoan, meaning foreigners] must never pretend that they can write from inside us’ (Wendt 1987, 89). Tongan poet and scholar Hau’ofa (2008, 60) called for Indigenous peoples to regain control of representations of the peoples and cultures of . He famously re-imagined the Pacific as a ‘sea of islands’ (Hau’ofa 1993), with Islanders as people joined by ocean, sharing deep histories, cultures and kinships. While this is a romanticised view, that elides violent conflicts between Islanders, his re-imagination of the Pacific contradicts and contests Eurocentric imagination of distant islands and exotic cultures.

Indigenous ownership of history is a powerful strategy for cultural resistance (Ashcroft 2001). Even when sympathetic to Pacific Islanders, documented history by outsiders came to be regarded as a form of academic imperialism written by and about European contact with explorers, missionaries, administrators, anthropologists, and professional and amateur historians (Raman 2015). Accusations of academic imperialism came particularly from Hawaii and New Zealand, former settler colonies where past oppression and dispossession of Indigenous peoples are still keenly felt (Munro 1994, 233). The development of interdisciplinary Pacific studies at universities in the 1990s led to further critiques of colonial and neo-colonial methodologies. Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s pioneering work Decolonising Methodologies (1999) describes how Indigenous scholars struggle to break free from the chains of colonialism and its legacy of racist practices and attitudes, ethnocentric assumptions, and exploitive research. She argues that decolonisation is a long-term process involving the bureaucratic, cultural, linguistic, and psychological divesting of colonial

36 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature power (Smith 1999, 98). Nor is it enough for Indigenous researchers have a ‘place at the table’; it is necessary to have indigenous methods and narratives in response to the hegemonic North. As Fijian poet and academic Vilsoni Hereniko (2000, 91) argues, ‘academic practices that are imperialistic in design become agents of a power structure that is oppressive and lacking social conscience’.

Critiques by Pacific insiders of history written by outsiders alert us to the dangers of misrepresenting Indigenous perspectives. To take a specific example from Solomon Islands, Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo’s (2001) work in Malaita with Kwara`ae epistemologies and genealogies highlights the distance between Indigenous and Anglo-European ways of knowing and seeing reality. The authors show how outsiders, even specialist anthropologists, can distort and misinterpret the many subtle Kwara`ae expressions of meaning and reasoning, which can only be fully understood by indigenes with first language knowledge (2001, 64). Nor is it only foreigners who re-present and misrepresent Pacific societies by viewing them through the distortions of translation and Eurocentric perspectives. Insiders and participants schooled in colonial education systems or abroad also defer to hegemonic intellectual ideas learned and written in Anglo-European languages. The perspectives of many of the Solomon Islander participants in this research are heavily influenced by their colonial education, professional training and Christian faith.

Wesley-Smith (2016, 162) suggests two key questions for reading and writing of Pacific history: who owns historical ‘truths’ and whose interests are served by them? These questions apply equally to oral histories. This research has required me to interrogate and challenge my position as both an insider and an outsider as a researcher of Solomon Islands history. It is to specific Solomon Islands history(s) and historical sources that I turn next.

2.4.2 Solomon Islands history(s)

In this section, I outline Solomon Islands literature that has helped me to understand and contextualise the oral histories and social history in this thesis. Two historians warrant special mention because their works on colonial and post-colonial eras are meticulously researched and accessible. Judith Bennett, in Wealth of the Solomons 1800–1878 (1987), combines forensic economic detail with analysis of the Solomons Islands political economy. In Pacific Forest (2000), Bennett provides an encyclopaedic account of the vital role of forests and the disastrous history of logging in Solomon Islands. Both books are historical treasure troves. Clive Moore is the most prolific historian of the Solomons with an extraordinary output of books, chapters and articles ranging from the labour trade to Queensland (Moore 1981) to histories of the island of Malaita (Moore

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2017), Tulagi, the pre-WW2 colonial capital (2019)28 and Honiara (in press). His Solomon Islands Historical Encyclopaedia 1893–1978 (2013) provides a biographical dictionary of the Solomon Islands with short histories of institutions, biographies, events and photographs, plus extensive archival references. He has also collated a Selective Biography on Solomon Islands 2003–2017 with over 1000 references of published and unpublished literature relating to the RAMSI era (2003–2016).

Historians and anthropologists have produced comprehensive accounts of colonial history and instances of Indigenous resistance, including the 1927 Bell Massacre and Maasina Rule anticolonial movement (Corris and Keesing 1980; Laracy 1983; Akin 2013). Accounts of Pacific labour migration and internal migration in Solomon Islands have combined oral testimony and documentary history (Corris 1973; Bennett 1981; Frazer 1981; Moore 1981; Chapman and Prothero 1985). Malaita, which features in all three of the case studies in this thesis, has been the most documented and researched island in the Solomons, according to Burt (2001, 7). Anthropologists have used oral history to record and translate the histories, changing cultures and times of prominent Malaitans (Keesing 1978; Fifi and Keesing 1989; Alasa`a et al.2001; Burt et.al. 2021). Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo’s scholarship (1990, 1992, 1999, 2001) on Kwara`ae language and Indigenous epistemologies, education and development highlight the rapid social change and harm due to urbanisation, transport, mission activity and education and environmental damage from logging and over-population. Their work, and that of other anthropologists, such as Burt with the Kwara`ae, and Akin and Keesing with the Kwaio, underlines the complexity of Indigenous cultures, epistemologies, and genealogies.

There is extensive documentation of the political, economic and social impacts of Christianity, commerce and colonial rule. Churches have been a major agent of change in Solomon Islands in the twentieth century (Garrett 1982, 1992). Nearly all the life and career histories in this research confirm the influence missions and churches exerted through personal faith, schools and training institutions, and community organisations. Missionary histories provide detailed information about the role of Christian missionaries within the Catholic Church (Laracy 1976; O’Brien 1995; Anglican Melanesian Mission (Hilliard 1978); Brown 2014;2013), South Sea Evangelical Mission (Moore 2013; Benge and Benge 2003); and Methodist Church (Gunson 1968; McDonald 2009; Moore 2013). Zaku’s 2013 doctoral thesis examines the roles of Islanders in the development of the (Anglican) Church of Melanesia prior to Independence, with especially useful chapters on the development of education and medical services, which were key strategies for attracting Islanders to Christianity. The dominance of mainstream Christian churches has been broken by evangelical

28 Both available online as free downloads from ANU.

38 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature or Pentecostal splinter churches, which have become increasingly common since Independence; for example, the Christian Fellowship Church from the Methodist Church (Hviding 2011), the South Sea Evangelical Church, particularly in Malaita (Timmer 2012; Bond and Timmer 2017), and multiple offshoots of the Anglican Church (Brown 2005; Hall 2014).

Pacific wartime histories and films are numerous and help to convey the industrial scale and savagery of the fighting, including the pivotal battles in the Solomons. According to Moore (2017, 450), the best works are by Laracy and White (1988), White, Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo (1988), White and Lindstrom (1989), Akin (2013), Lindstrom and White (1990) and Bennett (2009). Wartime memoirs by Horton (1965) and Clemens (1998) acknowledge how indispensable to the Allied victory over Japanese forces were Solomon Islanders’ loyalty, local knowledge and superior skills in survival and jungle fighting (see also White and Lindstrom 1989). Kwai’s master’s thesis and subsequent book (Kwai 2018) reveal Islanders’ complex attitudes towards the war, their involvement with the military forces, and changes in perspectives created by the war. She also points to the long-term effects of the post-war construction of the new capital Honiara and developments on Guadalcanal that led to violent unrest—‘the Tension’—50 years later.

Auto/biographies provide valuable accounts of lives and times in the post war period. Boutilier (1978, 1979, 1983) has assembled documentary and oral evidence of the lives of administrators, missionaries and colonial women. Autobiographies have been written by Solomon Islanders themselves (Gideon Zoloveke 1980; Sir Frederick Osifelo 1985) and (more often) with expatriate academics—Jonathan Fifi`i with Roger Keesing 1989; Ben Burt and Michael Kwai`ola 2001; Lloyd Maepeza Gina with Judith Bennett and Khyla Russell 2003; and Sir Peter Kenilorea with Clive Moore 2007). Expatriate authors have also produced biographies of Solomon Islanders including Belshazzar Gina (Carter and Tuza 1990), `Elota (Keesing 1978) and Noel Fatnowna (Keesing 1989). These life writings reveal the lived experience and practices of racism within schools, churches and colonial administration. The diaries and memoirs of expatriates provide much detail about colonial life, administration and outreach tours or patrols, the latter providing glimpses of traditional village lives and times. Expatriate memoirs include doctors George Hemming (1995), James Macgregor (2006) and Roger Webber (2014), and former colonial officers Tom Russell (2003), Trevor Clark (2004), James Tedder (2008) and John Smith (2011. Graham Golden’s The Early Colonial Settlers of the Solomon Islands (1993) provides fascinating biographical portraits of early European traders, missionaries, and administrators.

In the lead up to Independence, the Institute of Pacific Studies in Fiji produced valuable histories addressing land tenure and constitutional change (Paia 1975; Saemala 1979; Crocombe and Ali

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1982; see also Moore 2010a). Larmour and Tusa (1983) produced a political history of the early independence period and Frazer (1981) a history of early trade unions. Academic journals such as the Journal of Pacific History, Journal of Polynesian Studies, Oceania, and The Contemporary Pacific have hundreds of articles relating to Solomon Islands history. All these sources provide historical and sociological detail on the colonial and independence eras, which have served to contextualise and confirm details for the case studies.

2.4.2.1 Solomon Islands oral history collections

Solomon Islands has an inestimable wealth of unrecorded oral and cultural traditions passed between generations in over 80 languages and dialects. Cultural traditions include housing designs, canoes, fishing equipment, cultivars/crops, medicinal herbs and trees, traditional and ancestral gods, family and tribal histories, social organisations, names, marriage systems, myths, legends and custom stories (Leka 1980, 16–17). The Kwara`ae Genealogy Project, from the area where the Fauabu case study is located, has recorded and transcribed genealogy and oral traditions in local language (falafala or kastom). In the process, the project has investigated cultural institutions and histories of marriage, language, land, kinship and descent, ancestral religion, the position of women, tribal warfare, migration, compensation and retribution, and traditional law (Gegeo and Watson- Gegeo 2001).

Recorded oral history includes collections of films and audio-recordings from the late 1960s until the 1980s at the Solomon Islands National Museum (SINM) and Solomon Islands National Archives (SINA). The recordings are diverse and include contemporary events such as royal visits, parliamentary debates and radio plays. Recordings of music, cultural events, oral traditions and stories recorded in vernacular language make up a significant part of the National Museum’s collection. Anthropologists have deposited fieldwork recordings with the National Museum (Gegeo 1978; Burt, 1979; Jourdan 1983).29 The University of California at San Diego has recently digitised recordings from its Melanesian collection of oral recordings, including collections by Roger Keesing in Malaita and Harold Scheffler in Choiseul and New Georgia from Solomon Islands (UCSD 2021).

The Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) has an extensive oral history collection together with broadcasts of national, political and cultural events dating back to the 1950s.30 The SIBC program Kastom Stori (custom stories) was broadcast for almost 40 years and told beautifully

29 It is doubtful whether many tape recordings are still playable even if the equipment to play them still works due to deterioration of magnetic tapes over time in tropical environments. 30 Some digitised recordings are available at a small cost at https://www.sibconline.com.sb/online-library/

40 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature in Solomon Pijin by Luke Susuta (Hadlow pers. comm. 2019). A particularly rich source of oral history comes from Islanders’ testimonies of the Pacific War (1941–46), collected in oral history projects in the 1980s when many war veterans were still alive (White and Lindstrom 1989; Lindstrom 2018). The generation of Islanders who experienced the war has almost gone but their experiences and contributions have been secured and widely acknowledged (White et al. 1988). Their narratives highlight the value of oral history, revealing a wide range of Islanders’ experiences—not just their fighting skills and contributions as Coastwatchers and labourers but also the acute suffering and deprivations faced by non-combatants, especially women and children (Gegeo 1989; Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo; Kwai 2018). While the oral histories in this study relate to the post-war period, the study has also brought the wartime into view through the personal files of David Sitai and tributes to his father, Silas Sitai, a decorated scout with the Allied forces, who did not leave a recorded oral history. His sudden death in 1974 aged only 52 reinforces the importance of collecting oral histories while people are still willing and able to tell their life stories.

2.4.3 Nursing history

The detailed career histories of nurses in two of the three case studies (and 30 of 34 participants) illuminate not only changes in medical services and nursing training but also the wider contexts of colonial and post-colonial Solomon Islands. As nursing historians Sweet and Hawkins (2015a, 1) write:

The history of nursing presents a unique perspective from which to interrogate colonialism and post-colonialism, which includes aspects of race and cultural difference, transnational relationships, as well as class, race, politics, and gender. Throughout the British empire, colonial nursing was introduced, imported and formulated by expatriate doctors and nurses, initially in mission hospitals and training schools and later through government services and legislation (O’Donnell 2013). Nursing as a profession within each colony was shaped by internal and external factors including Indigenous cultures and medical systems, racism, class, sexism, climate and geography, economics and resource exploitation, and the specific colonial power (Apple 2015, 232). There were differences of culture and power between Islander health workers and the doctors and colonial nurses under whom they worked. While nursing and medical professions have always been highly gendered, Indigenous cultural roles reinforced separate training and patient care by male dressers and female nurses until the 1950s.

Details of the creation and expansion of biomedical health and medical services are documented in various sources: in the Solomon Islands Historical Encyclopaedia (Moore 2013), which has historical profiles of nursing training and organisation; in online missionary archives (Project Canterbury)

41 Chapter 2 Navigating the literature and Anglican mission Southern Cross Log journals; in medical memoirs (Hemming 1995; Macgregor 2006; Webber 2011); and in a chronology of nursing milestones from the World Health Organization (WHO/WPRO 2013). During fieldwork in 2014 and 2015, I was able to recover documents including nursing curricula from the pre- and post-independence period and a variety of health-related documents. These highlight the role and agency of Islanders as carers in the expanding health care system (Baker 1986). Zaku’s 2013 thesis on Islanders’ roles in the Anglican Church of Melanesia has a chapter and much useful detail on the roles of Solomon Islanders as nurses, hospital orderlies, labourers (‘working boys’) and patients. However, it was only in the post- war period that Indigenous nurses were formally trained and recognised as a profession, albeit remaining subordinate to European nurses and doctors until Independence in 1978.

The literature on nursing in the Pacific is limited compared with neighbouring Australia and New Zealand and reinforces the value of using oral histories to recover the history of nursing and medical services. There are no narrative histories of nursing and nurse training in Solomon Islands, and they are rare in other Pacific countries. In neighbouring Papua New Guinea, an excellent thesis on nurse training and socialisation at Goroka (Anderson 2014) details the history of a profession shaped by its origins in the colonial patrol, the mission enterprise and the nationalism of the independence era. Voigt (2001) also provides a brief historical overview of nurse education in Papua New Guinea and issues with changing from hospital-based to college-based training, which parallels changes in the Solomon and elsewhere, which elicited much criticism in the oral histories of Solomon Island nurses. Vudiniabola’s 2011 doctoral thesis is a case study of the introduction of the Fijian diploma of nursing curriculum implemented through Australian consultants and funding, with many similar features to imported curriculum changes in the Solomons. Barclay et al. (1998) have written a history of nursing in Samoa that details the struggle for professional recognition and the tensions between foreign and locally trained nurses, and between indigenous Samoan and Western medical systems. However, the focus of this thesis is not to provide a comprehensive history of nursing in Solomon Islands, but rather to use nursing as a prism through which to view the colonial and post-colonial history of Solomon Islands. 2.5 Conclusion

This review has examined literature from several large fields—oral history, social history, sociology, Pacific history and decolonisation, Solomon Islands history and nursing history. Each field has an extensive literature from which I have selected concepts and references that are not only relevant to oral history and social history in Solomon Islands but also comprehensible to a wider audience.

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Section 2.2 defines key terms and development in oral history theory and practice. I use Thomson’s four paradigm transformations to explain developments in the post-war period. From the late 1970s, several theoretical ‘turns’ have deepened the analysis and complexities of oral history interviews and memory. Micro-analysis of oral history narratives provide access to the contexts and complexities that shape how narrators choose to recount and interpret the past. Macro-level analysis of oral testimonies also provides insights into multiple levels of society across time and place. Digital technology has transformed and democratised oral history. The internet and social media platforms have created multiple ways of creating, disseminating, and accessing oral history collections.

Section 2.3 first defines social history and then draws on two key sociologists who provide pathways between oral history and social history. The conceptual links between biography, society and history made by C. Wright Mills in The Sociological Imagination (1959) provide the basis for the social history framework developed in this research. Raewyn Connell’s Southern Theory (2007) and later work provide an incisive critique of Northern social theory that steered me towards Southern postcolonial literature and Pacific scholarship on decolonisation.

In Section 2.4, I review contexts of Pacific Islands and Solomon Islands history that have informed this research. Pacific history and historiography in the post-war era have turned from a Eurocentric focus on encounters with Indigenous peoples towards Pacific scholarship championing Indigenous agency, identity and histories. Pacific Island scholars champion Indigenous knowledge and epistemologies and challenge the imposition of Eurocentric concepts. This challenges my research as an outsider imposing analytical concepts and interpretations on oral histories and social history. Insider–outsider positionality has been a key feature of this research, affecting the design, methods, findings, and conclusions from this research, which will be shown and discussed in the chapters that follow. The review is completed with an outline of published literature and recorded oral histories in Solomon Islands, plus sources on nursing history that provide both content and context for the two nursing case studies in Chapters 5 and 6.

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Chapter 3. Research methodologies and methods

3.1 Introduction

This research uses a combination of methodologies and methods to explore oral history and social history in Solomon Islands. In this chapter I describe the methodologies and methods used in fieldwork and analysis, plus adjustments made during research. I have adopted a flexible approach to theory, methods, analysis and source materials in keeping with the recommendations of C. Wright Mills and Raewyn Connell:

Avoid any rigid set of procedures. Above all seek to develop and to use the sociological imagination. Avoid the fetishism of method and technique … Let every man [sic] be his own methodologist; let every man be his own theorist; let theory and method again become art of the practice of the craft. (Mills 1959, 224) [To] clarify and illuminate a situation in its concreteness … our interest as researchers is to maximise the wealth of materials that are drawn into the analysis and explanation… multiplying the local sources of our thinking. (R. Connell 2007, 207) Section 3.2, Designing the Research, begins by stating the research problem and defining the research questions (Section 3.2.1). The methodologies used to address the research questions (oral history and social history) are described in Section 3.2.2 and Section 3.2.3 identifies and explains changes that were made to the design and scope of the research during the fieldwork phase. Section 3.2.4 describes the processes involved in securing ethics approvals and notes issues associated with their application in the Solomon Islands context.

Section 3.3, Research Methods, describes the methods used to collect oral histories, analyse the case studies and summarise the findings in the social history framework. Section 3.3.1 outlines the fieldwork undertaken to set up the research (selecting case studies and participants, obtaining necessary permissions and securing ethics approvals), and to gather data (by conducting interviews and gathering historical material from other sources). Section 3.3.2 describes the methods used in primary oral history to conduct the case study interviews. Section 3.3.3 focuses on secondary oral history to curate the interviews, including transcription, editing and correction of interview contents. Section 3.3.4 describes other historical sources that were used to supplement the interview material. Section 3.3.5 discusses the methods used in tertiary oral history to analyse and interpret the three case studies and link them to social history. Section 3.3.6 explains how social history themes are discussed in each case study and summarised at the end of each chapter. Section 3.4, Conclusion, briefly recapitulates the main features of the research design, methodology and processes.

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3.2 Designing the research

In Section 3.2, I discuss the research problem and objectives and identify the questions that this study seeks to answer. I then explain the methodologies used to address them—oral history, case study and social history.

3.2.1 Research problem, objectives, and research questions

As explained at the beginning of this thesis, the key problem motivating this research is encapsulated in the aphorism, ‘When a person dies, a library is lost’.31 Both personal and public history are lost if individual life histories are not recorded before people die or their cognitive function becomes unreliable. This problem particularly applies in Indigenous communities and in Solomon Islands, as well as in many other developing countries where life expectancy is shorter and rates of both infectious and chronic diseases are high.32

Oral history provides a means to remember individual lives and their contributions to society, which is particularly valuable where written auto/biographies are scarce. The objectives of the thesis are:

1) To examine different oral history methods appropriate to Solomon Islands contexts. 2) To record life histories and oral testimonies from individuals and groups who experienced both the colonial and independence periods. 3) To connect life histories and oral testimonies to historical contexts, social structures and social change in Solomon Islands, particularly since the Pacific War.

I have reframed these objectives as two research questions:

1) How can oral history methods preserve individual and collective histories in Solomon Islands contexts? 2) What aspects of social history can be recovered using oral history methods?

3.2.2 Research methodologies

Crotty (1998, 2) defines methodology as ‘the strategy, plan of action, process, or design behind the choice of particular methods used in the research’. I have employed three methodologies—oral history, collective case study and social history—to address the research questions.

31 ‘When an old person dies, it is a library that burns’ is an African version from Mali (Altbach and Kelly 1986, 222). 32 Two-thirds (65%) of deaths among Australian Aboriginal people occur before the age of 65, compared with 19% of deaths among non-Indigenous people. (AIHW 2015, 110). Life expectancy in 2015–2016 for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was 75.6 years for females and 71.6 years for males (AIHW 2020, 21), which is very close to Solomon Islanders in 2019—74.7 years for females and 71.6 years for males (World Bank 2020).

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3.2.2.1 Oral history methodology

Oral history is the first methodology, succinctly described by Yow (2005, 3) as ‘the recording of personal testimony delivered in oral form’, with three components—the recorded memoir, the transcript and the research method’. I have categorised oral history methodology into three phases: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary oral history is the collection of interviews and recordings (audio and video); secondary oral history is the curating or processing of recordings, transcripts, texts and other outputs of oral history, including in displays, exhibition and documentaries; tertiary oral history is the analysis and interpretation of individual and collective oral testimonies, together with other materials to provide context for and comparisons with oral testimonies. The specific methods and steps involved in each phase of primary, secondary and tertiary oral history are explained in detail in Section 3.3 below.

3.2.2.2 Collective case study methodology

Case study methodology is used to explore different ways of doing oral history and the different aspects of social history recovered from using oral history methods in Solomon Islands contexts (responding to both research questions). Case study research is defined here as the descriptive and exploratory study of single and collective cases (Thomas 2011, 513). In this research, the cases are participants who were interviewed and recorded individually but analysed collectively in three case studies, as outlined below. Case studies can incorporate multiple or eclectic methods of data collection and analysis as required to study the complexity of real situations (Thomas 2011, 512).

The first collective case study—Four Corners, four life histories—examines the life histories of four individuals with different backgrounds and life trajectories. They are (or were) well-known public figures, university educated, who were born or have lived in Solomon Islands since the 1950s.

- Afu Billy (1955~), an influential women’s leader, former General Secretary of the National Council of Women (1984‒1988), Director of the Commonwealth Youth Program in the Pacific and Regional Commonwealth Representative (2007‒2012).

- David Sitai (1950‒2015), former diplomat, Member of Parliament for East Makira (1984‒2010) and Solomon Islands cabinet minister (1994‒1997).

- Tony Hughes (1936~), former senior British colonial administrator (1960‒1981), former governor of the Central Bank of Solomon Islands (1982‒1994) and Pacific development consultant (1994‒2018).

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- Dr John Roughan (1930‒2013), American-born former Catholic priest (1955‒1975), founding father of Solomon Islands Development Trust (SIDT) (1982‒2013) and social commentator.

I also interviewed or received information from 13 informants (see Appendix 3) while compiling the four life histories. The histories were analysed individually and comparatively to provide insights into their subjective worlds and illuminate the historical and social structures in which they lived.

The second collective case study—The Fauabu Sisters, a group history—is a case study of five Australian nurses who worked together at Fauabu hospital in north Malaita from 1969 to 1984. The hospital was run by expatriate missionaries within the colonial medical system just before and after Independence. The five nurses are Helen Barrett, Pat Halpin, Pam Goodes, Helen Morris and Marion Gray. Their histories cover both their own training in Australia and their role in training nurses at Fauabu and illuminate the gradual professionalisation of nursing as well as the extended roles of nurses in Solomon Islands. Whereas the members of the first collective case study have diverse backgrounds, the members of this second collective case study are linked by gender, years in the nursing profession, Christian faith, and missionary experience in the Solomons, and longstanding friendships since then.

The third collective case study—Nursing in the Solomons, a collective history—is a case study of 25 nursing officers who trained in the colonial medical system transitioning towards independence and rose through the ranks afterwards.33 I supplemented participants’ interviews with interviews of thee nursing officers and four nurse educators who trained as nurses after Independence, so as to gain insight into the changes from hospital-based training to higher education that took place in the 1980s. Finally, I interviewed five Solomon Islander doctors to gain their insights into relations between the health professions, and how nursing and medical services had changed during their careers. This collective case study assembles individual careers into a collective portrait to illuminate nursing, its organisational changes and patterns (S. Kirby 1997, 47).

3.2.2.3 Social history methodology

Social history, the third research methodology, includes description and analysis of the micro- and macro-level forces and factors that formed the worlds and country in which participants lived. I have defined and discussed social history in Section 2.3 of the previous chapter but will briefly rehearse the key points here.

33 See Appendix 3 for the full list of the nursing officer participants and other interviewees.

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To explore a wide range of social history in Solomon Islands, I have viewed these forces at three levels—micro, meso and macro. Micro-level refers to the lives of individuals, their ‘inner life’ (character or psychological make-up, and emotions) and their ‘external career’, including the social roles they occupy at different life stages (Mills 1959, 5). The micro-level includes individuals’ social settings and the environments in which their everyday life is experienced, which Mills called ‘milieux’ (family, workplace, leisure spaces). Meso-level refers to the social factors, including class, age, gender, education, religion, race and ethnicity that surround individuals, families and groups, as well as the institutions and professions with which they engage. The meso-level interacts with both individual and group agency and is shaped by larger national and international structures at the macro-level.34 Macro-level refers to the larger social structures of society, including the political, economic, and institutional structures of the nation-state and the international order. It includes broader societal forces or factors, such as trade, technology, and neoliberalism, as well as historical events of national and international significance. Colonisation and dispossession of Indigenous rights have also been key macro-level factors or forces in social history (R. Connell 2007, 207).

Social history illuminates the agency of individuals and small groups, while also revealing their interactions with other groups and institutions and the influence of deeper social, political, and economic structures operating in time and place (Shopes 2015). Participants’ lives and careers provide ‘micro-histories’ of the lived experience of social structures, class, social organisation, and social control (Abrams 1982, 3; R. Connell 1995, 89). Individuals, groups, and institutions are also affected directly by historical events such as war, independence, and natural disasters. In other words, individuals are simultaneously active and passive in their social and cultural contexts.

I employ the analogy of a zoom lens to visualise and interpret social history at micro-, meso- and macro-levels as scalable rather than fixed categories. The zoom lens can be adjusted to ‘zoom in’ on individuals and groups at the micro-level, and to ‘zoom out’ to social structures and contexts to gain wider and longer-term perspectives. The lens analogy also reminds us that, like the photographer behind the lens, there is a researcher behind the social history. Like the photographer, the researcher determines how the recording is done, the settings in which it takes place, who are the subjects and areas of interest, what material is selected for further processing, how it is processed and what, if, when, where and how the outputs are ultimately disseminated. I

34 In sociology, the concept of structuration describes a process in which human agents, consciously or unconsciously, shape and are shaped by the structures that encompass their actions. ‘The personal, transient encounters of daily life cannot be conceptually separated from the long-term development of institutions’ (Giddens 1982, 8–11, quoted in Chappell 1995, 312).

48 Chapter 3 Research methodologies and methods incorporate the zoom lens analogy in the social history framework (see Section 3.3.6) to summarise and compare themes of social history within and across the three case studies.

3.2.3 Changes to the research design and case studies

The design and scope of the research changed as the fieldwork progressed, in keeping with the flexible approach recommended by both Mills and Connell. The original research design included four case studies using oral history methods—life histories, a collective history, a comparison of family histories and a study of a particular folklore or oral tradition. I decided to discontinue the family history and folklore case studies after fieldwork in 2014. For the family history case study, I had originally intended to examine the transformations in twentieth century Solomon Islands of four well-known families from Makira. After initial fieldwork in 2014, I decided not to proceed further because interviews provided very uneven information on family members, while requiring a great deal of work to make sense of family trees—which had grown rapidly in each family from an apex of two or three persons in the 1920s to between 200 and 300 members by the early twenty- first century. Gathering social history data on individuals’ education, occupations and locations was even more difficult. I concluded that family histories were better recorded by insiders or an outsider with experience or training, plus software, to record genealogies.

For the folklore case study, I had intended to examine oral tradition stories of the kakamora, the mythical or possibly original hominids on Makira, through interviews with older man or mere Makira, and to compare this oral tradition with existing literature on the kakamora. However, the interviews, which were conducted in Solomon Pijin, yielded little in the stories about kakamora that differed from documented stories, first described by Fox (1925), and then analysed intensively in the context of Makiran identity and origin stories and identity by ethnographer Michael Scott (2007, 2011, 2012, 2013). The similarity of the stories was confirmed in a manuscript (Auhunua Among the Kahua) by a Catholic priest, Gerard Bruns SM, who worked in Makira for almost 50 years and whom I interviewed in 2014. Unable to speak the local language, I became increasingly doubtful about whether I was grasping the cultural nuances of kakamora, or that interviewees would be able to explain them to me. Helping the decision to discontinue both case studies was the realisation that there was no danger of either the kakamora or family history ‘libraries’ being lost because they are already well preserved in collective or social memory.

The scope of the other case studies changed during fieldwork. For the first collective case study, I had originally planned to compare two life histories, that of former Central Bank governor Tony Hughes and former Governor-General Sir Nathaniel Waena. However, Waena’s political commitments in 2014, an election year, made it too difficult to arrange the multiple interviews

49 Chapter 3 Research methodologies and methods needed for a full life history. I therefore invited Afu Billy, whom I knew well, to be part of the case study. She brought new and important perspectives to the case study through her experiences as a woman and a feminist, her career in non-government organisations and her forays into politics.

I also decided to add David Sitai and John Roughan to the life history case study. David Sitai was part of the first generation of political leaders after Independence and one of the first Solomon Islanders to gain a university education. I had previously interviewed him several times as part of my research for a biography of former prime minister Solomon Mamaloni. I conducted four further interviews with him and his family for the family history study, later discontinued. Dr John Roughan, a former Catholic priest and founder of the Solomon Islands Development Trust (SIDT), had died in November 2013 but I had known him personally and professionally since 1989 through my NGO work. I had interviewed him twice before and was able to interview his son and former colleagues for an obituary (Chevalier 2015a). By 2015, I decided there were enough previous interviews with him and tributes to him, when taken together with his written work, to include him in the first collective case study. The addition of two Solomon Islanders, Billy and Sitai, to the case study provided an opportunity to compare differences arising from gender and ethnicity in the same generation. The inclusion of Roughan allowed comparisons with Hughes, also an expatriate who married a Solomon Islander, adopted citizenship, and became a social commentator.

The Fauabu case study was added after fieldwork in 2014, when I learned that Helen Barrett, who had worked as a missionary nurse from 1947 to 1984, was now in her 90s and living in Brisbane. During interviews in 2015 and 2016 she referred to four former colleagues with whom she remained close friends and who happily agreed to also be interviewed. This type of oral history not only addressed the research problem but added valuable detail about the contributions of missionaries to nursing and medical services in the post-war period.

My connections and experience in the Solomons helped me to find and relate easily to most participants. It was not difficult to persuade new people to participate in the study—indeed, most were flattered to be interviewed about their lives and careers. But oral history is literally easier said than done and each participant added many hours and days of extra work. I turn next to research and ethics approval requirements, issues and difficulties encountered.

3.2.4 Ethics approvals and issues

This study required ethics approvals in Australia and Solomon Islands, which were complicated processes (see Table 3.1). The ANU research ethics approval process included a compulsory scenario-based online training course on understanding ethical issues in human research (ARIES 2014/2021). I also examined oral history ethics issues and sought guidance from recommended

50 Chapter 3 Research methodologies and methods procedures by international and Indigenous Australian oral history and research organisations, including the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS 2013), the Oral History Association SA/NT (Robertson et al. 2013), the UK Oral History Society (Ward 2003; Perks and Bornat 2012), and the US Oral History Association (Patai 1987; Yow 2005). The ANU Human Research Ethics Committee approved the research ethics protocol (reference number 2014/134) after changes were made to combine the information sheet and consent forms for participants into a single document (see Appendices 1a–1c). I also had to reiterate conditions for keeping oral recordings, rather than adopting standard university protocol.

Research approval was required in Solomon Islands from three institutions—the Solomon Islands Government through the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MEHRD), the Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS) to interview current staff, and the provincial Makira-Ulawa Government to conduct research in the province—and required separate approval and payment of fees. Fieldwork in Honiara was covered by national government research approval.

3.2.4.1 Issues of Informed consent and release

Oral history research requires additional safeguards because recordings are intended for posterity and public access. Northern oral history practice distinguishes between the copyright of the words in an oral history recording, which belong to the narrator, while copyright of the recording itself legally belongs to the person or institution doing the recording. Once transferred, access is controlled subject to any conditions placed on access by the narrator and the procedures of the holding institution. Narrators are asked to sign release forms at the end of the interview so that the oral recordings can be used in published form or in presentations and be archived for future listening.

Oral history practice had to be adapted for the Solomon Islands context because copyright laws are based on British law, are rarely enforced, and do not address the complexities surrounding traditional knowledges in the Pacific (SPC 2002; Forsyth 2013). There is also the matter of cultural responses in Solomons Islands to perceived or potential slight or harm to individuals, kinsmen and groups. Negative views or comments may lead to claims for compensation (Akin 1999) or, if they become public, may result in actual harm and even riots (Moore 2008). Such sensitivities can also affect participants’ willingness to take part or disclose their names.

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Table 3.1 Research approval components in Australian and Solomon Islands Components required for the ANU Research Components required for Solomon Islands Ethical Review (E2) Research Approval (MEHRD 2009) Description of the research project Curriculum vitae Aims and objectives of the research Subject(s) to be studied Location of data collection Areas/locality of the research work Methodology for data collection and indicative Research methods questions Types of data collected Mechanisms to minimise potential harm Dates and duration of the research Monitoring the conduct of the research Budget and funding sources Participant groups, their identification and Arrangements for accommodation in places of recruitment research Cultural and social considerations and sensitivities How the research results will be used Anticipated benefits of the research Benefits of the research to Solomon Islands Informed consent and confidentiality Supporting persons, organisations, and institutions Data storage procedures and duration Letters of support Feedback of results to participants Attached documents: (University ethics submission Funding sources and approval; informed consent, confidentiality and release forms; summary of previous research conducted in Solomon Islands) Payment of fees (SBD 300)

Properly informed consent for use and release of their oral histories requires narrators to have the opportunity to review what they have said during interviews and how it has been represented, transcribed, or edited. It was also problematic to ask for consent to place recordings in archives beyond the Solomon Islands National Archives and National Museum. Narrators could not reasonably be expected to give informed consent to releasing their oral histories to internet-based sites, especially those from older generations whose access to and familiarity with the internet are limited or non-existent. Many oral history collections that can be accessed digitally on the internet exist overseas, including in Australia, New Zealand, UK, and USA, but such sites have yet to be created in Solomon Islands.

To address these issues, I designed the consent process in three steps: consent to take part in the study; consent to be interviewed and recorded; and consent for release of materials. The first step in the consent process was taken at a preliminary meeting with each informant. I used an information sheet to explain the purpose of the research, the topics of interest, options for confidentiality and the uses that would be made of the recordings and transcripts (research thesis, publication and possible archive). After going through the information form, each informant was asked to give their oral consent to take part in the study and an interview was arranged.

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The second step in the consent process was taken at the first interview, when participants were again asked to give oral permission to be interviewed on the recording. Interviewees were told that they could ask for the recorder to be switched off or for information to be kept off the record. With five nursing officers who did not want to be recorded, I took notes to record their careers and opinions. Participants gave their written consent at the end of the first interview, when they knew what been asked and said during the interview. They also chose one of three options for confidentiality, viz: full name, initials or synonym, or no name (anonymous).35

The third step in the consent process was obtaining consent to release and use the final documents and recordings. I organised this in person or by post after transcripts or edited interviews had been corrected and finalised. The release form (see Table 3.2) provided participants with a sequence of options for unconditional or conditional release and access to interview materials.

With unconditional permission (Table 3.2, options 1 and 2), the copyright to the materials is effectively handed over to the researcher, and the recordings and transcripts can be made publicly available. Conditional permission (options 3 to 5) provides participants with discretionary control, requiring their written permission for access on a case-by-case basis.

Table 3.2. Release of interview materials and options for use 1. No conditions for the interview, story and recordings can be shared with and used by anyone without needing further permission. Yes / No 2. No conditions on research: the interview and materials may be accessed for research purposes by students, qualified researchers and the Solomon Islands National Museum. Yes / No 3. Conditions on listening, watching or reading the interview: anyone wanting to do so will require my (the informant) written permission. Yes / No 4. Conditions on use of the materials: publishing or broadcasting of the materials will require my permission on a case-by-case basis. Yes / No 5. Conditions on access locations: copies of the materials can be accessed via: - the researcher (Christopher Chevalier) Yes / No / Not yet - the Solomon Islands National Museum Yes / No / Not yet - the Solomon Islands National University Yes / No / Not yet - an oral history internet web site Yes / No / Not yet - on-line databases and library catalogues Yes / No / Not yet

35 All four of the participants providing life histories, the five missionary nurses and 19 of the nursing officers consented to using their name. Of the six participants who did not consent to use of their names, three allowed their initials to be used and three asked for complete anonymity. Of twelve additional informants, all but one allowed their full name to be used.

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All the participants who were recorded gave consent for me to use the recordings for research purposes. Only nine of 25 nursing officers allowed unconditional release for their materials, with the remainder requiring further contact to release material to public archives. Two of the four life history participants gave conditional permission for access for research purposes but require further contact for wider release of materials.36 All five missionary nurses gave permission to use their materials for research purposes only.

This consent process, which contrasts with the practice of signing release forms at the end of the first interview, complicated arrangements for public access to the interview materials. I have postponed further action on this until this thesis is completed. This thesis will be made available to the Solomon Islands National Archives (SINA), the National Museum (SINM) and the National University (SINU). Making oral histories and recordings accessible will require further negotiation with, and permission from, participants, and assurances of secure access. I return to the issues of culturally appropriate and properly informed consent and release, and access in the discussion of oral history in Chapter 7 (Section 7.3.3). 3.3 Research methods

In Section 3.3, I explain the research methods used to collect, analyse and summarise the case studies. I begin with details of the fieldwork, explaining how, where and when the oral histories and other data were collected.

Fig. 3.1 Location of participant interviews in Solomon Islands (map: CartoGIS Services, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University)

36 David Sitai died in 2015 and copyright of materials relating to him has ended. As a matter of cultural courtesy, his family will be asked for permission before archiving or publishing any material, as I did with John Roughan’s family in regard to his obituary.

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3.3.1 Fieldwork

Fieldwork took place in Solomon Islands and Australia over 36 weeks between November 2013 and December 2016 (see Table 3.3). Nearly all the interviews in Solomon Islands took place in Honiara and Makira, the island 150 km south-east of the capital (see Fig. 3.1). Honiara also provided access to national institutions, government departments, libraries and archives.

I was familiar with Makira from my previous work there and my research for the biography of Solomon Mamaloni. I spent six weeks in Makira where I had access to former colleagues, as well as road access for the ethnohistory and family history research. In 2014, I stayed at Tony Hughes’s homestead in the Vona Vona lagoon in the Western Province, where I conducted interviews with him and family members and accessed documents in his library. During this trip I also interviewed two former nursing officers in Gizo, the provincial capital. In Australia, I travelled to Brisbane, Wagga Wagga and Melbourne in 2015 and 2016 for interviews with the former missionary nurses.

Table 3.3 Research fieldwork periods and locations Solomon Islands: 12 November–5 December 2013 (3 weeks) – initial visit to identify potential case studies and participants in Honiara and Makira – discussions with sponsoring institutions and government ministries regarding research permission Solomon Islands: 24 July–19 December 2014 (20 weeks) – obtaining ethics approval and research permit in Honiara – oral history interviews in Honiara (14 weeks), Makira (5 weeks)) and Western provinces (1.5 weeks) – collecting accessory historical source materials Solomon Islands: 8 November–21 December 2015 (6 weeks) – returning histories, collecting additional interviews and obtaining release permissions Solomon Islands: 4 October–8 November 2016 (5 weeks) – two presentations given at the South Pacific Nursing Conference37 – supplementary oral history interviews Australia: 8–10 July 2015 and 10 May 2016; 6–12 December 2016 (1 week) – oral history interviews with Helen Barrett, Brisbane (Queensland) and her nursing colleagues— Wagga Wagga () and Melbourne (Victoria)

37 ‘The rise and fall of Nurse Aides in Solomon Islands’, presented with Rueben Ma`au, 1 November 2016, and ‘Oral History and Nursing in Solomon Islands’, 3 November 2016.

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3.3.2 Primary oral history: collecting life histories and career histories

The life histories and career histories combine participants’ versions with my efforts as both interviewer and researcher to connect their stories and broader historical themes (K’Meyer and Crothers 2007, 92).38 I also used previous interviews and supplementary informants, along with source materials such as published and unpublished documents and photographs, which I discuss in Section 3.3.3 below.39

Interviewing strategies were different in the three case studies. For the life history case study, I interviewed participants between three and eight times (average 5.8); for the missionary nurses from one to three times (average 1.4); and for the nursing officers, one or two interviews (average 1.4). Table 3.4 below does not include preliminary meetings to explain the research and gain consent to participate.

Table 3.4 Number and length of interviews by case study Type of case study No. of interviews Av. length of interview Four life histories 3, 6, 6, 8 (total 23, average 5.8) 1hr 25 min Group history 4, 1,1,1,1, 1, 1 (total 9, average 1.4) 2hr 21 min Collective history 18 x 1, 7 x 2 (total 32, average 1.3) 2hr 22 min

Multiple interviews with participants made it easier to keep interviews under two hours, knowing that topics could be followed up later. I initially arranged two interviews for the nursing officers but the second interview proved more difficult to organise and too disconnected from the first interview, so I changed the strategy with 18 out of 25 nursing officers to longer single sessions lasting nearly two-and-a-half hours on average. Although this is longer than generally recommended, I always checked that participants were interested and willing to keep talking. The average time for the group history case study was similar, including the nonagenarian Helen Barrett, who was alert and still keen to continue after more than two hours.

The interview process varied depending on the availability of the participants, the location and time available, how comfortable participants appeared to be and the focus of the case study. My interviewing approach was to encourage participants to discuss topics as freely as possible while guiding the interview with key questions and prompts. I generally followed a life trajectory sequence, beginning with topics and questions about birthplace, parents, upbringing, childhood,

38 Recalling the distinction between the life story—the story by the narrator—and the life history as the researcher’s presentation of that life. 39 The previous interviews were conducted with Sitai, Hughes and Roughan for the Mamaloni bibliography research and with Roughan for the 2011 People’s Survey.

56 Chapter 3 Research methodologies and methods schooling and career. I also experimented with group interviews once in each of the three case studies, which created quite different interactions and recounting of stories. Unsurprisingly, some individuals dominated in group conversations and the results were less informative than those from single person interviews.40

Supplementary interviews with informants rather than participants in the case were usually single events or meetings. I also re-listened to interviews from my previous research and online sources on some participants. These latter interviews were not specifically life histories but often contained useful personal details and opinions about historical events and changes.

Interviews were recorded with a Sony Zoom 2 digital audio recorder, backed up by a Livescribe recorder which makes transcribing easier because any part of the recording can be found by pointing the pen at words on notepaper. I experimented with video-recording interviews but encountered several problems. First, interviewees were less likely to agree to be recorded and, if they did agree, were more self-conscious than with audio-recordings. Second, I found it difficult to pay full attention while also monitoring camera equipment and changes in light and position of the participant in the camera frame. Third, the digital capacity required for video-recording is much greater than for audio because digital cards, computer and backup drives are quickly filled.41

3.3.3 Secondary oral history: Curating oral history interviews

The preservation of tapes and transcripts for posterity distinguishes oral history interviewing from general qualitative interviewing (S. Kirby 1997, 47; Yow 2003, 3). While the recording (audio or video) is the primary format, a transcript is the secondary format. A verbatim transcript captures every word, as well as verbal tics and mannerisms, making possible detailed narrative analysis including speech patterns and interactions; however, it can be intrusive to someone reading the text by itself. Transcribing interviews is also painstaking and very time-consuming, taking me (a non-touch typist) an average of 6.7 hours per hour of recording in this research. The time required became an important consideration in deciding whether a full transcription was warranted or whether to produce an edited version of the interview. Whatever level of transcription is adopted, the process of re-listening allows every nuance of voice and interview interactions to be replayed.

The steps taken in collecting and curating the interviews are shown in Figure 3.2 over. I used a free online software program, oTranscribe (2013), to initially transcribe the recording and added notes

40 Group interviews, however, were useful for family histories, with two or three family members talking together to construct and confirm details of their families. 41 Video recording required 21 gigabytes (GB) per hour storage space, 28 times greater more than higher quality WAV audio recording (0.75 GB per hour) and 2500 greater than a MP3 audio recording. The digital recorder card had 64 GB capacity, the fieldwork computer a 300 GB storage capacity, and back up drive a 500 GB capacity.

57 Chapter 3 Research methodologies and methods typed up from the interview. Interviews were usually conducted in Solomon Pijin with Solomon Islanders and in English with expatriates. I transcribed interviews in English but kept key phrases and ambiguous terms in both languages.

Fig. 3.2 Steps in collecting and curating interview materials

Editing of interview transcripts differed in each case study to create more readable and coherent accounts for participants and myself to analyse (Shopes 2011; Thomson 2019b). With multiple life history interviews, I lightly edited the transcripts, adding timings and topic headings to make the transcript easier to follow. Very occasionally, I moved text on the same topic together to improve the coherence of the narrative. Editing was more extensive with nursing officers and the missionary sisters, where I sequenced the interview content by topic and chronological order, for example, according to their upbringing, education, training, career positions and promotions, and changes to nursing and medical systems. This made the texts more coherent and easier to analyse for a collective history, described in Section 3.3.5.

The curating process revealed missing information that participants could add when they reviewed and corrected their interview texts. Hard copies and electronic versions of interview documents were handed or sent to participants for corrections and review (or to their families, in the two instances where the interviewees had died). Participants’ corrections usually related to dates, names, and spelling mistakes. I tracked versions of interview documents to note the number and types of changes in interview documents returned by participants.42 Despite several requests, I did not

42 Eighteen nursing officers edited and returned their summaries in person or by stamped and addressed envelope.

58 Chapter 3 Research methodologies and methods receive any corrections from the four life history participants, but corrections were forthcoming with career histories in the group history and collective history. I attribute the difference largely to life history participants being less inclined to make changes to what they had said than to career histories reconstructed by me.43

Fig. 3.3 An example of materials returned to nursing officer participants

The correction process gave participants the opportunity, prior to signing any release form, to review the interview texts and consider possible repercussions if others read the texts or listened to the recordings. I attached release forms to their final interview documents for them to declare how they wanted their histories and recordings to be accessed. I added copies of photographs and documents of interest or relevance to participants, including a list of nurses who had qualified with them (see Fig. 3.3). I backed up copies on read-only disks (CD-R or DVD-R). Sending materials was slow, particularly for participants living outside Honiara, which added considerably to the logistical difficulty and time involved. The process was faster in the missionary sisters’ case study with fewer people to interview, better communications in Australia and experience gained by 2016.

3.3.4 Other source materials

Oral history research often uncovers and uses other sources of information in addition to interviews (Shopes 2005, 2017; Miller-Rosser 2009, 479). During this research, some participants brought along personal materials such as letters, diaries, photographs, material objects and memorabilia, which they talked about during and after interviews. Other source materials included historical documents, newspapers, maps, statistical data, and speeches, which provided valuable historical background and contextual information.

43 I discuss the implications of editing interview texts in more detail in the case study chapters (4, 5 and 6) and the oral history discussion (Chapter 7).

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The four life histories and group history provided plentiful personal materials. Sitai had photographs, correspondence from his father and some of his father’s reports as a district officer. Hughes had many books and papers of interest in his library at home, including field trip reports from the 1960s, technical reports as a development consultant since the 1990s and a book on economic development and dependence in the Pacific (Hughes 1998). He also had copies of plays, poems, letters to newspapers and newspaper articles that he had written. Roughan and Hughes, both social commentators, had written conference papers and articles, including Roughan’s weekly column for the Solomon Star over more than 20 years, some of which were available online (Roughan 2007–2008). I also obtained a digital copy of Roughan’s doctoral thesis (1986) from the University of Hawai’i.

Helen Barrett had donated a collection of artefacts and gifts from the Solomons to the Queensland State Museum, which was brought out for our first interview. At her nursing home, she produced a suitcase containing letters, reports and newspaper clippings. Her missionary colleagues provided correspondence and newsletters with details of celebrations, personal experiences, visitors, and hospital events. They also had personal photograph collections, which were especially valuable because they evoked memories, stories, and detailed explanations of their work. A valued part of the research was scanning photographs for archival purposes and sharing with other participants and family members. Like oral histories, photographs can be viewed not as objective depictions of past reality but as constructions situated in a specific time and place, shaped by prevailing aesthetic conventions and social norms (Freund and Thomson 2011, 25). Although photographs cannot be treated as depicting ‘facts’, they prompt questions and information about why it was taken, the immediate situation, poses and positions taken, and the context (Yow 2005, 329).

The nursing officers provided fewer personal materials, but I was able to find useful technical documents in office corridors and libraries. At the School of Nursing and Allied Health Services, I searched through dozens of dusty boxes from a former WHO library that had been donated in 2015.44 Among the materials were nurse training curricula from 1973, 1983 and 1996 and treatment manuals for nurses and doctors dating to the 1980s.45 Documentary evidence allowed me to compile accurate chronologies of events and changes, for example in nursing training and health services. Particularly valuable was a recently digitised database of nurse registrations from 1955 to 2012, which allowed me to analyse nursing registrations over time and training by institutions before and after Independence.

44 Many of the WHO technical materials are obsolete with updated versions now available on-line. 45 References are cited in Chapter 6.

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Other sources included literature about the colonial period identified in the literature review (Section 2.4). The online Solomon Islands Historical Encyclopaedia 1893–1978 (Moore 2013) was a particularly useful source of historical data and photographs. Colonial and medical memoirs provided detailed information of the colonial period (Macgregor 2006; Tedder 2008; Webber 2011). Historical documents from mission churches included the annual Southern Cross Logs produced by the Church of Melanesia and histories of the Anglican and Catholic churches in the Solomons (Hilliard 1974; Laracy 1976; O’Brien 1995). Auto/biographies also provided useful descriptions of life and work in both colonial and post-independence eras.

3.3.5 Tertiary oral history: analysis and interpretation

I turn now to the methods used to analyse the three case studies. First I distinguish between two types of analysis, viz: internal analysis of the oral history interviews and external analysis of the contents of the oral histories.46 Internal analysis of the oral history interviews involves critical analysis of: the dynamics between narrator and interviewer; what is spoken (and not spoken) about and how; how life and career stories are remembered and told; and how the contexts—the interview settings and circumstances—affect the interviews. Internal analysis includes evaluation of the recording quality, transcription approach, editing and summarising of the interviews. This analysis began during interviews when asking questions and listening to answers and continued when reflecting on the interview afterwards. I took notes during interviews and made comments in the notes [in square brackets] on factors possibly affecting the interviews or responses. During fieldwork I also kept a daily journal to reflect on fieldwork, including my impressions of how interviews had gone. Opportunities for critical analysis and reflection were most apparent when listening back to recordings in real time and typing up initial transcripts. I also made note of how my pre-existing relationships with participants affected the interviews—for example, becoming too conversational or dialogical, or referring to my own rather than to their experiences. Mistakes and missed opportunities are not uncommon in any interview (Sheftel and Zembrzycki 2016, 348) and were evident when listening back to and transcribing my interviews. It was sometimes embarrassing to listen back to my poorly phrased Solomon Pijin or hear myself talking too much or interrupting an informant’s flow. Conducting this internal analysis led me to develop the Visual, Spatial, Oral–

46 In 2019 I attended a workshop by Alistair Thomson on Interpreting Memories (2019a) in which he distinguished between micro-narrative analysis of the actual words of the individual narrator and macro-thematic interpretation (see Chapter 2, Section 2.3.1). Thomson’s distinction has overlaps with the distinction between internal and external analysis that I use to avoid confusion with the micro-, meso- and macro-levels in the social history framework. I learned about Thomson’s distinction towards the end of my research.

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Aural, Text, Numerical and Digital (VSO-ATND) framework introduced in Chapter 1 (Section 1.3.3) and explained in more detail in Chapter 7 (Section 7.2).

External analysis involved examining the oral histories for the content or the information contained in the interviews about individuals lives, careers and social history. This was done by adapting qualitative methods recommended and used by nursing historians Miller-Rosser et al. (2009) and oral historian Linda Shopes (2017). I summarise the analytic method with an acronym— the 4 Cs:

- Content analysis: of interviews and other sources using NVivo analytic software. - Cross analysis: of histories for commonalities and differences across oral histories. - Collective History: compiling oral histories and other source materials into a collective history, summarising, and presenting each case study. - Critical analysis: evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of oral histories and other source material as evidence.

3.3.5.1 Content analysis

Content analysis is used to analyse, interpret, summarise, and evaluate the content of oral and written texts (Thomas 2006, 238). I used inductive qualitative data analysis to code (or label) and categorise text in a consistent manner. Frequent, dominant, or significant codes were then sorted into categories, themes or concepts and set within a model or framework (see also Saldaña 2009; Silverman 2016). I coded and managed the data using qualitative analytic software (NVivo 10 and 11, 2012 and 2015) as per the following steps:

- Uploading interview texts and documentary texts to NVivo.47

- Coding: attaching codes or labels to the content of the interview texts. A code (for example, schools), could be nested within larger categories (for example, education), broken into smaller codes (primary, secondary, tertiary education) or even further to minor codes (schools attended, favourite subjects). Some codes and categories were common to all three case studies (for example, parents, childhood, school, marriage, gender) while others were specific to the nursing case studies but not the life histories. Possible quotes from the interviews were stored according to codes and linked to their sources. The NVivo coding tree (an alphabetically arranged hierarchy of categories, codes and sub-codes with frequency counts of codes) created an overview of the content of interview texts.

47 I scanned documents and made notes from them so they could be coded in NVivo.

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- Dates: I added dates to the text where necessary to accompany the code so that I could put materials in the correct chronological sequence.

- Memos: I linked memos of my responses to the interviews and data to NVivo codes but kept them in a separate folder.

- Re-assembling the data: I cut and pasted codes (attached to the text to which they were applied) into Word documents. I sorted and grouped the codes into topic headings that could be easily found and manipulated. I looked for quotes that could be used to exemplify codes, categories and themes.

3.3.5.2 Cross analysis

I examined codes, categories and themes for similarities and differences across participants in each case study. I examined the codes quantitatively to compare the relative density (thinness and thickness) of the data on different topics from each case study. I created a summary of social history themes and historical periods revealed by each case study for comparison in the social historical framework (see Section 3.6 below).

3.3.5.3 Collective history—summarising and presenting case studies

Each case study was summarised in different ways. For the Four Corners case study (Chapter 4), I assembled a timeline for the four participants with key personal events and positions. I then wrote a life history of 4,000 to 5,000 words, which I also shortened to between 1200 and 1300 words, a length commonly used for individual biographies in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (2017). To analyse similarities and differences between the four oral histories, I arranged the NVivo codes into themes corresponding to micro-, meso- and macro-levels of the social history framework. For example, personal backgrounds were included at the micro-level. Commonalities and differences of church affiliation, education, class, profession, race and ethnicity were included at the meso- level. Economic and political changes and events in the post-independence period were included at the macro-level.

For the Fauabu case study (Chapter 5), at the micro-level I chose to focus on the missionary sisters’ personal upbringing and work together at Fauabu hospital. There was considerably more information about Helen Barrett’s life than her colleagues’ due to the length of her career in the Solomons (1947‒1984) and because I interviewed her for considerably longer. At the meso-level, I focused on the Sisters’ education and the nursing training in Australia, one of the few professions open to women of their era. I analysed how the expatriate nurses interacted with Solomon Islanders and differences due to gender and race. I wrote a summary history of Fauabu hospital drawing on medical missionary documents and the descriptions by Barrett and her colleagues of health and

63 Chapter 3 Research methodologies and methods medical services before and after their arrival. At the macro-level I addressed the history of the (Anglican) Melanesian Mission and the island of Malaita, particularly the Pacific labour trade and Maasina Rule movement that shaped the history not just of Fauabu hospital but of Solomon Islands as a whole.

For the collective history case study (Chapter 6), the process of summarising and presenting the larger number of cases was more akin to a qualitative research project or evaluation. At the micro- level I used spreadsheets to summarise the nurses’ careers according to years of education, training, graduation, postings, promotions, marriage and children. I summarised key features in their backgrounds, their reasons for choosing nursing and their training experiences. At the meso-level I summarised and compared nursing promotions and career prospects by age and gender as well as reviewing changes and continuities in the role of nurses and changes to training before and after Independence in 1978. At the macro-level, I considered changes in disease patterns and treatments in the post-war era and the evolution of international health strategies. I provided macro-level historical comparisons of changes in nursing in the international context, drawing on sources collected during fieldwork, from my own library, and from histories of nursing from Australia, New Zealand, UK, and USA.

3.3.5.4 Critical analysis and reflexivity

Tertiary oral history includes critical analysis and assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the oral history accounts and other source materials. Oral testimonies and documentary sources both have weaknesses requiring critical scrutiny if they are to be used as historical evidence or argument. Oral accounts of events and experiences are affected by the fluidity or malleability of memory, positive and negative emotions (for example, joy or shame), and self-justification (taking credit or avoiding responsibility). Oral accounts can be compared against each other and against other versions of events, including official reports, documents, and data, all of which have their own sources of partiality (Moore 2017, 406).

As I analysed the interviews for meso- and macro-level themes from the interviews, I also reflected on how my subjective position impacted my analysis of the data—for example, my interest in the history of Primary Health Care (PHC) and anti-colonialism. Critical analysis also meant examining why nurse participants often had fond memories of the colonial past that contrasted with academic and my own critical views of colonialism. These issues are discussed in each case study chapter (4– 6) and the discussion chapters (7–9).

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3.3.6 Social history summary analysis

Social history themes are discussed in each case study and summarised at the end of each chapter. For each chapter, I created a matrix with key themes at the micro-, meso- and macro-levels of society that emerged from the content analysis, cross analysis, and collective history. I then added an historical timeline with key periods and events from the case study, plus locations where participants had been in their life histories. The summaries are brought together in the social history discussion chapter (Chapter 8, Table 8.1) to provide an overview with which to compare themes and aspects of social history revealed by the different case studies.

Fig. 3.4 A social history framework of central Solomon Islands (developed in conjunction with CartoGIS Services, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University)

The social history framework allowed me to situate themes from individual, group and collective biographies along three axes: social-structural, historical and spatial or geographical. Each axis can be viewed at differing scales using the zoom lens analogy. The social history framework in shown in Fig. 3.4 reaches back to earlier periods from the documented historical past, such as the Pacific labour trade, and goes further still to deep history accessible through oral tradition and studies in linguistics, archaeology, and genetics. Compared with the framework shown in Chapter 1 (Fig.1.3), Fig. 3.4 also presents a narrower geographic focus, more suited to the social history in the Fauabu case study. Thus, the social history framework is flexible and can be scaled differently, depending on the focus and topics found within social history, and providing a heuristic or tool to summarise social history more conceptually.

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3.4 Conclusion

This chapter explains how this research was designed, approved and implemented, beginning with the research problem and research questions, and the methodologies and methods used (summarised in Table 3.6).

Oral history, collective case study and social history are the three methodologies used to explore oral history in Solomon Islands and to recover different types of social history. The research design received ethics and research approvals in Australia and Solomon Islands. Extra care was taken to ensure that participants gave properly informed consent to interviews and release agreements for their oral histories.

Table 3.6 Summary of the research problems, questions, methodologies and methods Research problem When a person dies, both personal and social history may be lost, particularly in contexts such as Solomon Islands where written auto/biographies are scarce and life expectancies are shortened by ill-health Research objectives 1) To record life histories and oral testimonies from individuals and groups who experienced both pre- and post-independence eras. 2) To link life histories and oral testimonies to historical contexts, social structures and social change in Solomon Islands since the Pacific War. Research questions 1) How can oral history methods preserve individual and collective histories in Solomon Islands contexts? 2) What types of social history can be recovered using oral history methods? Methodologies Oral history (primary, secondary and tertiary) Collective case study Social history Methods Life history interviews Career history interviews Curating recorded interviews (transcribing and summarising interviews) Internal analysis of oral history interviews and methods External analysis of oral history accounts and other source materials 4 Cs - Content analysis, Cross analysis, Collective history, and Critical analysis Social history summary analysis

Oral history methods are explored in three case studies: the life histories of four well-known public figures; a group history of five missionary nurses; and a collective history of 25 nursing officers. In total, 34 participants were interviewed about their lives and careers in single or multiple semi- structured interviews. Two other case studies—family history and oral tradition—proved less suitable and less fruitful as oral history topics for an outsider and were discontinued after initial fieldwork. In the secondary oral history phase (curating the interviews and recordings), the oral histories were transcribed and processed according to the different number of participants and type

66 Chapter 3 Research methodologies and methods of case study. Participants were able to review interview texts to decide what they wanted to include or exclude. After corrections, participants were given copies of their life history or career history, plus the interview recordings, and then asked to sign release agreement forms giving permission for use and access of these materials.

Oral history interviews have been analysed internally—for the influence of the process and context of the interviews on what participants said—and externally to examine the interview contents for the information they reveal about social history. Four analytical methods were used in external analysis (the 4 Cs): content analysis (using qualitative analysis software); cross analysis (comparison of individual cases within and between each case study); collective history (compiling interviews and other source materials into a collective history, summarising and presenting each case study); and critical analysis (evaluation of strengths and weaknesses of interviews, other source materials and of my own critical views). The social history framework developed through this research has allowed me to arrange and compare themes from analysis of themes, oral history interviews and other source materials. The summaries of themes are presented at the end of Chapters 4, 5 and 6, and combined for the social history discussion in Chapter 8.

The next chapter (Chapter 4) brings us to the first case study of four life histories.

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Chapter 4. Four corners—four life histories

4.1 Introduction

This chapter presents the first of three case studies employing different approaches to oral history. This case study used life history interviews, plus material from other sources, to compare the personal histories of four individuals, examining what they reveal about life histories as an oral history method and about social history in post-war Solomon Islands. The four individuals were born and raised worlds apart—two were born in Solomon Islands and two were expatriates who became citizens soon after Independence in 1978—and had quite different careers. All were well- known public figures who were connected tangentially through their careers in the pre- and post- independence periods. They are—or were, as two have now died— all members of a modern, tertiary-educated urban elite in Solomon Islands.

I use the metaphor of ‘Four Corners’ as a title for the case study because the participants differed in terms of life chances, careers and social positions. Their lives and views thus provide comparative perspectives on important historical, cultural and social factors operating in post-war Solomon Islands. Each life history is presented separately in Section 4.3 of this chapter, and compared with the other life histories across time (history), society (micro-, meso- and macro-levels) and locations (geography) in Section 4.4. The four different participants are shown in relation to each other in Fig. 4.1.

Fig. 4.1 Four participants—four corners

In Section 4.2, I describe the life history approach used in this case study. Interviews of the participants were supplemented by documentary materials, particularly the writings of Hughes and Roughan who were prominent social commentators and authors. I explain how the interviews were

68 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories analysed and the life histories summarised. In Section 4.3, I present short life histories of each of the participants. In Section 4.4, I analyse the social history revealed through the life histories. The impact of social factors such as class, age, gender, religious denomination, race and ethnicity are evident at all three levels. Other macro-level (national and international) changes in the post-war period relating to economic development, land ownership and environmental management come through in the advocacy work and writings of Hughes and Roughan. The chapter concludes with an overview of the social history themes reflected in the four participants’ life histories, which will be compared with the social history revealed by the two other case studies in Chapter 8. 4.2 The life history method

Section 4.2 explains the life history approach, including description of and how the four participants were chosen for the research. It also describes the supplementary materials that were used and how they were processed, summarised, and analysed.

The life history approach provides a voice for the lived experiences of individuals and aids understanding of the complex interactions between individuals’ lives and their institutional and societal contexts (Cole 2001, 126). Life history interviews were conducted and then compiled into life histories, which were analysed and compared with each other.

4.2.1 Choosing the participants

I have known Afu Billy since 1993, when she began work as a communications officer with Save the Children (Australia) in Honiara. She is representative of the first generation of Solomon Islands women to complete secondary school education and gain a university degree. Her personal life, forays into politics and advocacy for women, youth and children make her an authority on women’s issues and male domination.

I had interviewed David Sitai in 2010 as part of the research for a biography of Solomon Mamaloni. At his request I had also recorded three further interviews with him, which provided an insider’s perspective on politics in the independence period. For this research, I interviewed him three times, focusing on his personal and family life and career, as well as that of his father, Silas Sitai, a war hero, district officer and chairman of the Governing Council in 1972.

I recorded eight interviews with Tony Hughes in 2014 and also interviewed his wife, Kuria, and two of her relatives during a fieldwork trip to their homestead in Western Province. Hughes’s career in the Solomons began in 1961 as a university-educated district officer in the British colonial administration in the lead-up to Independence. His career afterwards reveals the continuities between the pre- and post-colonial eras through neocolonial institutions—the Central Bank of

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Solomon Islands (CBSI) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Highly articulate, Hughes provided personal and critical views on the social, economic, and political changes in the Solomons since the 1960s.

I had interviewed John Roughan for the Mamaloni biography in 2010, and again in 2011 when I coordinated the qualitative research component of the annual People’s Survey (RAMSI 2012). He was among the first people I met when I began work with Save the Children (Australia) in Honiara in 1989. I often read his weekly newspaper columns and always appreciated his sharp analysis and commentary. After his sudden death in October 2013, I collected information from him on social media sites and email networks, as well as from former colleagues and his son Paul, which formed the basis for an obituary published in the Journal of Pacific History in 2015 (Chevalier 2015a). Roughan’s extensive writings provide important critical perspectives on social, economic and political developments since the 1960s.

4.2.2 Source materials for the life histories

The life history interviews were supplemented by documentary sources, especially those written by Roughan and Hughes. These are summarised in Table 4.1 below. The 2014 interviews with Billy and Hughes were relatively straightforward, following their lives chronologically to the present day.48 The interviews with Sitai were less chronological, having focused in 2010 on his political career while interviews in 2014 added details of his father’s genealogy, war history and character, and Sitai Jnr’s upbringing and relationship with his father. Sitai’s health and memory had worsened by 2014, necessitating support from his wife and daughter to recall the family genealogy, names and dates.49 Roughan’s posthumous life history drew on previous interviews from 2010 and 2011, online tributes, personal insights from confrères and family details provided by his son. Details of Roughan’s upbringing are minimal but sufficient for a summary biography.

In the secondary oral history phase (processing and curation), the surviving participants (Billy and Hughes) were asked to correct interview transcripts and summaries of interviews. Despite several reminders, they did not do so, leaving it to me to judge what to include in or omit from this thesis. Billy was also unwilling to allow a close friend and journalist who was keen to write her life story to see edited transcripts. Her reticence reflects an understandable concern in a country where compensation can be demanded for any personal insult.

48 I also video-recorded Hughes reading his poems, written under the pseudonym Garume Hite (“little crab’) while he was still a colonial public servant (Hughes 1969a). 49 The difficulties of interviewing older people with memory problems can be mitigated with help from family members and photographs (Schoepf 2019).

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Table 4.1 Sources of information and methods used for life histories Sources Afu Billy David Sitai Tony Hughes John Roughan Interviews— 2014—6 2010—3 2014—8 2009—1 date and time 2014—3 2011—1 Total time 8.4 hrs 13.8hrs 13.6 hrs 3.5 hrs Additional School friend Wife and brother Wife and two Son and four interviews (2014) (2014) relatives (2014) colleagues (2013/2014) Documents Single author - Letters from his Tour reports (1962, PhD thesis (1986) Prose (1983) father 1970–1972 1964) Articles and Article (2002) Colonial reports Poems (1967–1970) reports (n=93) Joint author - (1950, 1960, Plays (1967, 1969) SIDT resource Political party 1962) Reports (199 materials and manifesto (2014) Book chapter Book (1998) LINK magazine Academic paper (1985) School history (1954) (2016) Tributes to his Mother’s travel diary father (1972) (1983) Photographs 1992 1997 1957–2015 personal 1956, 1986, 2010 2014 at interview 2014 2014 Other sources Obituary of Sitai E-mail Posthumous Snr (1972) correspondence tributes on Internet (2014–2018) Facebook and e- biography (2010) mail (2013)

Corrections were necessarily different for the participants who had died (Roughan and Sitai). Roughan’s son, Paul, corrected several drafts of his father’s obituary before it was anonymously reviewed and edited by the Journal of Pacific History. Sitai died in August 2015, two months before my scheduled visit to the Solomons. I gave disk and hard copies of the 2010 and 2014 interviews and transcripts to his wife and younger brother with the option to correct the transcripts if they wished.

4.2.2.1 Documentary sources

Documents written and provided by the participants were used alongside interviews to compile the life histories. As a priest, Roughan prepared weekly sermons for at least a decade, and in the 1990s began writing sermon-length weekly opinion pieces in the Solomon Star. He also authored many opinion pieces, journal articles, book chapters and conference papers. I was able to access online nearly 100 articles written for the Solomon Star (see for example Roughan 2007–2008), plus other journal articles (Roughan 1997, 2002, 2005).50 In 2016, the University of Hawai’i kindly agreed to

50 The Pacific Manuscript Bureau (PAMBU) at ANU announced plans in 2017 to digitise copies of the Solomon Star from 1982, which would make it possible to assemble all Roughan’s contributions.

71 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories digitise his PhD thesis, Village Organisation for Development (Roughan 1986), which describes the design and theoretical underpinnings for SIDT.

Hughes has also written prolifically as a public servant, consultant, and social commentator. I had access to his library and was able to scan some of his reports, together with fascinating correspondence with governments of the day from his time with CBSI. His book, A Different Kind of Voyage: Development and Dependence in the Pacific Islands, was published in 1998 and reprinted in 2013. I was able to view and scan his photograph collections dating back to his early days at university and as a district officer in Malaita, which provided vivid glimpses of the colonial era and his life history.

Documents from Sitai and Billy were fewer, but nevertheless provided useful information and insights. Letters and notes from Sitai Snr to his son in Fiji from 1970 to 1972 revealed much about their relationship and his father’s financial worries and sometimes harsh opinions about his wife. Sitai also kept some of his father’s reports, plus a 1972 cassette recording of tributes in the Governing Council, which the Solomon Islands Broadcasting. Corporation (SIBC) agreed to digitise. Apart from his valedictory speech in 2010, I did not follow up Sitai’s speeches in parliament, having learned from the Mamaloni research how time-consuming and tendentious parliamentary speeches can be.

Billy did not keep or make available her articles, radio program scripts or reports as a journalist and NGO professional. However, she has written an important article about her election loss in 2000 (Billy 2002) and co-authored an academic paper based on qualitative research for UN Fiji Women (Dicker et al. 2016), which provide insights into the barriers facing women entering politics.

4.2.3 Analysing oral and documentary sources

Central to the life history approach, and indeed to any biography, is the question of how best to analyse and summarise a life history from hours of interviews and additional sources. The process was explained in the previous chapter (Section 3.3.5) and is summarised in Table 4.2 below.

Table 4.2 Steps in analysing life histories Content analysis Coding interview transcripts and documents (NVivo software) Summarising the content for each code Memos (notes of ideas as researcher) Summary life histories Developing timelines for each life history (Word documents) Assembling longer life history texts (3,500–4,500 words) Summarising life histories or portraits (1200–1400 words) Cross analysis Analysing similarities and differences between life histories Collective history Comparing social history topics at micro, meso and macro-level Critical analysis Evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of interviews and other source material

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The summary life histories involved several iterations. I first created a timeline for each life history with key dates, locations, events, and career positions. Then I assembled a longer life history document of 3,500–4,500 words, an article length potentially suitable for the Journal of Pacific History. Finally, I condensed this document into a summary biography of 1250–1350 words, similar to shorter formats used in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB 2017), which I chose as a guideline. The summary life histories are presented in Section 4.3 and the cross analysis of the life histories is presented in Section 4.4. Critical analysis took place from the interview phase through to writing the thesis.

Intersubjectivity—the effect of the interactions and dynamics between narrators and interviewer/researcher—has undoubtedly played a part shaping the interviews, life stories told, life histories, and my analysis. I found myself sympathetic to the views of Billy, Hughes and Roughan, but sceptical of those of Sitai, who seemed to me to be uncritical of the harm done by the governments in which he had served and which I had researched previously. However, I was sympathetic to his health problems and reduced circumstances. In contrast, I admired Billy and Roughan both personally and professionally, and had worked in the same milieu and on some of the same issues. With Hughes, I shared English backgrounds, middle class and grammar school origins and left-leaning politics. Being more sympathetic to a participant’s views and experiences made it more difficult to summarise life histories impartially.

My personal views also affected analysis of the life histories—for example, surrounding the misogyny faced by Billy, the unchristian treatment of Roughan and his wife by the Catholic Church and the corruption against which Billy, Roughan and Hughes struggled. Other concerns making impartiality more difficult were my concerns for sustainable development and the environment, which have been so damaged by industrial logging and mining, the impacts of which I have seen first-hand in Bougainville and Solomon Islands. Another issue of concern to me is the impact of rapid population growth on rural and urban environments, locally and globally. My professional experience and political views have also made me sceptical of the benefits of international aid and economic trade for developing countries. These issues were more evident in other source materials than from the interviews, reflecting my concerns and demonstrating ways in which oral histories (and life histories) are co-constructed.

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4.3 Four summary life histories

The life histories presented below summarise significant aspects of the four participants’ lives and careers in Solomon Islands. They are constrained by word limits and the limitations of representing multiple interviews and other sources with single texts. Original recordings, transcripts and longer versions have been retained separately by the participants or their families.

4.3.1 Afu Billy

Afulia (Afu) Billy was born in January 1959 on Kwai island on the east coast of Malaita. Her father, Rev. Ariel Billy, came from an influential family of South Sea Evangelical Church (SSEC) pioneer missionaries in East Malaita. He and Billy’s mother, Crystal Ufariaia, had met at Onepusu, the mission headquarters, and were married for nearly 60 years. Billy was the sixth of seven children, four of whom did not survive childhood. She credits her parents with her love of singing and hospitality, and her father for her love of reading. Her two surviving sisters, 13 and 16 years older than Billy, were ‘more like mothers than sisters’ to her. Her parents were ‘poor as church mice’ and she remembers her childhood as being dominated by the church, poverty, and hardship.

In 1966, Billy moved with her family from Malaita to Marau, on the eastern end of Guadalcanal, where she began primary school at the age of seven. She was sent to Honiara to attend the Government Primary School from 1968 to 1972. She lived with relatives who were poorer than her multi-racial schoolmates and recalls often being hungry. Honiara was much smaller and less congested then, making it a safe place for her to roam and play freely with her friends.51

Billy was part of the first generation of Solomon Islands women to receive a secondary education. An avid reader and quick learner, she attended King George VI (KGVI) National Secondary School from 1973 to 1977. Diminutive and boisterous, she was often in conflict with and patronised by male students and teachers. She was academically successful, passing the Cambridge Overseas Ordinary level exams, 1st class division, in Form V (Year 11) in 1977. However, she did not continue to Form VI (Year 12) due to negative reports from the school chaplain, thereby losing the opportunity to go on to university.

Leaving school, Billy began work as a cadet journalist in the Government Information Service (1978 to 1981), including six months in 1979 with the Post-Courier newspaper in Papua New Guinea (PNG), developing her writing and interviewing skills. She joined the board of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in 1979 and attended several international conferences in the Pacific

51 The population of Honiara at the 1970 census was 11,191 compared with 64,609 in 2009 (ADB 2017), which did not include several large settlements outside the city boundaries.

74 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories and Singapore as a youth representative. In 1983, she contributed to and edited a book of poetry and prose by Solomon Islands women (Billy et al. 1983). From 1984 to 1988 she served as general secretary of the National Council of Women (NCW), working with Margaret Luilamo as president, with whom she had a tempestuous relationship.52 Billy worked closely with provincial NCW councils to legislate liquor licensing and campaign against domestic violence. She helped women gain appointment to positions in provincial governments and Honiara Town Council. She wrote and edited stories for the NCW newsletter and presented a radio program on SIBC, Olgeta Mere (Women). Her outspokenness and independent lifestyle were criticised by politicians and church leaders with patriarchal views, particularly from Malaita.

Billy suffered violence at the hands of boyfriends and her first husband from Malaita (E.S.), with whom she had two daughters, Sarah (b.1981) and Koisau (b.1983). She separated from E.S. in 1985 and divorced him in 1987, further antagonising her family and SSEC members. In 1989, she attended Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga (NSW) to study business administration, not her preferred subject (journalism) but the only scholarship available to her. She wanted to take her daughters with her and was forced to take legal action to overcome opposition to this from her ex- husband and his family. Completing her degree in Australia while keeping her children with her is a source of pride for Billy, as well as setting an example for other women.

After completing her degree at the end of 1992, Billy returned to Solomon Islands and joined Save the Children (Australia) as a communications officer, later becoming its first Indigenous country program manager. She initiated a women’s refuge in Honiara—the Family Support Centre—and a nationwide youth outreach peer education program. She presented a Solomon Islands situational report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva in 1999. During this time, she had two sons, Tasi (b. 1996) and Marco (b. 1998) with a de facto partner from Rennell, but the relationship ended due to her partner drinking and stealing from her.

Billy became a leader of the influential Women for Peace movement during the height of the Tension that followed the armed coup of June 2000, supporting women and interacting with militants from both sides of the conflict. In 2001, she contested the seat of East Malaita in the national elections. She lost by only two votes to Joses Sanga (1956–2007), which she attributed to improper voter registrations and divided loyalties within her family.53 Had her two older sisters voted for her, she would have become only the country’s second female MP. She described her

52 Margaret Luilamo was also the national Chief Nursing Officer 1983–1989 and is one of the nursing officers (Margaret M 1969) in the collective history case study (Chapter 6). 53 Her electoral petition in the Solomon Islands High Court claiming improper voter registration and corrupt practices was unsuccessful (Billy 2002, 61).

75 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories experiences and the challenges facing female candidates in a 2002 article, Fighting for A Fair Deal (Billy 2002).

From 2002 to 2005, Billy worked with the Regional Resource Rights Team (RRRT) based in Fiji. She took her family with her to Suva to escape the social pressures and criticisms of her as an outspoken woman at home. She travelled throughout the Pacific, training paralegal volunteers in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). When her father died in 2005, she returned to the Solomons and later cared for her mother, who was suffering from dementia, in her final months before she died in 2008.

Billy stood again for election again in 2006 but lost by 863 votes, a 24% margin, to Sanga, who died twelve months later. Billy chose not to contest the resulting by-election, having secured the position of Regional Director of the Commonwealth Youth Program (CYP), which was based in Honiara and came with diplomatic status. She managed a team working with Pacific government youth ministries and a regional advisory board, developing youth networks, including a regional youth caucus, and certificate training courses in youth work. She served as Regional Director for three terms, from 2007 to 2014.

Fig. 4.2 Afu Billy with Maylene Taghoa Fig. 4.3 Afu Billy with Prince William at the 2011 RAMSI awards, Honiara during the 2012 Royal Visit, Honiara (photo: Afu Billy collection) (photo: Afu Billy collection)

She met the Queen during an interlude at the Commonwealth Youth Secretariat in its London headquarters, which made her immensely proud. She later accompanied the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge during their 2012 royal visit to Honiara. In 2014, she returned to politics as the women’s and youth advisor and vice-president of the newly established Solomon Islands People First Party (SIPFP). SIPFP won only one seat in the 2014 elections, despite a progressive reform manifesto to

76 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories which she contributed significantly (SIFPF 2014). Since 2015, Billy has worked in a voluntary capacity and as a consultant to women’s organisations, including the Women’s Rights Action Movement (WRAM). She supports her family of four children and six grandchildren through consultancies and running a private taxi business.

As a modern urban Solomon Islands woman, Billy has challenged deeply entrenched Malaitan and evangelical Christian cultural values. Outspoken, gregarious and generous to a fault, she has sought to empower women professionally, politically and personally. Despite, and because of, the personal abuse and antagonism from her family, partners, church and politicians, she has fought constantly against unfairness and advocated for women’s rights, including her own. As she said in our final interview:

My biggest achievement was despite all the personal problems and work I was able to keep my family together until today. My advice is: live with integrity, have values, because that will shine through any bad situation. 4.3.2 David Sitai

David Wota Sitai was born in May 1950 in Honiara, the eldest of seven children of Silas Sitai, BEM, MBE (1920–1972) and Elizabeth Kataria (1928–2002). David had three brothers (Henry, Gordon and Eric) and three sisters (Annie, Catherine and Emily).

David’s father, Silas Sitai from the island of Santa Ana, was a famous war hero, an Indigenous colonial administrator and magistrate, and the first Solomon Islander Chairman of the Governing Council.54 Silas was educated at Melanesian Mission schools—St Mary’s School, Maravovo, on Guadalcanal, All Hallows’ School, Pawa and Queen Victoria Secondary School in Fiji. He joined the Fiji Naval Reserve in 1942 while in Suva training as a wireless operator and served with the British Solomon Islands Defence Force. From 1942 to 1943 he was attached to the US Marine Scouts and helped clear Japanese forces from Gela and Guadalcanal. After the war, he became an administrative assistant in Eastern and Central districts, rising to the position of administrative (district) officer in 1962. One of the first Indigenous appointments to the Advisory Council (1950– 1955), he became a first-class magistrate in 1963 and was awarded an MBE in 1970. He was appointed deputy chairman of the Governing Council in 1971 and chairman (or speaker) the following year. Affable and popular, he was just over five feet tall and a chain smoker—hence his nickname, ‘King-size’. He died suddenly of a heart attack in October 1972, at the age of 52.

54 Here I follow the Australian Dictionary of Biography practice of including biographical details of famous parents within a biographical entry.

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David had the double advantage of a famous father and access to an expanding education system being developed to educate a new generation to take over the reins at Independence (Lee 2016). He grew up in the district administrative centre at Kirakira on Makira, before being sent to Santa Ana to start primary school (1956 to 1957). He was able to attend the two best-resourced schools in the country when his father was transferred in 1958 to Central District and was based in Honiara. He attended the Government Primary School from 1959 to 1964, where the headmaster was the charismatic Belshazzar Gina (1908–1977). From 1965 to 1968, he attended King George VI School, the elite government secondary school. Despite only passing three ‘O’ levels he enrolled at the University of South Pacific in Suva, attending preliminary courses from 1969 to 1971 and completing a BA in Business Administration and Management in 1974. He saw his father for the last time when Sitai Snr came to Fiji on official business shortly before his death.

After university, Sitai worked with Levers Pacific as a trainee manager (1975–1977) before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1977and being sent to University College in Oxford to study diplomacy. He recalls wearing gowns at ‘high dinners’, bad British food and the cold weather. He played rugby for the University College 1st XV and had fond memories of watching the All Blacks play Wales at Cardiff Arms Park in 1978. Returning to the Solomons in 1979, he became private secretary to Sir Baddeley Devesi, the first Indigenous governor-general after Independence, and learned about colonial and diplomatic protocol. He later authored a short book chapter on Solomon Islands diplomatic strategies (Sitai 1983), in which he advocated roving ambassadors, rather than expensive permanent overseas missions, advice that went unheeded by later governments.

In December 1979, Sitai married Mary Kateni from Star Harbour in East Makira. Their first son, David was born in 1981, followed by Silas (1982), Esther (1985), Freda (1986), Dulcie (1990), Anthony (1995) and Mary-Anne (2001). In 1980, family friend and man Makira Solomon Mamaloni convinced Sitai to stand for election in the seat of East Makira. He lost by 12 votes to finance minister Benedict Kinika. When Mamaloni became prime minister in 1981, Sitai was posted to Makira as planning officer and deputy provincial secretary, a favourable position from which to contest the next election. He defeated Kinika in the 1984 election, thanks in large part to his father’s reputation and kinship connections. He went on to become one of the country’s longest-serving MPs, serving six consecutive terms from 1984 to 2010, an unusual feat in an electoral system that usually saw half of MPs losing their seats in elections.

Sitai served only four years as a minister in Mamaloni governments in his 26 years in parliament. This was partly because Mamaloni did not need to offer him a cabinet position to secure his loyalty or re-election. Mamaloni eventually rewarded him in his third administration, appointing him

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Minister for National Planning and Development from 1994 to 1996. Promoted to Minister for Foreign Affairs (1996–1997), his diplomatic skills helped to soothe troubled relations with both PNG and Australia, which had deteriorated badly due to Mamaloni’s abrasive diplomacy regarding the armed conflict in Bougainville. A new border agreement was signed with PNG, and Sitai met with Alexander Downer, the Australian foreign minister, to repair relations with the new Howard government (Greenwell 2010). His proudest moments were addressing the United Nations Assembly in June 1997 and meeting Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General (see Fig. 4.6). Sitai was briefly re-appointed as foreign minister from July to December 2001 in the first Sogavare government following the coup in June 2001. His diplomatic and international experience served him and his country well. He served on the Africa Caribbean Pacific-European Union Joint Assembly for six years and for two years on its executive, travelling extensively to Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.

From 2002, he concentrated on parliamentary committee work and People’s Alliance Party caucus discussions and sat on the boards of several state-owned enterprises. He served on the Constitution Review Committee (2006–2010) and chaired the Parliamentary House Committee (2008–2010).

Fig. 4.4 David Sitai, 2009 Fig. 4.5 At home Honiara, Fig. 4.6 Wheelchair bound, (photo: SI National 2014; inset: Sitai at UN, 1997 2014; inset: Sitai with Kofi Parliament) (photo: author) Annan, 1997 (photo: author)

Sitai did not use his office to become wealthy, if the condition of his house was any guide. With increasingly large constituency funds available to MPs after 1992, he was subject to endless requests for assistance from constituents. He funded the secondary and tertiary education of many students and supported several schools in his constituency. He successfully lobbied for an airfield and wharf in east Makira and purchased land near Kirakira for constituency investments. Before retiring, he

79 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories established a homestead and 40-acre coconut plantation on his mother’s land near Star Harbour but was never able to live there due to worsening health, lack of mobility and the priority of his children’s education in Honiara.

Sitai gradually went blind due to diabetic retinopathy, and further complications from diabetes led to a below-knee amputation in 2009, confining him to a wheelchair. Losing his sight was a grievous loss for a self-described bookworm and made continuing as an MP impractical. He retired in 2010 and in his final speech to parliament spoke without notes for two hours, proudly recalling his long career in diplomacy and politics. He remained in Honiara and died there, aged 65, in August 2015. Former Governor-General Sir Nathaniel Waena paid tribute, bracketing him with Makira big-men Solomon Mamaloni and Ben Kinika and commending his ‘very strong national leadership credibility and integrity’ (Waena 2015).

4.3.3 Tony (A.V.) Hughes

Anthony Vernon (Tony) Hughes was born in December 1936 in Darlaston, near Walsall, a Midlands industrial town in England. He was the son of Henry Norman Hughes (1906–1953) and Marjorie Golding (1915–2005) and brother to Arlene Patricia (‘Pat’) (1939~). During World War II, he and his family survived many bombing raids over the heavily industrialised Midlands. His father, a civil engineer and town surveyor, was in charge of local civil defence. Hughes’ father died in 1953 from lung cancer aged only 47, leading Hughes’ mother and sister to move to live near his mother’s parents on the Isle of Wight while Hughes finished school.

Hughes was an early beneficiary of the 1944 (Butler) Educational Act, which introduced free secondary schooling and the ‘11+’ exam to stream students into different types of secondary school (grammar, secondary modern and technical or trade schools).55 After attending local primary school and passing the 11+, he attended Queen Mary’s Grammar School (QMS) from 1945 to 1954 and was head boy in his final year. QMS, founded in 1554, was a school with a tradition of inculcating ‘sheer cussedness, that Walsall habit of being different, awkward or independent’ (Fink 1954, 75), which he acknowledges with pride.

Hughes deferred university to enrol in compulsory National Service, serving in the Royal Navy (1955– 1957) as a junior officer (midshipman) aboard minesweepers in Malta during the Suez crisis and later in Northern Ireland. Completing his service, he took a summer job as a beach photographer, which helped him acquire useful photographic and social skills. He studied law at Pembroke College (Oxford University) from 1957 to 1960 and stayed on for a fourth year to complete a Colonial Service

55 Secondary modern schools provided a basic secondary education up to the age of 15 while grammar schools provided advanced level education for mainly middle-class children to go on to study at university (Sampson 1965, 195).

80 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories training course in administration and anthropology. Despite preparing to work in Africa, Hughes was posted instead to the British Solomon Islands Protectorate (BSIP). He married his girlfriend Carol Robson before leaving in 1961, but the marriage did not last and the couple separated in 1966 and divorced in 1970. Their son Robert, born in 1964, tragically died in a motorcycle accident in 1991.

Hughes worked as an administrative (district) officer in Malaita (1962–1963) and Western districts (1964–1965). His duties included working with the Malaita Council, which had been established in 1952 in response to the proto-nationalist Maasina Rule movement.

Fig. 4.7 Tony Hughes conducting a Fig. 4.8 Sikitae Road new settlement, Auki, Malaita, ‘whispered vote’ in Malaita, 1962 1962/63 (photo: Hughes collection) (photo: Hughes collection)

Some senior officers were racist and unsympathetic to local political aspirations, while others— such as Tom Russell, later Chief Secretary—were sincere in their efforts to bring Solomon Islands to independence in the best possible shape (Russell 2003).

In 1966, Hughes transferred to the BSIP Secretariat in Honiara, where he worked in the Lands Department, becoming Registrar of Titles and later Commissioner of Lands in 1968, and an ex- officio member of the Legislative Council. After attending a course in 1970 at Bradford University (UK) on project planning in developing countries, he was transferred to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (which became the independent nations of Kiribati in 1979 and in 1978), working as Development Secretary and Financial Secretary, and serving as a member of the Executive Committee and Legislative Committee from 1970 to 1972.

During this period, Hughes wrote topical plays and poems about the clash of Indigenous and European cultures, racism and social change. His poems, such as Song for a Kazukuru Man and The Good Servant, published under the pseudonym Garume Hite in the Kakamora Reporter, were sharp

81 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories social commentaries (Hughes 1967–1970). He wrote and directed a play, Stranger at Borokua (1969), which was also produced for radio. Future prime minister Solomon Mamaloni played a leading role in this and a second play, This Man: A Story of Melanesia (1970), written with Hughes’s friend Francis Bugotu, which was later made into a film. The stage production of This Man brought him together with Kuria Paia, the daughter of Willy Paia (1909–78) BEM, who was also awarded the US Medal of Freedom for war services and became one of the first Solomon Islander colonial leaders.56 Kuria and Tony were married in Kiribati in August 1971, shortly before the birth of their first daughter, Zima. The following year they adopted twin girls, Leah and Sarah, born in 1968 to Kuria’s sister, Zinia; their son, Alec, was born in 1980.57 Returning to Honiara in 1973, Kuria became YWCA General Secretary and was awarded an MBE for her services in 1984.

Hughes held a series of senior government positions leading up to Independence in 1978, including Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs and Local Government (1973–74) and Head of Planning (1974–1975), responsible for developing five-year plans and controls on foreign aid and development programs. From 1976 to 1981, he was Secretary for Finance and led negotiations in Honiara and London on financial and institutional arrangements for independence. In June 1979, he became the first foreigner to adopt Solomon Islands citizenship and was also awarded the Cross of Solomon Islands (CSI). He declined an OBE in 1980, which he considered insufficient recognition for his contributions over nearly two decades.

Hughes was sacked as permanent secretary in 1981 by his former lead actor and then prime minister, Solomon Mamaloni, who disliked expatriates and was impatient for localisation. Finance minister Bart Ulufa`alu, with whom Hughes got on well, appointed him head of the Solomon Islands Monetary Authority from 1981 to 1982, the precursor to the fledgling country’s Central Bank (CBSI). As governor of CBSI from 1982 to 1993, he played a vital role in maintaining economic discipline domestically and externally. The autonomous status of the bank protected Hughes from several attempts to sack him for insisting that the government comply with financial regulations.

After two terms as CBSI governor, Hughes began a third career at the age of 56 as an international consultant. In this capacity he has written numerous reports on economic and development prospects in Pacific Island states, as well as a book, A Different Kind of Voyage: Development and Dependence in the Pacific Islands (Hughes 1998/2013). His publications include articles and book chapters on land tenure, development policy, government finance and transnational corporations.

56 Willy Paia served on the Advisory Council from 1952 to 1953 with Silas Sitai. 57 By 2017, they had seven grandchildren.

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After the chaos of the Mamaloni governments in the 1990s, Hughes advised the Ulufa`alu government from 1997 on economic reform and negotiations with foreign donors until an armed coup toppled the government in June 2000. He wrote an account of the failed reform process and the history of the social unrest that led to the coup, Lessons from a False Dawn (Hughes 2001). He has been an outspoken opponent of corruption and was the founding chairperson of Transparency Solomon Islands in 2002. A trenchant critic of unsustainable logging, he is a director of a local sustainable forestry company and has established a forestry plantation at his homestead in the Vona Vona lagoon.

Hughes has conducted over 30 consultancies in a dozen Pacific Island countries for a range of regional institutions, including the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, the University of the South Pacific and international donors and agencies such as AusAID, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank. He organised and brought together senior development practitioners and bureaucrats in two symposiums, What We’ve Learned about Development in Pacific Island Countries (2013) and PNG at 40 (2016). He was a visiting fellow at the Australian National University from 2013 to 2018. His career was well described by his former tutor at Oxford, Robert Houston, who said to him when they met years later:

I do believe you might be the first Governor of a central bank that we’ve had among our former students. But I’ve always thought that there’s nothing a Pembroke College lawyer couldn’t turn his hand to. 4.3.4 Dr John Roughan

John Joseph Roughan (1930–2013) was born in Broadway, New York, into a working-class Catholic Irish family. He was the eldest of four children born to John Roughan Snr and Molly Finnegan. Educated at primary and secondary schools in the St Agnes parish in Manhattan, he studied for the priesthood from 1950 at St Mary’s College in Washington DC and was ordained in February 1957. He graduated with bachelor’s degrees in theology, arts and science, and a master’s degree in education from the Catholic University of America in 1958.

Arriving in Solomon Islands in October 1958, he was posted to the `Are`are-speaking area of the southeast coast of Malaita. He worked as a parish priest at Tarapaina from 1958 to 1960 and at Rohinari in southwest Malaita from 1961 to 1969. Known locally as ‘Patere Ioane’, he towered above Solomon Islanders and was a dynamic and powerful presence. South Malaita had been the heartland of Maasina Rule, the proto-nationalist movement that from 1945 to 1952 advocated self- determination and the end of British occupation (Akin 2013). Villages were still organised according to traditional culture with a chiefly ‘big-man’ system, strict adherence to gender taboos and worship of ancestral spirits. To encourage development and conversion to Christianity,

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Roughan combined fundraising and community involvement to build a clinic, wharf, cooperative store, community cocoa and coconut plantations and cultural festivals (Manenirau 2013). The Marists are a teaching order and Roughan was also headmaster of Rohinari Senior Primary School. A tough disciplinarian, he used work punishments but also reduced the hours that students spent on growing food. He improved students’ nutrition and capacity to learn through USAID food supplements, which he later introduced to schools throughout the country. He also introduced the sport of basketball, at which he had excelled in college.58 Roughan moved to Honiara to manage Catholic education services from 1969 to 1975 and volunteered to work for Catholic Relief Services in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, before it fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975. According to Roughan, ‘it was heartbreaking … young nurses would take food out to the perimeter and never return’ (Gravelle 1996).

Roughan left the priesthood in 1975, after breaking his religious vows with a nun in the Daughter of Mary Immaculate (DMI) order, Bernadina Uianipata (1938–2011). They had first met on the ship to Malaita in 1958 when she was aged 20, but their relationship only began years later. They married in November 1975 and their only child, Paul, was born in 1976. According to Paul, Roughan expected that married priests would be accepted at some point by the Catholic Church. He remained a devout Catholic despite his disappointment that married priesthood never arrived and other misgivings with the conservative papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, including teachings on family planning.

In 1975, Roughan went to Hawai’i for further academic studies at the East–West Centre at the University of Hawai’i, where he completed a Master of Pacific Studies Science degree in 1978, followed by a doctorate in development studies. He conducted fieldwork in `Are`are parishes in Malaita using innovative assessment tools—the Development Wheel and the Village Quality of Life Index—to measure and discuss village development (McIntosh 2014). He proposed a transformational process of development education using mobile field teams and participatory methods, which was later implemented by the Solomon Islands Development Trust (SIDT). His doctoral thesis, Village Organization for Development, combined the pedagogy of Paulo Freire, dependency theory, world systems theory and liberation theology. He argued that development was primarily spiritual, cultural and political and only secondarily an economic issue (Roughan 1986, iii–iv).

58 A photograph of him in the St Mary’s seminary basketball team shows a very fit and muscular young man.

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Aged 50, Roughan returned with his family to the Solomons in 1981 and became a Solomon Islands citizen.59 With funding and support from the Foundation for the People of the South Pacific (FSP) and USAID, he founded SIDT in 1982 and the next year was joined by Abraham Baenisia, who became a lifelong friend and co-leader of the country’s first development NGO.

Fig. 4.9 John Roughan, 1986, Fig. 4.10 Late photo of John Roughan with SIDT staff Rohinari (photo: unknown) (photo: Facebook)

Both teachers and Catholics, they proved to be a perfect partnership, with Baenesia’s charm and village roots in Langa Langa lagoon, Malaita, complementing Roughan’s urban roots and international connections (Roughan 2007c), The two were instrumental in founding the Development Services Exchange in 1983, an umbrella organisation for Solomon Islands NGOs (Upton 2006), and in 1991 a regional equivalent based in Fiji, the Pacific Islands Association of NGOs (PIANGO). Both organisations have survived to the present day despite coming close to extinction several times due to the vagaries of donor funding.

SIDT developed into a large-scale operation with 50 small teams conducting more than 4,500 village workshops and reaching more than 250,000 people in its first ten years (Roughan 1997, 158). It promoted practical improvements to village life through income-generating projects and primary health care measures such as nutrition gardens, mosquito nets, clean village campaigns, upgraded kitchens and family toilets. SIDT was a pioneer advocacy organisation in the Solomons, promoting practical strategies for preservation of sea, reef, land and water resources as the basis not only of villagers’ basic sustenance and income but also of national prosperity and sustainability (McIntosh 2014). In 1991, SIDT’s Conservation in Development program promoted eco-timber projects and other ways of sustainably converting natural wealth into cash incomes.

59 Like Tony Hughes, John Roughan forfeited his birthright citizenship because Solomon Islands does not allow dual citizenship.

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Through SIDT and his published articles, Roughan also focused critical attention on the performance of governments and the management of services and resources. From 1989, SIDT mobile teams conducted public opinion surveys, and the resulting ‘report cards’ of each government were very unflattering (Roughan 2003). From 1992 until his death, he wrote weekly articles called Ting Ting Blong Mi (‘In My Opinion’) in the Solomon Star (see, for example, Roughan 2007–2008). These were like secular sermons, 600 to 900 words long, clearly written with striking metaphors (trinities were a favourite trope). The subjects were always topical, ranging across women’s and youth issues, sustainable and positive development stories, political and economic issues and philosophical questions. He argued tirelessly for essential health and education services, better communication and transport and sustainable livelihoods to meet the needs of the majority in rural areas. In many ways he remained a missionary priest, as his successor as a parish priest in Malaita noted: ‘John left the priesthood … for about five minutes’ (Hooymayers interview 2014).).

During the Tension (1998–2003), Roughan refused to be intimidated by armed thugs on either side and continued to speak out publicly. He used the term ‘Social Unrest’ rather than ‘Ethnic Tension’, attributing the causes to poor leadership, corruption and inequitable top-down development since Independence (Roughan 2000). He was grateful for and supportive of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), the multinational task force that arrived in July 2003 to end the violence and restore law and order in 2003, but unafraid to critique RAMSI’s arrogance and ignorance of the realities of ordinary Solomon Islanders’ lives. To the astonishment of many, he turned from poacher to gamekeeper by accepting the position of Secretary to Prime Minister and Cabinet in the short-lived Sogavare government from 2006 to 2007. He took this opportunity to promote grassroots development, although others saw it as a way to muzzle a prominent critic (Leafasia interview 2016).

Beyond SIDT, Roughan was the most highly qualified educator in the country. He pioneered the first community secondary school in the country, Bishop Epalle School in Honiara, and was deputy director of the Solomon Islands College of Higher Education (SICHE) from 1991 to 1992. He maintained his social justice activism and advocacy right up his sudden death in 2013, aged 83. He inspired many others through his development work and championing of women, youth, the rural majority and urban poor and the environment. He left behind an extensive body of writings and several development organisations that carry on his legacy. Tributes poured in on social media after his death, many describing him as a ‘great man’ and his passing as a ‘great loss’. One of his former volunteers wrote:

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He was an utterly fearless, generous-hearted, dedicated, courageous and piercingly intelligent advocate of villagers of Solomon Islanders... we shall not see his like again…… his unswerving intelligent empathetic brilliant advocacy of villagers was inspirational. (Sarah Siloko, quoted in Chevalier 2015a, 1) * * *

These short life histories can only highlight features and experiences of individual lives. The longer versions provide more details of family background, upbringing (except for John Roughan), personal relationships and stories in their words. Each life history contributes to a larger social history, to which I turn next. 4.4 Analysis of the life histories as social history

Section 4.4 examines the contexts of, and connections between, the four life histories to bring into focus various aspects of post-war social history of Solomon Islands. Cross analysis of the life histories—the Four Corners—was based on the differences and similarities in their upbringing, education, key life events and careers. With two expatriates and two Solomon Islanders, social factors including gender, class, race and ethnicity, age, education and religious denomination can be compared and seen operating at micro-, meso- and macro-levels. Other issues and contexts, such as land ownership, environmental degradation and population growth, emerge or were strongly present in the participants’ work and writing.

4.4.1 Upbringings

Roughan and Hughes were born in the same decade and generation. Roughan’s strong Catholic and working-class upbringing provided a socialisation and education from which he emerged highly articulate, strong and positive. His training as a seminarian added spiritual, intellectual and physical rigour to an already tough upbringing. World War II formed the backdrop to his teenage years and transformed New York (Teicher 2013), but without the destruction in Europe and Asia-Pacific. He lived not far from the Brooklyn shipyards, the largest shipbuilding facility in the country employing 70,000 people. More than three million service personnel shipped out from New York, many of whom enjoyed ‘liberty leave’ on the streets—at the height of the war, a ship left the harbour every 15 minutes (Teicher 2013).60 Roughan would have had vivid impressions and stories to tell about the immense human and technological effort supporting the war.

Across the Atlantic, Hughes witnessed death and destruction from German bombings at first hand. Although the bombing of Walsall was relatively light considering the importance of its industries

60 31,215 New Yorkers who served in the armed forces were killed in action, with at least as many wounded (Durr 2014).

87 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories to the war effort, 11 people were killed in 1941 during an air raid on Darlaston, where he lived (historywebsite, n.d.). Despite austerities, he had a materially secure upbringing and after 1945 the family moved to more pleasant rural surroundings. However, his father’s death in 1953 when Hughes was 16 years old, left the family much less secure. Like Roughan, Hughes grew tall with a positive confident outlook. Both men went on to develop leadership capacities within institutional hierarchies—in Roughan’s case, the Catholic Church and in Hughes’ case, secular organisations, including the QMS school, Sea Scouts and Royal Navy.

Born after the war ended, Sitai (b. 1950) and Billy (b. 1959) were affected indirectly through their parents and its legacy in Honiara. Sitai’s father experienced the war firsthand as a scout for the Allied forces. Honiara was the site of crucial battles for control of Henderson airfield and became the capital after the old capital at Tulagi was destroyed and a deep-sea port was created at Honiara after the Japanese withdrew (Foukona and Allen 2019; Moore in press). US Army engineers created the road infrastructure and built many wartime structures that remained in service for decades afterwards. Many of the Maasina Rule leaders jailed by the British from 1947 to 1952 formed work gangs that developed and maintained the Honiara landscape. The anti-colonial movement was strongest in Malaita and supported by SSEM church leaders, although we do not know whether Billy’s father played any role in the movement.

Roughan was born soon after the 1929 Wall Street crash, but we have no details of the extent to which he and his family were impacted by the Great Depression. The fathers of both Hughes and Sitai were relatively well off, although Sitai Snr’s letters to his son reveal anxiety about his finances. Both their fathers died at relatively young ages and both mothers moved to live close to their parents—Marjorie Hughes for economic reasons and Elizabeth Sitai because she lost the right to live in government housing after her husband died. Of the four participants, Billy had the least secure upbringing economically and emotionally. Her parents were poor and from the age of seven she lived away from her parents and felt neglected. Despite this, Billy cared for her mother in the final months of her life when she was suffering from dementia and incontinence.

4.4.2 Marriage and children

The four participants married in different circumstances with different outcomes. Two (Billy and Hughes) divorced their first spouses while two (Sitai and Roughan) remained married until death. Roughan’s marriage to a Catholic nun was scandalous in a highly Christianised country. The Archbishop of Honiara tried to prevent their return from Hawai’i to ‘the scene of the crime’ until wiser counsel from his confrères prevailed (Hooymayers interview 2014). Roughan spoke movingly of losing his wife, Bernadina, who died in 2011. Sitai’s marriage to Mary Kateni in 1979 was a

88 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories customary marriage arranged through the families of the couple and secured with the payment of bride price to her family by his relatives.

Hughes and Billy divorced their first spouses according to the British law of the time. According to Hughes, his first marriage was prompted by colonial regulations requiring that he and his girlfriend be married so that she could accompany him to Solomon Islands. The marriage was ‘a mistake’ and did not survive long. Prior to ‘no-fault’ changes in the 1969 Divorce Act coming into effect in Britain, the grounds for divorce required Hughes to provide evidence of infidelity to the courts, which was fictitiously documented by a private investigator in Britain.61 Once divorced, he was free to marry Kuria in 1971 and they are still married. Billy was granted a divorce in 1987 on the grounds of cruelty, based on her husband’s physical violence and abusive behaviour. She believes that she was the first Indigenous women to sue her husband for divorce according to Solomon Islands law, which is derived from British law (Corrin and Brown 2005). She did not remarry but two subsequent long-term relationships both ended due to her partners’ dishonesty.

The four participants had an average of four children with Solomon Islander spouses. Sitai and Billy had six and four children respectively. Hughes had five children (two adopted). Roughan had only one child, perhaps surprising given Catholic restrictions on family planning, but Bernadina was already in her late 30s when she had their only child.

4.4.3 Education

Education was the most significant determinant of the four individuals’ life chances and careers. All were university educated, beneficiaries of the post-war expansion of secondary and tertiary education. In the Solomons, Sitai and Billy enjoyed the advantage of literate and influential fathers, who encouraged them to read books, giving them advantages in the English language, which was used exclusively in schools. Both went to the government schools in Honiara, with the best facilities and teachers in the country. KGVI was explicitly designed to produce generations of leaders and administrators after Independence (Lee 2016). Solomon Islanders were able to attend universities that opened in PNG and Fiji in the 1960s but this was still rare. Sitai was one of fewer than 20 university graduates at Independence, none of whom were women (Moore 2013, pers. comm. 2019).

In England, Hughes benefited from the post-war boom in secondary education created by the 1944 Education Act, as well as from the expansion of university education in the 1950s. He had the added

61 Prior to the 1969 reforms in Britain, divorce required proof of the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage, with evidence of one of five ‘facts’: adultery, violent or cruel behaviour, desertion, or separation for two years and the other party’s consent to a divorce. Divorce reform did not take effect in Solomon Islands until 1998 (Brown and Corris 2005, 93).

89 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories advantage of attending Queen Mary Grammar School, one of the oldest and most prestigious schools in England with long-established links to Oxford University (Fink 1954), where he earned a law degree.62 In the USA, Roughan went to Catholic parish schools and spent eight years training for the priesthood, earning three degrees in the process, including a Master of Education degree. His postgraduate degrees (MA and PhD) from the University of Hawai’i were among the first in development studies in the Pacific, making him the most highly qualified person in the country, and possibly the region.

The educational advantages of the four participants have not flowed to all their children. While all the children attended secondary school in Solomon Islands, thanks to the rapid expansion of secondary and tertiary education since the 1990s, only the two sons of expatriates Hughes and Roughan have gone on to university, reflecting the intense competition for places and scholarships. Forty years after Independence, the proportion of university-educated adults is still less than 5% (UNDP 2017).

4.4.4 Health

Changing patterns of health can be seen in the personal and family histories of the four participants. Child survival and life expectancy have improved dramatically. Four of Billy’s siblings died in infancy and childhood of unknown causes while her children (born in the 1980s and 1990s) have all survived. All Sitai’s and his siblings’ children born since the 1970s have survived.63 Survival at all ages has been increased by better prevention and more effective treatment of infectious diseases, such as malaria and TB. However, longevity and the quality of health have been compromised by the rise of non- communicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease, kidney disease and obesity, which have grown rapidly since the 1970s, largely as a consequence of modern diets and lifestyle. Sitai is a prime example, having suffered from diabetes and, in his final decade, the complications of blindness and lower limb gangrene. His father died suddenly from a heart attack at the age of 52. Although Roughan also died unexpectedly from a heart attack, he reached the age of 83 and had been fit and well until then. The epidemiologic transition from primarily infectious diseases, including malaria, to a double burden with NCDs also impacted professionally and personally on nursing officers in the third case study of, half of whom have NCDs (see Chapter 6). Hughes’s father died aged 47 from lung cancer due to smoking, both of which have declined remarkably in Britain since the 1950s.64 The opposite has been

62 MA (Hons) in Law. Bachelor degrees with Honours from Oxford (and Cambridge) universities can be upgraded to master’s degrees three years after graduation, reflecting the prestige attached to these university degree. 63 At a macro-level, under-5 child mortality fell from an estimated 177 per 1000 births in 1961 to 24 per 1000 in 2012 (IGME 2018). 64 At the end of the 1940s, around 80% of British men and 40% of British women smoked cigarettes regularly. By 2018, this had fallen to 12% of men and 17% of women (Office of National Statistics UK 2019).

90 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories the case in many developing countries, including Solomon Islands, where 28.5% of male adults and 9.7% of female adults, including Billy, smoke (Tobacco Atlas 2015).

4.4.5 Class

Education qualifications are a means of changing status or class, which is used here to refer to differences between groups of people based on income, wealth or status (Larmour 1992, 96).65 The expansion of primary, secondary, vocational, college and, to a lesser extent, university education in Solomon Islands has led to the equivalent of a class system. Education and employment have created a growing urban middle class that distance themselves from rural lifestyles and wantok obligations (Gooberman 1999; Barbara et al. 2015). Billy and Sitai were children of a post-war administrator class of Indigenous government and church workers who grew up in permanent houses and went to school in the newly created capital after the war. Many leaders from the independence era, like Sitai, had fathers with links to the administration or missions, which provided opportunities for education, and who pushed their children to go to school.66 However, this administrator class were not well off—their salaries were low, there were extra costs of urban living and limited food gardens, plus the burdens of wantoks (relatives) coming to stay and live.67

Roughan’s class origin was Irish-American, working-class urban, a distinctive and influential immigrant group in America that grew out of the Irish potato famine (1845–1852). His priesthood and education gave him status, but not wealth, and when he left after nearly 20 years he had no savings or pension. He returned to the Solomons without any economic assets but was provided with a house surreptitiously by a sympathetic confrère. His career with SIDT then provided him a modest income and the means to support his extended family.

Hughes’s middle-class status is easily recognisable from his British accent, known as Received Pronunciation (RP), ‘BBC’ or ‘Oxford’ English (Robinson 2019). He describes his family as middle- class but not wealthy. His mother came from a family of teachers while his father’s family owned a butcher’s firm, successful enough to buy his parents a three-storey terraced house as a wedding present. Passing the 11+ exam provided a pathway to grammar school and Oxford University, followed by the Colonial Service, which also provided a modest pension after he left. With well- paid jobs and consultancies in the Pacific, he became the most affluent of the four participants

65 Larmour (1992, 96) refers to this as a ‘weak’ version of class that fit more easily to Pacific societies than Marxist or other definitions of class. 66 Kuria Hughes’s father was also part of the administrator class and ensured that his daughters went to school. 67 Expatriate public servants were much better off than senior Indigenous public servants at Sitai Snr’s level, who only earned $1,000 a year and whose wives, unlike those of expatriates, seldom had paid employment. By way of comparison, the average annual income in 1966 of European families in Honiara was $AUD 5,500, plus generous fringe benefits for children’s schooling and international travel for families (Moore 2016, 9–10).

91 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories with a homestead as well as other properties. He has been able to fulfil numerous obligations to his extended family, as I witnessed while staying at his home in 2014.

4.4.6 Gender relations

Gender inequality was evident in participants’ schooling, careers and properties and in politics. The contrasting histories of Billy and Sitai reveal male hegemony, misogyny and sexism, beginning with the preference given to sons over daughters in secondary and tertiary education. Sitai and his brothers all went to secondary school, whereas his three sisters only attended primary school. Male bias continued after Independence with two of Sitai’s three sons completing Form 6 (Year 12) whereas his daughters finished school after completing Form 3 (Year 9). A similar pattern is evident in the education of his brothers’ children. As the eldest son, Sitai himself had the double advantage of patriarchy and primogeniture. Letters from his father show how he was being groomed to take over as head of the family and take financial responsibility for his mother and the family. After Sitai Snr died, his mother no longer had rights to housing in Honiara and moved back to live at Star Harbour on land provided by her father.

Billy had no brothers to compete with, but male hegemony was rampant at KGVI in 1973. Many of the 60 female students were patronised and bullied by the males, who outnumbered them five to one.68 Although she had better ‘O’ level results than Sitai, Billy was denied the opportunity to go on to Form 6 (Year 12) and preliminary courses for university due to her gender and negative reports from the school chaplain. Then, in her adult life, she suffered from jealousy and abuse by boyfriends and husbands, but also demonstrated her resilience by leaving them. She took legal action against her divorced husband to be allowed to bring her daughters to Australia while she studied. Billy’s working life, however, testifies to the increasing freedom and opportunities for women in the decades since Independence. She credits expatriate feminist mentors in journalism and international organisations with providing role models for her personal and professional development.

Billy’s election campaigns, and the fact that only four women have been elected to the national parliament (Wood 2014b, 2019), illustrate some of the barriers facing women in politics. In Billy’s case these included false rumours of what would happen to women if people voted for her and, most telling, her sisters voting for a male relative rather than for her and for gender solidarity. Her conservative sisters continued to criticise her lifestyle and independence over many years, revealing how entrenched sexism is in Christian and Malaitan cultural values.

68 The treatment of girls was confirmed by her close friend at KGVI (LM interview 2014).

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As white men, Roughan and Hughes were privileged by their gender, class, race and nationality (Connell 1995, 75). But both men disagreed with male privilege and encouraged their wives’ careers and women’s equality. Hughes shared his colonial service pension with his first wife and was supportive of his second wife Kuria’s career. After she finished working with the YWCA, they reverted to more conventional gender roles with Kuia as the home-keeper. Roughan was supportive of women in the work and organisation of SIDT. His writings often promoted the cause of rural women, women’s literacy, and girls’ education (Roughan 2000). Many tributes after his death came from women appreciative of his support and advocacy for women.

4.4.7 Race, racism and ethnicity

Racial segregation and discrimination were institutionalised in colonial service conditions and promotions. Hughes was appointed as an administrative officer on arrival in the BSIP at the age of 25 and earned both a local salary and a base salary, plus generous leave allowances. In contrast, Sitai’s father Silas served for more than 20 years to achieve the same rank and was never eligible to earn the double salary. The British government paid boarding school fees and thrice-yearly airfares to and from the UK for expatriate children (Macgregor 2006). Expatriate families lived comfortably on the hills above Honiara while local officers lived in much inferior houses further down (Kenilorea 2008). Racial segregation was explicit, with Solomon Islanders excluded from expatriate- only clubs and parties into the 1970s. Indeed, the Mendana Hotel had a sign that read ‘No dogs and natives allowed’. Discriminatory laws limiting the purchase of alcohol by Solomon Islanders only ended in the late 1960s. Hughes helped to challenge these laws and to establish the Honiara Club, where Islanders and more enlightened Europeans could drink and socialise freely.

Ethnicity refers to the cultural values and norms that separate a group from other groups around them (Giddens 2009, 1018).69 There is a complex kaleidoscope of ethnicities in Solomon Islands, stemming from so many languages, customs, clans and kinship groups, and locations. Both Sitai from Santa Ana Island (Makira) and Billy from Kwai Island (Malaita) come from small islands but moved away at an early age and spent little time there subsequently. Nevertheless, their ethnic identities have significantly affected their kinship relationships, political successes and failures, and access and inheritance to land. Land inheritance is patrilineal in Malaita and matrilineal in Makira, which creates different rights to settlement and retirement. Sitai created a homestead on matrilineal land on the Makira mainland at Star Harbour while Billy does not have primary rights to land on

69 Giddens continues, ‘An ethnic group is one whose members share a distinct awareness of a common cultural identity. In virtually all societies, ethnic differences are associated with variations in power and wealth. Ethnic differences can also be regarded as racial, [and] such divisions are especially pronounced’ (Giddens and Sutton 2009, 1118).

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Kwai Island or secondary rights on the Malaitan mainland, and instead has bought properties and land in Honiara for herself and her children.

Expatriates are also affected by ethnicity through marriage and kinship obligations. Roughan’s marriage to an `Are`are woman created kinship links and secondary land rights on south Malaita. His son has inherited his house in Honiara but his mother’s relatives live there. Hughes’s wife holds matrilineal rights to a large landholding on Kohinqo Island in the Vona Vona lagoon, which is divided among other matrilineal relatives, creating complex family dynamics and inheritance. The couple also own a property in Honiara, which they have passed on to one of their daughters.

Ethnic identities and differences were central to the Tension (1998–2003), the armed conflict between Guadalcanal and Malaita militias within 20 years of Independence. While ethnicity was a prima facie cause of the Tension, it was underpinned by social and economic inequalities between provinces, and between urban and rural areas (Fraenkel 2004; Moore 2004; Allen 2013). People with non-Guadalcanal origins, especially Malaitans, were forced from or left out of fear their homes and workplaces on Guadalcanal; approximately 20,000 left for Honiara and their own islands. Malaitan militants in Honiara, which has a predominantly Malaitan population, retaliated by threatening people of different ethnicity and pillaging private and public assets. Hughes and Sitai moved out of Honiara with their families when the town became increasingly unsafe for non- Malaitans in 2000. Billy and Roughan, with Malaitan connections, were able to remain in Honiara and campaigned to bring dialogue and peace between Guadalcanal and Malaita through Women for Peace and the Civil Society Network.

4.4.8 Contrasting careers

The four participants’ working histories reflect changing career opportunities for men and women in the independence era as the government and economy grew. Prior to Independence, female professional careers were restricted to nursing, teaching and secretarial work. Billy succeeded in avoiding these limited choices through journalism, which had opened up in the 1970s with the spread of independent and government-run newspapers. She became the one of the first radio or print female journalists in Solomon Islands. She then worked for local and international NGOs as a women and youth advocate and as a consultant in women’s development and rights. Such work became available with the growth of aid and development programs in the post-independence era.

Sitai joined the public service in the year of independence and stood for politics only two years later, after initially training as a manager with the Levers Company, which operated copra plantations in the Solomons. He won at his second attempt in 1984 and managed to be re-elected six times in succession, a successful political career in Solomon Islands that provided the basis for

94 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories big-man status and influence, especially with the growth of constituency development funds after 1992 (Wiltshire and Batley 2018).

The decision by Roughan and his wife to renounce their Catholic vocations, which are intended to be lifelong, was not of their choosing, particularly given Bernadina’s pregnancy.70 The decision can cause intense psychological conflict from guilt and fear of social responses from family, community, and colleagues, as well as spiritual punishments by Church authorities (Pietkiewicz 2016). Following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) which loosened ecclesiastic disciplines in a time of rapid social change, many priests and nuns made similar choices to leave the Church and marry. According to his son, Roughan expected that married priests would be soon allowed to practise in the Church (P. Roughan, pers. comm. 2017), but this did not eventuate under the conservative papacies of John Paul II (1978–2005) and Benedict XVI (2005– 2013). Forced to create a new future and career, Roughan put into practice what he had learned about community development as a Marist educator and parish priest, roles in which he was highly regarded. Postgraduate studies in Hawai’i gave him the theoretical underpinning and, using his connections with Catholic fundraising groups, he founded an Indigenous NGO as a vehicle for putting into action innovative techniques and projects based on development theory and practice. His skills as a parish priest and an educator served him well as a brilliant advocate for villagers and social commentator.

Hughes began his professional career in 1961 as a district officer in Malaita and Western districts and rose to become a senior technocrat by the 1970s. His appointment as Central Bank governor owed much to his good relationship with the finance minister and his experience in finance and planning. At CBSI, he developed his expertise in international finance and development policy, which prepared him for a third career as a development practitioner and independent consultant (Hughes 2016). His professional knowledge, cogent analysis and fluent writing made his reports on economic problems practical and readable.

Compared with a minimalist colonial bureaucracy, careers in government and non-government institutions grew rapidly after Independence. Three of the participants worked in government, which had expanded by the 1990s to more than 20 ministries and a burgeoning public service. Billy worked for the Government Information Services; Hughes in lands, planning and finance agencies; Roughan for the College of Higher Education, Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet; and Sitai was a member of the Makira Provincial Government and worked in foreign affairs and development

70 Sexual relations and pregnancy were also cause for immediate dismissal in nursing and teaching up until the 1980s, not just for females but also male partners if fellow students.

95 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories planning positions. All four had connections with and helped to found NGOs. Sitai formed a small NGO, Hope Makira, after retiring in 2010. Hughes was the founding chairman of Transparency Solomon Islands in 2002. Billy has worked with NGOs for most of her career, beginning with the YWCA. Roughan pioneered new Indigenous NGOs and ways of operating within the Solomons and the Pacific. Prior to 1982, NGOs in Solomon Islands had been local branches of international NGOs such as the YWCA and Red Cross that focused on relief, welfare, and technical assistance (Roughan 1997). By the 1990s, SIDT was part of a new wave of activist NGOs concerned with social and environmental aspects of development, which brought them in contact with international activist NGOs such as Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund and into conflict with politicians and resource companies (Bennett 2000).

4.4.9 Religious faith and denomination

Four of the five mainstream churches are represented in the life histories. Billy’s grandparents were early SSEM converts at the beginning of the twentieth century and her father was an SSEC pastor. She rejected the constraints and judgements of her family and church, becoming a ‘backslider’. In contrast, Roughan remained a devout Catholic despite his disagreement with some aspects of Catholic teachings. Sitai was a life-long Anglican with the Church of Melanesia (COM). Hughes was also raised in the Anglican Church but now attends the United Church (formerly the Methodist Mission) where Kuria, his wife, is a devout churchgoer and determined to build a permanent church on her land.

The vast majority (96%) of Solomon Islanders declare themselves as Christian, distributed as follows: COM 35%, Catholic 20%, SSEC (18%), United Church (11%)%) and Seventh Day Adventist (10%) (Brown and Corris 2005, 88). Breakaway evangelical or Pentecostal churches have become increasingly popular since the 1990s with links to international television evangelists and crusades. Some evangelical groups link themselves to the lost tribes of Israel and new notions of Christian identity (Timmer 2019, 135).

Churches have been perhaps the most influential institutions in Solomon Islands, certainly at local level. Together with colonisation and commerce, conversion from traditional religion to Christianity has transformed Solomon Islands societies and their connections with the outside world (Timmer 2019). Most Solomon Islanders gradually relinquished traditional beliefs, practices, and ritual sites, often changing their principal locations and relations to land. Church enclaves on the coasts provided access to schools, clinics, and goods, as well as protection from enemies, epidemics, and the vagaries of the environment. Churches were instrumental in socialising Islanders through church services, mission schools (especially boarding schools)) and the provision of

96 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories medical services, as will be seen in more detail in the other two case studies. By the time that the government took over responsibility for education and health in the 1970s, Christianity had been almost universally adopted. The enormous influence of churches has not waned and continues through personal, institutional, and international networks throughout Solomon Islands and the Pacific region.

4.4.10 Politics

The four life histories reveal political changes from the 1960s when voters whispered their preferred candidate to district officer Hughes (seen in Fig. 4.7 above)) prior to the first ballot box elections in 1967. Only in 1970 did elected Solomon Islanders outnumber colonial officials in the Legislative Council (Moore 2010a, 10). By 1978, elections had become almost entirely contested by Solomon Islanders while remaining largely closed to female candidates. Politics is highly gendered and relatively few women—only 4% of candidates—have contested elections since 1976, winning only 6% of all votes (Wood 2014b, 2019). Only four women have won in national elections, although Billy came agonisingly close in 2001. Her attempts in 2001 and 2006 reveal obstacles to women’s election success, including cultural norms and higher standards expected of women, patriarchal power networks and lack of access to resources to spend on elections and distribute to voters (Billy 2002; Wood 2014b, 2019; Dicker et al. 2016). In 2014, Billy joined the political fray again but as a policy advisor and member of a new political party committed to reform.

In contrast, Sitai’s political longevity from 1984 to 2010 reflects the systemic advantages of male hegemony, family reputation and incumbency. Constituency development funds grew significantly after 1992, increasing the resources available to MPs to spend on elections and distribute to supporters. Until 2019, these funds were provided by the Republic of China (Taiwan) in return for Solomon Islands’ voting support in the United Nations and paid directly to parliamentarians with virtually no accountability or reporting required (Roughan 2004c; Batley 2019).71 Taiwan’s financial support for the political system also included a new Parliament House office complex, which Sitai helped to advance during his final term.

Three of the four participants (Billy, Roughan and Hughes) were active in civil society efforts to hold politicians to account. Roughan and Hughes were founder members of Transparency Solomon Islands, formed in 2002 and committed to exposing corruption in governments, the public service and state-owned enterprises. They have also written extensively and campaigned against corrupt deals

71 In September 2019, Solomon Islands abruptly and controversially ended 36 years of diplomatic relations with Taiwan and switched allegiance to the People’s Republic of China (Cavenough 2019; Foukona 2020).

97 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories by governments with local and overseas companies, such as logging and mining companies (see, for example, Roughan 1997; Hughes 2001).

4.4.11 Land and logging

Land ownership and logging on customary land have been two key issues in the post-war Solomon Islands. Land is traditionally collectively owned by Indigenous landowners, who share it for their daily food, water, shelter, and recreation. Roughan (2003) explains that Solomon Islanders regard land not as a commodity but a reality close to life itself. More than 90% of land is still customarily owned with the remainder in private or government hands, having been sold by customary landowners or appropriated by colonial governments for government, commercial and private use. From 1966 to 1970, Hughes worked in the Lands Department on land tenure and public land administration. He investigated ways in which customary land tenure in specific areas of Malaita, Western and Guadalcanal districts could be converted to registered title with rights to buy and sell land and grow crops. According to Hughes, much of the work done by the Lands Department in the 1960s failed to take root on land not already alienated due to fundamental disparities in the concepts of individual legal ownership and collective customary ownership.

Industrial logging became an increasing problem from the 1980s as local landowners and provincial and national governments, desperate for revenue, allowed foreign companies to log customary land, resulting in what Roughan called ‘the terrible rape of our forests’ (Roughan 2004c). Logging regulations were not enforced, resulting in devastation of land and coastal reefs, severely impacting water sources, gardens, and fishing, shifting some rural communities from subsistence affluence into rural poverty (Minter et al. 2018). Loss of forest habitat, combined with increasing population, led to shorter fallow periods in gardens, causing soil fertility to decline and leading to increasing pest infestation. The social harm done by logging operations and royalties includes increased alcohol consumption, domestic violence, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, unwanted pregnancy and loss of effective leadership, particularly affecting women (Bennett 2000; Herbert 2007; Minter et al. 2018).

Reform and effective regulation have been evaded by powerful logging interests, including politicians and landowners. Since the 1980s, SIDT and other civil society organisations have attempted to lobby governments and educate communities about the consequences of industrial logging and the need for sustainable alternatives. By the 1990s, annual logging extraction had reached three to four times sustainable levels (Bennett 2000; Hughes 2001). Failure to effectively

98 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories tax and regulate the logging industry also robbed the country of much-needed revenue.72 A long- term critic of the industry, Hughes has developed sustainable alternatives to industrial logging at his homestead, replanting teak, mahogany, eucalyptus and native species on previously logged land and swamp.73 He is also director of a company on neighbouring Kolambangara Island, logging on regrowth forest originally harvested by the Levers Company when he was a district officer in Western District in the 1960s. Unfortunately, these small-scale initiatives represent only a minuscule counter to the destruction of natural forest and accompanying corruption, not just in Solomon Islands but throughout the Asia-Pacific region (Transparency International 2012).

4.4.12 Economic development

Roughan and Hughes provide contrasting views on what constitutes appropriate economic development for a small island-state. As a priest, and later a development practitioner, Roughan championed the cause of rural Solomon Islanders, who comprise the 85% of the population dependent on subsistence livelihoods. He tirelessly advocated against large-scale development, such as logging, mining, fishing, and commercial agricultural projects that destroyed the environment and resources base (see, for example, Roughan 2007a). He battled the short-term greed of governments, foreign companies, and local landowners, challenging ‘the corruption, mismanagement and outright thievery which have become normal operating practice’ (Roughan 2001, 14). His focus was always on making villages central to development and fulfilling the basic needs of ordinary Solomon Islanders, especially rural villagers and the urban poor, who needed opportunities to earn modest incomes and afford essential goods, plus government provision of basic services, including quality education, working clinics, strong local markets, affordable transport and growing communication links (Roughan 2007d). With a penchant for trinities, he identified three areas of deep concern: food insecurity, illiteracy, and destruction of the resource base (Roughan 2004d), and three antidotes or ‘legs for success’: food security, education (free primary and adult education) and appropriate technology (Roughan 2004d).

Hughes was focused on the bigger macro-economic picture, based on his experience as a development technocrat, CBSI governor and regional consultant. Hughes was a key economic advisor to the government of Bart Ulufa`alu (his old boss) from 1997 to 2000. Their efforts at reform, which were supported by international donors, were overridden after the Malaitan-led coup in 2000 (Hughes 2001). In his book, A Different Kind of Voyage, he reviewed political and economic

72 The equivalent of one in three logging ships escaped without paying duties or taxes (CBSI 1995, 41). 73 In 2014, I recorded a walkabout interview with Tony Hughes around his forest plantation, which has rehabilitated parts of the homestead that have twice been commercially logged. He identified a range of species for conservation and for both private and commercial harvesting.

99 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories prospects in the Pacific, concluding that orthodox models of competitive global markets make little sense in independent small island-states unable to control the direction, speed and modalities of economic and social change (Hughes 1998, 41).74 He points to a complex web of factors to explain the disappointing economic performance in Pacific Island countries, including rapid population growth, export market fluctuations, weak financial and administrative cultures, fiscal and balance of payments crises, increasing corruption and the decay of decentralised services. He notes the political realities of winning elections and forming coalition government that require deal-making and extracting funds to distribute to kinsmen and key players. Political leaders and public servants became increasingly tainted by corruption, cronyism, nepotism and hoarding in offshore bank accounts (Hughes 1998, 20).

4.4.13 Population growth

Rapid population growth has been both a marker and driver of social change in post-war Solomon Islands history. The country’s population has increased nearly six-fold in 60 years, from 124,000 in 1959 (the year Billy was born) to 721,000 in 2019 (SINSO 2020).75 Honiara’s population grew from 3,500 in 1959 to an estimated 130,000 in 2019 including its peri-urban fringes. The rate of population growth fell from 3.5% annually in the 1970s to 2.8% in the 2000s due to a fall in the total fertility rate for women, from an average of 7.2 births per women in 1976 to 4.4 births per women in 2008, where it has plateaued (World Bank 2016). However, the number of children born has increased every year because of the growing number of women of childbearing age. Population growth is perhaps even more striking at the micro-level. For example, Sitai’s immediate family expanded from his two parents, who had eight children beginning with David in1950, and who in turn have had 36 children between them.

Rapid population growth places increasing pressure on families, institutions, and governments to provide health and education services. It is also a significant driver of environmental degradation, especially on smaller islands and areas with limited arable land, creating food insecurity. Combined with urbanisation, population growth has exacerbated other problems, including riots, crime, poverty, and unemployment. However, efforts to limit population growth have often been met with resistance due to Indigenous cultural norms that prize offspring and Christian church teaching against family planning, citing scriptural texts to go forth and multiply.76 Resistance to limiting family size has also come from anticolonial politicians. In 1982, Billy’s SIBC radio program on population and family planning was taken off air because Prime Minister Mamaloni (who had 11

74 Reprinted online by ADB in 2013, evidence that his analysis was still considered relevant. 75 Estimated results from the 2019 census (SINSO 2020). 76 Except for Seventh Day Adventists and United Church, which permit artificial contraception and tubal ligation.

100 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories children) had been offended by a remark by Prince Phillip made during a royal visit.77 Again in 1990, Mamaloni accused Hughes of promoting genocide when, as Central Bank governor, he warned of the problems associated with low levels of family planning and unchecked population.

Roughan was not a vocal supporter on family planning because he was constrained by the teachings of, or his loyalty to, the Catholic Church. The 1968 papal encyclical Humanae Vitae (‘Of Human Life’) had affirmed Catholic moral teaching on the sanctity of life and forbade artificial methods of family planning. Rather, Roughan spoke of easing the burdens of women and the importance of sustaining the natural resource base. As an MP, Sitai experienced constant demands from constituents for support for school fees that were unaffordable, especially for larger families. Through his work with the European Union, he saw the importance of sustainable population growth in Africa and the Caribbean. ‘We do not realise the growth of population—this has become a threat now such that it will become unsustainable’ (Sitai interview 2014).

4.4.14 Aid and development

All four participants engaged with aid and development at different levels. Billy and Roughan were involved with NGOs that relied on development aid for project funding. SIDT depended for years on aid, particularly from US, European and Australian NGOs, to fund its administration, advocacy and extensive field teams. SIDT came close to closure several times but survived through the importance of its work and the high regard in which its two leaders were held. Throughout her career, Billy has been involved with aid and international NGOs, including YWCA, Save the Children, RRRT and Commonwealth Youth Program.

Sitai and Hughes both worked on aid and development issues at the macro-level. In his summary of proceedings of a 2013 development symposium, What We’ve Learned About Development in Pacific Island Countries, Hughes emphasised the importance of understanding the complex reality of development contexts, which involve interactions between specific cultural and political institutions and relationships (Hughes 2013, 7). Adding to this complexity was the web of relationships with donor countries and a spaghetti junction of institutions interacting with the Pacific.78

77 Upon being informed of the population growth rate, the prince had commented, ‘They must be out of their minds!’. 78 The spaghetti junction of donors included Australia (the biggest donor), New Zealand, Japan and Taiwan, plus minor donors Cuba, Israel, and Kuwait. International agencies include the United Nations and its specialised agencies such as the UNDP and UNICEF; the European Union (EU) and its development agency, the European Development Fund; the International Monetary Fund (IMF); the World Bank; and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The South Pacific Commission (SPC) and Pacific Islands Forum are regional organisations that interact closely with donor institutions and nation states.

101 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories

Solomon Islands swims like a minnow in the international economy, with trade arrangements shaped by the rising tide of neoliberalism since the 1970s. Neoliberalism promotes trade liberalisation, expansion of world commodity markets and control over mineral and agriculture exports (Connell and Dados 2014). It has had serious ramifications for export income in Solomon Islands, which exports canned tuna, palm oil, copra and cocoa to Europe and Caribbean countries that produce crops in competition with US corporations. Former European colonies have preferential EU treatment, such as agreed quotas and process, and duty-free access for their products to European markets. From the 1970s, complex aid arrangements were designed to protect former colonies through a compensatory finance scheme (Stabex) to stabilise export earnings. Sitai saw the complexity of the world trade politics at close quarters, including the battle by USA and World Trade Organisation (WTO) to curtail preferential access of exports to Europe by former colonies. The global regulatory structure for international trade, in combination with predatory resource companies, weak governments and venal leaders, has promoted the exploitation of natural resources and destruction of the environment through industrial logging, fishing and palm oil production, with multiple negative consequences for ordinary people.

* * *

Table 4.3 below completes Section 4.4 with an overview of the most salient social and structural changes, historical periods, and locations. Its purpose is to provide a basis for comparing the social histories revealed by two other case studies using different oral history approaches. 4.5 Conclusion

The Four Corners case study assembles and compares the life histories of four individuals who grew up hemispheres apart, in different circumstances, and had dissimilar professional identities and professions. Two were expatriates who grew up during World War II, arriving to work in the Pacific in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the country was slowly prepared for independence. The other two were Solomon Islanders born in the 1950s who benefited from the expansion of education to create a skilled workforce and a political class to run the country post-independence. All four participants became prominent in the post-colonial period and each made significant contributions to public life. Their life histories and commentaries illuminate a wide range of political, historical, economic, cultural, and social changes at micro-, meso- and macro-levels in the post-war period.

In Section 4.2, I explained how interviews with each participant and different source materials were collected and analysed. The oral history approach involved life history interviews, ranging from six

102 Chapter 4 Four Corners—four life histories to eight interviews, except for John Roughan who died in 2013 and whose life history was compiled retrospectively. In Section 4.3, I presented short life histories that condense a great deal of information from the interviews and writings. The selection, summarising and editing of life histories has shifted the authorship from participants’ life stories to life histories assembled by me as the researcher. This shift becomes even more apparent in Section 4.4, in which I compare the life histories. The social history analysed from the contents of the life histories and other source materials reveals the broader contexts that influenced and impacted the participants’ lives. The social history also reveals some of the most significant changes in the post-war era, following the biggest event of all—the Pacific War. These contexts and changes have been summarised in the social historical framework, to provide an overview with which to compare the social history from the case studies in the following two chapters.

Table 4.3 Social history framework from the Four Corners case study

(AB—Afu Billy; DS—David Sitai; JR—John Roughan; TH—Tony Hughes)

103

Chapter 5. The Fauabu Sisters—a group history

5.1 Introduction

This chapter presents a collective case study of a group of missionary nurses who worked together between 1968 and 1984 at the Hospital of the Epiphany at Fauabu (Fauabu hospital) on the northeast coast of Malaita. The ‘Fauabu Sisters’ managed Fauabu hospital, a leprosarium, a nurse training school and district health services. The use of the term ‘sister’ was commonly used for nurses in charge of hospital wards, which reflected the origins of nursing in Europe by nuns. I also use ‘Sisters’ to express reflect the close bonds between these women, which endured for the rest of their lives. The Sisters’ central figure was Helen Barrett, whose long and dedicated career in the Solomons provides insights into the contributions by missionaries to medical and education services prior to Independence.

Oral testimonies from the Sisters have been supplemented with a range of documents and photographs to create a group history connecting individual, institutional and national histories. In Section 5.2 I describe how I gathered the testimonies and supplementary information. In Section 5.3, I review the historical contexts of Malaita and the Melanesian Mission and the history of Fauabu hospital before the Sisters arrived. I also reflect on how my position—as a former health worker in Solomon Islands, who arrived five years after the Sisters had departed—influenced the interviews and the small group biography.

In the first half of Section 5.4, I present short individual biographies of the Sisters, followed by descriptions and memories of their work and times at Fauabu. I then describe the changes in provision of health and medical services which took place in Malaita in the lead up to Independence. These changes, and the development of Auki as a provincial centre, reduced the role and relevance of Fauabu hospital by the time the three remaining Sisters left in 1984. In the second half of Section 5.4, I describe key social historical contexts within which Fauabu hospital and the Sisters operated, including: the central role and influence of missionaries at personal and institutional levels; gender relations in the context of church and cultural patriarchy; female education and professional training; and the prevailing colonial racism, which was at odds with the Sisters’ personal views. In the Conclusion, Section 5.5, I summarise the chapter and end with an overview of the themes revealed in the case study using the social history framework described in Chapter 1 (Section 3.1).

104 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history

5.2 The group history approach

In Section 5.2, I explain how I brought together the oral testimonies of a small group of missionary nurses using a group history approach.

5.2.1 Finding the Fauabu Sisters

In 2014, I learned that Helen Barrett, who had worked as a missionary nurse in Solomon Islands for nearly four decades, was still living in Brisbane. Helen’s extraordinary career warranted recording as a life history, not only in its own right but also for the details that she could provide about nursing dating back to the immediate post–war period. After corresponding by letter, an initial interview was arranged in July 2015 at the Queensland Museum, to which Helen had recently donated a collection of her memorabilia from Solomon Islands and Torres Strait (see Fig. 5.1–5.3). She told stories about some of the artefacts as well as her work at home and abroad. Many items were beautifully made local handicrafts, some made at Fauabu by leprosy patients.

Fig. 5.1 Helen Barrett Fig. 5.2 Isabel shell Fig. 5.3 Malaitan hair comb wearing dolphin teeth from necklace, Queensland (photos: author) Malaita Museum 2016

I first interviewed Pat Halpin at her home in Wagga Wagga, NSW, shortly after her eightieth birthday in December 2016 (see Fig. 5.5). Pat’s memory was failing but she had an extensive and well-preserved collection of photographs with date and names on the back, and sometimes with captions on the front. The photographs helped to stimulate her to remember and comment on her work and social life at Fauabu.

Travelling on to Melbourne, I interviewed Pam Goodes, whose recall was very good and who was able to give details including the names of villages, students and staff at Fauabu. Pam, too, had a sizeable collection of photos and documents. She had returned to teach at the Solomon Islands

105 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history

School of Nursing in Honiara from 1991 to 1993. Her critical comments on nursing and nurse training in that decade were also relevant to the third case study (see Chapter 6).

Fig. 5.4 Helen Morris, Pam Goodes, Marion Fig. 5.5 Pat Halpin, Wagga Wagga, 2016 Gray, Melbourne, 2016 (photos: author)

Pam Goodes then took me to meet two Fauabu colleagues, Marion Gray and Helen Morris, at the latter’s house (see Fig. 5.4). This group interview provided lively interactions between the colleagues as they shared and sometimes differed in memories of their time together at Fauabu. The interviews with Helen Barrett’s colleagues and the focus on their time working at Fauabu meant there was much less information about their childhoods and careers before and after Fauabu. However, I was later able to get additional details of their upbringing and lives after Fauabu. The number and length of interviews is shown in Table 5.1 (second row).

The case study also includes interviews of two Solomon Islander nurses who knew the Sisters and Fauabu hospital. Alice Watoto trained as a nurse-midwife at the Fauabu nursing school at Fauabu from 1970 to 1972 and gave details of her training and the hospital under the Sisters. Edith Fanega did her community health practical attachment at Fauabu in 1980 and was able to provide details of the Sisters’ community outreach work.

5.2.2 Other source materials

The Sisters brought a range of personal documents (letters, newsletters and photographs) to interviews. Helen Barrett had originals or carbon copies of letters between her and other missionaries and nurses. She had a history of Fauabu hospital from 1963 to 1972 written by Veronica Kefu, whom I have included as one of the Sisters in the biographical section (Section 5.4.2), because she was so much part of their group history at Fauabu.

106 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history

Annual Fauabu newsletters from 1978 to 1984 provided details of events, personal experiences, visitors and stories of emergencies and orphans. Most valuable was the Fauabu Diary 1929–1978 (Barrett et. al 1978), compiled for the hospital’s fiftieth anniversary using excerpts from annual reports and items from the Southern Cross Logs, the journal of the Melanesian Mission. While many of the Sisters’ photographs had deteriorated, especially the colour photographs, they still provided visual evidence and were worth digitally copying.79 These sources exemplify the value of personal documents in recording the past and prompting recall in oral history interviews.

Table 5.1 Source materials provided by the Fauabu Sisters Sources Helen Barrett Pat Halpin Pam Goodes Helen Morris Marion Gray Pam Goodes Interviews 2015—4 interviews 2016—1 interview 2016—1 interview 2016—1 group —No. 2016—1 interview 2.9 hrs 4.1 hrs interview Total time 9.7 hrs 3.3 hrs Additional 2010—Fr Francis Tohe 2015—Solomon Islands nurses interviews 2015—niece Barbara Barrett —Alice Watoto, Edith Fanega Documents Fauabu 50th Fauabu 50th Fauabu 50th Fauabu article anniversary diary anniversary diary anniversary diary (Gray 1973) Newsletters 1965– (Barrett et al. 1978) 1984 Letters 1965–1983 Changes at Fauabu 1963– 1973 (Kefu 1973) Newspaper articles 2002, 2008, 2011 Photographs 1969–1972 1968–1984 1972–1984 2016 group photo Helen Barrett 2006 return to collection Solomons Solomon Star newspaper

The Sisters’ materials were supplemented with a range of documentary sources relating to the historical context of Malaita and medical services on the island (see Table 5.2). Malaita is perhaps the most researched and best documented part of Solomon Islands, with many published and unpublished sources on colonial pacification, mission history and Maasina Rule. Of note are Moore’s Making Mala: Malaita in Solomon Islands, 1870s–1930s (2017) and Akin’s Colonialism, Maasina

79 Scanning selected photographs and documents and photos allowed them to be shared on disk with other interviewees and a wider audience.

107 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history

Rule and the Origins of Malaitan Kastom (2013). These historians provide detailed and fascinating histories of Malaita, colonial rule and the Maasina Rule resistance. Both books contain historical details and photographs of mission health and education services, as does Moore ’s Solomon Islands Historical Encyclopaedia 1893–1978 (2013b) with photographs of medical services and nursing at Fauabu in the colonial era. Auto/biographies by Jonathan Fifi`i (1989) and Michael Kwa`ioloa (2001) add historical and cultural background on Kwaio and Kwara`ae societies in Malaita.

Table 5.2 Additional sources for the Fauabu case study Published works Hints on District Work (Steward 1926) Missions in Medical and Education Services (Boutilier 1978) God’s Gentlemen: A History of the Melanesian Mission, 1849–1942 (Hilliard 1978) Health and Medical Services in the Solomon Islands. A Guide for the Newly Recruited Expatriate Doctor (Baker 1982) Kastom and Anticolonialism on Malaita (Keesing 1982) Colonialism, Maasina Rule and the Origins of Malaitan Kastom (Akin 2013) Making Mala: Malaita in Solomon Islands, 1870s–1930s (Moore 2017a) Auto/biographies Colonial Window: A View From the Past (Macgregor 2006) and memoirs From Pig-Theft to Parliament: My Life between Two Worlds (Fifi`i and Keesing 1989) A Pacific Life. The Memoirs of George R. Hemming (Hemming 1995) A Solomon Islands Chronicle: As Told by Samuel Alasa`a (Alasa`a et al. 2001) Online archives Pacific Anglicanism: Online Biographical Resources (Project Canterbury, Brown 2013) Solomon Islands Historical Encyclopaedia 1893–1978 (Moore 2013) Mothers’ Union. Our History (Mothers’ Union 2017) Other—PhD The Roles of Melanesians in the Development of the Church in Melanesia 1925– thesis 75 (Zaku 2013)

The 2013 dissertation by Rev. Atkin Zaku on the role of Melanesians in the development of the Church in Melanesia, particularly Chapter 5, foregrounds Indigenous roles in the historical development of medical services and provides insights into the Melanesian cultural perception of sickness and healing, which is rarely mentioned by nurses. A Guide for the Newly Recruited Expatriate Doctor by Dr Martin Baker (1982), who worked in Malaita at the same time as the Fauabu Sisters, contains descriptions of medical treatments and services, including the extended role of nurses.

5.2.3 Processing oral and documentary sources

The external analysis of the oral history interviews has been described in Chapter 3 (Section 3.3.5) and summarised as the 4 Cs. Content analysis using NVivo software and cross analysis between interviews and other source materials was similar to the other case studies. The collective history

108 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history process—bringing together information from the interviews—was easier than the other two case studies due to the smaller number of interviews and the focus on their time together at Fauabu. The external analysis of the interviews was combined with the institutional history of Fauabu from 1928 and the Anglican mission history on Malaita. These latter are presented in Section 5. 3 before the Sisters’ group history in Section 5.4.

Having already interviewed 18 nursing officers for the third case study, I also examined how the Sisters’ training in Australia in the 1940s and 1950s influenced nurse training in the 1970s, not just at Fauabu but at the School of Nursing in Honiara by a similar generation of tutors. Hospital-based training of nurses was part of an introduced colonial system along with strict hygiene and cleaning regimes dating back to the pre-antibiotic era. Themes of strict hygiene, obedience, hierarchy and uniform appearance were repeated in the nursing officers’ oral testimonies. The Sisters also reproduced the role models of unmarried ‘spinster’ sister and all-powerful matron atop the nursing hierarchy. For reasons of space, I have not presented most of the Sisters’ memories of their own training because my focus was on their group history at Fauabu.

Internal analysis of the interviews revealed how my nursing background and history in Solomon Islands influenced the interviews. I was particularly interested in the Sisters’ outreach or ‘district’ work, which featured prominently in their photographs. As the Sisters were keen to hear about my own work in this area, and about changes in health and medical services after they had left, we discussed more of my experiences than is usual for an oral history interview. The difference between us in gender and generation also affected the oral history interviews, although it is impossible to know how the Sisters would have responded to a different—for example, female or younger—interviewer. Differences notwithstanding, the interviews and interactions with the Sisters provided numerous insights into the medical missionary experience.

I turn next to describing the historical background before the Sisters came to work at Fauabu hospital to understand not only the ‘history behind their backs’ (Mills 1959, 3) but also Fauabu hospital in its broader historical context. 5.3 Before the Fauabu Sisters came

In Section 5.3, I provide historical background and context relating to Malaita and Fauabu hospital, which was one of the first hospitals in Solomon Islands. This brings into view the history of the Pacific labour trade, missionisation and pacification of Malaita, resistance to colonial rule, and World War II.

109 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history

5.3.1 Malaita, the dangerous island

Fig. 5.6 1930s map of Malaita, Guadalcanal and Makira (San Cristoval) (Map: Robinson Pty Ltd, , http://www.solomonencyclopaedia.net/objects/D00000986.htm)

Malaita is the second largest island in the Solomons, 190 km long and 10–40 km wide with a central spine rising to 1,000 m (see Fig. 5.6). It was avoided by the earliest missionaries, whalers, traders and labour recruiters because of the fierce reputation of its inhabitants. Malaitans had the reputation of being the most aggressive and disruptive of islanders. Florence Young founded the Queensland Kanaka Mission, which became the South Sea Evangelical Mission, wrote:

They were so difficult to reach. They were fierce and warlike people … of strong character … Although nominally under the Melanesian Mission, no missionary had succeeded in obtaining a foothold on the main island of Malaita. (Young 1903, quoted in Moore 2017, 231)

Due to this lack of early contact, Malaita may have avoided the early large-scale population declines from introduced diseases seen in other islands. This may explain its large population relative to other islands, creating greater pressures on resources, increased migration and a more competitive society, which have had major ramifications for the post-war history of the Solomons (Moore 2017, 449).

110 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history

Before the 1940s, Christianity, colonial government and the Pacific labour trade were major influences shaping Malaita (Moore 2017, 183).80 Malaita was the most populous island, which prompted migration for work and new opportunities.81 It supplied more indentured labourers to sugar plantations in Queensland, Fiji, and Samoa than any other island in the Solomon Islands or Vanuatu (New Hebrides). An estimated 35,000 to 40,000 male and female Malaitans worked in the plantations, representing 58% of all labour contracts by Solomon Islanders (Moore 2017, 76).

The first act of the Australian Federal Parliament in 1901 was the Immigration Restriction Act, which legislated the White Australia policy, effectively ending the labour trade to Australia. In 1904 most Pacific Islanders were expelled, including many who had settled and married in Australia (Moore 2007). The return of labourers and the closure of the labour trade to Fiji and Samoa in the next decade increased the number of Islanders available to work in the Solomons copra plantations, which had been established in the early 1900s to generate revenue for the British colonial administration. After the overseas labour trade ended, Malaitans made up 68% of all labourers on Solomon Islands plantations from 1913 to the World War II (Moore 2017, 104).

The labour trade beyond and within the Solomons gave rise to gradual but profound cultural changes. These included the development of stronger links between different language groups and the establishment of a lingua franca (Melanesian Pijin); the influence of the acquisition and diffusion of Western trade goods, technology, and rifles; the expansion of the influence of Christianity; and increased literacy rates, which enhanced Islanders’ awareness of the wider world. Returning overseas labourers, recruiters and traders brought with them large quantities of highly prized rifles, amplifying the Malaitans’ dangerous reputation and profoundly changing power relationships within and between clans and islands (Moore 2017; Akin 2013).

Colonial pacification began in the 1870s with Royal Navy ships responding to ‘outrages’, such as attacks on labour trading ships, by shelling offending villages and executing suspects. Labourers who had converted to Christianity while working and settled in coastal enclaves were also subject to frequent thefts and murders by neighbouring non-Christians. Pacification was not completed on Malaita until after the Bell Massacre in 1927, when district officer William Bell, his assistant and eleven native constables were massacred while collecting the much-resented government head tax at Sinalagu in the Kwaio area on the east coast of Malaita (Keesing and Corris 1980; Moore 2017). The massacre was the most violent resistance to colonial rule witnessed in the Solomons. The

80 Moore (2017) argues that a fourth major influence was Malaitans’ ability to be practical and incorporate change. 81 Malaita’s population in 1931 was 41,052 or 44% of the Solomon Islands population. This proportion of the population continued. In the 1999 census its population was 122,620 (30% of the Solomon Islands population) but an estimated 50,000 Malaitans live elsewhere, bringing their total share of the population to 44% (Moore 2007, 214).

111 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history ensuing reprisal by government forces led to the murder of many Kwaio people, destruction of villages and ancestral shrines, and public executions (Boutilier 1979; Akin 2013). Grievances against the government for these atrocities lasted into modern times (Akin 1999, 2013), adding to the reputation of Malaitans as stubborn and difficult. The murder of Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) missionaries at Atoifi hospital in 1965 and 2003 revealed the continuing hostility of traditional Kwaio groups towards outsiders.

5.3.1.1 Maasina Rule

The Pacific War brought cataclysmic violence but also emboldened Islanders’ resistance to British colonialism. The British had left the Solomons undefended against the Japanese invasion in May 1942. Three months later, Guadalcanal and the Florida Islands became the venue for fierce battles as Allied forces sought to regain them from the Japanese. Solomon Islanders’ local knowledge and support were crucial to the Allied victory (Kwai 2017). Up to 7,000 Solomon Islanders, 60% from Malaita, joined the Solomon Islands Labour Corps, which handled vast amounts of materiel. The behaviour and generosity of Allied troops contrasted with the British colonial masters, who were seen by Islanders as arrogant, racist, and ungenerous. The apparent equality of black American soldiers with their white counterparts was also a marked difference (Akin 2013; Moore 2017).82

The Maasina Rule movement grew out of the Labour Corps’ resentment at being treated as backward natives by the colonial authorities.83 Beginning in 1944, the movement sought political representation and participation in government, better pay and jobs, provision of education and medical services, and to be treated with respect (Akin 2013, 328–329). It was strongest on Malaita and influential in parts of Guadalcanal and Makira, but not significant elsewhere in the country. Given the reprisal for the Bell massacre two decades earlier, Maasina leaders sensibly adopted non- violent strategies, such as refusing to pay taxes or fines, or to comply with a census. Colonial authorities responded with fines and mass imprisonment, an ‘aggressive policy of mass humiliation’ that only radicalised the movement (Akin 2013, 287). The South Sea Evangelical Mission (SSEM) supported and provided leaders for the movement but not so the (Anglican) Melanesian Mission, which was led by expatriates with close links to colonial authorities.

By 1952, wiser heads among the British prevailed. All imprisoned Maasina leaders were released and the government acceded to almost all Maasina Rule demands. The first Island Council in the country was established for Malaita in the following year. Reforms were limited (including local

82 Akin (2013, 132–163) offers an excellent assessment of the Malaitan war experience. 83 In `Are`are language, maasina means sibling, cousin or close friend or, more broadly, brotherhood (Akin 2013).

112 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history government elections), but colonial authorities belatedly began improving services, starting with a hospital and primary school at Auki. Maasina resistance was a building block of Solomon Islands nationalism and set the islands on the road to independence 25 years later (Moore 2017, 36).

5.3.2 The Melanesian Mission

The Melanesian Mission was established by the (Anglican) Church of England in 1861 as a separate missionary arm with its own diocese, the Western Islands of the South Pacific Ocean. It opened 20 mission stations on Malaita between 1877 and 1909, including Fauabu, relying on former labourers in Queensland and Fiji who had converted to Christianity or on former students at the Melanesian Mission school, St Barnabas, on Norfolk Island (Moore 2017, 199–201).

The Melanesian Mission was the only mission in the Solomons group until 1898. It had only minimal influence until then, with only two resident priests and 4,500 baptised converts out of a total population of approximately 100,000 (Hilliard 1974, 94). Other mission churches (Catholic, Methodist, SSEM and SDA) arrived after the Protectorate was established in 1893 and competed for converts. Conversions grew steadily from the turn of the twentieth century, with over two- thirds of the population (perhaps half in Malaita) either baptised or resident in a Christian village when the war arrived. Islanders sought the protection of mission churches and abandoned traditional religions in the face of steep population decline from introduced diseases and warfare. Medical treatments, schools, trade stores and the opportunities to earn income drew inland populations to Christian villages on the coast. Enclaves such as Fauabu became new sacred places and seats of colonial power and institutions, where Islanders had to submit to the authority of church and government (Hilliard 1974, 105).

The status of Anglicanism as Britain’s state religion enhanced the position of the Melanesian Mission relative to other denominations. Anglican bishops and clerics of British heritage had close family and education connections with influential circles in England, public schools (Eton College in particular) and Oxford University. The mission was consciously aware of its imperial role, with Bishop Steward declaring, ‘The Empire of Christ, we of the British race are bound to the British Empire by the only unbreakable, three-fold cord, of love, gratitude, and faith’ (Steward 1926, 3).84 Australian and New Zealand missionaries were also regarded as part of the British race and empire.

Anglican missionaries lived closer to local people than colonial administrators and were more aware of their needs. Long-serving missionary Dr Charles Fox noted that ‘Members of the Government were never intimate with the people over whom they ruled and never won their confidence in the

84 Earlier, Bishop Winnington-Ingram of London appealed for ‘gentlemen adventurers for Christ’, describing the Melanesian Mission as a ‘crack regiment’ (Hilliard 1974, 95).

113 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history majority of cases’ (Fox 1975, 48). Missionaries disagreed with colonial laws that they regarded as alien to Indigenous cultures, such as forcing labourers to work on plantations while taxing Islanders without providing services. Colonial administrators were jealous of Islanders’ loyalties to the Christian missions, particularly if there was a dominant single mission in any locality, such as Isabel where the Melanesian Mission was the only church. Rivalries between big-men representatives of government and churches also played out in villages (Lindstrom and White 1997). Tensions arose because the colonial government was parsimonious with medicines and funds to missions and opposed subsidising their schools. Until the colonial government expanded government services in preparation for independence, mission churches continued to provide the bulk of medical and education services as conversion strategies.

5.3.3 Hospital of the Epiphany, Fauabu 1929–1967

The founder of Fauabu hospital, Dr Montague Maybury, arrived in the Solomons in August 1928 tasked with establishing a medical centre for the Melanesian Mission. Malaita was chosen because it was the most populous island and provided much of the labour for the plantation economy on which the Protectorate depended (Moore 2007, 213). The site, at Coleridge Bay on the north-west coast of Malaita, was an existing Anglican enclave with both Indigenous and Anglican spiritual significance. Fauabu (or Fauaabu) means holy or tabu rock. Coleridge Bay was named after the first Anglican Bishop of Melanesia, John Coleridge Patteson (1827–1871), who was murdered at Nukapu in the eastern Solomon Islands in 1871.

The hospital opened in June 1929 with forty beds staffed by three trained nurses (Mrs Maybury and two from New Zealand) and six local dressers.85 Construction of permanent buildings began in 1931 with concrete blocks shipped from Australia. By 1933 the hospital had three wards with 80 beds, an operating theatre and a permanent house for orderlies. The main conditions treated were malaria, trachoma, cataracts, TB, and yaws. Leprosy patients were treated separately at a leprosarium established in 1930 as an out-station and later moved in 1934 to Kwaibala on a hill behind the hospital (Moore 2017, 421–423).

The hospital was overseen by a series of missionary doctors and nursing sisters, apart from two years during the Pacific War.86 Missionary medical services depended on the work of Islanders as

85 Fauabu was not the first hospital on Malaita. A small hospital on Malaita at Su`u further south was run by Dr Lily Holt-MacCrimmon, the wife of the manager of Mala Timber Company from 1919 to 1932. 86 Pre-war doctors at Fauabu were Drs Maybury (1928–1932), Macpherson (1933–1934), James (1934–1939)and D. Thompson (1939–1942). Nursing sisters mentioned in the Fauabu Diary were Sr Maybury-Johnson (1928–1932), B. Guylees (1929–1933), M. Simpson (1929n.d.), Piggot (n.d.), Dawes (n.d–1933), Mackenzie (n.d.), Phyllis Talbot (1938–1942), and Nellie Stead (1944–n.d.).

114 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history ward orderlies or dressers, nurses, labourers, leprosy priests and teachers (Zaku 2013, 164).87 Much of the work was done by men due to strong Malaitan cultural barriers against females working and caring for male relatives and non-family members.

Fig. 5.7 Wards at Fauabu 1940s Fig. 5.8 A patient arriving at Coleridge Bay, 1940s (http://www.solomonencyclopaedia.net/objects/D00000237.htm; D00000238.htm)

Medical services were completely disrupted by the war, although Malaita was spared significant damage. In June 1942, the Japanese arrived on north Malaita, looted instruments from the operating theatre and flogged the orderlies when they refused to reveal the whereabouts of the expatriate nurses and doctor. A small Japanese contingent established an outpost 30 km to the north but was wiped out by US forces. In November 1942, expatriate women remaining in the Solomons were ordered to leave and the missionary nurses went to Australia. Dressers kept the hospital running despite shortages of food and wages while others established dispensaries in different districts around Malaita, treating patients for yaws, tropical ulcers, and malaria. In 1944, Sisters Nellie Stead and Phyllis Talbot returned to restore the hospital to full working order.88

After 1948, the colonial government began to establish government health services in Malaita, partly in response to Maasina Rule. In 1955, a rudimentary hospital was completed at the Auki administrative centre, 30 km from Fauabu, with Fauabu doctors also operating on patients from Auki. Clinics were built at intervals along the coast, with a mini-hospital opened at Malu`u on the north coast in 1964. At Fauabu, two expatriate nursing sisters extended antenatal services to nearby villages, while birthing at the hospital became more acceptable and accessible. Vaccines—‘our first

87 Dressers were male hospital orderlies who did minor medical work, such as dressings, cleaning of the hospital and equipment; they also serviced rudimentary rural clinics. 88 Post-war doctors included Drs Hemming (1946–1949), G. Thompson (1957–1964) and Harvey (1967), with no names available for 1949–1956). Dates for the nursing sisters are less certain: Pat Copeland (194?–1958), Cubbit (1951– n.d.), Petrie (1952–n.d.) and Pam Crawford (1952–1962), Palmer (1953–1954), Curtis (1959–n.d.), Happeline Webster (1965–1967), and Verna McDonald (1967–1968). The first Islander staff nurses were Maisie Dinelatha and Fanny Maesola, the first two nurses to graduate from Fauabu in 1947 (Fauabu Diary).

115 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history real preventive medicine’—became available from 1960, but infant and child mortality were still high, with an estimated 25% of children aged 5–24 months dying in the villages (Fauabu Diary 1960). Doctors at Fauabu also toured to other parts of the diocese on ships donated by the New Zealand Leprosy Trust.

Medical services in Malaita had developed beyond recognition by the time Helen Barrett arrived in 1968. The government hospital at Auki was replaced in 1967 by a 100-bed hospital at nearby Kilu`ufi, staffed by expatriate doctors, making the presence of a doctor at Fauabu less critical. Improved roads and transport made transfers of patients to the government hospital easier. But the hospital was demoralised after the departure in January 1967 of Dr Harvey, the last resident medical officer. Later that month, Matron Happeline Webster died tragically from peritonitis in Honiara. Sr Verna MacDonald, a New Zealand nurse tutor, acted as matron until Helen Barrett arrived to take over in January 1968.

5.3.3.1 Nurse training at Fauabu

A nurse training school opened at Fauabu in 1941, with six nurses training under Sr Phyllis Talbot, but its activities were soon interrupted by the war. Training resumed after the war. The first nurses ‘graduated’ in 1947 following a ‘nerve-racking’ hospital examination, although there were no official nursing qualifications or recognised standards for nurses. The 1946 annual report stated:

[W]e are proud of our Nurses School which has between twenty and thirty members. It is a triumph of patient teaching and care on the part of the sisters. It met with much opposition and people said it couldn’t be done with Melanesians, custom wouldn’t allow it. But the sisters went ahead. Many came as raw bush girls without knowledge of English but they soon learn. This school is one of the triumphs of Fauabu. Sister Nellie Stead preached the need of it for years and did much to bring it about.

Resistance to colonial authority and services during Maasina Rule added to the difficulties of recruiting local staff and dangers of carrying out district work. By 1952, local resistance to health services had lessened and increases in the number of girls attending mission primary schools made recruiting and teaching nurses easier. By 1960, 40 nurses had graduated from Fauabu and were working for local councils, district hospitals, church clinics and industrial clinics and hospitals. Fauabu provided an estimated 75% of qualified nurses employed at government clinics and Central Hospital, and they were highly regarded (Woods 1969).

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Fig. 5.9 Dressing a patient and student nurses at Fauabu, 1940s (http://www.solomonencyclopaedia.net/objects/D00000236.htm)

In the 1950s, the Protectorate government began to increase funding for medical and education services. A government training school for male medical assistants opened in Honiara in 1955; from 1957 the Solomon Islands School of Nursing began training up to 30 female nurse-midwives and male medical assistants per year. In 1959, a Nurses and Midwives Act was introduced to regulate registration, professional standards, and training, including compulsory experience at Central Hospital in Honiara. Fauabu nurses began to sit exams in Honiara to qualify for a government- registered nursing certificate, and the entry-level qualification for nursing was increased to two years of secondary school. By 1968, the Fauabu training school had come under government regulation. After three years of training and passing both hospital and state final examinations, Fauabu nurses were still required by the Solomon Islands Nurses Registration Board to complete a probation year at their parent hospital, effectively making their training a four-year program.

5.3.3.2 District work

District work embraced both pastoral church work and medical outreach by the hospital (Steward 1926).89 Four years after the hospital opened in 1929, the first outreach clinics were conducted in surrounding villages. Clinics gradually spread along the coast, providing treatments for yaws and worm infestation and dressings for infected wounds. District work in the aftermath of the Bell massacre carried considerable dangers:

89 District nursing is also a term for community outreach nursing in Britain.

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[D]uring Dr. Lambert's tuberculin testing program on the island in 1933 the police were forced to fix bayonets and form a cordon ‘between us and the mass of howling hill fellows’. Lambert and his companions ‘beat it at once, an undignified scramble and a frantic paddling back to the ship. A bedlam of threatening yells followed us out to sea’. (quoted in Boutilier 1979, 87) After the Pacific War, district work resumed on foot, by canoe, ship and, eventually, Land Rover. By the 1960s, the range of district services included preventive care (antenatal care, immunisations, and family planning) and medical treatment (malaria, leprosy, minor illnesses and wounds, and follow-up care); school clinics were held annually. District work was arduous away from the coast due to steep terrain and high rainfall:

[F]our carriers and a 3½ hr journey up an almost perpendicular hill and pure mud after a week of rain up to 18 inches of mud. I had a strong man holding my left hand and a strong stick supporting my right, and we progressed thus: pull out left foot, pull out right foot, pull out shoes as necessary, pull out the stick, …repeated ad infinitum… Going home again. It was even worse, I would have happily slid the whole way home on my bottom, but the boys held my arms so tightly—I was black and blue. We plan to repeat this next week. (Sr Pam Crawford, Fauabu Diary 1960) Travel and transport to and around Malaita expanded in 1958 with the arrival of a larger ship, the Fauabu Twomey, which served the diocese of Melanesia, including the distant eastern Reef and Santa Cruz Islands. The first vehicle donated by UNICEF in 1961, and an airstrip built near Auki in 1964, were of limited use until the road system and conditions were improved in the 1970s. Tours were also made by ship to Anglican villages and clinics in south Malaita staffed by dressers and former students.

5.3.3.3 ‘Lepers’ and ‘orphans’

The St Francis Leprosarium was a significant part of the mission work at Fauabu. Before effective chemotherapy became available in the 1950s, patients were segregated to prevent transmission of leprosy (Luker 2017). Established in 1930, the leprosarium, or leper colony as it was usually called, consisted of a concrete block ward and local style houses, which were named after donors.90 A doctor and nurses visited the leprosarium once a week to examine patients and treat infections. From the 1950s, chemotherapy (Sulphatone and Dapsone) transformed the treatment of leprosy and the stigma surrounding the disease. Chemotherapy allowed patients to be treated in the community with weekly or fortnightly visits after initial hospital treatment.

The leprosarium was also an important source of funding, and for many years the colony only survived with funding from the New Zealand Leprosy Trust Board and individual donors. The

90 Leprosy, leper colony and lepers were the terms used at the time. The medical term for leprosy is Hansen’s disease. The fear and stigma associated with leprosy made it comparable with HIV and AIDS in modern times (Luker 2017).

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Trust Board also funded the MV Fauabu Twomey and brought patients to Fauabu for treatment from throughout the Protectorate. Patients and their families cultivated large gardens for their own food and the hospital. Despite often having severe deformities, patients made handicrafts for sale and donated them to the mission.91 The leprosarium closed in 1972, although some patients stayed on at Kwaibala with their families, having lost their connections to home.

Fig. 5.10 Demonstration dressing of a patient at St Francis leprosarium, 1940s (http://www.solomonencyclopaedia.net/objects/D00000189.htm)

Another group receiving special attention at Fauabu were ‘orphans’, infants whose mothers had died during childbirth, placing them at risk of neglect or even infanticide.92 The ‘orphans’ came from other islands as well as Malaita. Not all the children were motherless—some mothers gave up babies they did not want, commonly daughters, while others had serious illnesses such as TB. Some ‘orphans’ had birth defects that made them unwanted or put them at risk, or malnutrition, then called ‘failure to thrive’. Well-fed with powdered milk and hospital food, they stayed until they were judged able to survive the rigours of village life with their relatives.

The children provided student nurses with practical training in nursing and mothercraft, but the work was intensive in terms of nursing time and resources, particularly when gastroenteritis or other infections occurred. The number of children in care declined with improvements in maternal health and malaria disease control, along with better hygiene and water supplies in villages, which improved survival of children at risk in their communities (Fauabu newsletter 1983). Caring for

91 Some of the craftworks are in the collection donated by Helen Barrett to the Queensland Museum. 92 Family shame and fear of sorcery if a mother died in childhood also caused children to be orphaned.

119 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history orphans at the hospital was discontinued soon after Independence. Reintegrating small children who had been socialised in the hospital back into their communities could also be socially and culturally problematic (Helen Barrett interview 2015).

Fig. 5.11 Student nurses and exhibition feeding of orphans at Fauabu,1940s (photo: Helen Barrett collection)

5.4 The Fauabu Sisters

The first half of Section 5.4 presents a short life history of Helen Barrett (similar to those in the previous case study) and shorter biographical sketches of her Fauabu sisters, followed by excerpts of working at Fauabu and the changing contexts to health and medical services in Malaita in the lead-up to Independence. The second half brings into view the social contexts of the work of the Sisters, including the missionary life, gender relations, class and education, and colonial racism.

5.4.1 Helen Barrett MBE, AO, CSI (1921–2019)

Helen Hugo Barrett was born in Isleworth near London in 1921 and came with her parents to Australia when she was 18 months old. Her father, William Edward Barrett, was an ordained Anglican priest who first worked in the parish of Sherwood before becoming Dean of St John’s Cathedral in Brisbane (1932–1952). Her mother, Hilda Agnita Adams, had been a nurse in World War I and started the Mothers’ Union at Sherwood, a connection that continued throughout Helen’s life.93 She commented, ‘We just grew up in the Mothers’ Union—I was admitted when I

93 The Mothers’ Union (MU) is the largest Anglican women’s organisation in the world. It was established in Britain in 1876 ‘to support women of all social classes and promote the vocation of motherhood and the welfare of children’ (Mothers’ Union 2017). In the Solomons, the Mothers’ Union was started in Isabel in 1919 by a long-serving missionary, Emily Sprott, with whom Helen Barrett worked personally.

120 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history was born I think’. Her parents provided hospitality at the Deanery for Anglican missionaries and their families who arrived in Brisbane, as well as Anglican ‘bush’ brothers working in outback Queensland.

Helen contracted polio when she was ten years old and was kept at home for months but escaped permanent disability. Her younger sister, Joyce Hilda Barrett, born in 1923, later became a physiotherapist and specialised in treating polio patients. Her younger brother, Timothy Colville Barrett, born in 1924, became a doctor. The three children were foundation students at St Aidan’s Anglican School at Corinda in 1929, and later Barrett House was named after her family. ‘A natural leader and exceptional organiser’, she was appointed school captain in 1938 (Rogers 2019).

Helen trained as a registered nurse in Sydney from 1939 to 1942. She remembers doing night duty during wartime blackouts with hurricane lamps covered with blue paper and the attack on Sydney Harbour by Japanese midget submarines in May 1942. Returning to Brisbane to train as a midwife in 1943, she noted with astonishment, ‘When I started midwifery, the first thing I saw was a notice “Nurses will not hit the patients”’. She trained in infant and child welfare the following year, becoming a ‘triple certificate nurse’. She worked for two years in Brisbane as a child welfare nurse— ‘You knew where the babies were by the nappies hanging on the line’—and acquired various home economics skills and crafts from the Mothers’ Union.

Helen wanted to be a missionary from an early age and she was now professionally well-equipped to be of service. When the Bishop asked how long she could stay in the Solomons, she replied, ‘as long as you need me to’. This proved to be 37 years, working for the Anglican Board of Mission (ABM) and Church of Melanesia from 1947 to 1984. Aged 26, she began work as a school nurse at Lepi, a small island on the south-east tip of Isabel. She also did district work with Sr Christine Woods (‘Woodsie’), an English missionary nurse who had arrived in the Solomons in 1934.94 From 1950 to 1956 and 1966 to 1967, Helen worked at Kerepei hospital on Ugi Island (Makira), which served Pawa and Alangaula Anglican boarding schools nearby. She occasionally looked after Pamua School in the absence of Sr Nellie Stead, who had had been in the Solomons since before the war and was active with the Mothers’ Union.95 Helen transferred to St Mary’s School at Maravovo on

94 Born in 1906, Sr Christine Woods OBE worked in the Solomons for nearly 40 years from 1934 to 1973. She helped establish five clinics and spent time at Fauabu in 1942 before running a bush hospital near Auki. She was matron of Central Hospital from 1951 to 1961 and head of the School of Nursing from 1957 to 1961. She became matron of St Clare’s hospital at the Mission’s headquarters at Taraoniara before retiring to England in 1973 (Moore 2013). 95 Nellie Stead also had a long career in the Solomons with the Melanesian Mission. She worked at girls’ schools on Bungana in Central District, Fiu on Malaita and in 1951 founded St Mary’s School for girls at Pamua on Makira. In 2006, Helen returned to Pamua to bury Nellie Stead’s ashes and lay a memorial stone.

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Guadalcanal from 1956 to 1957 before returning to Isabel as school nurse (‘matron’) and headmistress of Tasia School for nearly ten years.

Helen agreed to take over as matron of Fauabu hospital in 1968 following the death of Happeline Webster. Working without resident doctors, she took charge of the hospital for the next 17 years until April 1984. She also ran maternal and child health (MCH), TB and leprosy clinics and taught nursing students. District work was a vital part of the hospital program and could involve days of strenuous walking where vehicles could not go. The hospital also took care of ‘orphans’ (see Section 5.3.3 above). Helen was very fond of these children and kept contact with them after they were returned to their villages. In addition to her administrative and clinical work she worked with Mothers’ Union groups, sharing home-craft skills, organising social activities, undertaking bible studies and attending conferences.

Helen was nearing retirement age when she left Fauabu early in 1984. Her last newsletter ended:

So we are coming to the end of one phase in the life of the Church in Melanesia and feel sure God will bless all who carry on the work of healing and caring in his name. Please continue to pray for all who are involved in healing work in Melanesia. (Fauabu newsletter 1983) After returning to Australia, Helen was asked by the Mothers’ Union to go to the Torres Strait in Far North Queensland to work for six months and stayed for seven years from 1987 to 1994. Based on Thursday Island, she helped establish a residential nursing home there and worked with women’s groups throughout the islands. Returning to Brisbane in 1994, she was awarded the Queensland Premier’s Award. She continued to serve her local community there as an active member of the church and the Mothers’ Union. Helen’s career in nursing and working with women in Solomon Islands and Torres Straits was acknowledged with several accolades: Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1970, Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2002, Cross of Solomon Islands (CSI) in 2005, and the Coaldrake Medal in 2017 in recognition of 70 years of service to the Anglican Board of Mission.

Helen lived with her sister Joyce in the suburb of Coorparoo, where they continued the tradition of hospitality at the Deanery. With Joyce, she delivered Meals on Wheels and volunteered at the Princess Alexandra hospital until 2004. She remained active with Mothers’ Union groups in Australia, Solomon Islands and internationally. She maintained strong and sometimes lifelong friendships with Islanders, former students, other missionaries, and volunteers. She visited the Solomons for the last time in 2009 aged 88.

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Fig. 5.12 Helen Barret AO, 2002 Fig. 5.13 Cross of the Solomon Islands, (photo: Southeast Advertiser) 2005 (photo: Barbara Barrett)

Helen’s faith and her Christian communities were central to her personal and professional life. She led a lay religious life as an associate of the Sisters of the Sacred Advent, an Anglican order that is still involved with St Aidan’s Girls’ School. The school proudly celebrated Helen in school magazines, reunions and end-of- year graduations, which she attended as a special guest. Another vital community was the Mothers’ Union, and one of her proudest possessions was a framed cross- stitch of the personal prayer of Mary Sumner (1828–1921), founder of the Mothers’ Union (see Fig. 5.14).

Her siblings, Joyce and Timothy, died within three months of each other in 2010. Helen eventually moved into a retirement home, Casa Dámore, at Coorparoo in 2013. The transition was not easy but, after many years of living in communities, she said, ‘People have been very, very kind. Living in a community, one has to obey community rules and if you do, then things go well’. Her strong faith and belief in God’s guidance helped her to face death with equanimity, reflected in her words, ‘Death brings great possibility. We have been promised all sorts of things… people are resting in heaven waiting for you’. Helen’s cognitive function deteriorated from 2018 onwards and she died peacefully on 25 November 2019.

5.4.2 Her Fauabu Sisters

Four expatriate missionary nurses worked with Helen at Fauabu hospital. Their biographies are briefly sketched below along with that of Solomon Islander Sr Veronica Kefu, who qualified at Fauabu in 1969 and was regarded as one of the family by the Sisters.

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Fig. 5.14 Helen Barrett in 2015 with Fig. 5.15 Visit by a Mothers’ Union Group Mothers’ Union prayer by Mary Sumner from the Solomons in 2017 (photo: author) (photo: Barbara Barrett)

5.4.2.1 Pat Halpin (1936~)

Pat Halpin was born in 1936 in Rylstone, a coal and cement works town near Bathurst in central New South Wales. Pat’s family owned 20 acres of land on which they kept cows, and her mother took in boarders while her father was the town barber. She had one older and two younger brothers. She left school after four years of secondary school, completing the intermediate school certificate, which was sufficient to enter nursing training. Aged 18, Pat began her four-year nurse training in Bathurst from 1959 to 1962, followed by one year of midwifery training in . She worked for five years in various hospitals across Australia before applying to work overseas with the ABM, which sent her to the Solomons through Australian Volunteers Abroad (AVA).

Pat arrived at Fauabu in 1969 where she was known as ‘Sister Barty’ because in that part of Malaita ‘p’ is pronounced as ‘b’. She was less fond of midwifery, and so she took over responsibility for the pharmacy, outpatients, and TB patients. With the other Sisters, she did district work in surrounding areas with occasional ‘hard touring’ to more remote villages. Pat had practical experience with vehicles and drove more than other Sisters.

Originally, we had to drive through the river before the bridges were put in. It was pretty hairy going up through the bush. I went north up the coast, I went to different places as well. You got to know everyone. We walked right across the island—one of our vaccination clinics was at the top of the island. (Halpin 2016) Pat worked at Fauabu for longer than her other colleagues, leaving in 1984 with Helen Barrett. She accompanied Helen on her farewell tour of Isabel and then went on a fundraising trip to New Zealand with and Pam Goodes. On her return to Australia, she stayed with Helen Morris in

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Melbourne while doing a refresher course. She subsequently worked as a paediatric nurse around Australia until settling down in Wagga Wagga, where she retired in 2000. She returned to the Solomons only once, in 2006 when she was 70 years old, to accompany Helen Barrett to Isabel to lay a memorial plaque at the home village of Bara for Veronica Kefu, who died in 2005. Fauabu remains a highlight of her life: ‘I went for one year and was there for 15 years. We were such a family thing, we got to know everyone. It was the smartest thing I ever did’. Due to increasing short-term memory loss due to dementia, she moved in 2018 to an aged care facility near her youngest brother in Cairns.

5.4.2.2 Helen Morris (1939~)

Helen Morris was born in Melbourne in 1939, the only child of British migrants. Her father had joined the Royal Australian Navy after an assisted passage and worked in an aircraft factory during the war. Her mother was a postmistress at the family store until she married at the age of 32. Helen still lives in the house built by her parents in Melbourne in 1935 and in which she grew up. After qualifying as a nurse and midwife, she worked in Melbourne for several years before going to Papua New Guinea as a missionary nurse. While working there as a maternal and child health nurse she met Anglican Bishop John Chisholm (later ) who was looking for help in the Solomons.

…and I thought, why not? I arrived before Marion or Pam and joined Helen Barrett and Pat Halpin who were paddling along and were quite glad to see me. I had the choice of going to Vanuatu but I am glad I chose Solomons, I liked the company in the Solomons more, I think in Vanuatu they were very holy. (Morris 2016) Helen worked at Fauabu from 1970 to 1973 where she was responsible for child clinics and orphans and shared midwifery duties. On her return to Australia, she did refresher training and specialised as a maternal child health nurse in Melbourne, visiting mothers and babies after discharge from hospital, until her retirement in 2004. Her last reunion with the Fauabu Sisters was in Wagga Wagga in 2017 with Pat Halpin and Helen Barrett. She wrote, ‘It was lovely—or should I say—a precious chance to see HB. She and Pat are very special people in my life’ (Helen Morris pers. comm. 2017).

5.4.2.3 Marion Gray (1941~)

Born in 1941, Marion grew up near Myrtleford in north-east Victoria where her parents were dairy farmers, until moving to Melbourne in 1965. She left school with an intermediate certificate and trained as a registered nurse at Wangaratta hospital from 1959 to 1962. She continued to work there as a staff nurse and clinical tutor before going to Fauabu in 1970 to run the nursing school. The ABM sponsored her to return to Australia in 1972 to qualify as a nursing tutor and she returned to Fauabu from 1973 to 1975.

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Marion describes herself as an on-the-job trainer and took students to the government hospital at Kilu`ufi for lectures and surgical experience. Fauabu students spent most of their second year in Honiara learning surgical nursing and other specialties. As the government took over training of nurses, Fauabu wound down as a training school for registered nurses, and only two nurses were left to complete their training when Marion left in 1975. Marion also trained hospital aides as mothercraft nurses and developed a one-year curriculum for Village Health Aides, a new cadre of health workers96.

On her return to Australia, Marion opened a community health clinic at Marysville in Victoria, working there for seven years. After a midwifery refresher course, she worked as a midwife in Saudi Arabia for two years and, on her return, at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne. She retired in 2009 after a 50-year career in nursing and now lives in a retirement village in East Melbourne. Fauabu had a major impact on her life:

I came away having absorbed so much of the Solomon Islands by osmosis. Back here, I’d do something and wonder where did that come from? A whole way of life, my life has been influenced so much by living in the Solomon Islands—they didn’t intend to teach me, and I wasn’t looking to or asking to be taught. It just happened. 5.4.2.4 Pam Goodes (1946~)

Pam Goodes was born in 1946 to a farming family near Warrnambool in south-west Victoria. As a ten-year old, inspired by church members who had worked overseas, she announced to her family that she wanted to be a missionary. After completing her senior school-leaving certificate, she began nurse training in 1964 at Warrnambool hospital, qualified in 1967 and then trained as a midwife at the Royal Women’s Hospital.

Pam, who arrived in Fauabu in 1972 as an ABM volunteer, was known as ‘Sister Barma’ (cf. ‘Sister Barty’). She was 26 years old, the same age Helen Barrett had been when she arrived but now half her age. She specialised in midwifery, which was ‘purely women’s business’ according to traditional culture. Practices such as birthing and menstruating in isolated huts were still followed in villages that had not yet converted to Christianity. Women from such villages who gave birth at the hospital or arrived soon after stayed for up to 40 days in the postpartum period while they were still tabu and not allowed to return home.

Birth and fertility rates peaked in Malaita and Solomon Islands in the 1970s, which kept Pam kept extremely busy running maternal and child health clinics.97 She also had a family planning program

96 Village Health Aides were later called Village Health Workers. 97 Fertility peaked at 7.3 births per woman in 1974 (World Bank 2018). The population of the district covered by Fauabu hospital was estimated by Helen at 10,000, roughly equal to the populations of both Makira and Isabel.

126 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history with about 100 users, including some Catholic women. She did regular district work and managed female in-patients. The most common medical conditions were malaria (especially after control measures faltered after Independence), acute respiratory infections, infected wounds and worm infestations. Indigenous (kastom) medicines were often used by patients but kept hidden from expatriate nurses.

Pam stayed at Fauabu for 11 years until she decided to leave with Helen Barrett and Pat Halpin (see Section 5.4.4). Back in Australia, she returned to work at The Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne. She was grateful for a refresher course because technology and midwifery interventions had changed greatly during her time overseas. In 1989, she completed a two-year post-registration nursing degree and returned to the Solomons in 1991 as a clinical teacher in midwifery at the Solomon Islands College of Higher Education (SICHE) in Honiara, a move that she regretted:

Looking back I shouldn’t have [taken the job], because it’s never as good when you go back a second time. I ended up doing everything—and there have been days when I taught four different levels in one day. Pam has not returned to the Solomons since 1993, partly due to having to care for her mother as she gradually went blind. She worked as a senior midwife at the Royal Women’s until her retirement in 2011.

5.4.2.5 Veronica Kefu (1938–2005)

Born in 1938 in Isabel, Veronica Kefu attended Tasia school in Isabel, where she first met Helen Barrett. Her parents were both health workers, her mother a district midwife and her father a ‘dresser’ who had trained at Fauabu. Veronica began nurse training at Fauabu in 1963 but her training was thought to be over when her lower leg had to be amputated due to a familial degenerative disease. However, after she was fitted with a prosthetic leg in PNG, she returned to Fauabu in November 1964. She worked first with the ‘orphans’, and then resumed her training when her mobility was confirmed— ‘she became so expert on her prosthetic leg that one tends to forget that it’s there’ (Webster letter 1965). She qualified in January 1969 and began work as a junior sister. Always immaculately dressed, she conducted outreach clinics reachable by road because her prosthesis made walking on hills and in mud difficult.

Veronica was much-loved by her Fauabu Sisters. Like the others, but unusually for a Solomon Islands woman, she never married or had children. Helen and Pat helped to pay for her permanent house at Jejevo near the Isabel provincial capital because she could not walk and refused to be carried up the steep climb to Bara, her parents’ village. In later years she stayed with Helen for five months in Brisbane while she was fitted with a new prosthesis, and also visited Pat Halpin. Veronica died aged 67 in 2005, and the following year Pat and Helen went to Isabel and made the climb to her village to lay a memorial plaque for her.

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Fig. 5.16 Veronica Kefu doing district work Fig. 5.17 Helen Barrett, Pam Goodes, Veronica 1970s (photo: Pat Halpin) Kefu and Pat Halpin, 1979 (photo: Pat Halpin)

I move next to the Sisters’ memories and oral testimonies of Fauabu, including those of former student nurses Alice Watoto and Edith Fanega, plus other source materials that inform us about their work.

5.4.3 The Sisters at Fauabu 1968 to 1984

When Helen Barrett took over, Fauabu hospital was still demoralised by Matron Webster’s death and the departure of the last resident doctor, Dr Harvey, in January 1967. Veronica Kefu (1973, 2) wrote, ‘we felt as if we were lost altogether and wondered what would happen to the hospital’. Director of Medical Services Dr Macgregor visited a month later in February 1968 and noted in his diary:

Fauabu has fallen on evil days with no medical officer at post, although it has been somewhat invigorated by the arrival of four nursing sisters from Australia... Though they are trying quite hard under unsatisfactory conditions, I doubt if morale can be maintained for long unless a new doctor arrives. (Macgregor 2016, 244) Macgregor’s pessimism proved unfounded. With 20 years of experience in the Solomons and the support of doctors at Kilu`ufi hospital, Helen Barrett saw Fauabu hospital and community services recover. She had overall charge of the hospital and leprosy clinics, did district work and, as always, was involved with Mothers’ Union members. Pat Halpin arrived in 1969 and took responsibility for the pharmacy, outpatients, TB patients, and district work. From 1970, Marion Gray took over as nurse tutor, while Helen Morris was responsible for child clinics and orphans and shared midwifery on call. Helen Morris was replaced in 1972 by Pam Goodes who took charge of maternity ward, antenatal and child health clinics at the hospital, and district work.

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Fig. 5.18 The Fauabu Sisters, 1970 (L–R) Helen Barrett, Pat Halpin, Marion Gray, Helen Morris, Veronica Kefu (photo: Helen Barrett collection)

Edith Fanega, a former student, remembers the expatriate sisters as ‘very energetic’:

Helen was tall and slim, straightforward, and gave us a good orientation. She was very direct with Malaitan people and told them straight, ‘don’t smoke’. Pam was short and Pat was in between. They spoke to the patients in Pijin and nurses in English. A no-nonsense matron, Helen Barrett was firmly in charge:

[Helen] said to do it her way and that’s the way it was—it was a waste of time in the end to disagree, we had to do it her way although we might be able to get around it if you convinced her that it was her idea and then do it. (Goodes 2016) The Sisters were a close-knit group, bound by gender, profession, community, and faith. Their companionship included student nurses and local staff. Without television, the nurses made their own entertainment with board games, reading and entertaining visitors. Being on the coast road and close to Auki, Fauabu was also a popular spot for visitors with hundreds annually passing through by ship or on the coast road.

We were family... a lot of that was because of Helen Barrett, it was just Helen. We were all good friends, people came and went but Helen and I were together in one house longer than the others. (Halpin 2016) The Sisters lived almost lay religious lives and were regarded as nuns by Solomon Islanders (Watoto interview 2014). Prayers and hymns started and ended the working day on the wards and were also said in the chapel, plus mass on Sundays when the nurses also brought the orphans to church. Church activities included choir practice and bible study. The Anglican mission organised church

129 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history feast days and liturgical ceremonies, with feasting and dancing in conjunction with local villages. Elaborate costumed Christmas nativity and Easter plays were also expertly organised by the nurses.

We lived good religious lives like nuns, so it was really by other people watching what we were doing that we influenced them rather than telling them how to live like good Christians. (Morris 2016) But not all was holiness and innocence at Fauabu:

Nursing students—they were not all innocent—one of them had two children and was allowed to come back. Helen Barrett didn’t want to throw away good nurses. Really we were aiming for nurses not to get pregnant, otherwise parents would not allow girls to come for training... one of the nurses came to us and said, ‘Sister, one of us is pregnant!’ and then we had to work out who and who by! (Morris 2016) 5.4.3.1 Hospital work

As matron, Helen Barrett insisted on strict discipline in the hospital and cleanliness was almost religiously practised on the wards. Alice Watoto remembers how, as a student nurse, cleaning dominated students’ work at Fauabu. Infection control was strict, rubbish was burned, bins washed and disinfected.

Each ward had one domestic orderly but student nurses cleaned inside and outside the wards, including drains and weeding in the gardens. Nurses were also organised into groups for other duties, including organising church, dining hall, trading and marketing produce. Matron Barrett checked if work was completed and if not, nurses had to come back to the ward. (Watoto 2014) Cleanliness extended to patients, especially those from bush and traditional villages. On admission, patients were checked from head to toe; if a patient had head lice their head was shaved and any sores were treated with gentian violet. Earlier, Happeline Webster had written to Helen Barrett:

I only said to Kefu this morning that if somebody left me a fortune, I’d like to spend it on soap for the mothers of this island. We always send them home with soap and blanket or cover and a shirt. The two babies I admitted this morning I had to get the nurses to wash them before I could see what was wrong. (Webster 1965) Cleanliness and nutrition were strongly emphasised at Maternal Child Health (MCH) clinics, through the Mothers’ Union, and in literacy classes for women. Helen Barrett recalled:

We taught the mothers how to look after their babies, to keep them clean, how to feed them, regularly and with nourishing food. Melanesians don’t eat three meals a day. They’ll cook some food at night and that will do for whatever is standing by until next evening. So they don’t feed babies regularly. Nutrition and cleanliness were the main things. If they kept their fingernails short, they didn’t bring scabies to their children. Caring for the ‘orphans’ was a time-consuming part of work for nursing students and mothercraft nurses who had to cook for, feed and play with them. Edith Fanega remembers the ‘orphans’ as ‘healthy and fat but big work’. Alice Watoto enjoyed this work and found that her mothercraft training helped with her own children; she later specialised in maternal and child health. The

130 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history children stayed until they could walk, because they usually came back malnourished if they left earlier. Adoptive parents and relatives also came to stay for one month to bond with the children and learn good childcare since villages still had high levels of infant and child mortality due to neonatal sepsis, tetanus, malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhoea. In the early 1980s, caring for ‘orphans’ was discontinued as standards of village hygiene and particularly water supplies improved, and because the Sisters realised the problems that some children had in integrating back into village life.

Fauabu hospital had male, female, children’s, and maternity wards. Seriously ill patients and women in complicated labour were transferred to the government hospital near Auki, although this was not always feasible due to rain-gouged ruts in the hill outside the hospital. Government medical officers from Kilu`ufi hospital near Auki provided weekly clinics to see referred patients and those undergoing TB and leprosy treatment. The Sisters followed treatment and patient management protocols determined by the colonial medical system.

We didn’t try to keep anything that we couldn’t obviously do ourselves or handle straight away or they needed much more than we could do. We did most stitching of wounds and also dental extractions. (Barrett 2015) Without resident doctors, the Sisters had considerable autonomy at Fauabu but were responsible for the outcome of their clinical decisions and making referrals to doctors at Auki. Pam Goodes recalls the frustration when their advice as experienced midwives was ignored at the government hospital, sometimes with fatal consequences:

I sent a woman to Auki and told the doctor that the woman was small and that it was a big baby and I would have difficulty delivering her [so she] needed a caesarean. A week later I asked what had happened and told that they had tried to deliver baby vaginally but it had died. (Goodes 2016) By the late 1960s, developments in medical treatments and disease control programs had advanced significantly and were becoming more available through the expansion of hospital government clinics, hospitals and nurse training. Antibiotics such as penicillin, streptomycin and sulphonamide drugs brought TB, leprosy, yaws, hookworm, tropical sores, and acute infections under control (Boutilier 1978). Combination antibiotic treatments reduced the transmission of TB and leprosy, making possible an initial period of hospital treatment followed by long-term medication and care in the community, plus active case detection and contact tracing.98 Mass immunisation programs reduced the frequency and severity of polio, whooping cough, measles, and neonatal tetanus.

98 The incidence of leprosy decreased from more than 130 new cases in 1964 to 33 cases five years later. With immunisation and improved case treatment, TB fell from 496 to 340 new cases in 1968 (Macgregor 2016, 234).

131 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history

The prevalence of malaria, an endemic health problem, fell dramatically in the late 1960s and early 1970s following a successful government eradication program using household spraying with DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), mass drug administration and case treatment (Macgregor 2006). Malaria prophylaxis during pregnancy, together with increasing acceptance of birthing at clinics and hospitals, helped reduce miscarriages, stillbirths, and postpartum haemorrhages (Macgregor 2006). Unfortunately, the malaria control program faltered and finally failed after 1975 with the replacement of DDT with organophosphates, a decision regarded by some as ‘a blunder of the first magnitude with little or no real science’ (Macgregor 2006, 422).

5.4.3.2 District work

The Fauabu district was divided into three zones, with three satellite clinics visited every week at central villages along the main road or in the bush. The latter could be tough going (see Fig. 5.22).

I wore long socks all the time to keep the bities off and plastic sandals. There was 130 inches [3.3m] of rain a year, other shoes just broke up. The plastic sandals didn’t get stuck in the mud and you could just wash them off. (Halpin 2016) District work included antenatal care, family planning, child health (growth monitoring and immunisations), treatment of minor illness and wounds, and TB and leprosy follow-up. School clinics were conducted once a year (see Fig. 5.23 below). Outreach clinics were added after 1968 as more staff joined Helen Barrett. By 1976 a road had been built east across Malaita, allowing satellite clinics at more distant villages.

We walked right across the island, one of our vaccination clinics was at the top of the island... Our philosophy was, ‘If you go to them, they’ll come to you’, that’s how we thought about it… There would be an RN and student nurse in training and a driver, who also helped. Honiara student nurses also came when they were doing their community health, they loved it. (Halpin 2016)

Fig. 5.19 Helen Barrett and nurse aides going Fig. 5.20 District work—school health bush (photo: Pat Halpin) clinic (photo: Pat Halpin)

132 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history

‘Hard touring’ involved carrying equipment for staying overnight in villages over several days, which the nurse aides did with the Fauabu Sisters. The bush tours were especially demanding due to the steep hills and often heavy rain and mud. Nurses wore different uniforms for touring and carried their own water and vaccines kept cold in thermos flasks, plus equipment (weighing scales, stethoscopes, auroscope, essential drugs, dressing kits, hurricane lamp and torches). ‘Light touring’ meant returning to Fauabu on the same day, but not until all patients had been seen. Some patients returned with the nurses for treatment or were referred to Kilu`ufi hospital. Before going to bed, all equipment was washed and prepared for sterilising, and TB slides dried and packed.

Nursing students from Honiara spent 10–15 weeks doing community health training at clinics in north Malaita, working without doctors, including four weeks at Fauabu. Student nurses generally did day tours with one of the Sisters and two Fauabu nurses in training. Part of the community training was to complete a community assessment of one village and a nursing assessment in the hospital. Their training also included visiting the leprosarium to learn how to treat and manage leprosy patients. Edith Fanega found the community nursing training at Fauabu more rigorous and better organised than at government clinics.

5.4.3.3 Nurse training

The well-organised inpatient, outpatient, and district services at Fauabu provided student nurses with a sound practical training. Fauabu students spent more time in the classroom during their first nine months and went to Kilu`ufi hospital for lectures and to observe surgical operations. The second year of training was spent at Central Hospital in Honiara to gain broader hospital experience. Students then returned to Fauabu for their third year, focusing on district and outpatient clinics. Student nurses gave treatments and medicines according to a set protocol:

When they had a temperature and no signs of ear or chest infection or boil, they were treated for malaria. If they did have infection of some kind, they got an injection of long-acting penicillin and we got them to come back. When the doctor did come to see referred patients, it was excellent training for nurses when they had to work by themselves. (Goodes 2016)

Fauabu-trained nurses were an important component of the health workforce prior to Independence, representing 25% of newly trained nurses in the country from 1968 to 1977.99 By 1973, registered nurse training was gradually taken over by the government school of nursing in Honiara. After Marion Gray returned from tutor training in 1973, the nursing intake had fallen to an intake of five students per year. The last registered nursing students from Fauabu qualified in 1977, although the nursing school continued to train mothercraft nurses and nurse aides who were

99 SI Nursing Council registration database.

133 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history needed to care for inpatients and orphans. One-year nurse aide training began in 1972 and continued into the 1990s. In 1976, Fauabu also began training Village Health Aides (VHA), a new type of ‘barefoot doctor’ or health worker, as part of the introduction of primary health care (PHC). The one-year course was later reduced to six months, and eventually to three months. Some VHAs went on to train as nurse aides and then later as registered nurses (Chevalier and Ma`au 2016).

Fig. 5.21 Fauabu nurses graduating, 1972; Alice Dinarii (Watoto), middle, back row (photo: Helen Barrett collection)

5.4.4 Leaving Fauabu

Fauabu’s role and significance lessened as Malaita’s provincial headquarters and primary urban centre at Auki grew (Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo 2001, 61). An expanded 100-bed government hospital at Auki opened in 1967 and an airfield allowed ready evacuation of urgent medical cases to Honiara, where advanced treatments, investigations and blood transfusions were available. Graded roads to the north and east enabled easier access to a mini-hospital further north at Malu`u. Clinics were added around Malaita, together with an impressive and well-funded Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) hospital and school of nursing at Atoifi on the east coast of Malaita that provided medical services and outreach into remote mountainous areas.

Decolonisation was accompanied by a process of localisation. As part of this process the Church of Melanesia separated from New Zealand in 1975 and its first Solomon Islander archbishop, Norman Palmer, was appointed.100 The three remaining Sisters—Helen Barrett, Pat Halpin and Pam Goodes—continued working at Fauabu until early 1984, when they were replaced by local staff and short-term Australian volunteers. Changes during the Sisters’ final years included the end

100 The Diocese of Melanesia separated from the Province of New Zealand in January 1975, becoming a Province with four dioceses, three in Solomon Islands and one covering Vanuatu and (Davidson 2000, 51).

134 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history of Fauabu’s status as a hospital, and its role in registered nurse training, caring for ‘orphans’ and patients with leprosy.

The declining relevance of Fauabu as a hospital was compounded by the state of the buildings, some of which were riddled with termites and needed replacing after 50 years. The Church of Melanesia considered handing over its medical service to the government and converting Fauabu into a church training centre. Exiting medical work was contentious because of concern that the church would be diminished by comparison with other churches that ran hospitals and nurse training schools—the SDA hospital at Atoifi and the United Church at Munda in Western Province. The Sisters continued their work while the debate went on. Eventually the decision was made to retain Fauabu as a health facility under church control. In 1983, Fauabu was redesignated by the government as an area health centre with assurances of government staff and Australian volunteer support. With the future of Fauabu as a mission health centre assured, the three Australian Sisters decided in 1983 that it was time to leave.

It seemed to be a good idea because there were plenty of Melanesians to take over. Fr Sam Iro took over in charge. We weren’t training any longer, only the Honiara students were coming over for the community health practical. (Halpin 2016) After many farewell speeches and acknowledgments, the Sisters departed the Solomons via Isabel to allow Helen Barrett to say farewell to her favourite island, where she had worked for 14 years. Pat Halpin and Pam Goodes went on to New Zealand to visit donors and supporters of Fauabu, including Nellie Stead.

Fig. 5.22 Farewell to Fauabu, 1984 (photo: Church of Melanesia Newsletter)

135 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history

When the Sisters returned to Australia, their practical expertise and experiences in Solomon Islands were not recognised and their professional skills needed updating.

Coming back to Australia was hard. Everything was related to money whereas in the Solomons money wasn’t that important. My nursing experience in the Solomons wasn’t recognised. On the wards, the experience in the Solomons was not worth anything. (Goodes 2016) Helen’s colleagues undertook refresher courses and continued to work as nurses or midwives until retirement. Helen was asked by the Mothers’ Union to work in the Torres Strait, where she worked from 1987 to 1994.

The Sisters remained friends for over 35 years, keeping in touch by phone, writing and visiting each other to celebrate significant birthdays. Pat sometimes travelled from Wagga Wagga to Melbourne to visit Pam, Helen Morris and Marion. In January 2017, Helen Barrett, then aged 95, visited Pat in Wagga Wagga, and were joined by Helen Morris, who commented later, ‘That was a wonderful three days with people who are very dear to me’. This was their last time together before Helen died in November 2019.

In 2018, the Church of Melanesia celebrated the ninetieth anniversary of the establishment of Fauabu hospital, a longevity exceeded only by the Methodist Helen Goldie hospital in Munda. Fauabu continues as a health centre to the present day, but functions now only as a rural health clinic providing outpatient services and some inpatient medical care, including midwifery. Visiting Fauabu before the celebrations, I saw that many of the buildings were in poor condition or had been demolished after nine decades in a tropical environment. But the geography remains essentially unchanged and the remaining buildings bear witness to the colonial and missionary history in Malaita.

5.4.5 The missionary influence

By the 1980s, when the Sisters left Fauabu, Christianity had been nearly universally adopted in Malaita, with only pockets of traditional religion followers in the Kwara`ae and Kwaio areas of central Malaita. Providing medical and education services were key mission strategies for conversion of Indigenous people and a decisive element of colonisation, physically and psychologically (Boutilier 1978).101 The hospital was a formidable expression of faith and power that drew Islanders to the mission church. Medical missionaries provided a tangible service to

101 Elsewhere, the Methodist Church established hospitals at Munda in the Roviana lagoon in 1902, and at Sasamunga in Choiseul in 1928 (Moore 2013). The SDA hospital at Atoifi on the east coast of Malaita followed a similar strategy from the 1960s, establishing a registered nurse training school as well as conducting outreach to the mountainous villages above the east coast of Malaita (MacLaren 2006, 76–98).

136 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history

Islanders through surgery, treatments for scourges such as TB, leprosy and yaws which improved survival for children and adults.

Missionary nurses showed remarkable commitment and some like Helen Barrett and Christine Woods led long missionary careers, alongside many others who worked for shorter periods. They were motivated not just by deep faith and commitment to the Anglican church, but also their profession and training as nurses in the service of others. Helen Barrett led a lay religious life as an associate of the Sisters of the Sacred Advent, whose mission was ministering to the needs of women and children. The other Australian missionaries were volunteers who were motivated not only by faith and professional interest, but also the prospect of adventure in tropical islands.

5.4.6 Gender relations

The Sisters had trained within the strict gender and disciplinary regimes of the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s and these were reproduced at Fauabu hospital, which trained only female students, including for community health training.102 Nurse training in Australia in this period was highly gendered and contained hierarchical distinctions between first-, second-, and third-year nurses, staff nurses, ward sisters and matrons. Residence at hospital during training was compulsory, which made control of female labour easier and cheaper (Baldwin 1995; Hazard and Sweet 2015). Even in the 1960s in Australia, and up to the 1980s in Solomon Islands, nursing students were single and forced to resign if they wished to marry or became pregnant. The Sisters never married or had children, which was not uncommon for missionaries or career nurses. Helen Morris (2016) recalls her own training:

A lot of them who have gone before me were single women but then a lot of them lost their boys during the war. They were wonderful nurses, ran a tight ship. A lot of them lived in, the spinster nurses—and we’re the last of the line!

Nurses often form close-knit support groups to help deal with homesickness, hard work routines, discipline and the many discomforts of nursing (Baldwin 1995; Hazard and Sweet 2015). This was the case at Fauabu with students and staff. The Sisters also had support groups overseas from former missionaries, friends and family members who sent supplies and raised funds. These connections with the Solomons continued long after they left the Solomons, especially Helen Barrett through her association with the Mothers’ Union until her death.

Despite considerable female autonomy at Fauabu, the Sisters were constrained by a patriarchal hierarchy, with the Archbishop of Melanesia, diocesan bishops, priests and deacons, all males,

102 Mary Hazard, who trained in London during the 1950s, describes starting nursing as ‘joining the regiment’ and the hospital as ‘a totally matriarchal regime, similar to the Presentation Convent’ (Hazard and Sweet 2015, 24, 70).

137 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history determining institutional matters at the local and diocesan level. The Sisters were required to follow decisions of the church clergy, even when they did not agree. They were also constrained by patriarchal control over women and children in Malaitan societies, which diminished female status and agency. Subordination of women was evident in the servile roles assigned to them from an early age, in domestic violence and in delays in bringing them to hospital (or not at all). Male hegemony was exercised through socialisation, violence, customary rules (kastom) regarding women’s virtue and taboos surrounding menstruation, urination, and defecation. These were social and cultural realms which men controlled through compensation and violence, including death for serious breaches (Keesing 1985, 29). Taboos related to childbirth placed women and newborns at grave risk, resulting in high rates of maternal mortality (Goodes interview 2016). Birthing at hospital became more common as villages converted to Christianity. Other practices that restricted female lives were eased and separate housing for men and women was no longer practised except in non- Christian villages.

While Christian and colonial rule freed women from some forms of oppression, their inferior status was still sanctioned by Christian scripture and reinforced by opposition to artificial birth control. The Church of Melanesia had a more liberal policy towards to birth control than SSEC and Catholic churches. Fauabu’s family planning program was successful until a priest preached against it as evil, according to Pam Goodes. High fertility rates (7.3 births per women in 1974), combined with lower school enrolment for females, reinforce women’s burdens and subordinate status. Veronica Kefu escaped this fate by remaining single, through her education, profession, and close friendship with her Fauabu Sisters.

5.4.7 Class and education

It is difficult to detect class as a significant factor in the lives of the Fauabu Sisters, but education was a salient factor. Helen Barrett’s upbringing as the daughter of an Anglican minister, and as a foundation student and head girl at St Aidan’s, positioned her as middle class by family and education. The other Sisters grew up in Australian working-class families, three from country towns. Teaching, nursing, and secretarial work were typical opportunities for women in Australia up to the 1960s. All five Sisters gained school leaving certificates, which was sufficient to enter nurse training. University education was a rare option for women, especially from working-class or rural backgrounds, and only became feasible with the Whitlam government reforms after 1972 (Guy interview 2017).103 In the mid-1980s, nursing in Australia moved from hospital-based training

103 Jacqui Guy, an Australian nurse educator who was interviewed for the nursing officer case study, left school with a senior school leaving certificate in 1961 but never considered that going to university was an option for someone of working-class background (Guy interview 2017).

138 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history into tertiary education institutions and nursing degrees became possible. After returning to Australia, Pam Goodes went to university and completed a post-registration nursing degree when she was in her early 40s.

In Solomon Islands, education for women prior to Independence was limited by low primary, and even fewer secondary, school enrolments. The last opportunity for primary school leavers to enter nursing was in 1968 in Honiara and 1970 at Fauabu. Secondary education for females became available as the government took over the education system in the lead-up to Independence. After Independence, access to education for females expanded considerably but opportunities were limited by cultural bias towards males and by rapid population growth outpacing secondary and tertiary education places. As we will see in the third case study, changing opportunities in education are reflected in the education levels of different generations of nurses who trained before and after Independence.

5.4.8 Colonial racism

The Sisters worked within a racist British colonial system, albeit more benevolent than that which responded to the Bell Massacre with atrocities and to Maasina Rule with imprisonment and contempt. In the lead-up to Independence, Solomon Islanders were still treated as inferior to and patronised by their white rulers:

In the colonial era we were treated as boys rather than men... the psychology of neo-colonialism is disguised and often silent. Its strength lies behind clever and effective manipulation and planned role playing on the part of the colonialist causing confused passivity. (Bugotu 1973, 79) Solomon Islanders often deeply resented their colonial bosses (Johnstone and Powles 2012; Gina 2003; Kenilorea 2008). Racism towards ‘natives’ permeated public service and commerce, especially among long-serving expatriates. The 2016 memoir of Dr Jimmy Macgregor, the protectorate’s chief medical officer from 1957 to 1975, is replete with patronising and racist attitudes towards Solomon Islanders. His diary entries detail a colonial lifestyle in Honiara filled with government events, expatriate-only celebrations and rituals at clubs and frequent dinner parties for guests and visitors. There are few mentions of Solomon Islanders by name, while expatriate visitors are named— however humble and fleeting their visits. To their credit, the Sisters avoided Honiara and colonial government social life as much as possible. As missionaries, their lifestyles and relations with Solomon Islanders were more equitable than those of expatriates in Honiara.

Islanders were socialised into an essentially racist system at schools and through their interactions with government services. Boarding schools were a mixture of English public school and prison farm; harsh discipline and punishments, especially for male students, resulted in feelings of shame,

139 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history humiliation and inferiority for islanders (Kenilorea 2008, 76–77). Mission boarding schools also kept children from their families for three to four years at a stretch due to the lack of time, transport and finances to allow students to go home at holidays. During her first 20 years in Isabel, Guadalcanal and Makira, Helen Barrett was part of the mission boarding school system, which inflicted many indignities and brutal discipline on students. The older brother of Solomon Mamaloni, Francis Tohe, whom I interviewed in 2010, recalled with disgust his duties as a domestic servant (hausboi) for Helen Barrett. He had to carry and clean latrine buckets at Kerepei clinic next to the boarding school, adding, ‘If Sister Barrett was alive, I would ask her for compensation’ (Tohe interview 2010). 104 Helen had no memory of the students who worked for her and gave no indication of recognising the cultural offence caused by hausboi duties.

The racist colonial system was not of their making or liking, and the Sisters were not consciously racist. Helen Barrett’s long service and relations with Solomon Islanders after retirement are testimony to her empathetic attitudes and her Christian values of equality. Her lifelong association with the Mothers’ Union shows her to have been highly sympathetic towards Indigenous women and children. The other Sisters also showed no signs of racist attitudes in their interviews. Their relations with Veronica Kefu and the students appear authentic. Their oral testimonies thus provide us with a more nuanced understanding of colonial racism, not as a totalising system but varying with individuals, locations, and situations. 5.5 Conclusion

The history of Fauabu and the Sisters illustrates the importance and role of mission churches and missionaries in the colonial era. These missionary nurses worked together at the second oldest hospital in Solomon Islands during and after the transition to independence. Bound by profession, gender and faith, they formed deep friendships that have lasted into old age. Helen Barrett, the central figure, served as an Anglican missionary in Solomon Islands from 1947 to 1984, followed by service in the Torres Strait islands with the Mothers’ Union from 1987 to 1994. She was publicly recognised with honours from the British, Solomon Islands, Australian and Queensland governments and the Anglican Board of Mission. Her colleagues have also had long careers of service as paediatric nurses and midwives but have not been feted with honours or articles.

In this chapter, I have explained the oral history research process involved, including accessing and analysing source materials. Interviews with the Sisters in Australia were supplemented with other primary sources, including photographs and personal documents, as well as secondary historical

104 Faeces and any bodily fluids are highly tabu substances in Melanesian cultures. Both Tohe and myself were unaware that Helen Barrett was still alive at the time.

140 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history sources. Further details of work and training at Fauabu were provided by oral history interviews with two former students. The interviews provide insights into the Sisters’ training and nursing careers, their contributions in Solomon Islands and their bonds of friendship that continued back in Australia. Their histories overlap with the training and early careers of nursing officers in the case study that follows.

The chapter has also described the historical context of Malaita before the Sisters arrived, including labour migration, missionization, and colonial pacification. The history of Fauabu hospital illustrates the central role of missionary churches in developing health services and nurse training before and after the Pacific War. The Fauabu Diary compiled for hospital’s fiftieth anniversary also illuminates major developments in biomedical treatments and public health control, particularly of malaria, TB and leprosy. These changes increased life expectancy and population growth in the post-war era. By the 1970s, Fauabu hospital gradually lost importance as the colonial government, preparing for independence, took control of medical and education services.

This group history reveals how faith, gender, education, professional training and colonial racism operated at micro- (personal), meso- (institutional) and macro- (colonial and missionary systems) levels. Table 5.3 summarises the major themes and changes revealed by the Fauabu Sisters’ oral histories within a social historical framework, to facilitate connecting and contrasting the social history of the Fauabu Sisters’ case study with the two other case studies.

141 Chapter 5 The Fauabu Sisters—a group history

Table 5.3 Social history framework for the Fauabu Sisters

HB—Helen Barrett; HM—Helen Morris; MG—Marion Gray; PG—Pamela Goodes; PH—Pat Halpin; VK— Veronica Kefu

142

Chapter 6. Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history

6.1 Introduction

This third case study examines the post-war history of nursing in Solomon Islands through a collective history of 25 former nursing officers who trained prior to Independence. They were part of the last generation to be educated and trained during British colonial rule. Their careers overlapped with those of the Fauabu sisters from the previous case study and illuminate developments in nursing and medical services after 1985 in a country with few doctors and highly reliant on nurses. These nursing officers witnessed major changes to training and localisation of the nursing leadership. They also saw significant changes to the wider contexts of their work, including expansion in international health programs and donors, changes in epidemiologic patterns and a rapidly growing population.

In Section 6.2, I introduce the participants and describe the collective biography approach which was used. In Section 6.3, I summarise their backgrounds, previous education and reasons for choosing to become nurses. In Section 6.4, I analyse their career trajectories and examine factors affecting their postings and promotions in a personalised system influenced by gender and Indigenous big-man culture. I also review their lives after retirement, noting that many are suffering ill-health caused by urban lifestyles and modern diets. In Section 6.5, I examine changes which have taken place in the nursing profession, in its relationships to other health professions and in the influence of donors. In Section 6.6, I summarise the key themes arising from the case study. 6.2 A collective history approach

The collective history approach in this chapter assembles a history of nursing in Solomon Islands in the pre- and post-independence era. It is based on the oral testimonies and career histories of 25 former nursing officers in Solomon Islands, combined with an analysis of primary and secondary documentary sources, and a database of nursing registrations in the pre- and post-independence eras. Much detailed individual testimony has been summarised, as is common to most interview- based social research, but it nonetheless paints a broader picture of nursing and the changing contexts of nursing in Solomon Islands.

6.2.1 Participants’ demographic characteristics

The 25 participants were registered nurses (RNs) who trained in the British colonial system between 1967 and 1980.105 Table 6.1 summarises participants’ demographic information. They

105 A complete list of participants and other persons interviewed is attached at Appendix 3.

143 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history came from all four districts of the colonial administration and six of the ten current provinces. All were born between 1943 and 1960 and were aged between 54 and 72 years (average 61 years) at the time of interview. All had retired as nurses, the earliest in 1989 and the latest in 2016. When interviewed, several were still working for non-government organisations (NGOs), church organisations or the nurses’ union (Solomon Islands Nursing Association).

Table 6.1. Demographic characteristics of the Nursing Officers Female Male Total Gender 11 14 25 Married 10 10 20 Divorced/separated 2 2 4 Never married 1 – 1 Median age at marriage 23.5 yrs 24.9 yrs 24.3 yrs Age at interview 50–54 yrs 1 1 2 55–59 yrs 5 4 9 60–64 yrs 2 5 7 65–69 yrs 2 3 5 70–74 yrs 1 1 2 No. of children average 3.9 4.8 4.4 range 3 to 5 4 to 8 3 to 8 Years in nursing 20–24 yrs 2 – 2 25–29 yrs – 2 2 30-34 yrs – 6 6 35–39 yrs 8 5 13 40–44 yrs 1 1 2 Province of origin Malaita 5 3 8 Western 4 2 6 Makira/Ulawa – 5 5 Isabel 1 1 2 Guadalcanal _ 2 2 Choiseul _ 1 1 Other – Vanuatu 1 – 1 Church affiliation Church of Melanesia 4 5 9 United Church / 2 3 5 Methodist 2 2 4 Catholic 2 1 3 Seventh Day Adventist 1 1 2 South Sea Evangelical – 1 1 Church Other Evangelical – 1

Nursing careers averaged 34.7 years in duration (range 21 to 44 years) for both female and male participants. They specialised in various areas of nursing, including clinical care, nurse education, and administration. Half were promoted to the highest ranks of the national and provincial nursing administration. All but one married and had children, usually soon after qualifying, and six married fellow nurses. Their average number of children was 3.9 for women and 4.8 for men. Half of the participants (12/24) had a child within one year of marriage and all but one had children within

144 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history four years of marriage, which affected the promotion of female nursing officers. Marriage and spouses’ occupation also affected promotion, as analysed in more detail in Section 6.4.2 below.

6.2.2 Collecting and curating the oral histories

The original design of this case study was for ten nurse participants, but this grew to 25 during fieldwork as participants mentioned former colleagues and knew their contact details or locations.106 This improved the representativeness of the case study and made it possible to compare participants by year of training, province and positions. I knew all but one of the participants through my work with the health and medical services between 1989 and 1998.

Margaret M. (1969) George M. (1971) Stanley W. (1972)

Figs. 6.1–6.3 Three of the ‘old guard’ nursing officers (final year of training in brackets) (photos: author)

In addition to the 25 participants included in the case study, I conducted supplementary interviews with 12 other informants. Four of these were nurse educators—two Solomon Islanders who trained in the 1980s and two Australians who trained in the 1960s and had experience of Solomon Islands college- and university-based training. Three others were nursing officers who trained in the college system after 1985. Five were Solomon Islands doctors, including three who had occupied top positions in the Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS), whom I interviewed to gain their perspectives on relations between the nursing and medical professions and on how nursing and medical structures had changed.

The interviews were conducted in Honiara, Kirakira (Makira Province) and Gizo (Western Province) between August 2014 and October 2016. Interviews with Solomon Islanders were usually in Solomon Pijin, lasting from one to four hours (average two-and-a-half hours).107 I wrote up text versions of the interviews, from which I produced individual career histories. I arranged

106 Mobile phones assisted greatly in contacting participants and organising interviews. 107 Initially I arranged interviews in two sessions but found that organising the second interviews was unnecessarily complicated. Single longer interviews were more straightforward to organise for interviewees and me.

145 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history the career histories chronologically (e.g., education, training, posting, promotions), by topics (e.g., outreach, treatments, health programs) and by themes (e.g., social and structural changes).108 Providing a common structure to the individual histories facilitated analysing the collective history and created narrative coherence. I sent individual career histories to participants with requests for corrections and missing details—for example, dates of birth of children, their schooling and work. Most participants returned corrections, mainly spellings or factual details but several asked that some comments or personal details to be deleted or anonymised to avoid causing offence or appearing negative about others.

The career histories and collective history were influenced by my selection of participants and prior connections with them. Our shared experiences, not always positive, inevitably influenced my questions, participants’ responses and my subsequent analysis. Having been actively engaged in outreach work and training of nurses and village health workers (VHWs), I probed these specific topics, sometimes at the expense of others that participants might have chosen to talk about. Participants tended to recall ‘the good old days’ before the Tension and the coup in 2000, when the country and medical services were so disrupted (see Section 6.5.3). I shared many of the participants’ disagreement with post-Tension restructures designed by health sector consultants who ignored what had worked well in the past, including my own and my wife’s contributions. However, participants’ subjective perspectives often overlooked objective improvements in health indicators and health services, such as improved life expectancy and child survival, which I discuss in Section 6.5.5. Subjective perspectives are central to oral history but can also provide a distorted view. I have therefore contrasted participants’ and my own perspectives with views from beyond the group of nursing officers in supplementary interviews and other source materials, such as reports, which are described in the next section.

6.2.3 Other source materials

Other source materials for this case study include published and unpublished documents shown in Table 6.2, together with internet data sources. Some participants brought personal documents, including résumés, which were particularly useful for precise recall of dates.109 Edith F. 1980 provided a digital copy of nursing registrations from 1955 to 2012 which she had digitised before retirement.110 This database was particularly useful for providing names, year of qualification,

108 Depending on the length of the interviews and level of detail provided, the career histories varied in length from 2,100 to 8,500 words (average 4,500 words) or four to 16 pages (average nine pages). 109 Dates were calculated in years and worked out from known or significant events, such as year of qualification and birth of children. 110 Registrations had only recently been digitised, reflecting the limited technical and financial resources of the Solomon Islands Nursing Council, which operates without charging registration fees.

146 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history training school, confirmed changes in training, details of training cohorts and numbers of registrations by decade.

Table 6.2 Sources of methods and materials used for the case study Sources Nursing Officers Nurse educators Other nurses Doctors Interviews (and 25—trained 4—nurse educators 3—nurses 5—trained résumés) between 1965 and (2 Australian, 2 trained after between 1976 and 1980 Solomon Islands) 1985 1989 Photographs By author, from personal collections, reports and documents Documents, Training Curricula: reports and Central Hospital School of Nursing Syllabus for Basic Nursing Education (1973) published Solomon Islands School of Nursing Curriculum for Post Basic Course in Nursing works and Management Course (1972, reprinted 1976) Registered Nursing Certificate Curriculum (1983) Nurse Aide Syllabus Solomon Islands (1993) Diploma of Nursing Curriculum (1996) Diploma in Advanced Nursing (Midwifery) Curriculum (1999)

Ministry of Health and Medical Service reports: Primary Health Care Seminar (1977) A Review of Primary Health Care Developments in Solomon Islands (1984) Strengthening Senior Nurses Management for Primary Health Care (1991) A Review of Village Health Workers (1992) National Health Annual Report. (2006) Ministry of Health and Medical Service Five-Year Plan, 2011–15 (2010) The Backbone at the Front Line, A Review of the Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Nurses in Solomon Islands (Save the Children Australia 1997). Borderline Successes and Failures: A final evaluation of the Choiseul Community Health Project 1994–1997 (CCHP 1998) Nursing registration 1955–2012 database. (Nursing Council/MHMS 2015) History of Nursing/Midwifery databank: Solomon Islands (WHO, Western Pacific Region 2015) Other: Health and Medical Services in Solomon Islands: A Guide for the Newly Arrived Expatriate Doctor (Baker 1982) Colonial Window, A View from the Past. 1951 to 1975 (Macgregor 2006) Solomoni: Times and Tales from Solomon Islands (Webber 2011) Solomon Islands Historical Encyclopaedia 1893–1978 (Moore 2013b)

During fieldwork, I uncovered a number of published and unpublished documents gathering dust in corridors and at the School of Nursing and Allied Health Services in the new national university, where a former WHO library had been donated—or, more accurately, dumped—in 2015. With permission, I searched through dozens of boxes and piles of materials yet to be sorted. The

147 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history materials included WHO bulletins, technical documents and periodicals documenting changing disease patterns and control programs, such as HIV and AIDS, primary health care (PHC), occupational health and safety, and TB control. Other key documents included copies of previous training curricula, annual reports, five-year plans, a 2015 work force establishment spreadsheet, and diagrams of MHMS organisations.

These documents complemented and provided both detail and context for the collective history testimonies. Some—such as reviews, reports and curricula—were also of historical value and could otherwise have been lost or thrown away, which is common when new offices are created. 6.3 Becoming nurses

In Section 6.3, I examine the nursing officers’ education, why they chose nursing as a career and their memories of training, which socialised them and shaped their identity as nurses. I summarise the history of nurse training in Solomon Islands in the post-war period to set in context the nurse training between 1967 and 1980.

6.3.1 Getting an education—the first step

The first step towards a career as a nurse was primary education and, from 1968, at least two years of secondary school.111 Only a minority of children achieved this due to the limited availability of schools and the ability of parents to meet the costs; even minimal costs were problematic for subsistence farmers with several school-age children. Most participants in this case study came from rural areas (as did 85% of Solomon Islanders). Two-thirds of their parents were subsistence farmers, some of whom had never been to school and none of whom had attended secondary schools. Four had parents who were doctors, village midwives or dressers; two were children of SDA missionaries serving in PNG; one had a seafaring father, and another’s father was a plantation supervisor. Several participants owed their education and careers to relatives who supported their school fees.

Almost all (20) of the participants were educated in Solomon Islands at mission boarding schools. Two whose parents were SDA missionaries did their primary schooling in Papua New Guinea before transferring to secondary schools in Solomon Islands. Three went to secondary schools in Sydney on government scholarships.112 One went to the government King George VI (KGVI)

111 Except for Alice W. 1974, who trained at Fauabu hospital and had only primary school education. All other participants completed at least nine years of schooling with an average of ten years. Those entering nursing before 1974 had an average of 9.7 years of schooling, which increased to 10.6 years after 1974. 112 These three had higher levels of secondary education (average 11.3 years or fifth form) and completed their nurse training in Australia. Another participant attended mission schools in Vanuatu before coming to the Solomons.

148 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history national secondary school but left after Form 2 (Year 9) because her family could not afford the fees. KGVI offered better prospects than did mission schools for completing the Cambridge Overseas Certificate Ordinary (‘O’) Level curriculum, which was required to enrol in Form VI (Year 12), matriculate to university and gain access to professions with higher status than nursing.113 Four participants took the Cambridge exams but none achieved the five passes, including English and Mathematics, needed to proceed to Form VI (Year 12). The expansion of primary and secondary schools after Independence made entry to nursing more accessible. Countering this was a gradual increase in entry-level requirements for nursing, meaning that the profession remains open to only a minority of school leavers.114

6.3.2 Choosing nursing

Career choices for women prior to Independence were limited to nursing, teaching and secretarial work. Nursing tutors visited schools to interview students and teachers also recommended students to do nursing. Nursing was the first choice for all the female participants, often inspired by seeing nurses and relatives working in a school, clinic, or hospital. The smart uniform and cap could also be a significant attraction for young girls:

[In 1959, when she was 12 years old] The nurses from Fauabu came down to Auki for the royal visit… I saw them in uniform—blue dress, white apron with cross straps behind, and white caps—and that was it (mi set nao). (Suhote S.1971) Nursing was not a first choice for half of the male participants, who had a wider range of options in trades, the police and in government. Seven men identified other first preferences—teacher, carpenter, electrician, postmaster, policeman, doctor and pharmacist. Some were influenced by parents and relatives who wanted them to provide health services in their own areas. Prior to 1974, male nurses qualified as medical assistants after an additional year of training, which gave them a status closer to doctors, extra pay and better promotion prospects than females who graduated as nurse-midwives.115 Nurses enjoyed considerable prestige, particularly in rural clinics, where they worked like general practitioners. Income was not a major incentive. Nursing was poorly paid and more could be earned with less training and less onerous work in Honiara.116 Newly qualified

113 The doctors interviewed for the study completed Form 6 (Year 12) at KGVI and went on to medical school in Fiji and PNG. 114 Minimum entry levels steadily increased as mass education increased after Independence, rising to Form 5 (Year 11) in the 1980s, Form 6 by the 1990s, and by 2008, Form 6/7 with passes in a science subject and maths. 115 Four male participants (GA, GM, BS, SW) qualified as medical assistants. They spent a fourth year of training at Central Hospital learning clinical diagnosis, laboratory microscopy and dental extraction. 116 Starting salaries in 1970 for first-year government students was only AUD 65 p.a., increasing to AUD 110 in third year. Trainees’ salaries increased to AUD 180 p.a. in 1976 and reached AUD 480 p.a. by third year in 1978. Mission- trained students at Fauabu were paid less than half the government rate.

149 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history government nurses were paid at level 3 of the public service (AUD 276 in 1971 and AUD 540 in 1976), the same as other government jobs requiring less training. Christian ideals of service also motivated students and sustained them in their careers:

Nurses should hold on to belief in God in their work … if God is missing in your life, then you cannot do the work honestly and give your full time. (AP. 1977F)

6.3.3 Nurse training in the colonial era

Nurse training became increasingly important as government medical services expanded and improved in the post-war period.117 A government training school was established at Central Hospital in 1952; it initially trained medical assistants in an 18-month course, extended to three years in 1954 (WHO/WPRO 2013). A new nursing school was built alongside the hospital, which was rebuilt in 1954–55. New district hospitals were built in Auki, Gizo and Kirakira during the 1950s. By 1962, there were 62 rural health clinics (RHCs) and 22 Mother and Child Welfare clinics. By 1967, another 60 RHCs and new rural hospitals were scheduled for establishment in Malaita, Isabel, Temotu and Choiseul. Urban clinics were opened from 1972 to cater for the expanding population of Honiara and to take pressure off Central Hospital.

Nurse training schools at Helena Goldie Hospital at Munda in Western District and Fauabu Hospital on Malaita provided most of the nursing workforce from pre-war days until the 1950s, but their graduates were not officially registered by the government until 1965–1966.118 In 1958, the Central Hospital School of Nursing began providing three-year training for nurse-midwives and four-year training for medical assistants. A Nurses and Midwives Ordinance was passed in 1958 and a Nurses and Midwives Board was established in 1959, which approved the nursing curriculum developed in conjunction with WHO nursing advisors (SIHE 2013). The first government-trained nurse-midwives qualified in 1961 but only four to eight qualified annually in the early years. This was due in part to trainees becoming pregnant, as noted by Director of Medical Services Dr Macgregor in his memoirs:

We have recently had a resurgence of the difficulties with nurse trainees which plagued us about 1960, namely several pregnancies despite strict, perhaps too strict, control of off-duty activities, a barbed wire fence, etc. We don’t know quite what else to do next, so we’re having a meeting shortly with the various missions who recruit girls for us. (Macgregor 2006, 188)

117 The data in this section draw on entries on medical services in the Solomon Islands Historical Encyclopaedia based on BSIP Annual Reports and sources used in Chapter 5 (The Fauabu Sisters). 118 Nurses from Fauabu were first registered in 1965, Helena Goldie nurses in 1966 and Atoifi nurses in 1982.

150 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history

Annual training intakes increased to 25–30 after 1965, but the ‘results were not impressive’ owing to limited inputs in terms of money and qualified teachers (Manning 1971). Attempts in the 1970s to increase intakes to meet the growing need for nurses were stymied by lower completion rates. Table 6.3 summarises the number of qualified nurses and medical assistants trained by government and mission training schools from 1955 to 1980 (MHMS 2015).

Table 6.3 Registered Nurses by training institution (Nursing registration database 2015) Helena Total Govt. Total Fauabu Goldie Mission 119 trained qualified 1955-60 Not Not Not 35 35 registered registered registered 1961-70 43 13 56 130 186 34 7 1971-80 41 137 181 ended 1976 ended 1975 Total 77 20 97 302 399

Mission training of RNs ended at Helena Goldie in 1975, after which it began training nurse aides (NAs). Training of RNs ended at Fauabu in 1976 but training of mothercraft nurses and village health aides continued there. Nurse training began at Atoifi Adventist Hospital in 1967 but, despite the shortage of nurses, its training program was not recognised by the Nursing Council until 1979.120 In order to qualify as RNs, two participants (Judith S. 1978F and Verlyn G.1980) transferred from Atoifi to Central Hospital but their prior training was not acknowledged, much to their frustration. The first cohort of registered nurses from Atoifi graduated in 1982 and its graduates have made a vital contribution to the national nursing workforce, both locally and overseas. However, Atoifi graduates were disadvantaged in terms of promotion compared with government-trained nurses, who monopolised the nursing hierarchy in Honiara (RS 1986F). The experience of Atoifi exemplifies the control of nurse training as a contested source of power and professional authority, an issue which will be examined further in Section 6.5.2.

The three-year nurse training model was adapted from British hospital training and taught by nurse tutors and ward sisters, with added input from WHO and UNICEF advisors. The tutors were mainly expatriates from Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, some of whom had international experience in Africa and the Middle East. Hospital doctors, and their wives who were qualified nurses, also taught students (Fig. 6.6). There were few qualified Solomon Islander tutors until the 1980s. The first was John Sisiolo, who qualified as a medical assistant in 1958 and trained as a nurse

119 A SSEC mission hospital also trained midwives at Nafinua in Malaita until 1968. 120 Despite repeated requests, the school at Atoifi was refused recognition owing to ‘an old-style English nurse’ who held the capacity to approve the tuition (MacLaren 2006, 91).

151 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history tutor in London in 1968. He was joined in 1973 by Margaret M. 1969, who had qualified as a double certificate nurse-midwife in Australia.

Fig. 6.4 Female nurse-midwives and male medical assistant graduates, Honiara 1964 (photo: BSIP News)

Participants remembered expatriate tutors and supervisors as being ‘hands on’ and strict:

Tutors had very wide experience. They wanted the students to be the best and went to the wards with students. They knew how to do mentoring, supervise and see gaps in the student—they could straighten you. Tutors followed up students on the wards and watched them doing procedures. They made sure they didn’t take short cuts and did things correctly. If they did the procedure wrong, they had to do it again and would even slap their hand. (Winston P. 1979) Sr Hayes would make sure you scrubbed up properly and would scold [tok had] if you did something wrong. You had to follow procedures and not take short cuts. She wanted you to understand her subjects and if you had average marks, she would call you in and encourage you to higher marks. (Stephen W. 1980) Relations between students and expatriates were bound by hierarchy and nursing protocol. All communications were in English, which often made new students afraid to talk. Ward sister positions were gradually localised prior to Independence as expatriates left and Solomon Islanders prepared to take over. In 1977, Sisiolo took over as Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) from Christine Acheson, who had been head of nursing services since the 1960s.

Solomon Islanders who qualified overseas were promoted quickly because they were regarded by expatriates as better trained and more qualified than their locally trained counterparts. This enhanced status saw them appointed to top national and provincial positions when the nursing

152 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history hierarchy was localised.121 However, many conditions treated in Australian hospital were less relevant in the Solomons, where tropical diseases and practical care of Indigenous people were more important.122 Overseas scholarships for RN training were discontinued after 1974 but continued for specialities such as ophthalmology, theatre nursing, nursing education, and health education.

6.3.4 Learning nursing

Most participants (21/25) trained at the Central Hospital (later Solomon Islands) School of Nursing, three trained overseas in Sydney, Australia, and one trained at the Church of Melanesia mission school of nursing at Fauabu.123 Most did not start training until they were nearly 20 years old (average 19.6 years, range 16 to 24 years), reflecting the fact that children in the Solomons usually started and completed school later.124 Following the British model, students were initiated into nursing through an eight-week Preliminary Training School (PTS) in the classroom and practical room at the eastern end of Central Hospital. After PTS, nurses learned through clinical practice and assessment in hospital wards, interspersed with classroom modules based around the theory and practice and biomedical models of hygiene and disease. Anatomy and physiology were rigorously emphasised, with several participants recalling their senior tutor’s mantra:

Know your anatomy and physiology, know your condition. You have to know the normal condition, then you will know the abnormal condition, otherwise you won’t know the treatment. Don’t cry on my shoulder when you fail. (Maurice Harvey, quoted by Edith F. 1980)

Students learned more advanced technical procedures towards the end of their training, such as inserting intravenous drips and emergency procedures, which they needed to work as independent practitioners in rural clinics. They also learned how to assist at operations if they worked at district hospitals. As we saw in the Fauabu case study, rural health experience and outreach services were taught in a three-month community health practicum during their third year.

Apart from technical aspects of nursing and caring for patients, student nurses spent much time on cleaning duties—mopping, ‘damp dusting’ (cleaning louvres and surfaces with a wet cloth), emptying bed pans, rinsing, and sorting dirty linen. The hospital employed few domestics and

121 Margaret M.1969 became a midwifery tutor on her return to the Solomons and later replaced John Sisiolo when he retired as CNO in 1982. Suhote S. 1971 was appointed nursing officer when she returned from Australia, matron of Central Hospital in 1978 at the age of 30, and head of nursing in Malaita in 1984. 122 Suhote S. 1971 remembers having to learn the diagnosis and treatment of malaria, yaws, and other endemic diseases when she returned. She saw her first Solomons case of a heart attack (myocardial infarction) two or three years after she came back. This condition has since become increasingly common (see Section 6.5.5). 123 Three of the government-trained nurses started their training at mission training schools (Helena Goldie and Atoifi) before transferring to the government school. 124 Two of the nursing cohort finished school aged 16 and entered nursing unusually young when 16 and 17 years old.

153 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history cleaners and the student workforce did most of the cleaning work. The final task of a shift was tidying the sluice room, where participants remember spending a great deal of time during their first and second year, including every half day of their five-and-a-half-day working week.125

Almost all participants recalled the strict discipline surrounding uniforms, work procedures, politeness, and punctuality. Discipline was enforced during hospital work and residential life. Uniform was the most important nursing ritual, promoting discipline, defining rank, and stressing order and precision (Bessant and Bessant 1991, 39–40). Personal neatness and uniforms received close inspection, much like military troops. Wristwatches, earrings, and necklaces were forbidden. Uniforms had to be starched and ironed, sandals always buckled and hair neat. Male nurses had to be cleanly shaven and if not were sent back to the dormitory to remedy their appearance. Students had to report for duty 15 minutes early and finish only when all tasks, including cleaning, were completed.

Uniforms had to be starched, clean, complete with cap, and hair neatly done. Discipline was very strict. Nurses had to be not just on time but report for duty ten minutes before handover report. Timing was very important, not ‘Solomon time’. If there was any problem, one had to see Matron straight away and knew what to expect. It made one disciplined and built nurses on their career path. (AP. 1977F) Like the Fauabu sisters, tutors and ward sisters reproduced the regimes in which they had been trained during the 1950s and 1960s—see also Dingwall et al. (1988) in Britain and Bessant and Bessant (1991) in Australia. Most students dealt with the institutional regime and restrictions quite easily as they had already been socialised by mission boarding schools. Those (such as JD 1978M) who could not do so either left or were dismissed. As in boarding schools, nursing students formed close friendships while studying, working, and living together at the hospital, which helped them to cope with the hardships, building what often became lifetime bonds.126

Residential accommodation meant that nurses were controlled and supervised both on and off duty. Male and female nurses lived in separate dormitories within the hospital compound, watched over by an expatriate ‘housemother’, a Catholic nun, who kept moral order and a close on any unoccupied beds at night. Students had easy and frequent access to the wards, where they often formed close bonds with patients, especially fellow islanders and wantoks. Almost all participants

125 The sluice room is a separate part of the ward where soiled disposables, bedpans, and medical and surgical instruments are dealt with, cleaned and disinfected. Central Hospital gradually employed more domestic cleaners and began training nursing assistants from 1974, but student nurses remember doing most of the cleaning duties at that time. 126 The socialisation process and students’ sense of belonging and loyalty changed when the training moved from the hospital to the College of Higher Education from 1985 to 1987. This issue is taken up in Section 6.5.1.

154 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history thought their training was enhanced by the classes, work and accommodation all being based at the hospital. ‘You felt the hospital environment, you felt ownership’ (Edith F. 1980).

Completing training required students to cope not only with the discipline, hard work and cultural differences with expatriates at the hospital but also to pass a series of written and practical exams. All but one of the participants (JD 1978M) were successful, some at their second or third attempt, while many other students did not qualify. Based on participants’ estimates of their student cohorts, the proportion of students who successfully graduated at Central Hospital during the 1970s ranged from 23% to 100% (see Table 6.4). Success rates were lower after 1975, suggesting that increasing nursing intakes came at the cost of quality in selection and training of nurses.

Table 6.4 Estimated completion rates for nursing intakes in the 1970s Training Graduates/intake % Completed 1971–1973 25/30 83% 1974–1976 21/21 100% 1975–1977 14/48 29% 1976–1978 9/40 23% 1977–1979 18/24 75% 1978–1980 15/35 43% Total 102/198 23–100% (av. 51.5%) Note: Calculated from training cohort sizes recalled by participants and compared with nursing registrations. From the dates of registration recorded in the nursing date base, it is estimated 26% passed the final exam at the second or third attempt.

Non-completion was usually due to failing exams or to cultural and disciplinary issues. Some students could not cope with, or were frustrated by, the academic side of nursing in English.127 Others could not accept the physically unpleasant aspects of nursing, such as dealing with blood and excreta, which are tabu and culturally associated with contamination and sorcery. It was culturally tabu to nurse someone of the opposite gender who was related by kinship or marriage.128 Other students were dismissed for misbehaviour, usually drinking in the case of male students,129 or sexual relations. Female nurses were dismissed if they became pregnant, which extended to the partner if also a student. Nurses could continue only if they intended or were prepared to marry a qualified nurse.130

127 This category included students who had transferred from mission hospitals and were forced to start again from the beginning. One participant, Verlyn G. 1981, eventually graduated after five years of training. 128 Nurses could ask another nurse of the same gender as the patient, or who was not related to them, if tasks breached cultural norms, particularly relating to physical care. 129 One of the participants (JD 1978M), was sacked on the spot after falling asleep drunk in the TB ward. He compounded his offence by removing the matron’s glasses when she woke him in the morning. He subsequently trained as a health extension officer in PNG and had a long career working as a health educator. 130 This was the case for AP 1977F and her husband, AP 1976M. Similar rules often applied to nursing students in Australia and the UK in the 1960s and 1970s (Bessant and Bessant 1991; Dingwall et al. 1988).

155 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history

Participants’ accounts of their training are dominated by references to the disciplinary and hygiene regimes in colonial times. The nursing officers consider that the discipline and the nursing standards they were taught by expatriates were superior to those after Independence, when disciplinary regimes were relaxed after expatriates left and leadership positions were localised. A typical comment was:

Training has changed [with] more knowledge, but professional discipline is another thing. If there is no discipline, even if you have the knowledge, the two will conflict and not be straight or to the standard required. (George M. 1972) Hospital-based training and residential life moulded participants’ identity as nurses. The nursing officers were convinced of their superiority as practical nurses over college-trained nurses of the 1980s, which appears to be a common phenomenon worldwide (Castle 1987; Dingwall et al. 1988; Bessant and Bessant 1991). We return to their perspectives of changes to college-based nurse training in Section 6.5.1. I turn next to the nursing officers’ careers and their rise through the ranks to positions of power and leadership. 6.4 Rising through the ranks

Oral testimonies provide us with details of the postings and promotions for each nursing officer, their recollections and experiences in these positions. Their rise through the ranks was determined less by competitive applications than by a bureaucracy that combined hierarchical authority with Indigenous big-man cultural values.131 Nursing leaders gained considerable power at national and provincial level through their control over postings and approvals of promotions.

6.4.1 Getting posted

The first year after qualifying was regarded as probationary, which students normally spent at their training hospital before being posted to work in the provinces. Nurses in rural clinics worked as general practitioners, diagnosing, and treating common conditions and making referrals as needed to the provincial hospital. Newly qualified nurses could find themselves in charge of a rural health clinic (RHC) or working alongside experienced nurses, who could provide mentoring and experience—although difficulties could arise if the older nurses were incompetent or not up to date. Two-way radio communication provided a vital means for delivering medical advice and moral support. A functioning radio and twice-daily radio schedules linked clinic nurses with doctors

131 Big-man leaders in small Melanesian societies acquire prestige and leadership competitively through oratory, warriorhood, and feasting. Big-men strategies of dispersing wealth to kin and immediate supporters are still important in modern leadership roles (Bennett 1987, 341).

156 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history and experienced nurses at provincial centres. Doctors and nursing officers were supposed to tour every month to see referred and chronic patients and bring supplies (Winston P. 1979).

Newly qualified nurses could find the responsibilities exciting, but also frightening when confronted by emergencies and complicated cases (Timothy D. 1972, Bolton H. 1973). Stanley W. 1972 recalled:

When I reflect back, we were the people who really went out to work with people when things weren’t ready yet, before infrastructures were ready—we carried those things on patrol on our backs. We transported patients in open sea using Seagull engines—transport was very limited.132 We extended the immunisation cold chain … Nursing is saving lives of people. We went with little equipment and some knowledge in remote areas, we were not midwives, but we did deliveries. Any moment, anything can happen. Shortages of transport (canoe and engine), fuel and equipment could turn medical and obstetric emergencies into disasters unless neighbouring communities or clinics came to the rescue. Supplies of dressings, medicines and especially vaccines could be interrupted by unreliable shipping services and inclement weather. Junior nurses were usually assigned ‘patrol’ duties or outreach work, which Belshazzar S. 1973 describes as ‘not just hard touring but hard labour’. This could involve tough walking with carriers to take vaccines, drugs and fuel to inland clinics. Touring became less frequent when fuel for fridges and transport was not supplied regularly, a common occurrence in the 1990s as provincial health grants became increasingly unreliable due to chaotic government finances (Belshazzar S. 1973).

Postings to some provinces, such as Guadalcanal and Temotu, were unpopular because of their isolation, difficult communications, and poor schools. Nurses’ experience of rural postings depended on ease of communication (radio and transport) with the provincial centre and whether they enjoyed autonomy:

There wasn’t much social life, just sitting and feeling the breeze. People were kind and gave food, not in a pot but burned/roasted food—banana, taro, fish. … Nurses usually don’t want to go there [Rennell Islands] but those that do, love it and don’t want to come back. But I loved community work, it made me think, and I could ‘own’ the clinic and be the boss. (Edith F. 1980) Nurses’ experience of rural work also related to the condition of the clinic and staff houses, which were often dilapidated due to lack of maintenance and the harsh tropical climate. Being married made isolation more bearable, especially if both spouses were nurses, as was the case with six of the participants. Couples could more easily meet clinic and outreach workloads and avoid offending cultural taboos when treating the opposite gender (CS. 1979M, AP. 1977F). However, as their children reached school age nurses preferred to be posted to locations with better schools, usually

132 Seagull engines were small (5–10hp) outboard engines, slow and notoriously unreliable.

157 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history area health centres (AHCs) or provincial hospitals. Working directly under doctors at hospitals could be less satisfying due to loss of autonomy, but also provided more variety and security. It also brought nurses to the attention of superiors and provided opportunities for promotion. As one participant who spent eight years in remote areas of Malaita and Temotu noted:

Many things and budgets are controlled from Honiara… Honiara is like a bright streetlight and the further you go away from the light, the darker it gets. The provinces are out in the darkness. (Timothy D. 1972) Postings to a rural health clinic or area health centre were normally for two to three years, but this varied depending on the availability of vacancies, the diligence of superior officers, the remoteness of locations and whether nurses complained or requested transfers.

Table 6.5 Nursing careers spent in Honiara and provinces Worked in Whole career in Majority of years in Majority of years Whole career provinces provinces provinces in Honiara served in Honiara

23 6 7 10 2

Nurses were usually not posted to their own provinces until later in their careers. They could expect to serve in several provinces, depending on available positions and family circumstances such as their spouse’s work and children’s education. Six participants served in the provinces throughout their careers, and seven spent the majority of their working years in the provinces while 12 spent most of their careers in Honiara (see Table 6.5).

6.4.2 Getting promoted

Nurses could be considered for the first rung on the promotion ladder, assistant nursing officer (ANO, level 5), based at area health centres and provincial hospitals. Promotion prospects were fewer and slower in the 1970s and 1980s, with five levels of nursing officers from ANO to the top position of Chief Nursing Officer (CNO).133 The expansion of nursing training during the 1960s and 1970s created a major bottleneck in promotions. Nurses in this study remained as RNs (level 4) for an average of nine years but sometimes up to 17 years. Many nurses remained at this level until the introduction of the 1992 scheme of service, when all nurses moved up at least one level in the public service.

Female nurses were disadvantaged in terms of the time taken to achieve promotion, levels of promotion achieved and opportunities for specialist training. Although expatriate women had dominated the nursing hierarchy during colonial times, men subsequently dominated the higher

133 The five nursing officer levels were: ANO – Assistant Nursing Officer, NO – Nursing Officer; SNO – Senior Nursing Officer; PNO – Principal Nursing Officer; CNO – Chief Nursing Officer. The levels of Director and Deputy Director of Nursing (DON) were added in the 1990s.

158 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history ranks of nursing administration, despite women outnumbering men two to one in training. 134 After Independence, only one woman became head of nursing at national level (Margaret M. 1969) and three women at provincial level.

DON Dep. DON CNO PNO SNO NO

Nursing promotionlevels ANO

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Male (n=14) Female (n=11)

Fig. 6.5 Nursing levels and years to achieve promotion, by gender

Fig. 6.6 shows the average number of years taken by male and female participants to achieve their promotions from the 1970s through to 2010. Three women took between 16 and 18 years to become ANOs. Promotions for women to each rank took longer except for the CNO and DON level, which is explained by two female Australian trained nurses (Margaret M. 1969 and Suhote S. 1971) who were rapidly promoted due to localisation immediately before and after Independence. Maternity delayed promotion for women, who commonly had three to four children after qualifying. Marriage to another nurse or public servant was another barrier because husbands’ postings took precedence—‘it is also part of culture too that when you marry, you have to follow your husband’ (AP. 1977F). Of the six participants married to another nurse, none of the women were promoted above their husbands. Female disadvantage is seen more clearly in Fig. 6.7, which shows that all 14 men—compared to eight women—rose to the rank of PNO; seven men achieved CNO level compared to two women; and six men reached Deputy DON compared to one woman.

134 Female RNs outnumbered males 66% to 34% according to nursing registrations from 1970 to 1990. Female disadvantage is even greater if nurse aides (NA), who were predominantly female, are added as they cannot be promoted unless they retrain as RNs.

159 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history

DON Dep. DON CNO PNO

SNO Nursingranks NO ANO

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 Number of nursing officers

Male (n=14) Female (n=11)

Fig. 6.6 Levels of promotion achieved by participants, by gender

Gender disadvantage was most pronounced at senior levels. According to a national survey in 1996, fewer than 10% of senior posts (SNO and above) were held by women (Gavin 1997, 184), which was attributed to the lower status of women and cultural norms in Solomon Islands. Females were often not considered for promotion except for specifically female posts such family planning and midwifery (Gavin 1997, 19). New nursing schemes of services in 1992 and 2006 expanded opportunities for promotion.135 Two extra ranks were established (vertical expansion) and specialist career pathways were created (horizontal expansion), such as midwifery, maternal and child health and paediatrics. Men were privileged in promotion to most leadership positions at and provincial centres and the ministry headquarters in Honiara.

Promotion was not based on a competitive application process, according to reviews in 1988 and 1997 (SCA 1988; Gavin 1997). Personalised selection (‘finger pointing’ as it is colloquially known) had been evident since colonial times when expatriates selected outstanding students and favourites for further training (Stanley W. 1972). This continued after Independence but with preference given to nurses from the same island and language group (also called wantok business). Contingency and being in the right place at the right time also played their parts. One participant (Stephen W. 1980) became CNO and head of nursing in Makira within 13 years of promotion to ANO level, thanks to a series of transfers and retirements above him. He also happened to come from the same small island as both the national DON and a former provincial head of nursing who was brought out of retirement to provide support. As noted earlier, being noticed by superiors in provincial centres and Honiara enhanced nurses’ prospects of further training and promotion. Nurses wanted

135 A scheme of service defines a specific career stream or cadre and sets out levels of pay and seniority in the public service.

160 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history postings and promotions to Honiara because it provided their children with better opportunities for schools and prospects of tertiary education (Gavin 1997, 135).

Nurses’ career and promotion prospects were also influenced by which training schools they had attended and who their classmates were. Prior to Independence, nurses who had been educated and trained overseas were fast tracked as nursing officers.136 After leadership was localised, training at the school of nursing in Honiara provided advantages over mission-trained nurses because of the solidarity and strong bonds of friendship formed during training. Alice W. 1974, who trained at Fauabu, had no such connections and waited 16 years to reach ANO. Nurses who trained at Atoifi were also disadvantaged relative to government-trained nurses in terms of appointments and promotion (Verlyn G. 1979; Rosie S. 1988).

Before Independence, nursing officers who were promoted were required to attend training courses to learn public service procedures. These courses fell away in the 1990s and promotions were increasingly made without further training— ‘now it is promotion kranggie [crazy], nurses were thrown in just filling gaps’ (Gabriel V. 1980). External agencies, such as the WHO and UNICEF, also ran courses and workshops on specific disease control problems and primary health care, which could lead to training and promotion in specialist areas.

From the 1990s, promotions and specialist health programs drew more nurses and resources into administration, particularly in Honiara.137 Nine participants were or had been provincial or national heads of nursing. Seven participants were also leading members of the Solomon Islands Nursing Council (the statutory body regulating nursing), the nurses’ union (Solomon Islands Nursing Association (SINA), and the nurses’ credit union. One participant was president of SINA when he negotiated the 1992 scheme of service and then became the national Director of Nursing (DON). These interlocking positions created a powerful leadership group willing and able to flex its professional muscle and negotiate new schemes of service, explained in Section 6.5.2.

6.4.3 Retirement—in sickness and health

By 2016, the last of the nurses trained in the colonial era had reached the official retirement age of 55 years.138 Most participants have kept working to meet the many needs of families and relatives, especially relating to school fees. Government pensions are inadequate and usually taken as a lump

136 The advantages of overseas education were also evident for politicians and public servants (Chevalier 2015b). 137 By 1996, nearly a quarter (24%) of RNs were based in Honiara, which included the National Referral Hospital. The ratio of RNs to population was 2.3 times higher in urban than rural areas (Gavin 1997). 138 Increasing life expectancy led to the compulsory retirement age being raised from 50 years to 55 years during the 1990s.The average age of retirement for the participants was 54.7 years (range 46 to 60) with women working 2.5 years longer than men (females 55.6 years v. males 53.1 years).

161 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history sum to finance a small business or build a house at home in the islands. Some participants continued to work past retirement age in the health system if they could demonstrate a shortage that could not otherwise be filled. Others went on to other paid work, most notably in the case of CS. 1980 who became a member of parliament and Minister of Health from 2010 to 2014 and has twice been re-elected. Two others (AP. 1976M and Stanley W. 1972) found senior positions in provincial government in Makira. Others have supported themselves in retirement with small stalls, shops and, in one case, a restaurant. Volunteer work with NGOs and churches, often unpaid, also led to paid work during and after natural disasters (Suhote S. 1971; Belshazzar S. 1973).

Like many of their generation, nursing officers have suffered ill-health due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which have increased dramatically since the 1970s. Thirteen of the participants have been affected by cardiovascular diseases, obesity, kidney disease (often secondary to diabetes) or thyroid disease. Participants also mentioned nine former colleagues who had died aged in their late 40s to early 60s from myocardial infarction, kidney disease, cancer and one from an AIDS- related illness. One participant who was seriously ill with diabetes when I interviewed him and who subsequently died aged 68 in 2016, said, ‘Although we were medical people and trained to treat sick ones, we have become patients and suffer from this sickness’ (George M. 1971). Professional knowledge has not prevented a former health extension officer (HEO) and health educator (JD. 1978M), who had organised diabetes prevention programs, from developing advanced kidney disease, an eventually fatal condition without dialysis facilities or kidney transplants.

Rates of obesity and NCDs have risen inexorably since the 1980s due to more sedentary work, urban living and diets. Processed foods have come to dominate diets, especially tinned tuna and white rice. Rice was brought to the Solomons by globalisation and transformed into a local food item, a process called ‘glocalisation’ (Jourdan 2010, 264). The risk of obesity is higher in Honiara and urban centres where the cost of living is high, fresh foods are expensive and there is limited space for personal gardens. Although this is a very small sample, nine of 12 participants who had spent all or most of their careers in Honiara suffered from an NCD compared with three out of 13 who had spent all or most of their careers in the provinces.139 These are examples of the impact at the micro- (individual and group) level of changes at the meso- (institutional) and macro- (national and population) levels. The meso- and macro-level contexts of social and structural changes affecting nurses are considered next.

139 Including those who worked for Guadalcanal province and resided in Honiara.

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6.5 Changing social and structural contexts

In Section 6.5, I shift the focus to the broader changes in nursing structures and institutional contexts of nursing officers’ careers after Independence and until retirement. These changes include nursing training curricula, new schemes of services, power struggles within the ministry (MHMS) and the influence of donor funding and priorities, particularly after the Tension (1998– 2003). Nursing and health services were also impacted by long-term changes in morbidity, mortality, and population.

6.5.1 Changes to nurse training after Independence

Nurse education was reorganised several times after Independence, resulting in changes to nurses’ roles, status and career expectations. Prior to 1984, hospital-based training created institutional cohesion between nursing tutors, students, and hospital staff. It also added to professional control of nursing by the Ministry of Health. The school of nursing training and accommodation at Central Hospital was situated close to the MHMS headquarters, which enhanced interaction and familiarity between nursing administrators, educators, and students. The major reform, and the one most contested by participants, was the change from hospital-based training (and student accommodation) to college-based training under the College of Higher Education (SICHE) between 1985 and 1987. The move was part of a government program that transferred all training courses (except for police) to a single institution (SICHE) under the control of the Ministry of Education.140

The move to college-based training meant that students resided at the College campus, away from Central Hospital, changing their relationships with staff and patients both on and off duty. Nursing students socialised with others studying different courses and having different perspectives. College regulations were also relaxed and more culturally attuned than at the hospital. Students were no longer expelled for sexual relations, and if they became pregnant could resume training after maternity leave. These changes were analogous to changing social mores when Australian and British training moved to colleges and universities from the 1970s (Castle 1987, 13; Dingwall et al. 1988, 229). The physical and administrative separation of nursing education fractured the nexus between the nursing school and the nursing leadership, particularly from the mid-1990s, until the director of the School of Nursing and the national DON, who were both big-men from different islands, retired in 2004 (VI. 1980; Stanley W.1972). The first college-based nursing intake graduated from SICHE in January 1987, defining a new generation of nurses who in the 2000s replaced the old guard of leaders.

140 The 1984 Solomon Islands College of Higher Education Act pooled existing government schools—the Solomon Islands Teachers College, Public Administration Training School, Marine Training School, Honiara Nursing Training school, and Honiara Technical Institute, to form the Solomon Islands College of Higher Education (SICHE).

163 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history

By the 1990s, the colonial and hospital-trained nursing leadership became concerned that college- based training had led to declining competence and confidence in new graduates’ practical skills (Suhote S. 1971; AP. 1976M). To counter this, nursing leaders at the ministry headquarters created a supervised practice program requiring new graduates to prove their competency to practice before being posted to the provinces. This equivalent of a probation year had the intended consequence of bringing new nurses to the attention and control of the nursing administration, but frustrated graduates by imposing an extra twelve months of training in standards and procedures that they already knew (Reuben M. 1994).

The practice of adopting nurse education models from overseas continued through consultants from and connections with tertiary institutions in Australia, New Zealand, and Britain.141 A major change came in the mid-1990s when the RN qualification was upgraded from certificate to tertiary diploma level. A new diploma curriculum (SISONAHS 1996) was designed with technical assistance from the University of Wolverhampton (UK). Greater emphasis was given to primary health care principles and the needs of rural areas but at the expense of clinical practice on hospital wards. Most of the first year of training was classroom based, with occasional practice in the hospital. Only two semesters were spent on practical experience on the wards, representing 33% of the three-year training, compared with 60% of time spent on practical experience in the previous certificate course (SISON 1983). The reduction in practical training also reduced students’ confidence as well as the confidence of qualified staff in students and new graduates. A 2008–2009 review by the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) recommended a return to a modular training system with increased clinical practice and competency-based testing, which were introduced in another revised curriculum in 2011.142 In 2000, a postgraduate midwifery course was also introduced, followed by advanced diploma courses in specialist areas of nursing. Later, bridging courses were developed to prepare RNs for post-registration degree courses introduced in 2011 prior to the upgrading of SICHE to a university.143

Other changes were made to nurse training to address chronic shortages of nurses arising from the rapid growth of the population and expansion of health services.144 Nursing intakes and graduations doubled at the SICHE and Atoifi schools of nursing, with Atoifi-trained nurses contributing 31%

141 Nursing education in these countries moved from hospital schools of nursing to the diploma courses in colleges and universities beginning in the late 1970s. Hospital training schools ended in the 1990s and bachelor degrees in nursing (entry level and post registration) began. 142 According to Edith F. 1980, AUT was also involved in designing the degree-level nursing courses and nursing competencies for the Solomon Islands Nursing Council. Unfortunately, I do not have copies of the curriculum. 143 Bachelor degree courses (Acute Care, Primary Health Care. Paediatrics, and Midwifery) are post-diploma courses. 144 Ten years after Independence, health facilities included the National Referral Hospital (NRH, formerly Central Hospital), seven provincial hospitals, six AHCs, 138 RHCs, 69 Nurse Aide Posts (NAPs) and 86 VHW Posts.

164 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history of all registrations from 1981 to 2010 (see Table 6.7). The increased intakes put added pressure on training schools and made clinical placements in hospitals difficult to organise and oversubscribed, adding to criticisms of the quality of student nurses and new graduates.

Table 6.6 Numbers of qualified registered nurses by training institution 1981–2010

Year of registration Atoifi SON Govt. trained Total qualified Hospital SON 1981–1985 40 62 102 SICHE 1986–1990 36 60 96 1991–2000 122 260 382 2001–2010 145 121 323 444 Total 319 705 1024 Source: MHMS nursing registration database 2015 and Atoifi graduate list 2015

The shortage of registered nurses continued even with doubling of intakes because many graduates were unwilling or refused to work for long in rural clinics. Another strategy to address the shortage was to increase the number of nurse aides, who could be trained in greater numbers, faster and at lower cost. In 1996, an 18-month nurse aide training course was introduced at Malu`u in north Malaita and an upgraded Helena Goldie nursing school.146 While not eligible to be promoted, nurse aides provided a cheaper and more flexible cadre of nurses who also did not threaten the status of RNs (Chevalier and Ma`au 2016).

Different cadres of health workers were tried in the effort to increase the number of health workers. From 1974, several Solomon Islanders went to Madang to train as Health Extension Officers (HEOs), including one of the participants (JD. 1978M). HEOs undertook four years of training, intermediate between nurses and doctors, to equip them to work as independent practitioners and to perform some emergency procedures. HEOs became a significant component of the medical workforce in rural areas of PNG with a much larger population and more difficult geography than Solomon Islands. In Solomon Islands, HEOs were refused recognition by both medical and nursing councils because doctors regarded them as diluting the quality of the medical profession while nurses did not want their status and promotion blocked by more highly qualified HEOs. Another unsuccessful cadre was the Assistant Community Nurse (ACN), intermediate between nurse aides and registered nurses. Trained for two years from 1982 to 1983 with a specific focus on working in rural areas and outreach, ACNs were also not recognised by the Nursing Council. This blocked an alternative pathway for school leavers, VHWs or NAs for further progression (Isiah T. 1976). The fate of these two cadres demonstrates how professional control of registration

145 No government-trained nurses qualified in 2001 and 2002 due to disruptions caused by the Tension. 146 Nurse aide registrations were not digitised on the registration database.

165 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history and institutions was exercised and operated in the interest of the dominant professions rather than health services.

6.5.1.1 Blaming the training and nurses

Debates about the relative merits of hospital versus academic training dates as far back as the early 1900s in the USA and Canada, and later in other Commonwealth countries (Saunders 1954; Lambie 1956; Castle 1987; ASU 2016). The tension in nursing education between practical skills and academic knowledge (including critical thinking and decision-making) is longstanding and beyond the scope of this thesis, except as a fault line (in both senses of the term fault) between nursing generations. Participants commonly attributed falling standards and changing attitudes to nurse training at SICHE. A typical comment was:

We were tested on the practical side, for example, setting up for a tracheostomy. But now when they come to the ward and you expect them to do something and allocate them to do it, you find out that they have weakness and that they have not learned it at school. Now they don’t reassure patients and have different attitudes, they don’t even talk nicely to patients. (AP. 1977F) Participants regarded recent graduates as less disciplined and less devoted to nursing than their own generation. While college-trained nurses have more theoretical knowledge and higher-level qualifications, they saw them as having fewer practical skills and less experience, and hence more reliant on doctors for assistance and referral. New graduates were said to look down on certificate- level nurses who, in turn, could become reluctant or unwilling to help new nurses learn.147 Uniforms were a particularly salient and symbolic source of criticism. Unironed uniforms and inappropriate footwear are deemed by participants to look unprofessional compared with starched uniforms, buckled sandals and the neat appearance of old.

The quality of nursing has gone down—you see nurses at the hospital without ironed uniforms, they are not neat. (JD. 1978M) These days some [male nurses] look like stockmen going to work with stockman boots, and trousers and shirts that don’t match. (Gabriel V. 1980) Declining standards of nursing care are also attributed to relaxation of hospital regimes after Independence. Participants note that strict regimes are more difficult for Solomon Islanders than expatriates to enforce due to cultural norms and kinship relationships.

Colonial rules were very strict and things had to be on time. Things are not as strict as when previous administrators and sisters were in charge, they are much slacker now. (Suhote S. 1971)

147 Entry levels have increased to Year 12 education, including a compulsory science subject.

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A patient could not be left to lie in his own urine—nurses had to change wet sheets and had to complete our work before they went off. It’s very different now, and nurses wander off. Supervision is weak and does not enforce or is lenient towards time. Discipline has weakened towards performance. (JS. 1979F) Relaxation of visiting hours, based on British norms, has led to patients’ relatives playing a greater role in bedside care formerly undertaken by nurses. Increased employment of domestic staff has reduced the amount of cleaning and sluice room work done by student nurses. Nursing has become more technically focused and nurses are regarded more as medical assistants than bedside nurses. According to a paediatrician and medical educator:

Nurses are the most important cadre, providing skills and grassroots services. They are able to do the work of doctors—40% of interns’ work and 20% of registrars’ work is done by RNs—and are cheaper to employ if they keep their work skills. (Dr ER. 1982F) While participants assert that college-based training does not give nurses time and immersion in ‘hands-on’ nursing of hospital-based training, college-trained nurses and nurse educators who were interviewed asserted that their training, incorporating assignments and case studies, gave them problem-solving and critical decision-making skills, and that their practical nursing care and skills could be improved with subsequent experience and employment.148 While acknowledging the lack of confidence of students and new graduates, nurse educators point out that students and new graduates are junior cadres in a system and follow the example of their seniors, who are often not trained to support students or prepared to explain things properly (VI. 1981F; Reuben M. 1994). Educators also point to a lack of equipment and poor standards of practice in hospitals and clinics for students to follow:

A lot of the complaints about nurses is blamed on not training the nurses well but it is not a fault of training … A lot of supportive things are missing in the system—lack of resources, poor conditions, and facilities. Morale is down and the things that keep nurses motivated and efficient are missing. It is very frustrating for nurses. (VI. 1980F) The most often cited example of falling standards of care was the National Referral Hospital (NRH), formerly Central Hospital. Retired nurses could not help but notice the deterioration in the hospital environment, with dirty corridors littered with broken machinery and equipment.149 They cited the lack of specific visiting hours and restrictions on relatives, who must supply basic items including sheets and towels. Participants voiced more serious concerns relating to negligence and preventable deaths due to lack of drugs, delays and incompetence of nurses and doctors, particularly in obstetrics. The number of midwives per shift has not increased proportionally with

148 Two informants are lecturers at the School of Nursing and Allied Health Services at SINU. Former nursing educators interviewed were participants Stanley W. 1972 and Pamela Goodes (one of the Fauabu sisters), Rosie S. 1987, and Jacqui Guy, a former nurse educator at the Australian Catholic University, Sydney. 149 Central Hospital was rebuilt in 1992 with aid from Taiwan (ROC), using a design for a district hospital in Taiwan. Unsurprisingly, the hospital has deteriorated badly in a tropical climate and beachside location.

167 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history population increases in Honiara, which makes proper monitoring of labour and quality obstetric practices difficult or impossible to maintain (JS 1979F).

Declining quality of care is not just a subjective perception of older nurses. Unsatisfactory care was also cited in emergency services at NRH in a 2014 scoping mission:

Despite some talented staff and work to provide a service, findings included lack of leadership, insufficient staff numbers, poor morale and minimal training opportunities. Quality of care was inconsistent; with Emergency Department crowding, lack of patient tracking and flow systems and high-risk activities as major factors. Inadequate after-hours service and poor procurement practices are barriers to improving care. (Phillips and Bowman 2014, 3) 6.5.1.2 The decline of ‘patrol’ and primary health care

Changes in the role of nurses have been less obvious in health clinics, where nurses have continued their general practitioner role of diagnosing, treating, and referring patients and providing family planning services and maternal and child health clinics. An area of their work that has changed has been ‘patrol’ or outreach work, which was described as ‘a pretty tough assignment’ (Macgregor 2016, 176). Nurses were expected to visit all communities in their area and report on this work every month. Patrol and touring by nurses declined after Independence and came to be viewed as extra rather than essential work. By 1996, almost half of the clinic nurses and two-thirds of female nurses did no outreach work (Gavin 1997, 112). Many nurses had become white-collar workers whose comfort zone was in the clinic or provincial office (CCHP 1997).

Most participants attributed the decline in outreach clinics and touring to lack of motivation and commitment by nurses, and to supervisors preferring to stay in their clinic or office rather than endure the discomforts of touring.150 However, structural changes can also explain the decline in outreach work. The need and demand for outreach clinics has declined with the expansion in the network of clinics, nurse aide posts and VHW posts. In addition, as more canoes and vehicles became available, outreach work became increasingly reliant on transport, which was often short- lived (especially outboard engines) and misused, like much government equipment. Fuel was expensive, often unavailable, or difficult to transport. When provincial health finances were insufficient, priority was given to curative services ahead of fuel and touring allowances.

Another factor in the decline of patrol and outreach work was the rise and fall of primary health care (PHC). PHC was a major paradigm, universally promoted by the WHO as part of its ‘Health For All By Year 2000’ (WHO 1977). In the Solomons, the focus of PHC was on increasing access to primary care and health education to communities. This required re-orientation of nursing and medical staff. From the early 1980s there was intensive training of health personnel, including

150 Some participants rarely toured themselves, sometimes due to financial, transport and staffing constraints but also because they regarded it as optional.

168 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history

VHWs, one of the platforms of PHC. VHW programs were eventually discontinued in every province after the Tension in the absence of national-level support. Despite considerable investment, the reality of PHC failed to match its rhetoric, and certain aspects of it were never implemented, such as planning of services from village level upwards to multi-sectoral coordination in national ministries (JD 1978M; Timothy D. 1973).

A more limited version—selective PHC—was introduced in the 1980s through six interventions to improve child survival, summarised in the acronym ‘GOBI-FF’.151 Most were integrated into existing programs and implemented at community, outreach and clinic level. By the 1990s, PHC was fragmented into an alphabet of programs—EPI (Expanded Program on Immunisation), ARI (Acute Respiratory Infection), CDD (Control of Diarrhoeal Diseases) and VHW training. In the Solomons, these were ‘silo’ programs with separate coordinators at national and provincial levels. In 1995, the WHO and UNICEF introduced the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) initiative to integrate vertical programs, including malaria control, which itself became part of broader Vector Borne Disease programs. Despite international support and training over two decades, the PHC paradigm had faded by the end of the 1990s when it was clear that ‘Health For All By The Year 2000’ was unattainable. Government budget support for PHC programs was minimal, a situation not helped by the government’s chaotic finances. The last National PHC Coordinator at the ministry before the position was abolished commented:

Primary health care was never really valued at the highest level and they were never serious enough to make it an important part of medical and health services. (Timothy D. 1973) 6.5.2 Changes to nursing schemes of service

Before 1992, nursing was relatively poorly paid with limited opportunities for promotion, prompting nurses to leave the profession. A new nursing scheme of service was drawn up in 1992 by the nursing leadership in conjunction with Undersecretary for Health, Dr Jimmie Rogers. The new scheme improved promotion prospects and pay by changing from single grades (starting at public service level 5 for new graduates) to composite grades (level 6/7, 7/8, etc.) allowing nurses to move up a grade while remaining in an existing position. The intent was to enable nurses to be posted between provinces without being disadvantaged (AP 1976M). Pay increases at each grade level helped to make nursing a more attractive career and to reduce wastage from the loss of nurses to NGOs and private practice offering better conditions. As described in Section 6.4.2, the nursing structure was expanded vertically at the top of the nursing ladder. The top position of Superintendent of Nursing became Director of Nursing (level 12/13) with three CNO positions

151 GOBI-FF stands for Growth Monitoring of children 0–5 years, Oral Rehydration Salts, Breastfeeding, Immunisation, Family Spacing, and Food Supplementation. UNICEF later added a third F, Female education, which significantly impacts maternal and child survival (Mosley and Chen 1984/2003; Cueto 2004).

169 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history

(level 10/11) as deputies immediately below. Provincial heads of nursing or CNOs in larger provinces became PNOs (level 8/9) in smaller provinces.152 The structure also expanded with the addition of two new provinces (Choiseul and Rennell-Bellona) in 1992. Opportunities for promotion expanded further with the introduction of new specialist units needing nurses to manage and staff them. As noted above in Section 6.4.2, the expanded scheme of service allowed a new generation of nurses who qualified after 1986 to gain promotion to ANO within five years, compared with ten years for hospital-trained participants.

The 1992 scheme of service created a new set of problems over the next decade. Administration grew at the expense of clinical positions and rural services (Edith F. 1980). Not all nurses who moved to positions in Honiara and provincial centres had the capacity for the work.

It gave opportunity for nurses to advance but people do not think very seriously about that position and how long they have been there and how effective they are, their commitment and carrying out their responsibilities. They enjoyed that higher position and they relaxed and did not carry out their responsibilities and tasks. (George M. 1972)

Fig. 6.7 The leadership group who designed the 2006 nursing scheme of service 153 (photo: Suhote S.)

The 1992 scheme created resentment from other health professionals and other public servants, and also increased the cost of one of the biggest groups in the public service.

The government scheme was just rewarding us and also made nursing more attractive … Nurses now enjoy a better life compared with us. Others looked at their 1992 Scheme of Service and tried to follow it. But it made doctors and public administration cross and jealous. (Stanley W. 1972)

152 In 1996, these became three Assistant DON positions (level 11/12): Administration, Community Health, and Education and Training. 153 Seated: Edith F. 1980*, Suhote S. 1971*; standing (L-R). George M. 1972*, Michael M. 1973, VA (Australian technical adviser), JB. 1990, AP. 1976*, and AL. 1979 (* = participants in this case study).

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The nursing hierarchy inherited at Independence and reformed in 1992 gave way in 2003–2004 to a new structure adopted from Australia. A ‘nursing realignment’ was approved in 2006, leading to a radical reorganisation of structures, titles, and job descriptions (see Table 6.5).

Table 6.7 Changes to nursing titles and levels, 1992 and 2006 Level Nursing ranks 1992–2005 New ranks under Nursing realignment 12/13 National Director of Nursing Director of Nursing (DON) in larger provinces 10/11 Assistant DON—three positions Assistant DON and DON in smaller provinces, 9/10 Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) - Eliminated head of nursing in larger provinces 8/9 Principal Nursing Officer (PNO) Clinical Nurse Consultant, Community Health Nurse Consultant, Nurse Manager, Nurse Educator 7/8 Senior Nursing Officer (SNO) Clinical Charge Nurse, Community Health Charge Nurse, Nurse Instructor, Program Officer 6/7 Nursing Officer (NO) Eliminated 5/6 Assistant Nursing Officer (ANO) Clinic Registered Nurse, Community Health Nurse 5 Registered Nurse (RN) Newly qualified RN 4 Newly qualified (RN)

The realignment was designed to stem the ‘promotion creep’ created by composite grading. Level 6/7 disappeared and promotions had to be specifically earned for RNs moving from level 6 to the next level (7/8). The new nursing structure created four distinct career pathways: Clinical (hospitals), Community (RHCs and AHCs), Education (training) and Management (administration).154 This realignment resolved the disadvantages nurses faced if they remained in clinical areas or in provinces with fewer promotion prospects.

Almost all participants, including those involved in its design, regretted the passing of nursing officer titles, replacing long-held identities with unfamiliar titles based on Australian nursing structures. ‘Charge nurses’ and ‘instructors’ were not problematic titles but the use of ‘consultant’, an honorific for senior doctors in specialised fields, offended and confused not only nurses but also other health professions and the Public Service Commission (Edith F. 1980). Older nurses felt devalued by the new titles and positions because their seniority and years of service were not recognised. Nurses who had trained ten years later jumped up to their level without any further training or qualifications, while newly qualified nurses with no experience were level 5, which had taken older nurses a decade and more to achieve (AP. 1977F; Sarah B. 1974). Nor did the changes resolve the problem of nurse shortages. In 2019, a further scheme of service was introduced to increase remuneration for nurses to work outside Honiara and provincial centres. However, it is

154 Hospitals were less affected by the 2006 realignment—ward sisters were renamed ‘nurses in charge’ and no new departments were created.

171 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history doubtful whether these latest changes will be enough to overcome the structural advantages of better opportunities for education, promotion, and social life in urban centres (Chevalier and Ma`au 2016).155

6.5.4 Donor influence

Donor funding and technical assistance has long been part of nursing and medical services in Solomon Islands, beginning in the pre-war era with mission churches, the Rockefeller Foundation and New Zealand Leprosy Fund. Funding for the post-war medical service came largely from Britain, which also supported some of the missionary medical services. UN and WHO agencies also contributed technical assistance and funding from the 1950s in areas such as yaws and polio eradication campaigns, immunisations, outreach programs, nurse training and malaria control. British aid continued to fund doctors and specialists on two-year contracts, as well as clinic construction, until 1996. In the 1990s, the European Union (EU) funded new clinics and developed a nurse aide training school and curriculum through its Rural Health Project. Japanese aid funded technical personnel and malaria control infrastructure. Volunteering agencies from Australia. Britain, Canada, Japan and New Zealand provided skilled health personnel. NGOs, including Save the Children and World Vision, implemented projects at departmental and provincial level.

The WHO has occupied a permanent office on the upper floor of ministry headquarters since 1979, bringing in innumerable technical assistants (TAs), such as disease control experts and program trainers. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is a more recent international organisation to provide funding and promote donor coordination for these communicable diseases. With support from Australia, WHO consultants in 2010 helped formulate a strategic plan incorporating measures to coordinate donor support for health services (Waqatakirewa 2010).

With the end of the Health Institutional Strengthening Project (HISP) in 2007, a new AusAID Health Sector Support Program has continued to play a major role in reforming and financing health and medical services. However, the degree of external influence, with expatriates exercising close control over budgets, policies and management decisions, recalls the colonial era. According to a former undersecretary (Dr JR 1981M), workforce changes at the NRH and a five-year National Health Plan were designed by technical advisers based on health models from New South Wales. In the process of adopting Australian corporate management systems, elements of health and

155 In 2019, a new scheme of service created a three-tier system that distinguishes nurses performing administrative duties (MHMS headquarters, national referral hospital, and provinces) from nurses who work in hospitals, Honiara clinics and public health clinics, and nurses working in rural health clinics. Higher special duty rates and allowances are awarded to nurses posted to work in provinces and rural clinics.

172 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history medical services that had worked effectively prior to the Tension were ignored or forgotten. The more overseas technical assistance that arrived, the less influential became the local nursing leadership in decision-making. Symbolically, the office of the national DON was moved from the upper floor of the ministry to downstairs with the administrative offices to make way for Australian aid advisors. Although dressed in the development language of ‘partnerships’, the extensive influence of donors—with their wealth, detailed systems and technical advisors—appear to Solomon Islanders at best as domination and at worst as neo-colonialism or re-colonisation. I return to this issue in the social history discussion in the next chapter.

6.5.5 Epidemiological and demographic transitions

Epidemiological and demographic transitions have impacted the nursing profession both personally, as we saw in Section 6.4.3, and professionally. Before the 1980s, the health problems seen most often at health facilities related to infectious diseases—particularly malaria, diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, skin infections (including yaws) and intestinal worms—and diseases preventable with immunisation, such as polio, measles and pertussis. The most common causes of death were malaria, tuberculosis and pneumonia (Macgregor 2006, 148). From the late 1950s, improvements in treatments and in access to medical services and transport systems led to better control and earlier treatment of infectious diseases. Improvements in village hygiene and education have also reduced the prevalence of respiratory illnesses, skin diseases, filariasis (causing elephantiasis) and intestinal worm infections (Moore 2013). However, infectious diseases continue to pose a significant burden, especially malaria, which fell to very low prevalence rates in the early 1970s due to an intensive control program but rebounded when control measures fell away after Independence, and again during the Tension (Dr NK 1976).

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) were identified as a growing problem by the WHO in the early 1980 and have since increased rapidly, creating in a dual epidemiological burden of infectious diseases and NCDs. By 2016, 25% of women and 16% of men in Solomon Islands were estimated to be obese, a figure that appears to have doubled since 2000 (WHO 2018). Solomon Islanders had an estimated 24% probability of dying between the ages 30 and 70 years from cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or chronic respiratory disease (WHO 2018). Diabetes and its sequelae, such as amputation and kidney disease, place severe burdens on individuals, families, health workers and hospitals.156

156 When I visited the post-operative section of the male surgical ward at Central hospital in 2015, most of the 20 beds were occupied by patients recovering from upper and lower leg amputations due to diabetes.

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Demographic growth has directly impacted on health workers and medical services. The population grew from 178,000 in the 1976 census to an estimated 721,000 in 2019 (SIG 2020). The growth was driven by high fertility rates, reduced mortality at all ages (particularly in infants and children), and longer life expectancy.157 Some progress was made in reducing population growth rates—from 3.5% annually in the 1970s to 2.8% by the 2000s—but strong cultural values, traditional and Christian, favour having children and limit the acceptability of artificial family planning methods. Family planning services are largely provided by nurses who often share the same cultural values and limit provision of services to married couples. Fertility rates are slowly declining, but population momentum means that the number of children born every year has continued to increase, adding to the pressures on workloads.158 This is most evident in Honiara, whose population grew from 18,000 in 1976 with approximately 800 hospital births per year, to over 130,000 in 2019 and an estimated 7,000 births at the National Hospital in 2015.159 Staffing levels have not kept up, increasing the workload on health staff and reducing the time available for patient care, particularly in antenatal, midwifery, child care and emergency services.

6.5.3 Professional rivalries and power

Nursing leaders’ power stemmed from their control over the profession and the dependence of the medical system on nurses. With 58% of doctors working in Honiara (Gavin 1997, 9), the reliance on nurses was even greater in the provinces, which meant that the medical system would collapse if nurses went on strike.160 Suhote S. 1971 recalls Dr Jimmie Rogers saying:

Nurses can diagnose, nurses can recognise illness, nurses can order the right treatment for the illness. But if doctors strike, doctors don’t know how to put a patient on a bedpan, turn them or lift them, or bed bath them or make them comfortable, or not as well as nurses. If doctors go on strike, the hospital will still run. If nurses go on strike— disaster—patients will suffer. The power of nursing was constrained by other groups and changes within the medical system. Doctors always had superior status and held the top positions in the ministry and provinces. Other allied health professions were becoming more influential in the 1980s as health educators, health inspectors, physiotherapists, pharmacists, hospital technicians and social workers increasingly entered the workforce. Nursing administrators were constrained by nursing educators and the SICHE administration after the transfer of basic training in 1985–1986. From 1989, nursing

157 Infant mortality rate dropped by 60% from 89 per 1000 in 1970 to 35 per1000 in 1990 and a further 25% to 27 per 1000 in 2010 (combined World Bank, UNICEF and CIA data). 158 Total fertility almost halved from 7.3 births per woman in 1974 to 3.9 in 2016 (World Bank 2018). 159 Extrapolated from 2019 census data (SINSO 2020). 160 Government doctors did go on strike in 1992 but the medical system continued to function with overseas aid- funded doctors and specially recruited specialists.

174 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history administrators also lost control of in-service training programs to a newly formed Maternal Child Health and Family Planning Unit with substantial external funding (JS. 1978F).161

New departments were created with varying degrees of autonomy, depending on how much external donor funding and technical assistance they had to carry out their programs. Departments (aptly named ‘Divisions’) operated through a mix of formal bureaucratic procedure and informal personalised authority by big-men and, less often, big-women. The Nursing Division was much less adept at courting donors and eventually became a poor cousin, symbolised by its shabby offices (see Fig. 6.10) and absence of donor-funded vehicles. The influence of donors and donor funding is discussed further in Section 6.5.4.

Fig. 6.8 Contrasting office exteriors at MHMS headquarters, Honiara 2014 (L) Nursing Division (R) Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Division (photos: author)

Economic constraints due to cuts in programs and provincial budgets increasingly impacted health services in the 1990s. Public finances under Mamaloni-led governments became increasingly chaotic and the costs of an expanding public service blew out. A new government under Ulufa`alu in 1997 attempted to cut administrative and planning positions in the public service, including nursing administration, which had become top-heavy. Two of the participants (Stanley W. 1972 and Suhote S. 1971) were made redundant in 1999 but the redundancy program was aborted when the government fell in 2000 during the Tension. Government finances were hijacked by militants and services fell into disarray. An Australian government-funded Health Improvement Strengthening Program (HISP) began in 2001 ‘to improve the management and operational capacity of the ministry’ (MHMS 2006). Curative services were kept afloat with emergency funding from Australia and maintained by health workers and nurses who stayed at their posts or worked

161 The Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning Unit, headed by the country’s first female doctor, the late Dr Junilyn Pikacha, was formed in 1989 and strongly supported by the United Nations Family Planning Association and Save the Children Australia for which I worked from 1989 to 1993.

175 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history at clinics in their home areas. Two participants (Alice W. 1972 and Gabriel V. 1980) bravely moved under Red Cross protection though armed camps on the borders of Honiara and around Guadalcanal to ensure clinics were supplied with medicines and salaries.

The arrival of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) to restore law and order in 2003 was accompanied by increased funding for the HISP program and management contractors to restore health services.162 In conjunction with senior bureaucrats, Australian health advisors’ analysis of manpower confirmed that nursing administration was top-heavy, expensive and seemingly unproductive. In March 2004, the DON and other senior nurse positions at the ministry headquarters and national hospital were retrenched or forced to retire if they were already over retirement age. Participants who were affected claim that the redundancies were politically and personally motivated. However, the permanent secretary at the time (Dr JL 1982M) confirms that the redundancies were determined on economic grounds with older personnel on the highest salaries retired first. Savings were also made by keeping the national DON position vacant for three years, while the highly respected deputy DON (AL. 1979) was retained but not considered for the top post when it was readvertised. The replacement of the old guard by younger nursing leaders gave increased control to doctors, bureaucrats and advisors and reduced the power of nursing as a professional group.

Health sector reforms from 2004 further diminished the power of nursing in the Ministry of Health, which was restructured along Australian managerial lines. Divisions were rebranded with titles such as Corporate Services, Clinical Governance Unit, Human Resources Unit and Executive Support Unit. Positions were also rebranded; for example, the Medical Director at the National Referral Hospital became the Chief Executive Officer.163 Then, as we saw in Section 6.5.2, the 2006 nursing scheme of service overhauled nursing titles and restructured levels of nursing. These structural changes divided leadership into separate career pathways and across different institutions. In 2011, another ministry reorganisation saw the Nursing Division disappear as a separate department and become part of the human resources section of the MHMS. Although nurses retained professional autonomy through control of the Nursing Council (SINC) and nursing union (SINA), these restructures and retirements completed the nursing leadership’s loss of power at the national level.164

162 The HISP project had at one time 24 technical advisors working within the MHMS (HISP 2005). The project was managed by Abt JTA, an international development managing contractor based in Brisbane. 163 New managerial-speak accompanied the reforms; for example, ‘changing positions are indicative of the significance of Human Resource Management to improving Nursing Practices in Primary and Secondary Health Care’ (MHMS 2010, 76). 164 The power of the SINC is limited by lack of income from nursing registrations, which are free and lifelong, which also makes it impossible to determine whether nurses are still working, competent to practise, or even still alive.

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6.5.6 Multiple histories and perspectives

Section 6.5 has summarised a range of perspectives and perceptions relating to changes in the nursing profession at various levels of the Solomon Islands health system. Perspectives vary depending on the positions held by participants, their locations, training and specialisation, personal and professional experiences, gender, and age. For example, participants who worked in provinces for most or all their careers viewed colleagues in Honiara as office-bound and saw the national ministry as withholding resources from provinces (Belshazzar S. 1973; Stephen W. 1980). Nurses from some provinces (Guadalcanal, Choiseul, Temotu and Isabel) felt that other provinces were favoured and better resourced. Nursing officers, particularly females, who took many years to gain promotion and only reached the middle tiers late in their careers, consider that nursing leaders in Honiara and provinces promoted men and wantoks first.165

A consistent theme from participants and informants was that the quality of nursing, medical services and health in general has declined, despite greater numbers of health workers, facilities, services, and funds. But perceptions of the causes of the decline differ between participants, nurses who trained after Independence, nurse educators, health educators and doctors. Nursing officers are more likely to blame a later generation of nurses and donor influence. Nurse educators are critical of the conditions of health facilities and the senior nurses responsible for administering them, rather than students or the quality of their training. And while doctors paid tribute to nurses and the important roles they play in the health system, they also noted newer nurses’ limitations as clinical practitioners and administrators.

Participants focused on the more visible micro- (individual) and meso- (collective and institutional) level changes such as the appearance of nurses, professional attitudes, lack of clinical hygiene and poor patient care at the NRH. Macro-level improvements and factors, such as the epidemiological and demographic changes, were rarely mentioned, perhaps because population-level changes and improvements are less obvious than individual deaths and events at the micro-level or institutional deficits at the meso-level. At the macro-level, population-level health indicators have undoubtedly improved, including lower morbidity and mortality rates for infectious scourges of the past such as dysentery, TB, leprosy, polio and yaws. Improved living conditions and selective primary health care interventions such as immunisation and growth monitoring have improved child survival— mortality in children under 5 years fell from 68 per 1000 in 1976 to 21 per 1000 in 2016 (UN/IGME 2017). The number of stillbirths and maternal deaths has been reduced thanks to better access to

165 It should also be noted that this case study does not represent nurses who were never promoted or who left the profession.

177 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history ante-natal care, assisted deliveries and obstetric interventions, and malaria control.166 Counter to these positive trends is the inexorable rise of NCDs and multiple associated complications.

Technological changes have improved the work of nurses and health services at meso- and macro- levels. Communications with rural areas have dramatically improved since the 1980s and 1990s with solar powered two-way radios reducing the isolation of rural nurses and greatly assisting referrals to provincial hospitals and the NRH. Since the 2000s, mobile phone technology has spread rapidly and transformed communication, further reducing social and professional isolation for nurses in rural areas. Again, it is noteworthy that participants scarcely mentioned these changes and other health technology improvements, such as monitoring of women and children’s health with home-based record books and family health cards. Other improvements include rapid diagnostic tests and treatments for malaria, foetal health monitoring and ultrasound scans (at hospitals), and sterile equipment for intravenous infusions and dressings.

Policy changes have been introduced to allow pregnant women to continue training, to access paid maternity leave and to breastfeed during work time. Public campaigns have raised awareness of good nutrition, family planning and safe sex practices, as well as the dangers of smoking, betel nut chewing and domestic violence. In general, the public has become more knowledgeable about the signs, symptoms, and treatment of common diseases.

6.6 Conclusion

This case study of nursing officers provides a rich and nuanced insights to the history of nursing, a profession that is central and indispensable to health and medical services in Solomon Islands. The collective history approach draws on testimonies from 25 former nursing officers about their careers, as well as from 12 additional interviewees. The nursing officers’ careers cover the period from 1967 to 2016, representing approximately 900 years of service in total. They staffed and managed hospitals, clinics, and outreach services across a dispersed archipelago. They later specialised in various areas of health services, including health promotion, primary health care, clinical care, midwifery, maternal and child health, family planning and nurse education. Their testimonies show how their identities and values were shaped by British colonial nurse training, clinical and outreach experiences, nursing structures and professional regulations. They have witnessed and been directly impacted by changes to health services from the rise of NCDs, new biomedical interventions and rapid population growth. Rising through every rank to the highest

166 World Bank (2016) modelling estimates that the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) in the Solomons dropped from 384 per 100,000 in 1990 to 114 in 2015. However, maternal deaths are relatively rare events and may vary considerably from year to year.

178 Chapter 6 Nursing in the Solomons—a collective history level, participants formed part of a nursing leadership responsible for institutional and professional changes in the 35 years after Independence.

Their testimonies shed light on the central role of nurses in the medical services and the power held by nursing leaders in the health bureaucracy. This power reached a peak after negotiating the 1992 scheme of service that significantly expanded salaries, positions, and promotions. Their critics, who include a younger generation of nurses and some doctors, consider that the nursing leadership up to 2004 was too concerned with the status of nursing and pay conditions, and insufficiently concerned with improving services and public health outcomes. The power of nursing leaders was gradually constrained by the growth of other health professions and specialisations, new health departments, internationally funded programs and technical advisors. The move to college-based nursing training in the mid-1980s contributed to weakening the control of nursing administrators and hospital staff over nurse training and socialisation. Nurse training has continued since colonial times to import models of western nursing and biomedicine, dependent on technical advisers funded by donors. It was generally agreed that the quality of nursing care and health services has fallen but there was disagreement over whether the causes are the training and attitudes of new generations of nurses, worsening conditions and support at institutional facilities, or the extra burdens created by rapid population growth and new patterns of disease.

The breakdown of law and order during the Tension threw the country into chaos, including nurse training and health services. The recovery process after 2003 was accompanied by budget support and health sector reforms along Australian lines, including restructuring of the nursing profession. This has displeased many of the generation of nurses trained in the British colonial system. They have since retired and have been replaced by a new generation of nurses trained and socialised in a different era and system, working within a bureaucracy in which doctors, bureaucrats, technical consultants and donors have the upper hand.

As with the two other case studies, I end the chapter with a single page overview of social history revealed by the nursing officers’ careers, testimonies and documentary sources. The social history framework summarises structural changes and processes at different levels and locations over time. I use this summary to connect and contrast the social histories next in Chapter 8.

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Table 6.8 Social history framework for the Nursing Officers case study

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Chapter 7. Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History

7.1 Introduction

Chapter 7 both reviews and re-examines oral history methodology using a conceptual model of oral history—the VSO-ATND model—that I have developed during this research. The model allows me to review—that is, to examine and explore—the theoretical and practical issues involved in preparing the oral histories. The model uses six domains to view oral history methodology. It provides a way to represent the complexities of oral history both visually and conceptually. The six domains—Visual, Spatial, Oral–Aural, Text, Numerical and Digital—can be applied to each phase of oral history research: the primary phase (interviewing and collection of histories); the secondary phase (curating and processing); and the tertiary phase (analysis and interpretation).

Section 7.2 outlines the six domains in turn and illustrates their application with examples from the case studies. Section 7.3 identifies some key issues that have arisen when designing and practising oral history research in Solomon Islands. These include: insider–outsider positionality in different phases of the research; the barriers imposed by the cost and accessibility of technology and data; and the complexity and inappropriateness of Northern oral history practices relating to copyright and informed consent. I then discuss whether this research recolonises (or neo-colonises) oral history by applying academic procedures and Northern oral history methods to Solomon Islands contexts. I suggest ways of decolonising oral history research and supporting Indigenous ways of storying and seeing the world (L. Smith 1999; Sanga and Reynolds 2017). Section 7.4 concludes the chapter with a short review of the chapter and draws conclusions on the value of the oral history model that will be taken up in the final chapter. 7.2 Re-viewing oral history

In Section 7.2, I use the VSO-ATND model to review and re-view oral history methodology using examples and issues that have arisen in this research. Fig. 7.1 provides a visual-textual summary of the six domains of the VSO-ATND model. In the following sections I identify and expand on key aspects from the case studies that relate to each domain. I indicate the phase(s) of the oral history research process to which each aspect applies, using the numerals 1o 2o 3o, to denote the primary, secondary and tertiary phases respectively.

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Fig. 7.1 Six domains and three phases in the Oral History model

7.2.1 The visual domain

The visual domain includes important aspects of oral history that are easily overlooked (see Fig. 7.2). Visual information flows between narrator and interviewer whenever interviews take place (Perks and Thompson 2015, 7). Portelli (1981, 103) refers to this as a ‘mutual sighting’, with the narrator always studying the interviewer and vice versa. Every interview is a performance by both narrator and interviewer. Body language and expressions reveal reactions, emotions and interest (and lack thereof). Eye contact and avoidance, hand gestures and body positions provide clues and add meaning to responses and stories. Visible actions and reactions help the interviewer to understand the emotional impact of events. Signs of discomfort and emotion lead to questions and probing depending on whether the narrator is willing to continue or prefers to move to another time or topic.

Visual information can be noted during an audio-recorded interview or recalled when listening to and transcribing recordings. Video recordings permanently capture visual and visible aspects of the interview, making them more available for subsequent analysis, and are also more interesting, but I found that they had several disadvantages. Participants were more self-conscious and I was distracted by the camera—keeping the interviewee in frame, and checking light and battery levels. I tried interviewing with a second person operating the video recorder, which reduced distractions and improved the quality of interviewing and video recording. However, participants were still self- conscious and the interviews were less relaxed on both sides of the microphone.

182 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History

Fig. 7.2 Visual domain aspects.

Other face-to-face visual aspects that influenced the oral histories were visible signs of ill-health, such as disability, obesity, and weight loss, which affected how and where interviews were conducted and prompted questions about health and the impact of illness. Material objects in the interview setting provided topics to ask about, which was certainly the case with Helen Barrett’s interviews at the Queensland Museum and at her nursing home, and with her Fauabu sisters at their homes. Interviews at Tony Hughes’ homestead in his office, library and timber plantation also visually prompted questions and responses about books, photographs, objects, his family, and the homestead.

Oral history and photographs intersect as forms of evidence, memory and storytelling (Freund and Thompson; Williams 2012). Photographs enable what Modell and Brodsky 1994, 145) call a ‘re- viewing’ of verbal history, which can affirm the spoken word and prompt recollections. In the Fauabu case study, photographs (see Fig. 5.18–5.24) prompted descriptions and questions about participants’ work and relationships. This was particularly important in the case of Pat Halpin, who was suffering cognitive decline. Tony Hughes had labelled photograph albums from his childhood and university days dating back to the 1940s and 1950s and showing him as a young colonial officer in the 1960s wearing standard-issue long white socks (Fig. 4.7–4.8, Chapter 4). Solomon Islander participants had few photographs, which is unsurprising given the expense of pre-digital

183 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History photography and difficulty of preserving photographs in a tropical climate. However, there were some photographs of career highlights (see Fig. 7.3–7.5).

Fig. 7.3 Sue S.1971 escorting Fig. 7.4 Afu Billy with Prince Fig. 7.5 David Sitai with Kofi Queen Elizabeth II, Honiara William, Honiara 2012 Annan, UN, New York 1997 1974 (photo: Tim Grantham) (photo: Afu Billy collection) (photo: author)

Visual materials featured significantly in the secondary oral history phase of this research. The curation process included labelling and digitising visual materials, either by scanning or photographing them, to preserve images and make them accessible for copying and searching. Originals and scans were returned to participants in print and electronic forms, plus relevant images found in newspapers, magazines, books, and on-line sources.167 I also copied and sent photographs to colleagues, including other historians specialising in Solomon Islands.

Visual materials supported the tertiary oral history phase (analysis and interpretation). Comparison of photographs from an earlier era, such as district tours in 1962 and 1963, provided detailed views of landscapes, places, buildings, dress, transport, and technology. Photographs and 8mm films of Auki, Honiara and Fauabu in the 1960s revealed how these locations have changed. Photographs also spoke to bonds of friendship between Solomon Islanders and expatriates, as exemplified in Fig. 7.6 and 7.7.

Photographs are not ‘transparent reflections of fact’ (Samuel 1994, 343). They can be misinterpreted and reinterpreted when viewed from different eras, by different viewers or through the lens of critical analysis (Freund and Thomson 2011, 51-52). Critical analysis includes inquiring about the relationships revealed in the photographs and their contexts, including why they were taken and by whom. Photographs are public performances and may hide painful personal stories and events (ibid, 50).

167 The Solomon Islands Historical Encyclopedia (Moore 2013b) is a valuable source of historical photographs prior to Independence.

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Fig. 7.6 Pat Halpin, Helen Barrett, Joy Fig. 7.7 Timothy Kwaimani and Tony Hughes, Kere, Ann Lanham, Honiara 2006 Honiara 2014 (photo: author) (photo: Helen Barrett collection)

Official photographs reflect institutional biases in the way they were posed and produced (Stein 2013). Photographs in colonial government and missionary publications express to the colonial gaze towards ‘natives’. Fig. 5.8–5.11 show missionaries helping and training ‘natives’ and ‘lepers’ with a display of white uniforms and dressings contrasting with the brown skins of the natives. As Kabutaulaka (1997, 169) notes, ‘The native in Solomon Islands is a European creation which manifests the superiority of the colonial power...a distinction between East and West but also master and subject, superior and inferior’.

The 1965 nurses’ graduation photograph (Chapter 6, Fig. 6.6) was no doubt intended to illustrate the progress of the colonial government in training nurses and improving medical services. It reveals colonial hierarchy and white privilege in the form of expatriates in suits and ties seated on chairs, with the male medical assistants standing to attention behind them and nurse-midwives kneeling in front with their certificates. These nurses were the ones who survived the training; they could also have told of their struggles to graduate and the other students who dropped out, failed exams or were dismissed due to pregnancy.

The visual domain also included data displays, concept maps, models, frameworks, analogies and visual metaphors to summarise and bring clarity to analysis and interpretation. The oral history model, the social-history framework and zoom lens analogy are other examples of visuals used in this research to review and visualise aspects of oral history and social history.

7.2.2 The spatial domain

The spatial domain includes both physical space and social space, which are fundamental in shaping interviews and in shaping the texts emerging from them. Key aspects within the spatial domain are summarised in Fig. 7.8 below.

185 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History

Fig. 7.8 Spatial domain aspects

The real estate agents’ mantra, ‘location, location, location’, also applies to history interviews, which take place within an ‘everyday geography’ (Andrews et al. 2006, 171). Whether an interview takes place in a person’s home, office or elsewhere, the interview location prompts different information, stories and memories. Within each case study, there were noticeable differences between interviews depending on their locations. For example, the interview with Helen Barrett at the Queensland Museum, with her niece and a curator present, covered quite different topics from those at her nursing home. Another example was Tony Hughes, whom I interviewed in several locations in Honiara and at his homestead in the Vona Vona lagoon, including his office, library, at his dining table and on walkabout in his forest plantation. Each location prompted different memories, stories and questions about the surrounding features and his life.

Participants’ homes were usually more convenient for participants, particularly the frail Helen Barrett and the disabled David Sitai. However, some Solomon Islands participants lived in poor or overcrowded housing, making them reluctant to be interviewed at home. Others who were living comfortably and proud of their homes were amenable to interviews at home. Some homes were too busy, especially if there were small children, and interviews in office spaces were also subject to frequent interruptions. My rented accommodation was quieter but was inappropriate when interviewing women, lest there be any misinterpretation or gossip. Noisy soundscapes also had a significant impact on interviews. Some recordings were ruined for archival purposes by noisy locations near the sea, roads, construction work, sitting outside on windy days, air conditioners and

186 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History fans. Restaurants and cafes were a last resort but often had too much background noise for recording purposes. And almost whatever location was chosen, there were interruptions by other people or mobile phones that had not been switched off and spoiled recordings, requiring later editing.

Memories of the past are emplaced—that is, they are remembered taking place in locations, places, and spaces such as rooms, houses, streets, communities, villages, countryside and urban landscapes (Shopes 2002a, 593). Experiences and memories of experiences have ‘emotional geographies’ (Andrews et al. 2006, 168), associated with places; these may lie forgotten and come to mind in the oral history interview. For example, the missionary sisters associated Fauabu with celebrations of graduations, feast days and visitors, whereas Honiara was remembered disparagingly or negatively as a place of officials and expatriates. Most nursing officers had worked in many locations and had vivid memories and stories, usually positive but sometimes negative due to cases and situations that had been difficult or gone wrong. Places may be compared between the past and present, such as nurses’ positive memories and stories of Central Hospital during training, which contrasted with their recent experience.

Personal and cultural identity are also associated with place, which Andrews et al. (2006, 154) term ‘place identity’. For example, Hughes, standing outside the Central Bank—a building he had commissioned and helped to design as governor—revealed a quite different identity from his identities in the Vona Vona lagoon as the husband of a traditional landowner, in his forest plantation, serving customers at his small shop or sitoa, or onboard his private canoe travelling to Gizo or Munda (see Figs 7.9–7.11). Each specific identity affected the type of questions asked and topics discussed, ranging from the work of the Central Bank to how the homestead store (sitoa) operated to how to read wave patterns.

Figs. 7.9–7.11 Different places and identities: (L–R) Hughes as Central Bank ex-governor (Honiara), storekeeper (Vona Vona), husband and former naval officer (on board his canoe) (photos: author)

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Nurses’ professional identity was formed through their training and career but could be lost after retirement. Those who retired in town were often not recognised or acknowledged as experienced and qualified nurses when going to the hospital as a patient or relative. This generated negative stories about the hospital and adverse opinions of younger generations of nurses. However, nurses who had retired in rural areas or provincial centres could continue to be recognised as nurses and some continued treating and advising patients.

The spatial domain includes the social distance between narrator and interviewer. Differences in class, age, gender, education, race, religion denomination or faith, political views, and insider– outsider position impact on interview dynamics and contents. The distance (near or far) between them affects how narrator and interviewer regard and respond to each other, consciously and unconsciously. Social distance can be conveyed through differences in body posture, dress, language, vocabulary, and accent, creating different dynamics and generating different questions and responses.

My strategy in interviews was to minimise differences and emphasise common ground between myself and participants wherever possible. Most participants were the same age and post-war generation as me but Barrett, Hughes and Roughan belonged to an earlier generation. Their upbringing during the depression and war-time experiences meant that I was an outsider to their generation, particularly having grown up with the privileges of post-war peace and wealth. However, I was able to ask questions about and record their upbringing and experiences and use knowledge of my own family’s pre-war experiences.

The difference that gender made is difficult if not impossible to assess because I cannot know how differently female participants might have responded to a female interviewer, or what a female interviewer might have asked. With the Fauabu sisters, I narrowed the social distance in age, gender and religion (I am an atheist) by the way I dressed (conservatively, with a jacket) and spoke (polite middle-class English), withheld my political or religious beliefs, and emphasised our shared background in nursing and long experience in the Solomons. With Solomon Islands women, I was careful to avoid sexual innuendo or jokes and to choose appropriate locations for interviews.

The effect of racial differences on my interviews with the Solomon Islander participants was less because I was of a similar generation and profession, and I had known or worked with many of them. Conversing in Solomon Pijin also reduced my distance as an araikwao (white man) and outsider. I was closest in terms of social distance to Hughes, a fellow countryman of shared class, gender, nationality, and politics, further helped by the fact that I had interviewed him previously about the former prime minister, Solomon Mamaloni. It is unsurprising that I was invited to stay

188 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History at his homestead, did more interviews, and covered a wider range of topics with Hughes than any other participant. In Section 3.1, I return to issues of insider–outsider differences and dominance in oral history methodology.

7.2.3 The oral–aural domain

Orality (speaking) is fundamental to the process and products of oral history (Portelli 1981/2015) but so, too, is its Siamese twin—aurality (listening). Fig. 7.12 summarises a range of oral and aural aspects found in the case studies. An oral history interview is a complex, multi-faceted process with unusual ways of speaking and listening that differ from everyday conversation. The oral-aural domain includes: conscious and unconscious interactions between narrators and interviewer; interviewing styles and skills (or lack of); how questions are asked and answered; and the recording of the conversation with interruptions and outside noises. Orality refers not only to what is said but to how it is said, the nuances and emphases that convey meaning. Emotions can be heard in changes in vocal register—such as ‘choking up’ and hesitancy—that accompany sensitive issues or negative memories.

Fig. 7.12 Oral-Aural domain aspects

As Bornat (1994, 213) notes, the oral history interview is a process of social interaction and interrogation shaped by question and answer. In this research, questions and topics commonly followed a life history sequence, starting with birth and parents. This was not a fixed strategy and varied with the personality of the participant and their orality or ways of talking, but also with how

189 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History much time was available in the interview and/or whether further interviews were scheduled. Questions and probes were adapted depending on participants’ responses; those who gave short answers and descriptions needed more questions while those who gave longer-responses needed fewer questions and sometimes needed bringing back to the topic. Questions such as, ‘What are you most proud of?’ or ‘Do you have any regrets about…?’, usually towards the end of an interview with nurses or a series of life history interviews, also created new insights. Participants responded to questions such as ‘Why did you choose to become a nurse’ or ‘How did you meet your wife/husband’ with well-rehearsed stories, recognisable by their fluency and lack of pauses.

Aurality—listening and being listened to—is central to oral history and is positioned centrally in this model. Just as there are unusual ways of speaking that differ from everyday conversation, there are different ways of listening in and to oral history interviews. This first means ‘deep listening’ or paying the closest attention to what is said and how it is said. Pauses and silences, unusual or repeated turns of phrase, expressions of emotions and voice changes may indicate issues of significance that could be probed further. I found that deep listening—or being ‘in the zone’— during interviews created space for reflection by participants and allowed insights to emerge that participants had perhaps not realised or disclosed before. At the end of an interview, I also asked participants how they found the interview, whether any questions were difficult and whether they had gained any new insights, which was often the case. When writing up the fieldwork journal on the day or next day, I reflected on the interviews, noting missing questions and information to follow up in further interviews or when sending transcripts and interview summaries for correction.

The secondary oral history phase permits a different type of deep re-listening without the competing distractions of the interview. This can be strenuous work, especially when listening to several interviews at a time (Thomson 2016, 313). Words, phrases, sentences, or a section of the interview can be replayed repeatedly to capture indistinct words, exact phrasing, emotional nuances and meanings for precise transcription. Pauses and silences may have significance or may simply be a normal speech pattern. Silence can mean participants are thinking about the question, recalling a memory or thinking about what they are going to say. Alternatively, it can mean that participants are uncomfortable or unwilling to discuss a matter further (Layman 2009).

When re-listening to recordings, I became more aware of how my questions and the interview dynamics influenced narrators’ stories. I was annoyed with myself for mistakes such as missing key questions or probes, interrupting a participant, or breaking a silence with a question or unnecessary comment. While practice did not make perfect, reflexively analysing interviews did hone my interview questions and skills. A golden rule for an interview is to be comfortable with silence and

190 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History not to interrupt or pose another question until it is clear the participant has finished or expects another question.

In tertiary phase oral history, interview texts or transcript can be analysed in varying degrees of detail, depending on the purpose of the study and academic discipline involved, often using transcripts, which will be discussed in the next section. But some nuances and subtleties can only be detected in the oral recording, which reinforces the importance of the recording and the true verbatim record of the interview(s). I briefly explored analysis techniques in socio-linguistics and conversational analysis168 but found formal micro-analysis of language and linguistic structures too complex for my purposes. Rather, I inductively analysed and interpreted oral aspects when replaying and transcribing interviews, adding notations which I also used in interview notes, such as bold, italics, underlining, quotation marks to convey nuances and shades of meaning in vocal expressions, intensity, hesitation, pauses, silences and reticence. Interviews conducted in Solomon Pijin, which has a limited vocabulary, sometimes needed careful listening to accurately convey their meaning in English, as there are often several meanings for the same words depending on sentence context and tone of voice.

The oral-aural domain includes the oral consent given by the narrator to the interview. Oral consent was recorded in the initial interview recordings and then in writing on a consent form. The latter may be inappropriate for some Solomon Islands contexts. According to Northern oral history convention, the narrator’s words belong to the narrator until legally transferred through a signed agreement, while the recording belongs to the interviewer (Mackay 2016, x). I discuss in Section 7.3.3 my concerns with the complexity and coloniality of such conventions, particularly release agreement at the time of the interview and copyright law.

7.2.4 The text domain

Oral histories may be recorded for posterity but then rarely listened to. It is easier and faster to read a transcript of an interview than to listen to a recording, and transcripts are much easier to search, assemble, shape and edit. However, as discussed in Section 7.2.6, digital technologies have brought the recording back to the centre of attention, as they can be searched through summary indexes, listened to within texts with hyperlinks, and edited for use in multi-media displays, exhibitions and museums.

168 Conversational analysis is an approach associated with ethnomethodology and sociolinguistics and involves recording interpersonal speech and nonverbal behaviour in everyday contexts and identifying patterns of conversation (e.g., turn taking forms of talk, verbal utterances, pauses). Socio-linguistics also analyses languages for social factors, such as class, gender and dialect, involving detailed study of grammar, vocabulary and phonetics (Calhoun 2002).

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Texts in oral history research can be found in many forms. These include: transcripts; interview summaries; individual and collective biographies; notes taken during interviews to keep track of topics covered and to record key points; possible quotes; lists of items to follow up; primary and secondary documents such as institutional reports and historical literature; and project documentation such as research planning documents, question topic guides and participant information and consent forms. Fig. 7.13 shows key aspects of the text domain, including [in square brackets] aspects that were not done or used in this research.

Fig. 7.13 Text domain aspects

I read multiple texts to produce a research design and gain ethics approval, as explained in Chapter 3 (Sections 3.2.2 and 3.2.4). This exemplifies how much the text domain dominates Northern oral history practice and theory, which is true of almost any academic research project. In the secondary and tertiary phases of oral history, the shift from the oral domain into text further accentuates a researcher’s control of the oral history process.

Producing and processing texts were very time consuming, with far more time spent on participants’ texts than on listening to their spoken words. I underestimated the ‘long, meandering journey’ of transcribing and editing interviews into typed texts (Jones 2004, 23). I tried different methods of transcription, ranging from near-verbatim transcriptions with life histories, eliding only filler words—discourse markers (‘ums’ and ‘ahs’) that disrupted reading the text – to edited career histories with only quotes kept verbatim.

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As oral historians such as Shopes (2014) and Thompson (2016) argue, oral histories belong first and foremost to the narrators and should be returned to them in a form that they can understand. Consistent with this view, I made it my first priority to prepare texts to return to participants before analysing the texts. From these texts, I produced a range of outputs, including individual interview summaries and transcripts, three case study chapters and this thesis.

I was influenced by the approach of Shopes (2011/2015, 487) regarding analysis of texts. She provides a pragmatic approach to analysis in three stages: 1) interpreting what narrators say and the meaning of their narratives or stories; 2) analysing how the oral and text narratives have been influenced by the process of the interview, transcription and publication; and 3) situating the narrators and narratives within their historical context of time and place.169 Consistent with Shopes’ approach, I have conducted internal analysis of the oral history interviews and external analysis of the contents of the oral histories. Internal analysis involved critically analysing the dynamics between narrators and myself as interviewer; how and what was spoken (and not spoken) about; how life and career stories were remembered and told; and how the contexts—the settings and circumstances—affected the interviews. External analysis includes what I summarise as the ‘4 Cs’: content analysis of topics and themes in each interview; cross analysis of themes across the interviews; collective history summarising each case study; and critical analysis of the collective history from interviews.

I decided against formal narrative analysis and discourse analysis approaches in my analysis of the interview texts170. Narrative analysis features many difficult terms—‘narrative accrual’, ‘referentiality’ and ‘hermeneutic circle’ (Bruner 1991, 6–20)—that I found too complicated to use and explain, particularly to a wider audience for the thesis in the Solomons. Interpretation of texts involves, for example, identifying text segments by whether they are descriptive, argumentative, reporting, narrative or evaluative (Bornat 2000, 346). Discourse analysis—of how stories are told and their characteristics, such as of ‘speech acts’, ‘frames’, ‘discourse markers’ and ‘turn taking’ (Tannen 2020)—was slightly less complex but still difficult to apply and not central to my interest in the oral histories. Additionally, narrative or discourse analytical approaches from Northern literary and cultural studies cannot be assumed to have universal value or relevance to Solomon Islands.

169 Stages 1) and 2) also correspond to micro-narrative analysis and 3) to macro-thematic analysis (Thomson 2019), as briefly discussed in Chapter 3, Methodologies and methods (Section 3.3.4). 170 Denzin (2000, xi) lists different methods of narrative analysis from various disciplines: cultural, literary, psychoanalytic; structural, semiotic, linguistic and feminist.

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Producing texts required numerous decisions regarding what information was most relevant and how much to summarise. In this research, some decisions were based on personal preference, while others were suggested by readers of draft texts. Decisions were also influenced by word limits suggested or required for biographies, thesis chapters and articles. These decisions further shifted control to me as the researcher or production manager of oral histories. I discuss the balance of power, authority and dominance in the different phases of oral history later in Section 3.1.

7.2.5 The numerical domain

Numerical data feature in each phase of the oral history research process, as summarised in Fig. 7.14.

Fig. 7.14 Numerical domain aspects

In primary oral history, numerical data occur in multiple forms. Stories and histories are often told and written in a chronological sequence. Numbers arise in interviews relating to time (ages, dates, intervals), size (family, groups, institutions), and distances (between locations, journeys, logistics). They arise in analysis of the number and length of interviews, the number of informants and their demographic characteristics (age, gender, location). The numerical domain intersects with visual and textual domains when data are presented using graphs and graphic displays or explained in tables. In this research, demographic, epidemiological and economic data have supplemented and are used to contextualise social history.

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Numerical data routinely collected during the interviews included participants’ year of birth (birthdates were not often recorded in older generations), current age, number of siblings, years of education, graduation, postings, promotions, marriage, number and age of children. Dates were often difficult for participants to remember accurately but could be linked to year of birth, school years and significant national events. Postings and promotions proved time-consuming to recall unless a curriculum vitae was available. A better use of interview time was to get specific details when interview summaries were sent to participants for correction.

In the secondary oral history phase, I assembled timelines and locations of life and career histories in chronological order. In the tertiary oral history phase of the nursing officers case study, I created a summary spreadsheet of key data from the 25 careers. These included: years of education, places and dates of training, changes in training and qualifications, years at postings, intervals between promotions, years of service and numbers of children.

The oral history planning process had important numerical aspects, including the number and range of participants, and the time and resources required to interview, process and analyse recordings. Each phase of the project required time, resources, and money, placing constraints on the size and extent of the study. Budgets and financial records of income and expenditure were needed to acquire and acquit fieldwork grants.171 The number of participants expanded following the initial research design: in the life history study, from two to four; in the nursing officers study, from 12 to 25 (plus 12 supplementary interviews); and the addition of the Fauabu case study.172 Life histories required four to eight interviews of 90 minutes each, while career histories required one or two interviews up to four hours in total.173 Each hour of interview took on average 6.7 hours to transcribe—which accords with Mackay’s estimate of 6 to 8 hours per hour of recording (Mackay 2016, 102). In hindsight, I conducted more interviews than necessary for the life history case study and included too many participants in the nursing officers’ study; the number of participants and interviews for the Fauabu case study was manageable.

Other source materials provided quantitative data for analysis. For example, the Solomon Islands nursing database allowed me to calculate pass rates for cohorts of nurses and to compare the numbers of nurses qualifying from government and mission institutions at the meso-level with the number of nurses trained each decade at the macro-level. MHMS reports allowed comparison of

171 Exchange rates make it difficult to calculate exactly the fieldwork cost over seven months and four trips to the Solomon Islands, but I estimate that the total cost of the fieldwork was AUD 28,000, of which AUD 2000 was provided by a university travel grant. 172 Plus, two case studies (kakamora and family history) were discontinued after about 20 interviews were completed. 173 The times for the nursing histories are similar to the Australian Generations project (2011–2015), which conducted interviews in two sessions over four to five hours (Thomson 2014).

195 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History surveys of nurses from the 1990s with data relating to nurses in this study. I also utilised epidemiologic data to examine changes in morbidity and mortality, and the transition to a dual burden of infectious and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Census and online sources revealed the dramatic changes in the populations of Honiara and Solomon Islands since the 1950s. Macro- level data on education and economic changes in the post-war era allowed me to understand social and historical contexts of individual and collective histories.

Using numerical data provides useful detail for both internal and external analysis of oral histories. However, quantitative data can be regarded as more ‘true’ than oral accounts and give a misleading appearance of objectivity. And like the textual domain, the numerical domain further shifts authority and control to the researcher in the analysis and interpretation phase.

7.2.6 The digital domain

The fourth of Thomson’s paradigms, ‘the digital turn’, has transformed each phase of the practice of oral history: in the primary phase, through the availability of greatly improved and more accessible audio and video recording devices; in the secondary phase, through hardware and software for copying, curating, accessing and preserving oral histories, and for digital story-telling; and in the tertiary phase, through the availability of computer hardware and software to analyse oral histories (see Fig. 7.15).174 Digital recordings can be indexed, catalogued, searched, stored, shared and accessed via digital media and online platforms.

Digital technologies have both advantages and disadvantages in oral history research. Video recordings add much visual detail but create very large files that are challenging for storing data during fieldwork and even for small collections such as in this research. 175 Technologies and media formats can become obsolete (for example, cassette tapes and the mini-disc) or cease to be standard features on computers, such as CD and DVD. Digital technology allows data to be shared almost instantaneously via the internet (Boyd and Larson 2014, 4), but internet access and speed, and the affordability of technology, vary greatly within and between countries, creating issues of affordability and accessibility (discussed in Section 3.2). Specialist skills in technology and archiving are required for curating larger collections. Curating even small collections can be challenging for less technologically adept researchers, such as myself.

I adopted a conservative approach in this research and used technology that I had used in previous fieldwork. I recorded interviews with a Sony Zoom 2 digital audio recorder, backed up by Livescribe

174 Aspects that I have not used in this research are indicated in [square brackets] in Fig. 7.15. 175 According to Boyd (quoted in Mackay 2016, 193), 73.6GB/hr of uncompressed recording for video versus 2GB/hr for audio recordings, a ratio of 37 to 1, confirmed by my own recordings.

196 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History recorder which also digitally recorded notes and made transcription easier. I experimented with video-recording interviews using a Canon DSLR176camera with an extension microphone but found that with audio-recording participants were less self-conscious and I was able to focus better on the interview. With audio-recording, there was also less risk of running out of battery power on devices or memory space for digital cards, computer and backup drives.

Fig. 7.15 Digital domain aspects

For analysis, I used NVivo (version 10 and 11) to code textual versions of interviews, although the software can accommodate coding and clipping of recordings. NVivo is widely used in academic research for qualitative analysis but I found it difficult to learn and to remember procedures if not used for any length of time. Without an institutional licence, annual licences are exorbitantly priced, which makes it less suitable for personal or local history projects, especially in Solomon Islands contexts.

Although not part of this research, oral history projects and collections now catalogue and index recordings and interview summaries to make access easier for other researchers to search within recordings and across interview collections (Holmes et al. 2016). For example, Stories Matter (http://storytelling.concordia.ca) is a free open-source software and data base for oral history and

176 Digital Single Lens Reflex. Since 2014, the quality of cameras on mobile phones has improved to such an extent that a DSLR camera and accessories are probably no longer necessary. However, an extension microphone is still required for better quality recording.

197 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History digital storytelling from Concordia University in Montreal (Jesse et al. 2011). It allows interviews to be catalogued, searched, sorted and browsed and excerpts clipped. It can be used to search collections that have been stored using open-source software. In another example closer to home, the Australian Generations Project (2011–2015), uses Zotero software, better known for its open- reference software, to manage a searchable database linked to interview recordings and indexed interview summaries (Bradley 2014). Digital data bases such as these bring attention back to orality and the oral recording as the primary document (Mackay 2016, 89). Rather than providing transcripts, with all the time and costs involved, recordings can be searched and analysed digitally through an index of topics, similar to a book index.

Oral histories and recordings are accessible more conventionally through repositories such as museums, libraries, archives, oral history associations and older on-line digital sites.177 Repositories require recordings to be accompanied by content summaries and indexes of places and subject names mentioned in the recordings, together with informed consent and all legal forms in a digital format designed or agreed to by the receiving repositories. These requirements add further complexity and formality to consent, confidentiality, and control of access on public platforms (Abrams 2016, ix).

In this research I have not yet made recordings and transcripts accessible. I originally considered the Solomon Islands Historical Encyclopaedia as a possible home for the oral histories but this proved not to be feasible because the site is moderated by The University of Melbourne and uploading material is far from simple (Moore 2015, pers. comm). I also considered other options, including setting up a Solomon Islands oral history website for nurses containing nurses’ career histories, excerpts from recordings, photographs and historical information, along the lines of the online archive of Nursing Oral Histories in New Zealand (NERF 2020).178 However, setting up and maintaining an internet site and creating links with other oral history archives would require time and skills beyond me. I decided against this option with advice from Madeleine Regan (pers. comm 2017), an oral historian and PhD candidate who has established a website relating to Italian market gardeners in South Australia.179 The question of where the oral histories (oral recording and texts)

177 In 2018, the National Museum and Art Gallery of Papua New Guinea opened a new gallery featuring oral history focusing on Indigenous experiences in the Pacific War (Nolan and Ritchie 2020). 178 The New Zealand nurses’ oral histories were collected by a University of Auckland project team and are stored in the Alexander Turnbull Library’s Oral History and Sound Collection in Wellington and online at (http://www.nursinghistory.org.nz/index.php/An_Online_Archive_of_Nursing_Oral_Histories_in_NZ). This is one of a number of online nursing oral history collections, including in Britain (https://www.rcn.org.uk/library/ books-journals-and-databases/special-collections/oral-history-collection) and many individual nursing institutions and universities in the United States. 179 http://venetimarketgardeners1927.net. Madeleine Regan created this website prior to starting her doctoral studies in 2014. The site was set up and is maintained with the technical support of an interested volunteer.

198 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History from this research will be archived and accessed is further complicated by the difficulties relating to properly informed consent and safeguards on access to oral histories in Solomon Islands, as discussed further in Section 7.3.3 below.

* * *

Oral history is an umbrella term (Abrams 2016, 2) and the VSO-ATND model could be described as an umbrella model, with distinct panels or domains covering multiple aspects of oral history methodology. The model is flexible and can encompass many theoretical and practical aspects in oral history methodology. Other researchers could add domains (panels) depending on the focus of their research. For example, memory could be shown as a separate domain to highlight aspects such as reliability of recall, collective memory, and cultural memory. In this research, memory has not been a major focus of analysis, although aspects of memory have been considered in the visual, oral and textual domains. Another example might be including narrative as a separate domain.

Another feature of the model is the separation of primary, secondary, and tertiary phases, which is helpful in clarifying different processes. Not all processes are necessarily required in any given project. Primary oral history is essential but secondary and tertiary history can be optional or minimal if the main concern is to prevent libraries from being lost. 7.3 Practising oral history research in Solomon Islands contexts

In Section 7.3, I consider some key issues and concerns regarding the use of oral history methods in Solomon Islands as part of academic studies.180 Formal research requires, inter alia, approval for research design, methodology, evidence of funds and defined procedures for managing the content, including access and archiving. The four issues considered here are: the roles of insiders and outsiders; the costs, access, and affordability of technology; legal copyright and informed consent in the digital age; and decolonising oral history.

7.3.1 Difference and dominance between insiders and outsiders

The insider–outsider binary (sometimes referred to in Pacific contexts as ‘islanders’ and ‘outlanders’) is a common distinction in many types of social research, including oral history (Portelli 2013; Nyhan and Flynn 2016) and Pacific history (Munroe 1996). Being an insider or an outsider influences interview dynamics considerably. An interviewer who is an outsider may be less trusted or lack the cultural knowledge or expertise necessary to ask the right questions. However, narrators may also open up to an outsider in a way they would not do to someone from within

180 Other types of oral history—for example, personal and family histories, local and community histories—can be undertaken without formal design, research approval, public access or copyright.

199 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History their community (Portelli 2013, 278–279). An interviewer who is an insider may not use their cultural knowledge or use it to avoid sensitive topics or embarrassing the narrator, their family or their community (Nyhan and Flynn 2016, 31–32).

Rather than a binary, I found my position moving along an insider–outsider continuum in this research. As a researcher and interviewer, I occupied different positions along this continuum depending on whom I was talking with and at what phase of the research. During the research approval process, I regarded myself as an outsider (and was regarded as such by Solomon Islands institutions), which required me to spend considerable time and expense for permission to conduct the research. But as a former health worker in Solomon Islands, I was also able to use insider knowledge of former colleagues and education officials to help me with the process. Then, during the fieldwork, my insider knowledge of Solomon Islands medical services and relationships over 25 years allowed me to ask questions in depth and get participants to talk about their personal and professional histories.

The two uncompleted case studies (briefly discussed in Chapter 3, Section 2.3) were quite different and in these I was certainly positioned as an outsider. Insiders or outsiders with more expertise would certainly have fared better. In the family history case study, I struggled as an outsider to follow, record, and understand kinship relationships, made even more complicated by informal adoptions and adopted names. In contrast, Solomon Islanders can understand family genealogies almost like global positioning systems. A Solomon Islands insider, or perhaps an outsider with greater experience, training and familiarity with genealogical software than me, would have been better equipped to record genealogies and family details.

In the kakamora case study, I was a stranger in villages and was limited by communicating in Solomon Pijin. Lacking Indigenous language skills, I was unable to learn nuances of the stories, as told to and understood by Michael Scott, the ethnographer who has written extensively on the kakamora and their significance for Makiran identity (Scott 2007, 2011, 2013). Oral traditions and folklore stories have multiple levels of meaning and cultural references understood by insiders in language, which might be interpreted by an insider, folklore expert, or linguist but were not revealed or apparent to me as an outsider.

As discussed in the spatial domain (Section 2.2), social distance between narrator and interviewer changes dynamics, which can lead to domination on either side of the microphone or even before. For example, in my previous research for the Mamaloni biography, getting interviews with some former or present political leaders was difficult, making me a supplicant. Consequently, when I managed to secure interviews, I was less relaxed and more cautious as an interviewer. In these

200 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History instances, I was dominated by their former leadership status and by my outsider position as a foreigner. This happened much less in this research; indeed, the opposite was the case with some participants who placed me in a dominant position because I was undertaking doctoral research. Some participants then tended to give more stilted explanations in English about their careers.

The degree to which oral history is co-constructed varies between different phases of the research and type of outputs produced—transcripts, summaries, biographies. Narrators usually have the greater share of authority in the interview phase of oral history, although this can change if the narrator is shy or hesitant and the interviewer dominates. Authority and control of the narrative shift to the researcher in the secondary and especially the tertiary phase of oral history. My position has shifted further to that of an outsider the longer I have been away from Solomon Islands and the longer since the primary oral history phase of the research. Although I involved participants by inviting them to edit or correct their interviews and career summaries, the drafts and final versions were prepared by me and it was my decision as to which materials to return. In the analysis phase, I have had almost complete authority over what to summarise, quote or otherwise use of the oral histories, unless a participant has explicitly asked for something to be excluded.

7.3.2 Costs, access, and inequality

The ‘digital turn’ has transformed oral history methods and made oral history accessible beyond the academy and public institutions. Specialist recording equipment is no longer essential with the increasing sophistication and capacity of smart phones, tablets, and laptop computers, especially when equipped with external microphones. However, digital technology is expensive and raises issues of accessibility and affordability in Solomon Islands contexts. Recharging facilities are required, and these are scarce outside urban centres unless portable solar chargers are available. In urban centres, research can be ruined by power surges, which can shorten the useful lives of digital equipment, as well by the ever-present risk of theft. Internet access is expensive and slow by international standards, making it prohibitive to send and download large files. Many Solomon Islanders already spend considerable proportions of their disposable income talking and messaging on mobile phones. People may be reluctant or unable to afford access to the internet for personal, family, local and community oral histories.

Conducting fieldwork in Solomon Islands is expensive, including the costs of collecting oral histories such as logistics, food, accommodation, and equipment, as well as sometimes recompensing and helping participants.181 Without external funding, the costs of fieldwork and

181 I paid for food and travel expenses to the interviews. One participant with disabilities asked for financial help in return for interviews and a former colleague requested a mobile phone, both of whom I felt I could not refuse.

201 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History technology make oral history research in Solomon Island contexts problematic for students and community-led oral history projects.

Access to technology and associated costs are also barriers to preserving existing oral history collections, such as analogue tapes in the Solomon Islands National Museum. Digitisation has become increasingly urgent, with analogue magnetic tapes having a shelf life of 10–30 years and equipment to play them increasingly no longer working. Digitisation may be already too late in many cases. Cassette tapes were widely used in the 1980s and can be digitised and re-recorded on digital recorders if cassette players can be found to play them. Sound quality may be less than ideal but if the recordings are audible, they can be copied and archived. Digitisation of reel-to-reel magnetic tapes requires funding and technical skills. Outside agencies with funding and expertise can assist, such as the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures, which preserves audio-recordings in over 1,200 languages (Paradesic 2020). Another valuable resource is the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau (PAMBU) at the Australian National University, which copies and digitises old documents, records and photographs and makes them available through a network of collaborating museums and libraries. While PAMBU does not yet archive oral history recordings, it is willing to consider archiving oral history transcripts and associated materials (James 2018, pers. comm.).

7.3.3 Informed consent and copyright

Oral history methodology seeks to ensure that recordings and texts can enter the public record and be secured for future access. Informed consent and the rights of narrators, interviewers and organisations holding the recordings (their copyright) are key issues and are entangled in the difficult language of the law and ethical principles. Copyright law varies in different countries, but the underlying principle is that an oral history interview is the narrator’s intellectual property to which they hold copyright until and unless they transfer those rights to an individual interviewer, oral historian or institution (OHA 2018). Narrators are usually asked to sign legal release forms before or immediately after the interview, which allows recordings to be protected, archived, and accessed. Once transferred, access is controlled by whichever oral historian or organisation legally holds the copyright, subject to any conditions stipulated by the narrator and to the procedures of the holding institution (OHA 2018, 10–11).

However, oral history ethical principles also recommend that the narrator be given the opportunity to review the interview (recording and/or transcript) and approve what was said for public release or other use (OHA 2018, 6). Narrators have the right to delete or restrict portions of an interview and to clarify and correct mistakes. They can choose to keep the interview closed to the public

202 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History until a set date or to decline to release it to the public in the first place. These principles appear to contradict the practice of asking narrators to sign the release agreement immediately or soon after the interview. Most narrators are content to hand over control and access to the oral historian or holding institution. Indeed, collections like the Australian Generations Project will only agree to interview narrators who are prepared for their oral histories to be publicly accessible (Holmes et al. 2016). This arrangement solves the problems of having to contact narrators for permission when others seek to access recordings or texts.

The concept of separating and handing over the rights to one’s intellectual property is foreign to many Indigenous cultures (Forsyth 2013). Importing conventions into Solomon Islands contexts based on Northern intellectual property law is problematic. Informed consent to take part in the research, to be interviewed and to use information for research purposes is less problematic than informed consent to release or transfer copyright to the recording. Copyright law involves complex legal language that is difficult to understand and explain, potentially rendering consent uninformed or ill-informed. Such law does not address cultural context or offer safeguards against threats and claims for compensation resulting from negative comments made by narrators. Regardless of who owns copyright, narrators need assurances that making recordings and transcripts publicly available will not lead to compensation demands.

The Solomon Islands Copyright Act (SI 1996/Cap138) is based on British copyright law, whereby the recording belongs to the person(s) or organisation(s) who make(s) the recording, while the words belong to the narrator. The Copyright Act refers to published recordings, and an oral history recording is presumably published material once it is made publicly available. The Act also does not consider the issue of copyright regarding access via internet sites. In neighbouring Vanuatu, the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000, which passed into law in 2011, signifies an important step in the development of intellectual property law in Vanuatu and the Pacific Islands (Schnierer 2011). The Act protects the intellectual property of artistic work, literary work, dramatic work, musical work, audio-visual work or collective work—regardless of whether they were created before or after the law came into force. It includes exceptions to copyright infringement for reproduction for personal purposes, quotation, educational or legal purposes, by libraries and archives, broadcasting and information purposes and display of works. Copies of recordings from any research must be deposited with the Vanuatu Cultural Centre.

Without the safeguards provided by Vanuatu law, I adopted a precautionary approach in this research to ensure properly informed consent and protect copyright. The release form (see Appendix 1c) provided participants with options only after they had corrected interview texts and had the opportunity to listen to recordings (which were not edited). Participants had a choice of

203 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History five levels of release of their written materials and recordings: 1) Unconditional; 2) Unconditional for researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) and Solomon Islands National Museum (SINM); 3) Conditional—permission needed from the narrator for non-researchers to read or listen to materials; 4) Conditional—permission needed to publish or broadcast materials; and 5) Conditional—permission to allow future archiving at five specific locations.182

Most participants restricted permission for written materials and recordings for my research purposes. Eight gave unconditional permission for researchers at the National Museum, of whom six gave permission for use on an oral history website or database. For the remaining 26 participants, archiving and accessing the materials is conditional on a case-by-case basis. I remain the custodian of the recordings but have yet to decide whether the Solomon Islands National Museum will archive recordings and make them accessible upon request. Other possible repositories are the Solomon Islands National Library and the National Archives, which also have links with PAMBU and its wider regional networks.

I have discussed with lecturers at the Solomon Islands National University (SINU) School of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences (SNAHS) the possibility of using oral history interviews as examples of nursing history and to teach research techniques, including interviewing, analysis and interpretation. Incorporating oral histories into a nursing curriculum at SINU would require detailed negotiation and planning of content and process—what Sheftel (2019) calls the untidy pedagogy of oral history. These issues of copyright, informed consent and future access to oral histories will require further negotiation by me with participants and institutions in the Solomons.

7.3.4 Recolonising or decolonising oral history in the Solomons

In the lead-up to Independence, Francis Bugotu argued in ‘Decolonising and Recolonising: The Case of the Solomons’ (1973), that decolonisation was binding former colonies to metropolitan countries and actually recolonised countries through legal procedures and education based on racist cultural assumptions that demean Pacific Islanders. In her critique of neoliberalism in the Pacific, Bargh (2002, 58) uses the term ‘recolonisation’ to describe the activities of outsiders who believe that their prescriptions are not only right but also that they have the right to provide countries with the benefits of their wisdom, just as missionaries and others did during colonialism.

This oral history research can be assessed through the lens of recolonisation from several viewpoints. First, this research is part of a doctoral thesis, which has required me to comply with

182 Locations for keeping the recordings were: a) myself as the researcher; b) Solomon Islands National University (SINU); c) Solomon Islands National Museum (SINM); 4) an oral history web site; or 5) an online database.

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Northern academic processes, including research design, examining relevant literatures and gaining university approval for the research design and ethics. The results have been written up in a thesis format to comply with academic conventions for approval by external examiners, both of whom will possibly be outsiders to Solomon Islands. Pacific scholar Vilsoni Hereniko (2000) terms this ‘academic imperialism’, part of a dominant structure that oppresses Indigenous methods and narratives. The research could be regarded as extracting oral histories of Indigenous people for academic purposes, in order to gain academic recognition from the Australian National University and honorific status for myself, a white Australian of European origin.

Second, I have imported Northern oral history methodology and methods into Solomon Islands contexts, including written information for participants, ethics consent for interviews and release agreements. I have curated (a term associated with museums and art collections) oral testimonies and turned them into texts written in English and edited them according to Northern conventions. The balance of power and authority has thus resided with me for much of the research, with little control by participants of how their histories have been represented.

Third, the Solomon Islander participants in this research had been colonised by their Christian beliefs, formal education and professional training. All the non-Indigenous participants were instrumental in the colonial project, including missionaries from the colonial era. The participants were part of a middle class who were advantaged by, and largely uncritical of, colonialism, with the exception of Roughan and Hughes.

The issue of recolonisation relates to the insider–outsider continuum discussed in Section 7.3.1. Looking back, I underestimated the degree to which I have always been an outsider in the Solomon Islands context. I was so intent on completing the research that I failed to see how my research could be perceived as a form of colonialism or neo-colonialism. I had aimed, perhaps naively, to record, explain and understand oral history and social history in Solomon Islands. Neither recolonising or decolonising oral history was an objective when I designed and carried out this research. Had I intended or planned this as decolonial research, I would have needed to specify decolonisation objectives within the research question and adopt a different research design. During a scoping field visit in 2013, I did investigate working with university students on a collective oral history project but concluded that the arrangements with university authorities and working within existing curricula would take too long.

One of the most obvious ways to decolonise an oral history project would be to engage Solomon Islanders in the research design, including types of oral history they consider important or of most interest. The project would involve Solomon Islanders in all the three phases of oral history, as

205 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History interviewers, curators and analysts; it would include a variety of participants with different levels of education and literacy; and it would focus on primary oral history—the recording of oral histories—and different ways of keeping oral versions without necessarily expecting secondary texts or tertiary analysis unless Solomon Islanders could participate in these phases.

Sanga and Reynolds (2018) argue that research methodologies inherited from the Western (metropolitan) academy are inherently unsuitable because their theoretical underpinnings do not align with Pacific-origin thinking, languages, or cultures. There are also Indigenous frameworks developed by Pacific scholars that incorporate Indigenous ways of collecting knowledge in academic research for use by insiders to their cultures and languages.183 Decolonising research means to recognise and accommodate Indigenous forms of transmitting stories and histories through cultural means, such as songs, chants, legends, kastom stories and places. Indigenous Pacific peoples have defined techniques of storying, talking, discussing and passing on knowledge, such as ‘storying’—tok stori in Melanesia (Sanga and Reynolds 2017) and talanoa (open dialogue) shared in Tonga, Samoa and Fiji (Thaman 2003; Fua 2014).184 With 67 languages (plus dialects) spoken in Solomon Islands, there are many diverse forms of knowledge expressed in different languages. Gegeo and Watson-Gegeo (2001) and Sanga and Reynolds (2020) identify formal and informal types of speech in the Kwara`ae and Gulan`ala language groups. Indigenous oral histories and knowledges can be recorded, provided that culturally appropriate permission is given.

Recording oral histories using Indigenous methods would create opportunities to hear and record Indigenous voices and experiences, providing accounts quite different from histories written by outsiders. ‘Storying’—tok stori in Solomon Pijin—is a natural mode of communication for Solomon Islanders, who are very much at ease with informal storying, usually in a group, and perhaps chewing betel nut. Sanga et al (2020) describe using tok stori with groups of educators as a more formal but culturally appropriate form of discussion, which could be applied to record oral histories. Melanesian ways of telling oral histories might be termed tok histori and recorded in ways culturally preferred by those telling their stories and histories.

Oral history methods do not have to be formal and prescriptive and can be done in culturally appropriate ways, in different languages and different situations. Digital technology facilitates formal and informal recording of storying as well as keeping alive cultural arts, skills and languages.

183 Indigenous research frameworks include: Kakala (meaning garland) from Tonga; Kibung (meeting) from PNG; Ola Lei (good health) from Tuvalu; tivaevae (quilt) from Cook Islands; Ula (engagement), Fono a le nu’u (village meeting), and Fa’afaletui (weaving knowledge) from Samoa; Vanua (land or home) and Bure (house) from Fiji (Sanga 2016, 84– 86). 184 Talanoa is a Polynesian term for a conversation, sharing of ideas and talking with someone. Talanoa can be formal or informal and is used for different purposes; to teach a skill, to share ideas, to preach, to resolve problems, to build and maintain relationships and to gather information (Fua 2014, 56; Suaalii‐Sauni and Fulu‐Aiolupotea 2014).

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Access to mobile phone and computer technology allows people to move from being narrators of their own histories to being interviewers, collectors of oral histories (testimonies and traditions) and researchers. The key insights for me are that oral histories should be recovered and recorded with culturally appropriate methods, consent, and control by the people who tell them. 7.4 Conclusion

This chapter has reviewed and re-viewed oral history methodology using the VSO-ATND model developed through this research. VSO-ATND is an umbrella model of oral history that provides an overview and a heuristic that brings structure and coherence to the multifaceted aspects of oral history theory and practice. It can be applied to personal, community, institutional, public, or academic oral history. The model is flexible, with options to add further aspects and domains of particular interest to academic researchers and oral historians.

In Section 7.2, I have explained the oral history model using a summary diagram and examples from the three case studies in this research to demonstrate how this model’s six domains can be applied in one or more of the phases of the oral history process—primary (collection), secondary (curating and processing) and tertiary (analysis and interpretation). There is an insider–outsider continuum that narrators, interviewers and researchers occupy and along which their positions may shift during the research, which will influence how and what oral histories are told and produced. The balance of power and shared authority also shifts in the course of an oral history project, from a balance between narrator and interviewer in the primary phase towards the curator/researcher in the secondary phase, and particularly towards the researcher in the tertiary phase. The balance can also shift to the researcher working within the text, numerical and digital domains.

In Section 7.3 I have discussed several key issues regarding the application of academic oral history methods in Solomon Islands. The first is the effect on the dynamics of oral history interviews of racial, cultural, generational and gender differences as well as the researcher’s positionality along the insider-outsider continuum. The second is the cost of doing oral history, including technology and digital data, which could make oral history methods less affordable and accessible for Solomon Islands researchers and institutions. The third is the complexity and inappropriateness of Northern oral history practices relating to properly informed consent and public access to oral histories. I consider ways in which I may have recolonised (or neocolonised) oral histories by following Northern academic procedures and oral history conventions, and through my choice of participants. Finally, I have suggested several ways in which oral history methods could be decolonised, including acknowledging Indigenous ‘storying’ practices in Solomon Islands and

207 Chapter 7 Reviewing and re-viewing Oral History recording oral histories with more local participation and collaboration in each phase of oral history research.

208 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History

Chapter 8. Content and context—recovering Social History

8.1 Introduction

This chapter brings together themes from the case studies in chapters 4 to 6 to explore what they recover about the post-war social history of Solomon Islands. The term ‘recover’ is appropriate for two reasons. The first is that the library lost when a person dies is not just personal—it is also social. The case studies developed using oral history methods recover the roles played by participants in the wider history of Solomon Islands. The second reason is crystallised in the quote from historian E.P. Thompson (1993, 454) cited in Chapter 1: ‘History is not a factory for the manufacturer of Grand Theory… Its business is to recover, to explain and to understand its object— real history’ (my italics). The oral testimonies, life histories and career histories recover evidence relating to Solomon Islands’ social history. I also draw on other source materials, including documents, published and grey literature and online data.

In Section 8.2, I explain how the social history framework provides a scaffolding to situate themes operating at different levels (micro, meso and macro), in historical periods and events, and in different places. The social history framework provides an overview of (and keeps in view) multiple perspectives—social-structural, historical and geographical. In Section 8.3, I review the periods that participants lived through and which shaped their lives in colonial and post-independence Solomon Islands. In Section 8.4, which comprises the bulk of the chapter, I examine the connections between the themes drawn from the life and career histories and their social-structural contexts. Section 8.5 summarises the chapter. 8.2 Using the Social History Framework

Frameworks are commonly used in human and cultural geographic studies to link local areas to wider national and international processes to explain changes that take place at different levels (Massey 1984, xv). The social history framework represented in Fig. 8.1 allows individual life and career histories to be situated in relation to multiple aspects of social history in post-war Solomon Islands. Using the zoom lens analogy, we can focus on close-up or distant views of society, history and geographic locations within social history.

The historical axis provides a post-war timeline of different historical periods and events of national and international significance, forming the historical contexts in which individuals, groups and institutions lived and operated. The geographical axis situates the physical places and spaces that shape and constrain lives, careers, identities and memories. These include locations where

209 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History events took place, where people lived, worked, and moved to and from. This axis differentiates between local, island, province, national, regional and international scales.

Fig. 8.1 A social historical framework (CartoGIS Services, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University)

The social-structural axis ranges from micro-level social milieux (individuals’ and groups’ immediate social settings and environments, in which everyday life is experienced, including family, workplace and leisure spaces), to meso-level (broader social and cultural institutions affecting individuals and groups, including religion, education, organisations and professions) and macro- level (national and international structures of society: political, economic and institutional structures of the nation-state and international order, including trade, capitalism and neoliberalism). The social-structural, historical and geographical axes are discussed in more detail in the next three sections.

8.2.1 The social-structural axis—linking the micro, meso, and the macro

The social-structural axis allows individual and group histories (micro-level) to be viewed in their meso-level and macro-level social contexts. The case studies in Chapters 4 to 6 concluded with summaries of themes operating at micro-, meso- and macro-level, which are assembled side by side in Table 8.1 overleaf. It is important to note the table is an overview arranged in approximate descending order. Some themes—for example, education expansion—have influence at multiple levels. The themes are expanded on in Section 8.4 with examples from the case studies, with additional evidence from other source materials.

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Table 8.1 Social-structural themes from the three case studies

8.2.2 The historical axis

The historical axis focuses on the post-war history and the contexts of participants’ lives and careers and events that they witnessed or experienced. It does not include the pre-war period when the three older participants grew up and the Fauabu hospital was established. Rather, the following periods are included on the axis as significant historical periods and events:

• The Pacific War (1942–1945) • Maasina Rule (1947–1952) • The long road to Independence (1952–1978) • The first two decades of Independence (1978–1998) • The Tension years (1998–2003) • Post-Tension—the RAMSI years (2003–2016)

David Sitai was able to provide oral testimony relating to his father’s service in the Pacific War. The three older expatriate participants (Barrett, Hughes and Roughan) experienced World War II directly and indirectly before they came to the Solomons. Helen Barrett arrived in the Solomons in 1947 when the colonial authorities had begun arresting Maasina supporters and imprisoning their leaders in Honiara; their prison labour helped to develop the new capital. John Roughan and Tony Hughes arrived in 1958 and 1962 respectively to take up missionary and colonial postings.

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The Solomon Islands participants were born between 1943 and 1959. They grew up during the 1950s and 1960s when the British had begun the long road to independence and change was gathering pace. They had all finished (or almost finished) their nursing training by the time of Independence. Some rose to positions of leadership during the first two decades after Independence, a period during which the early optimism following release from colonial rule was eroded by both internal and external political and economic pressures.

The Tension years were the consequence of longstanding inequalities in development and opportunities between provinces. These gave rise to violent conflict and a coup that saw militant leaders take control of politics and ransack the country’s finances. The Australian-led RAMS1 intervention in 2003 to restore law and order was welcomed by most Solomon Islanders. RAMSI formally ended in 2016, by which time all the case study participants had reached retirement age and their oral histories had been collected.185

8.2.3 The geographical axis

Geographical locations are represented by the map on the diagonal axis in Fig. 8.1 and Table 8.2 summarises locations where participants were born, trained and spent their working lives in provinces and Honiara. This axis brings into view a range of geographic and spatial aspects of social history, such as infrastructure developments, population growth, migration, urbanisation, rural and urban differences, ethnic differences and changes to land and environment. The geographical axis extends to countries outside the Solomons, but for the purpose of clarity these are not shown in Table 8.1.

Table 8.2 (over) shows the dominance of Honiara and Malaita as places of training, work and retirement for participants. Honiara became the permanent residence of 15 participants; another six lived there long-term until retiring back to their provinces, and 25 of the other participants have worked there. Originally built as a colonial administrative enclave on the north coast of Guadalcanal, Honiara’s growth is a pivotal feature of the post-war social history of Solomon Islands. It had a population of perhaps 2,500 when David Sitai was born at Central Hospital in 1950, and is now a Melanesian city with a population of 130,000 in 2019 (SINSO 2020). Its growth reflects the expansion of the public sector, economic development and internal migration, developments which are examined in Section 8.4.5.

185 In Sections 4.5 to 4.7 I have also used data from the 2019 national census. This provided more accurate statistics of the national population figures and for Honiara than inter-censal estimates.

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Table 8.2 Participants’ places of origin, training, work and permanent residence Work Retirement Locations Place of origin Place of training locations locations Honiara 0 21 25 15 Malaita 9 1 21 1 Western 6 1 8 5 Makira-Ulawa 4 0 8 7 Isabel 3 0 3 0 Guadalcanal 2 0 6 1 Choiseul 1 0 2 0 Temotu 0 0 5 0 Central 0 0 3 2 Rennell-Bellona 0 0 3 0

Outside Solomon Islands

Pacific countries 1 13 (1*) 3 0 Australia 5 9 (8*) 5 5 United Kingdom 1 3 (1*) 1 0 United States 1 2 (1*) 1 0 23 in Sols 74 in Sols Total 34 27 overseas 25 10 overseas * initial training

John Roughan and Tony Hughes were the first participants to start work on Malaita, which was the stronghold of Maasina Rule, and remember working alongside former Maasina Rule leaders between 1958 and 1968. Helen Barrett and her fellow missionary sisters worked on Malaita at Fauabu and its surrounding area from 1968 to 1984. Nine participants were born in Malaita and 16 worked there.

The geographical axis also covers all four districts in the colonial system and all nine provinces of the Solomons after Independence. This encompasses the clinics and hospitals across the archipelago where the nursing participants worked. Ten participants also trained, and in some cases worked, outside the Solomons, including in Australia, UK, USA, and other Pacific countries. Mobility and migration have long been a feature in Solomon Islands, dating back to the Pacific labour trade, but increased after the 1960s with the lifting of colonial restrictions on Islanders’ movements, provision of the right to access passports and the expansion of international air travel. Mobility has continued to grow throughout the post-independence era, with increased

213 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History opportunities for national and international travel for secondary and tertiary education and professional training.

The geography of Solomon Islands has powerful impacts on social history. To take one example, rural health clinics are necessarily scattered and often remote. One impact of this has been that nurses have developed extended roles as general practitioners, raising their status within the areas they serve and as a profession generally. More broadly, the geographic axis brings to our attention a range of aspects of social history, such as physical developments, population growth, migration, rural and urban differences, urbanisation, ethnic identities, land and environment. As discussed later in Section 8.4.4, land and the environment, while often implicit or mentioned in passing in oral histories, have fundamental physical, cultural and economic significance in Solomon Islands (Roughan 2003a). 8.3 Historical contexts

Section 8.3 examines key historical periods and events along the historical axis to explain the connections between participants’ life and career histories and the historical contexts that shaped those histories, as well as post-war Solomon Islands generally. In some instances, key historical events directly affected participants—for example, Independence (1978) and the Tension (1998– 2003)—by both creating opportunities and imposing constraints on their personal lives or careers. In other instances—such as the Pacific War (1942–1945) and Maasina Rule (1947–1952)—the events had indirect impacts on participants and were rarely mentioned, but nevertheless were important to understanding and explaining post-war social history. Direct historical evidence is provided where it is available from the case studies and the writings of the participants. I have also used other source materials, such as published and grey literature and online data.186

8.3.1 The Pacific War 1942–1945

The Pacific War brought stupendous levels of violence, technology, and environmental damage to Solomon Islands (Bennett 2009).187 The war created great hardship and terror for many Islanders, especially in the west where Japanese forces had troops on many of the islands. None of the Solomon Islander participants were old enough to remember the cataclysmic events that their

186 Pre-colonial and pre-war eras are not included although it is acknowledged that there were longer term contexts of British imperial history, the Pacific labour trade, and deep histories of each island in the archipelago, as mentioned in Chapter 1 (Section 2.1). 187 There is an extensive literature on the Pacific War in Solomon Islands, including oral histories. According to Moore (2017, 450), the best work is by Laracy and White (1988); White, Gegeo, and Watson-Gegeo (1988); White and Lindstrom (1989); Akin (2013); Lindstrom and White (1990); and Bennett (2009). Outside the scope of this study, I have conducted video interviews with former American marines who returned for commemorations of the Guadalcanal landings.

214 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History parents experienced, the shock and awe of modern warfare and displays of firepower—‘planes filled the sky like whiskered tree swiftlets’ (Akin 2013, 381). One of the nurses (ML 1945) was born at Fauabu hospital and her father helped relocate European staff to the bush before the arrival of the one contingent of Japanese troops that landed on Malaita.

The Pacific War was mentioned in interviews by Helen Barrett and David Sitai. Helen Barrett was training in Sydney when it was attacked by midget submarines in 1942. David Sitai’s father, Silas Sitai, was recruited as an army scout while at school in Fiji and subsequently landed on Guadalcanal at Red Beach with US marines in August 1942. He assisted Allied forces in the ferocious battle to recapture the islands surrounding Tulagi, then the colonial capital, from the Japanese. Silas Sitai’s war service reminds us of the essential role and loyalty of Solomon Islanders in the Allied defeat of the Japanese in their roles as coast watchers, scouts and members of the Solomon Islands Labour Corps (Kwai 2018).

After the defeat of the Japanese in the Solomons, the islands became a base for Allied operations for the remainder of the Pacific War. Solomon Islanders’ exposure to Allied troops irrevocably changed their attitudes by showing them alternatives to pre-war master–native colonial relations (Akin 2013; Moore 2017; Kwai 2018). Although there was racism and segregation among Allied personnel, the presence of Afro-American soldiers, dressed in the same uniforms and eating the same food as their white counterparts, gave the appearance of racial equality. Allied soldiers’ willingness to buy artefacts and share food with Islanders stood in marked contrast to British colonials. Islanders regarded America as a powerful saviour and individual Americans as egalitarian friends, in contrast to the often arrogant and racist British. Resentments of British colonial administration and contrasts between the behaviour of the Americans and that of the British gave birth to Maasina Rule, discussed next.

8.3.2 Maasina Rule 1944–1952

Maasina Rule was a non-violent, anti-colonial, proto-nationalist movement seeking self- government and self-determination. The movement had earlier roots in plantation labour, Malaitan cultural leadership and SSEC Christianity (Laracy 1983; Roughan 1986, 54–55, Moore 2017, 36- 37).188 It was an example of Indigenous demands for self-government and independence that were emerging not only in Solomon Islands but also elsewhere in the Pacific (Banivanua Mar 2016).

188 ‘Maasina’ meant ‘sibling, brother or brotherhood’ in `Are`are language but the movement was often misquoted by the British as ‘Marching Rule’ due to the drills, often with wooden rifles, and other military symbolism adopted by its followers.

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Resistance was unsurprising given decades of far-from-benign colonial rule, with intrusive policing and taxation but few or no services in return.

The movement was strongest on Malaita, reflecting Malaitan predominance in the wartime Solomon Islands Labour Corps, as well as Malaitans’ social cohesion, which had been promoted in turn by indentured labour, Christianity, Solomon Pijin and basic literacy (Moore 2017, 16). Maasina Rule also had strong support in Makira, where supporters built large, fenced villages (towns/taon) in the belief that American forces would return—or had secretly returned—and bring cargo to free Solomon Islands from British colonial rule. A nursing officer participant from Makira, born in 1943 and whose father had served in the Labour Corps, remembers the extraordinary life under during Maasina Rule:

There were stories of cargo arriving from America which was always referred to as ‘Merica’. Local people built big houses in the bush in preparation for the next big war and big warehouses to store the cargo. They told big lies and pretended there was shooting in the bush by lighting bamboo with fires. (GA 1969M) Maasina leaders adopted a non-violent strategy, wisely considering the colonial authorities’ murderous response to the Bell Massacre on Malaita in 1927 (Keesing and Corris 1980).189 Nevertheless, the British response to Maasina from 1947 to 1952 was an ‘aggressive policy of mass humiliation’, titled ‘Operation Delouse’ (Akin 2013, 259), which showed the violent strength and racism that underpinned colonial rule. The authorities imposed fines, imprisoned leaders and followers en masse and banned the movement’s activities, all of which only reinforced Malaitan resistance (Akin 2013, 287). Government plans to revert to ‘massive raids with maximum force’ across Malaita were contemplated in early 1952 but, fortunately, calmer heads prevailed (Akin 2015, 501). In late 1952, the colonial government switched to a more conciliatory approach, releasing prisoners and agreeing to most of the Maasina demands. The backdown gave Solomon Islanders, Malaitans in particular, confidence in their collective strength and engendered new-found self- esteem.

Both John Roughan and Tony Hughes later worked in Malaita with Maasina leaders who remained influential, as did their ideas. In the `Are`are region, Roughan was helped by the fact that he could do little wrong as an American. Hughes recalled that ‘by 1962, Maasina was alive and well but had converted to being part of constitutional rule. Malaita Council was regarded as a “very important” organisation—we treated it as very important’. But although Maasina Rule is often credited with

189 In post-war Kenya, British colonial authorities used lethal and brutal methods of repression reminiscent of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to defeat the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya from 1952–1960 (Elkins 2014).

216 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History laying the foundations for independence, its influence was indirect at best (Akin 2013, 442).190 Helen Barrett, who arrived in 1947, did not recall Maasina Rule during this period, possibly because she was working in Isabel where the Melanesian Mission was the only denomination and Anglican missionaries usually disparaged the movement’s propaganda in areas where the Mission held sway (Fox 1975).

8.3.3 The slow boat to Independence 1952–1978

Solomon Islands’ political independence was not achieved for another 25 years, during which participants in this study grew up and reached adulthood. Decolonisation was part of a much larger imperial project by Britain, which had been heavily damaged and indebted by the war. It began granting independence to colonies and dependencies in South Asia and Africa from the late 1940s but considered Solomons’ independence to be several decades away. In the 1950s, colonial authorities began investing in education, medical services, transport and agriculture infrastructure, constitutional development and legal reform. Then, from 1960, Britain followed a process of ‘procedural decolonisation’, following constitutional steps it had used elsewhere in the Empire— establishing Executive and Legislative Councils (1960–1969), a Governing Council (1970–1973) and a Legislative Assembly (1973–1976) leading to self-government in 1976 and Independence in 1978 (Bennett 1989, 2013; Moore 2010a).

Colonialism had become disreputable by the time Tony Hughes trained for the Colonial Service in a one-year course at Oxford in 1960. He recalls ‘one very impressive historian telling us, “You British blokes here—I want to make it quite clear to you that your mission is to do yourselves out of a job. Now let’s get that straight”’. Hughes welcomed the idea of decolonisation—‘bloody good, about time too!’ Interviews covering his years in the Colonial Service from 1962—first in the 1960s as a district officer in Malaita and Western districts and then in the 1970s as a development planner and financial administrator—provide detailed views of the decolonisation process and ideas relating to it at the time.

Silas Sitai provides an example of the gradual inclusion of Solomon Islanders in colonial government. He served as one the first Indigenous appointments to the Advisory Council from 1950 to 1955. By 1965 he had risen to a position equal with Hughes, although he did not enjoy equal pay, living conditions or leave.191 The expansion of administration in the provincial centres

190 Akin’s Colonialism, Maasina Rule, and the Origins of Malaitan Kastom (2013) is the definitive text on Maasina. His 2015 article debunks misconceptions in many of the 70 books and articles written about Maasina Rule by historians, anthropologists, political scientists, Solomon Islanders, missionaries and active or former colonial officers (Akin 2015, 486). 191 Silas Sitai became an Administrative Assistant in Eastern and Central districts, rising to administrative (district) officer in 1962 and became a first-class magistrate. He was the first Indigenous Chairman (or Speaker) of the Governing Council in 1971 to 1972 before his sudden death that year.

217 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History and capital provided opportunities for Islanders such as Timothy Kwaimani, who had begun working at the same time as Hughes in 1961 as an office messenger. He moved to the Secretariat in Honiara in the late 1960s and after Independence served as Registrar to the High Court for over 40 years.192

The lead-up to Independence was accompanied by an expansion of services in health and education, a development that directly affected the participants who grew up in this period. Expanded medical services, highlighted in Chapter 6 (Section 6.3.3), gave rise to increased demand for and training of nurses. David Sitai and Afu Billy were among the first generation to benefit personally from KGVI School, which created an Indigenous educated class for political and public administration. All but one of the Solomon Islanders in this study had at least two years of secondary education. Each case study also underscores the influence of formal education in shaping Solomon Islands social history, discussed further in Section 8.4.2.

8.3.4 Post-independence 1978–1998

Independence in 1978 was followed by almost a decade of optimism and reasonable progress, described by Roughan (2002b) as ‘The Golden Era’. There was freedom from white colonial authority and the economy was in positive territory after two previous decades of infrastructure improvements and an SBD 35 million grant from Britain. As Permanent Secretary for Finance, Hughes had been closely involved in preparations for the talks and negotiations in 1977–1978 with the British in Honiara and London.

Everybody understood the rule of the game—we were going to ask for more than there was any possibility that the British would give us. But my job was to produce what arguments we were going to put and to help with rehearsals and then at the other end to help marshal the debate on our side. (Hughes interview 2014) The localisation of positions held by expatriates gathered pace in the lead-up to Independence, and those that remained were now subordinate to control by Solomon Islanders, in theory at least. Decolonisation created opportunities for careers in politics, public service and development. At the top was the appointment of Sir Baddeley Devesi, then only 28 years old, as Governor-General, to whom David Sitai was aide-de-camp. Solomon Islands-trained nurses began their rise through the ranks. Nurses, especially those with overseas qualifications, took over leadership positions in the hospital, training school and Ministry of Health, although always subordinate to doctors.

192 I interviewed Kwaimani together with Hughes in Honiara in 2014; the two have remained friends (see Fig. 7.7 in the previous chapter).

218 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History

The Golden Era was short-lived, ending in 1986 with the hugely destructive Cyclone Namu:

The cyclone washed out three major bridges at Barande, Balasuna and Ngalimbiu. Everything around Mbinu was like a desert for 4–5 kms all the way to the coast. Rice production on the Guadalcanal plains was destroyed and never recovered. (Gabriel V. 1979) The recovery from the cyclone increased the country’s dependence on overseas aid and revenues from logging. Roughan (2002) calls the decade after Cyclone Namu, ‘the Leaden Era’, as worsening government domestic and international indebtedness led to increasingly unsustainable exploitation of natural resources (timber, fish and mining). As Central Bank governor, Hughes struggled to rein in profligate government borrowing and to protect fragile currency reserves. National and provincial governments increasingly allowed industrial and often illegal logging by Asian companies, damaging political probity, social cohesion and the environment (Frazer 1991; Bennett 2000). The declining quality of administration and increasing corruption in politics created distrust and disgust with government and foreign cronies. The quality of health services, education, transport and communications declined and in some rural areas dried up altogether (Roughan 2007a).

Solomon Islands was not alone among former colonies in facing post-independence difficulties, as Hughes explains in A Different Kind of Voyage (Hughes 1998/2013). Finances in Pacific Islands countries were weak and vulnerable to the global economy and globalisation. Government and administration of a small, less-developed, geographically fragmented country proved more expensive, fragile and difficult than expected. Standards of governance and government services declined compared to the former colonial administration, a familiar trope in developing countries often attributed to corruption. Colonial officers and leaders, who enjoyed generous pay and benefits, had rarely been dishonest and the same was expected from their successors (Bennett 2002, 24). Public servants after Independence faced very different pressures due to kinship allegiances and localised bureaucracies led by big-men, which were evident in the nursing leadership testimonies.

8.3.5 The Tension Years 1998–2003

After 20 years of independence, the so-called ‘Hapi Isles’ entered what Roughan (2002b) labels as ‘The Toxic Years’ of disarray, weakness and drift.193 Although small by international standards, the ‘Tension’ was ‘a devastating civil conflict’ (Tomlinson and McDougall 2013, 11) that led to an armed coup in 2000 and government beholden to Malaitan militant leaders. The sources of inter-

193 Much has been written about the Tension but key references are Allen (2005, 2007), Moore (2003), Fraenkel (2004) and Bennett’s 2005 review of the latter two.

219 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History island tension lay in inequitable patterns of development and internal migration to Honiara and the Guadalcanal plains, particularly by Malaitans (Kabutaulaka 1997; Moore 2007). Hughes (2013a) summarised the causes thus:

[T]raditional inter-island friction was aggravated into bloody vengeance by uncontrolled migration, land dealings [around Honiara], increasing unemployment, and a history of unattended grievances by Guadalcanal people.

The opening of the country’s first commercial goldmine in 1996, at Gold Ridge (40 km south-east of Honiara), amplified grievances long-held by Guadalcanal traditional landowners and stoked by provincial big-men. Armed violence against settlers by militants on Guadalcanal led to the displacement of over 22,000 Malaitans, as well as other Islanders. Brutal murders, torture, sexual assaults and extortions were committed by Malaitan and Guadalcanal militant forces. The Tension created major dislocations, hardship, trauma and resentments throughout the country. The armed coup in 2000 by Malaitan militants in a joint operation with the Malaitan-dominated police force ousted the Ulufa`alu government at gunpoint. The country was hostage to extortion and thuggery by militant factions for three years, with the conflict not resolved by a series of peace agreements. The Tension caused Solomon Islands to be regarded by its neighbours as a failed state, plagued by uncontrolled violence, looting of finances and with a police force fatally compromised by ethnic loyalties. Honiara became unsafe for anyone not connected to Malaita by kinship or marriage. Many people left or sent their families home to provinces where there were no armed militia. Roughan and Billy stayed in Honiara and were prominent in peace efforts by churches and NGOs. Roughan continued his critical commentary on events through his newspaper and magazine articles and copied through an email list around the world. Eleven nursing officers spent the Tension years in Honiara and several showed conspicuous courage in dealing with thuggish militants demanding treatments at clinics and the hospital. Two were particularly brave (Alice W. from Malaita and Gabriel V. from Guadalcanal) and worked under Red Cross protection to move through armed camps on both sides of Honiara to ensure clinics in Guadalcanal remained supplied with medicines and that nurses were paid. The two made an extraordinary journey by canoe to run a workshop for midwives in response to reports of five maternal deaths on the Guadalcanal weather coast controlled by the warlord, Harold Keke, who was engaging in a reign of terror against civilians in what became a civil war between Guadalcanal militant factions (see Appendix 2).

8.3.6 The RAMSI years 2003–2016

The Tension years ended after the Australian Howard government eventually responded to repeated requests from civil society and political leaders to intervene to disarm the militants and

220 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History restore law and order (Hughes 2013a).194 The presence of a ‘failing’ or ‘failed state’ was an embarrassment to the region and particularly to Australia in its sphere of influence. Australia led and financed the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), established in 2003 under the auspices of the Pacific Islands Forum to help restore law and order and disarm the militants. The intervention followed Australian peacekeeping interventions in Bougainville in 1997 and East Timor in 1999. It took place in the context of the ‘War on Terror’, the response to the ‘9/11’ attacks on the United States, which allowed Australia to frame the intervention as preventing the Solomons from collapsing and being used by terrorists (Kabutaulaka 2005).

The military and police intervention restored law and order by disarming and arresting militants on both sides, reformed the Solomon Islands police, stabilised government finances and re-established the machinery of government. However, RAMSI also transformed Solomon Islands into one of the most aid-dependent countries in the world (Hayward-Jones 2014). The cost to Australia taxpayers was an estimated AUD 2.6 billion, a great deal of which was spent on expatriate advisers embedded within the police force, legal services and public service. RAMSI took control of the economy, government bureaucracy, and police, with advisers seconded from the Australian government in in-line positions and its own parallel administrative structure and advisers. In these ways, RAMSI reproduced features of colonialism, making it re-colonisation in behaviour if not intent (Allen 2009, 15; Brown 2005, 2010). I return to these continuities with colonialism in Section 8.4.12 below. RAMSI formally ended in 2016, with an Australian police presence remaining to prevent a repeat of armed militancy.

RAMSI was popular with the vast majority of Solomon Islanders, including participants, who were desperate for the rule by militants, thugs, and warlords to end and never return. 195 Nursing officers were grateful for the support to health services during the Tension provided by Australia and New Zealand, which kept essential services going. But nursing leaders also resented the dominance of outsiders and Australian advisers who disparaged or ignored medical services that had worked well before the Tension. Older nursing leaders at the Ministry of Health headquarters were compulsorily retired or sidelined in the organisational changes that followed.

Within the Four Corners quartet, David Sitai was grateful to RAMSI for restoring law and order and thought the inclusion of Pacific Islander governments and personnel was ‘a perfect model’ for an intervention. But as a former protégé of Mamaloni and member of the Sogavare government,

194 The Australian government was also keen to mask its failures to provide Australian Federal Police (AFP) support to the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) in 1999 and 2000 to deal with militants. The Howard government twice refused requests and made it clear that there would be no intervention, sealing the Ulufa`alu government’s fate (Hughes 2003a). At a minimum, the AFP could have secured the police armouries that were raided by the militants with the complicity of the RSIPF, and thus prevented the armed coup in June 2000 (Fraenkel et al. 2014). 195 According to large-scale public opinion surveys, there were consistently high levels (80% and above) of public support for the RAMSI intervention and fears of a return to lawlessness if it left (RAMSI.org 2007–2013).

221 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History he wanted to ensure that the intervention did not undermine sovereignty. The fall of the Sogavare government in 2007 due to its controversial attorney-general, Julian Moti, led Sitai to accuse the Howard government of ‘terminal arrogance’.196 The other three participants (Billy, Hughes and Roughan) applauded the intervention and disarming of militants and saw the need for expatriates to reform the public service, especially the Ministry of Finance and the police force. But all disapproved of the lack of development strategies for rural areas, the continued dependency on logging revenues, the disproportionate expenditures on Honiara and the expensive salaries and lifestyles of expatriates, which added to the difficulties of living in Honiara.

* * *

Section 8.3 has outlined the historical contexts and key events that have shaped post-war Solomon Islands. I turn next to consider changes and continuities on the social-structural axis revealed by the oral histories and other sources in the case studies. 8.4 Social-structural contexts

Section 8.4 examines what the content of the oral histories and case studies reveals about social- structural contexts and how these shaped the lives and careers of the case study participants. In some instances, these contexts directly affected participants, for example gender or ethnic identity, or institutional changes that assisted or hindered their personal lives or careers. Other contexts, such as the environment or economic development, impacted them indirectly and were mentioned or recognised by none or few of them. Examples of such social-structural contexts are illuminated by participants’ individual and collective histories, and presented alongside other data that add relevant detail about changes in post-war Solomon Islands.

8.4.1 Christianity and the influence of mission churches

Mission churches have been the most influential and pervasive of colonial institutions in the Solomons and in the lives of nearly all participants in this study197. Parents of post-war generations gained access through the missions to education, English and Pijin literacy, and employment with church and government. Their children were brought up in Christian denominations and went to mission schools, as was the case with all the Solomon Islander participants (born between 1943 and 1959). In the first case study, the influence of mission churches can be seen in Afu Billy’s life

196 The Sogavare government lost its majority in parliament over the Moti Affair. A Fiji-born lawyer, Attorney-General Moti challenged the legal basis of the RAMSI intervention and was arrested by RAMSI officers. He was illegally deported to Australia and charged with historical claims of child sexual abuse, charges that were not proved. He was awarded undisclosed damages for unlawful arrest and reputational damage. 197 In the post-war period, Solomon Islands became overwhelmingly Christian, with 95–98% of the population belonging to a Christian denomination (CIA 2018).

222 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History history through her father, who acquired education and prestige through the SSEM, and through her own upbringing. She rejected conservative SSEM teachings and her behaviour and lifestyle saw her labelled as a sinner. Roughan’s years as a priest from 1958–1968 in south Malaita reveal how many villages were still organised on traditional lines with strictly segregated areas. Cultural beliefs relating to ‘female pollution’ continued to be strongly held and were challenged by ‘Patere Ioane’ (as Roughan was called). He was a development pioneer in the parish, organising a cooperative, schools and village improvements that pre-dated government and non-government initiatives.

The Fauabu Sisters’ case study reveal the importance and influence of Anglican mission churches at the micro- and meso-levels, beginning with the foundation of Fauabu hospital in 1929 and Barrett’s earlier school and clinic work from 1947 to 1967. The Sisters’ work in north Malaita reveals the practical and material work of missionaries in communities, which was an essential component of missionisation and which profoundly changed Indigenous ways of life and thinking about the causes of illness and misfortune. Barrett had a life-long connection with the Mothers’ Union, a conservative pastoral organisation that promoted Anglican ideals of Christian marriage and gender relationships enforced by missionisation and colonial rule.

Churches were influential at micro-, meso- and macro-levels, providing a governance structure in over 5000 villages, sometimes with several denominations offering church services. Churches had greater reach and influence than government institutions, far outnumbering health clinics and schools in coverage and operating at far lower cost, being run largely on a voluntary basis. Churches drew together villages, language groups and islands into diocesan and regional structures—such as the Melanesian and Pacific Conferences of Churches—connecting provinces and neighbouring countries. At the national level, the Solomon Islands Christian Association (SICA) represented the five major churches and have had considerable moral authority. The relevance of the churches was emphasised during and after the Tension years by the efforts of SICA and churches to bring peace and reconciliation (Pollard 2000; Pollard and Liloqila 2000; McDougall 2008). There was considerable crossover between church denomination groups in the SICA Peace Office and the Women for Peace movement, in which Afu Billy was involved, reaching out and bravely engaging with militants.

8.4.2 The dominance of western education

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. (Nelson Mandela 1990, quoted in Ratcliffe 2011, 137)

It is difficult to overstate the centrality of education at all levels: individual, group, institutional and national. Western education has been a dominant force in Solomon Islands society: at the macro- level, through the development of formal education systems, curriculum development and

223 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History ministries; at the meso-level, through the establishment of primary and secondary schools, particularly boarding schools; and at the micro-level, through the profound effects on individuals of their experiences at school and its impact on their life chances (Watson-Gegeo and Gegeo 1992).

Without education, none of the participants (Indigenous or expatriate) could have established their careers in Solomon Islands or Australia. Nearly every Solomon participant attended mission boarding schools, which removed them from their homes and families for three to four years at a time.198 They were subjected to harsh discipline, which developed individual and collective obedience, not only in school but later in nurse training and in the public service. In mission schools, corporal punishment was administered by whites using canes, straps and rulers, public humiliation by standing in corners, and physical labour. We have no record of the punishments favoured by Roughan, a tough disciplinarian as headmaster at Rohinari school. In contrast, Billy and Sitai were educated at government schools (GPS and KGVI) in Honiara in the 1960s and 1970s, with mainly expatriate teachers who did not use corporal punishment and perhaps allowed Billy to retain her spirited nature. None of the participants criticised the harsh regime and, indeed, some were proud of the discipline that schools had instilled in them. Boarding schools created strong loyalty to the students’ alma mater and created personal networks that extended into adulthood and the public service.

Mission schools were designed to produce leaders for the church in administration, schools and villages, while KGVI was an elite school designed to produce leaders in politics and the public service. The secondary school curriculum that schools followed from the early 1960s focused on passing the Cambridge Overseas Examination (Ordinary or ‘O’ level), requiring them to learn more about Britain, its empire, and the rest of the world than about Pacific history. Islander cultures, values and languages were considered unimportant or assumed to be relevant only outside the school. To subordinate ethnic identity and inculcate a common Solomon Islands identity, only English was allowed, and students caught using Pijin or their own languages were punished. It would be hard to find a more explicit technique for reproducing British values and producing leaders to fill the ranks of government at Independence. Students who completed five years of secondary school and were well-connected, like Sitai, went on to university; those who did not often went on to vocational training in areas such as nursing and teaching.

The government took over responsibility for schools from missions from 1974, except for each major denomination which kept one senior boarding school. After Independence, the churches

198 Students at mission boarding schools did not go home during holidays because of the cost and difficulty of transport. They stayed at school for several years at a time until the end of Junior Primary (Year 4), and Senior Primary (Year 7).

224 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History played a less direct role in education but remained influential with their own secondary schools and vocational training schools. A new national curriculum was introduced with greater relevance to Solomon Islands history and cultures after Independence in 1978 (Oakeshott and Allen 2015). However, the overwhelming opinion of case study participants—who have children and grandchildren of their own—is that the quality of schools, teaching and English literacy has declined since their education in the colonial era. Rural schools are less well-funded than their urban counterparts, with few qualified teachers and few resources, making rural students less likely to pass exams (Watson-Gegeo and Gegeo 1992; Oakeshott and Allen 2015). Superior secondary schools and more opportunities for training in urban areas have created resistance to teachers— like nurses—being posted or staying for long in rural areas and instead have encouraged migration to Honiara, adding to its growth and dominance (discussed further in Section 8.4.5).

8.4.3 The growth of government and non-government institutions

The growth of government and non-government institutions in the post-war period shaped the development of Honiara and participants’ careers. In the first case study, the careers of Tony Hughes and David Sitai’s father reveal a minimalist colonial administration organised into four districts, each headed by a district commissioner, with a central Secretariat in Honiara. District reports from Sitai’s father in Central and Eastern districts and Tony Hughes in Malaita and Western districts show how extensive were the responsibilities and areas covered by district officers. Hughes moved into an expanding Secretariat in 1968, tasked with preparing the legal and administrative grounds for independence. Thereafter, the government grew from a central Secretariat with eight ministries and four districts in 1976 to 24 ministries, nine provincial governments and a city council by 1993. The provincial governments duplicated many of the ministries at the national level. In addition, the number of constituencies grew from 38 in 1978 to 50 by 1992 as the population rapidly increased. The numbers of MPs needed to form a majority increased to 26 and new ministries and cabinet positions were used as inducements. Each new ministry brought in new hierarchical structures inherited from British colonialism (permanent secretary, undersecretary etc.). The public service workforce grew commensurately with the expansion of ministries and provincial governments, making the government the largest employer in the economy.

By 1997, the cost of the bureaucracy and lack of financial controls had led to demands for public service reform from the Ministry of Finance, donor governments and international banks. As a former Central Bank governor and colleague of PM Ulufa`alu, Hughes was closely involved in plans to downsize the public service to reduce government deficits and debt. Vested interests in the public service were threatened, making lack of cooperation inevitable. This slowed the reform

225 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History process, which was then overtaken by the Tension as ethnic violence grew in Guadalcanal, followed by the coup in 2000 (Hughes 2001, 1).

The RAMSI intervention saw reforms resumed with two components—Machinery of Government and Economic Reform—at a cost of AUD 103 million and AUD 223 million respectively, enormous sums compared with previous levels of aid to Solomon Islands (Haywood-Jones 2014, 3). With such large levels of funding came commercial consulting firms that designed ambitious bids to win lucrative contracts. An influx of expatriate contractors and advisers, particularly from Australia, implemented technical and managerial reforms. A report on the AusAID health program (Tyson 2011, 16) noted little progress and high demands on senior staff from the push for quick results. The new managerialism, financial controls and restructures in the MHMS revealed in the nursing officer case study were reproduced in other ministries.199 Participants and other interviewees in the nursing officers’ case study had mainly negative opinions of expatriate advisers and the necessity of reforms. There was general agreement that consultants and reforms were not value for money, much of which flowed back to Australia (called ‘boomerang aid’), while too much of the funding that remained was spent in Honiara rather than the provinces.

NGOs also expanded significantly in the post-war period, both in number and in the scope of their activities. Pre-war, the Fauabu case study reveals only few international organisations involved in health, with only the New Zealand Leprosy Board and the Rockefeller Foundation mentioned, who assisted with disease control programs for government and missions, together with individual sponsors. Post-war, there were several waves of NGOs (Roughan 2005). The first wave consisted of local branches of international organisations, including Red Cross, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), Rotary and Lions Clubs, and even the Freemasons. Humanitarian aid began to arrive in the 1960s, including Catholic Relief Services (which provided food supplies and for which Roughan worked in Vietnam), IHAP, and FSP.200 The second wave, after Independence, comprised technical agencies—Roughan does not specifically name any, but we could include UN agencies such as UNICEF and UNDP—which provided technical assistance to national and provincial governments. The third wave consisted of Indigenous NGOs, such as the Solomon Islands Development Trust (SIDT), responding with local leadership to local problems. SIDT combined awareness of raising of local problems such as

199 The bulk of the RAMSI budget (83% of AUD 2.6 billion) was spent on the Law and Justice component (including Police), with another 12% spent on Economic Governance and on Machinery of Government, aimed with limited success at repairing a wrecked economy and reforming public sector processes (Hayward-Jones 2014, 15–16). 200 International Humanitarian Assistance Program and the Foundation of the People of the South Pacific.

226 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History logging, literacy, and village livelihoods with critiques of government corruption and inappropriate development policies that failed to benefit rural areas and the urban poor.

Secular women’s organisations were represented before Independence by the YWCA and National Council of Women (NCW), which had provincial chapters and received government funding. In the Four Corners case study, Afu Billy and Kuria Paia (Hughes’ wife) worked for the YWCA. Women’s issues and interests broadened after Independence. Billy had also worked together with one of the nursing officers (Margaret M. 1969) at NCW in the 1980s, but fundamentally disagreed with NCW’s narrow focus on traditional female domains of domestic skills and childcare. She was influenced by her contact with feminist ideas and female role models from overseas, as well as by personal experience of domestic violence. She was greatly concerned with protecting women from domestic violence and domination by men. While working for Save the Children, she set up the first women’s shelter in the country, which was later supported by Oxfam. During the Tension years she was part of the Women for Peace movement, which played a significant role in mediating between militant groups and advocating for the safety of women (Pollard 2000).

Australian branches of international NGOs, such as Save the Children Fund and World Vision, began to implement health programs in the second half of the 1980s and in the 1990s, including in relation to water and sanitation, funded in large part by Australian development assistance. Environmental NGOs, such as Greenpeace, the Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund, entered the region in the 1990s with advocacy and local projects in response to widespread concern about unsustainable logging and fishing. Mamaloni-led governments attempted to discredit SIDT and other environmental NGOs that criticised industrial logging and fishing. Although government attempts to muzzle NGOs proved unsuccessful, so too were NGOs’ efforts to limit logging. Extractive industries continued to operate unsustainably and often criminally, wrecking local environments and lives of communities, and creating corruption at all levels from the prime minister down (Roughan 1997; Bennett 2000). Further issues of land and environment are considered in Section 8.4.4.

Roughan describes the Civil Society Network (CSN) as the fourth wave of NGOs. Following the 2000 coup, the CSN brought together churches, women’s groups, various NGOs and the general public into a de facto opposition because the parliamentary opposition was ineffective and the country’s situation so dire. The network played a critical role in exposing government corruption and extortion by militants, and in promoting reconciliation (Roughan 2005, 427–429). The CSN, with church leaders and prominent public figures, prompted PM Alebua to seek Australian intervention in 2003 (Wickham 2007). International organisations, including United Nations agencies (UNDP, UNICEF and UNFPA), the South Pacific Commission and the World Bank,

227 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History were persuaded or realised the need to establish offices in Honiara. A Solomon Islands chapter of the global anti-corruption organisation, Transparency International, was established in 2002— Hughes was its founding chairman and he has continued as a board member to the present day. The proliferation of NGOs and international organisations has created a growth industry in projects, research, and employment opportunities for consultants, including Hughes and Billy.

8.4.4 Land and environment

Land has fundamental physical, cultural, and economic significance in Solomon Islands (Roughan 2003a). The significance of land and environmental changes appears in the Four Corners case study with participants’ different ways of inheriting, establishing and owning properties in Makira, Malaita and Western Province, where Hughes and his wife established a homestead on her family land in the Vona Vona lagoon. The Hughes have also planted multiple species of tropical hardwoods on land that has been logged several times in the past.201 Sitai and Billy were unable to inherit land on small islands in Makira (Santa Ana) and Malaita (Kwai), where land is very limited. Customary rights to gardens and to inherit land on nearby larger islands are complicated by different lines of descent—maternal, paternal or both—and specific histories of land use. Instead, Billy has bought several properties on alienated land in Honiara.202 Sitai established a homestead on land to which his mother’s side of the family had rights on the eastern end of Makira, in the Star Harbour area that has been extensively logged since the 1980s. In the nursing officers’ study, the late George M. 1971 lost his land on Walande, a small island off the south coast of Malaita, due to sea level rise. This forced him to live permanently in Honiara and buy land in Honiara and its outskirts to provide for his four sons and their families. Small islands and low-lying coastal areas are increasingly affected by climate and human-induced changes.

Large-scale environmental changes to land were already under way in the first half of the twentieth century with the establishment of colonial enclaves and copra plantations, followed by destruction during the Pacific War (Bennett 1987, 2000, 2009). Industrial logging, as opposed to the widespread ‘slash and burn’ used to create subsistence gardens, began on alienated lands from the 1960s but exploded in the 1980s after the government permitted logging on customary land. Palm oil, another major industry, was established on former copra plantations on the Guadalcanal Plains, employing large numbers of migrant workers; many from Malaita and Reef Islands were forced to leave due to the Tension and production ceased in 1999.

201 A new logging company was operating on nearby land when I visited, an example of re-entry logging, which Hughes explained can be even more destructive than original logging that extracts the largest trees. He was also on the board of a sustainable forestry company on the neighbouring island of Kolombangara. 202 Alienated land is land acquired from customary landowners by the colonial government for its own use or for private development.

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Meso- and macro-level issues relating to land and the need for environmental protection are evident from Hughes and Roughan, particularly their written work and advocacy (Roughan 1997, 2000; Hughes 2003). Both advocated sustainable logging and resource extraction while drawing attention to the corruption and poverty accompanying industrial logging. Hughes accused ‘con-artists’ of hijacking customary land tenure and perverting the traditional ‘big-man’ role to sign logging agreements (Hughes 2013a). From the late 1980s, logging far outstripped sustainable levels as governments (national and provincial), communities and individuals pursued quick income (Dauvergne 1998; Moore 2008, 73–75). Infusions of cash accompanying logging create social harm by promoting excessive drinking, fighting and domestic violence (Foukona and Timmer 2016, 121). Unregulated clear-fell logging and illegal practices have left a legacy of environmental destruction and collateral damage to the gardens, rivers and reefs on which villagers depend.

Mining has been another blight. Hughes’ writings on economic development in PNG, the Solomons and the Pacific reveal how resource extraction has had massive and often negative economic, environmental, political and social consequences (Hughes 2004, 2014, 1998/2016). Like logging, mining was attractive to governments for revenue generation but has wrought environmental and social devastation.203 Commercial gold mining at Gold Ridge, 30 km from Honiara, began in the 1990s, ending years of artisanal mining and appropriating resources belonging to Guadalcanal. The mine shut down in 2000 after being raided and taken over by Guadalcanal militants (D. Evans 2010). Reopened in 2010, the highly contaminated treatment dams threatened to overflow, leading to the declaration of a disaster area in 2015. An even bigger disaster area was the Panguna copper mine in neighbouring Bougainville (PNG’s North Solomons Province), the largest in the world at the time and a major source of revenue for the government and province. Disagreements over the mine caused a civil war from 1989 to 1998 between secessionists and the PNG defence forces (Hughes 2003, 2014).204 The Bougainville crisis had a considerable impact on the Solomons from refugees escaping the fighting, armed intrusions across the border by PNG forces and ruptured diplomatic relations with PNG. Hughes (2013b, 2014, 13) has also flagged the new threats to Pacific environments from undersea mining of minerals, which is growing in feasibility and attractiveness to governments, international investors and operators, whose greed appears to know no bounds.

203 In the 1960s, proposals for bauxite mining on Rennell and Choiseul, which would have caused serious environmental destruction, were abandoned for technical and commercial reasons. 204 There is a considerable literature on the Bougainville crisis, but Regan (2017) is an authoritative source.

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8.4.5 Honiara and urbanisation—the elephant in the room

The most conspicuous aspect of post-war history has been the transformation of Honiara from war-time battleground to the national capital, centre of government, business, industry, aid and development, and chief avenue for dramatic economic, social and environmental change. Geographically small and squeezed into a coastal strip covering around 23 square kilometres, it has grown over the past 60 years from the safe, tidy colonial town of Sitai and Billy’s school days with 5,000 to 6,000 people into an unplanned city with appalling traffic, high levels of pollution and overcrowding in unregulated settlements. Hughes was involved with low-cost housing designs for planned settlements when he was in the Lands Department in the 1960s. John Connell (2010) describes rapidly growing urban centres in the Pacific with their associated problems as the ‘elephants in the room’; Honiara could thus be described as the elephant in the Solomons room. Urbanisation has been much less conspicuous elsewhere in the Solomons; Gizo and Auki, the provincial capitals of Western Province and Malaita, are much smaller centres with populations only recently reaching that of Honiara in the 1960s.

Honiara features as a central location in all the participants’ histories in the first and third case studies.205 Sitai and Billy moved to Honiara in 1962 and 1968 respectively to attend school and have spent much of their working lives there, as have Hughes and Roughan. Movement of Solomon Islanders into Honiara was then strictly controlled by colonial authorities, a far cry from the post- independence era. All but four of the nursing officers trained in Honiara and twelve spent much of their careers there. Honiara provided not only employment and careers but also wealth and security for those who could afford to buy property or land on which to build, as each of the Four Corners participants and several of the nursing officers did. Most of the participants have enjoyed much better fortunes than the estimated one-third of people living in informal ‘squatter’ settlements (see below) and the 80% living below the poverty line (Barbara and Keen et al. 2017, 17; J. Connell 2017, 7).206

The population of Honiara in 1959 was just over 3,550 but rapid population growth since then has resulted in what Roughan (1986, 63) terms ‘hyperurbanisation’ and John Connell (2017, 5) ‘over urbanisation’. Permanent, semi-permanent and shanty housing have spread to fill any unoccupied land within the town boundary, on the fringes and beyond to customary land on Guadalcanal. Much of the urban spread has been uncontrolled, with now around 30 informal (‘squatter’) settlements within the town boundary, often with shanty houses with poor water, sanitation and

205 Honiara was the interview venue for 62% of participants and 72% of all interviews. 206 From a very accessible series of articles about urbanisation in island Pacific, including Honiara: ‘Urban development in the Pacific’ Development Bulletin 78, 2017.

230 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History waste collection, and lacking electricity (Keen at al 2017; Thomas and Keen 2017). These settlements, often built on marginal land with steep slopes or subject to flooding, house an estimated 35% of the Honiara population and have grown at twice or more the urban growth rate (Jones and Sanderson 2017, 12). This has given rise to a range of intractable problems including poverty, overcrowding, dangerous living conditions, ill-health, unemployment, crime, traffic congestion and pollution. There have been several major riots in Honiara, most notably the torching of Chinatown and other buildings in 2006 (Akin 1999, 58; Allen 2008, 48).207 The riots and looting that accompanied them were symptomatic of the frustrations with inequalities of housing, land, wealth, employment and basic services.

Honiara’s population more than trebled from 15,000 in 1976 to nearly 50,000 in 1999 before briefly declining due to the Tension. It grew rapidly again during the RAMSI years (2003–2016) and doubled from 64,600 in 2009 to reach 130,000 in 2019, excluding peri-urban fringes. Compared to a national rate of increase of 2.7% p.a., Honiara’s growth rate was 7.2%, doubling every ten years.

140,000 130,150 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 64,600 49,100 40,000 30,400 20,000 14,950 0 3,550 11,200 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 Fig. 8.2 Honiara population growth rate 1959–2019 (Source: SI census data 1959–2019)

Honiara’s population growth is due more to internal migration than to natural population increase. Migration from other islands, particularly Malaita, is driven by the four E’s—employment, education, environmental pressures or disasters, and entertainment or escape from the confines of rural life (J. Connell 2017). An estimated 70% of Honiara’s population is of Malaitan origin or heritage, giving it a reputation as a Malaitan town (Foukona and Allen 2019, 319).208 New arrivals stay with relatives (wantoks), further straining often grossly inadequate housing, incomes and basic services (Keen et al. 2016). Honiara has serious social problems including overcrowding, unemployment, poverty, violence, vice and crime, particularly among disaffected young men

207 The 2006 riots were triggered by the election as prime minister of an unpopular corrupt politician, Snyder Rini, following the national elections. He was forced to stand down and was replaced by Mannasseh Sogavare. 208 Malaitan migration to Guadalcanal to work on plantations and industrial developments was also encouraged by matrilineal ownership, which allowed Malaitan men to marry into Guadalcanal land and be joined there by wantoks.

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(Evans 2019). The number of people seeking work far outnumbers the number of formal jobs available, a major difference from the 1970s when nursing students could walk away from nursing and into another job in town. Unemployment has led to the growth of a range of informal and often unhealthy livelihoods, some of which are legal (such as selling food, betel nut and cigarettes) and others illegal (such as burglary, homemade alcohol, marijuana, gambling and prostitution). Many of these livelihoods and lifestyles are embedded in poverty and highly detrimental to physical and mental health (Russell et al. 2011; Thomas and Keen 2017).

8.4.6 Population growth—the elephant in the backroom

If Honiara is the elephant in the room, then rapid population growth is the elephant in the backroom, rarely mentioned in oral testimonies but nevertheless influential at multiple levels. While the total population is small by international standards, the rate of population increase in the Solomons has placed great burdens on family resources and governments to provide services.

In the pre-war colonial era, the population of Solomon Islands declined drastically due to introduced diseases, but exploded in the post-war period.209 The rate of growth was 3.5% p.a. in the 1970s and 1980s (a population doubling time of 20 years) and 2.8% p.a. in the 1990s and 2000s Taking 1959 as a base year, the population doubled by 1983, trebled by 1997, quadrupled by 2007, quintupled by 2017, and is estimated to reach one million by 2030 (see Fig. 8.3). The growth has been driven by high fertility rates, reductions in child mortality and increases in overall life expectancy.210 The high fertility rate and reduced child mortality have resulted in almost 55% of the population being aged under 25. Fertility rates have gradually declined since 1960, reflecting factors such as increasing primary and secondary female education, female employment, rising income levels and improved child survival.211 However, the number of births will continue to increase each year until fertility rates fall further (to 2.1 children per women or lower), and the multiple challenges of rapid population growth will continue to intensify.

The provision of family planning—in which many of the nurses in the case studies were involved at some stage of their career—had only a modest impact due to cultural and religious opposition to family planning, including by nurses themselves and especially towards unmarried women.

209 Moore (2017, 430) estimates that the population of Malaita fell by at least 50% due to infectious diseases introduced from foreign ships and returning labourers, which had a disastrous impact on virgin populations. 210 Life expectancy increased by 43% from 49 years in 1960 (50 female and 49 male) to 70 years (72 female and 69 male) by 2015 (combining averages from World Bank, UNICEF and CIA online sites). 211 Fertility rates declined by nearly half, from 7.3 live births per woman’s lifetime in 1970 to 3.9 in 2015 (World Bank 2016; Indexmundi 2018). Solomon Islands female participants in this study had an average of 3.9 children (including adoption) but one or two generations earlier than in 2015. Declining fertility rates are a global phenomenon, with a decrease by half since 1950, from 4·7 to 2·4 livebirths per woman (IHMEb 2018)

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800,000 731,454 700,000

600,000 551,525 500,000

400,000 409,042

300,000 285,176

200,000 178,940 124,076 160,998 100,000 94,066 - 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 Fig. 8.3 Solomon Islands population 1931–2019 (Source: SINSO Census reports)

Rapid population growth has increased pressure on land for housing, food gardens and cash-crop agriculture. Fallow periods in some areas have been shortened from 10–15 years to 1–3 years to meet demand for production for consumption and sale (Kastom Gaden 2007, 38; Moore 2007, 228). As a result, soil fertility has deteriorated and made food production more susceptible to crop diseases in more densely populated areas such as north Malaita and small islands. These changes have added to rural–urban migration, compounding the problems described in the previous section (Bennett 2002, 13).

8.4.7 Epidemiological changes

Demographic changes in fertility, longevity and mortality reflect post-war epidemiologic changes in the burden of diseases. Improvements in medical services and village hygiene and increased access to education have contributed to reductions in child and adult mortality since the 1950s. The two nursing case studies provide details of these epidemiologic changes and programs to deal with them. Immunisation programs reduced the frequency and severity of epidemics of polio, whooping cough, measles and neonatal tetanus. Antibiotics have brought dramatic improvements in the treatment of dysentery, yaws, hookworm, tropical sores, pneumonia and respiratory infections, as well as the scourges of TB and leprosy when patients complied with long treatments (Boutilier 1974, 6). Injections (nila/needle) added to the popularity of biomedical treatments. Malaria mortality and morbidity have been substantially reduced by chloroquine and quinine treatments, together with a government malaria eradication program employing annual mass drug administration, insecticide spraying and malaria prophylaxis during pregnancy and early childhood (Macgregor 2006). However, malaria control programs faltered badly between Independence and the 1990s. Mass distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets have reduced morbidity and mortality from malaria but was badly disrupted by the Tension (Webber 2011; Dr NK 1975). Communicable

233 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History diseases, such as malaria, acute respiratory infections, and diarrhoea, as well as accidents and preventive services for mothers and children, still form a significant element of the work of medical services.

Since the 1980s the incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) has increased in every decade, becoming the leading causes of death in Solomon Islands. 212 Nurses and doctors recalled that heart attacks or diabetes were rarely seen during their training or early careers in the 1970s. Dr JR 1981 (pers. comm. 2016) estimates that eight out of ten hospital admissions are now related to NCDs compared with perhaps one in ten during his medical training from 1976 to 1981.

In 2018, the WHO estimated that NCDs in Solomon Islands are responsible for 69% of deaths, including 24% of premature deaths, from ages 30 to 70 years, a pattern also evident in other Pacific Islands and developing countries. Major contributing factors have been the increased availability and consumption of processed store-bought foods combined with physical inactivity, leading to increases in measures of body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose (Lancet 2014). Other contributing factors include high rates of tobacco and betel nut consumption (causing lung and oropharyngeal cancers) and excessive alcohol consumption (causing kidney and liver diseases). According to several participants, health policies and education campaigns have had little effect on reducing these risk factors; mortality from NCDs continues to climb and threatens to reverse improvements in life expectancy.

NCDs create great burdens on Solomon Islands at multiple levels. Diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases and kidney disease have affected the nursing officers in this study both professionally and personally. Twelve of the 25 nursing officers suffered from NCDs, of whom two subsequently died from NCDs in 2016 and 2017, aged and 63 and 69 respectively. NCD-related illnesses can severely impact on quality of life for individuals and families, as exemplified by David Sitai’s diabetes-related blindness and amputation. At the meso-level, the shift places a heavy burden on staff at provincial and national hospitals associated with often much longer hospital admissions and more frequent re-admissions. At the macro-level, the burden includes the rising costs of medical services and the loss of productive workforce due to disability and premature death.

8.4.8 Changes in nursing and medical services

The two nursing case studies reveal in detail many changes in the provision of nursing and medical services. John Roughan argued in his doctoral thesis (1986, 59), that the development of a national

212 NCDs account for 69% of all deaths (cardiovascular disease 29%, cancers 13%, chronic respiratory diseases 7%, diabetes 7%, other NCDs 13%). The remaining mortality (31%) is due to communicable diseases, maternal, perinatal, and nutritional conditions (22%) and injuries (9%) (WHO 2018). However, these figures need to be treated with caution—mortality statistics outside of hospitals are imprecise because causes of death are often not known or collected.

234 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History health system across a dispersed archipelago was an achievement ‘having without a doubt the government’s greatest development impact’. Expansion of the nursing profession and medical system in Solomon Islands (detailed in Chapters 5 and 6) formed part of the preparations for Independence. Changes to the nursing profession also resulted from the continued importation, via international organisations and personnel, of overseas models of nurse training, biomedical treatments, and health paradigms.

Developments in nursing education and professional regulations in each post-war decade saw advances in the knowledge and skills taught to nurses and steadily raised the education entry levels into the profession. The shift of nurse training into higher education in the 1980s was the most controversial and influential development. Shifting responsibility for pre-service training from MHMS to the Ministry of Education (MEHRD) created institutional and personal rivalries between nurse educators, nurse administrators and the national hospital. In the two nursing case studies, almost all the hospital-trained generation of nurses argued that later generations of college-trained nurses are not as competent or as willing to serve in rural areas. Conversely, college-trained nurses and educators argued that student nurses were taught more critical thinking than their predecessors, strengthening their ability to challenge hospital hierarchies and practices.

Nursing and medical services in the Solomons have always imported and adapted overseas concepts, beginning with missions and colonial authorities. Since Independence, consultants from Australia, Britain and New Zealand have continued to introduce new ideas and paradigms into the nursing curricula. The medical system has adopted WHO and UNICEF disease control programs and global health paradigms, such as Primary Health Care, the Ottawa Charter and Health For All (HFA) by the Year 2000. Bilateral donor funding and technical staff—particularly from Australia, Britain, Japan, Taiwan and, more recently, the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria—have also been instrumental in changing the health systems and the practices of health professionals.

Nurses in rural clinics in Solomon Islands work in an extended role with support from doctors at provincial hospitals. These nurses have more responsibility and autonomy than their counterparts working in hospitals and in developed countries, and thus more social prestige and status in communities, particularly when working on their own. Nurses greatly outnumber doctors, although they remain professionally, legally and socially subordinate to them. Nurses hold a powerful position in the medical system, bolstered by a strong and politically active union movement (Frazer 1992; AP 1976M). Several participants who became nursing leaders in the 1980s and 1990s were trained in trade union negotiation, and simultaneously held positions in the nursing administration, the nurses’ union and the Nursing Council. Nurses’ professional power and willingness to threaten

235 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History strike action led to much-improved schemes of service, pay and conditions for the profession in the 1990s, but also created resentment among doctors and other health professionals.

According to five nursing leaders who were forced to retire and ten more who continued after the Tension, the professional power of nurses declined under a new leadership with much less experience, leaving them subject to more control by doctors, administrators, and advisors in the MHMS. Nursing has become increasingly marginalised through health sector restructures and has disappeared as a separate division. According to older nurses, reforms to nursing structures, titles and roles have created confusion and, by splitting career pathways, further diminished nursing solidarity and the control formerly exercised by the nursing leadership. The interventions and restructures replicating expatriate models were reminiscent of the colonial era.

8.4.9 Gender relations and the gender order

The three case studies afford different aspects over time of the ‘gender order’ (R. Connell 2012)— that is, gender relations and the structure of gender relations—particularly within health institutions but also in Solomon Islands more generally. Male hegemony or dominance in gender relations stemmed from both British colonial rule and traditional cultural patriarchy (Corrin 2008, 170–172). Women’s rights were embedded in land tenure systems and gendered practices in work, kinships and inheritance (R. Connell 2007, 558) but Indigenous women were generally disregarded by colonial authorities. During Maasina Rule women appeared to be virtual slave labour, obeying male orders, even though they were centrally involved in the movement (Akin 2015, 496). Pollard (2000, 42) argues that women lost additional social status during the colonial period as men were recruited exclusively to become administrators and leaders. Women were excluded from training programs, left behind in villages or as silent and obedient wives in town.

In Malaita, John Roughan and Tony Hughes described working in the 1960s with communities still living in traditional villages with separate housing and areas for men and women to prevent contamination and maintain abu (purity) between males and females. The Fauabu nurses recounted villagers clearing a separate track through the bush to bring a woman in obstructed labour to the hospital so that the normal track would not be contaminated. Mission enclaves and Christian villages brought males and females under one roof, but retained separate spaces for menstruation, childbirth, and defecation. Christian values and colonial laws were enforced over cultural practices regarding marriage, bride price, divorce, polygyny (forbidden), and infidelity (no longer punishable by death).213

213 Customary divorce or separation was permitted if bride price was returned to the husband’s family, who usually retained custody of children.

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Sexist and racist practices of domination and subordination were structured into colonial government, church hierarchies and cultural values (R. Connell, 1995, 77–81). Colonial officers were always male and often imbued with ideas of racial superiority. Officers such as Tony Hughes were not racist but were nevertheless doubly advantaged by being white males. Solomon Islanders in socially subordinate positions also benefited from what Connell (1993, 82–83) calls ‘the patriarchal dividend’—for example, male medical assistants who held superior positions to nurse- midwives. Even when medical assistants were rebadged as male nurses, female nurses were still subordinate to males and to their husbands in terms of postings and promotions.

Since the 1970s, women have had greater opportunities to leave home for education, training and employment in the cash economy. Organisations such as the Mothers’ Union and the YWCA have expanded women’s influence and freedom of movement, but there has been little evidence of change in patriarchal values in government, churches and kastom (Corrin 2008, 1974). The 1978 Constitution, which pledges ‘to cherish and promote the different cultural traditions’, exempts customary law from discrimination provisions (Corrin 2008, 174).

Male hegemony still predominates in many spheres: in personal and sexual relationships, reflected in high rates and widespread tolerance of sexual violence; in domestic divisions of labour (cooking, gardening, childcare); in education (differential access of males and females to secondary and tertiary learning); in workplaces and institutions (gendered roles and promotions); and in state power (political elections and government advisors). Women did not receive the vote until 1974 and only four women have been elected to national parliament in ten elections since Independence, compared with 322 men (T. Wood 2015/2019, x). Corrin (2008, 72–73) argues that under- representation of women in politics continues the marginalisation of women by colonial governments.

Different kinds of feminism were revealed in the case studies, which Corrin (2008, 182) describes as ‘more like a ripple than a wave’ in the Solomons. Although there was little explicit feminism expressed by the Fauabu sisters, their careers, and choices not to marry or have children, can be interpreted as expressions of a pragmatic feminism. Their lifelong loyalty to Anglican Christianity was central to their willingness to obey a church patriarchy, while often disagreeing with decisions made by male clergy at Fauabu and Honiara. Afu Billy represents a newer feminism influenced by her work with international organisations, her tertiary studies and her rejection of church and cultural misogyny. Her personal life reveals how entrenched gender-based violence is inside and outside of marriage. The Tension saw even greater levels of sexual violence committed against women, with apparent impunity. Since the Tension, UN agencies and foreign donors have made reducing domestic violence and gender equality explicit objectives in development and politics.

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8.4.10 Race and ethnicity

British colonial rule was structured along racial lines and practices that privileged Europeans and discriminated against non-whites at every level. In Honiara and government centres, colonial officers were a social and residentially segregated elite in what was effectively an apartheid system that excluded non- whites, including Chinese businessmen, from elite social events, while Solomon Islanders formed a native underclass (J. Connell and Curtain 1982, 120; Moore 2015 and in press). Islanders’ inferior status was symbolised by the sulu (sarong) uniforms worn until the 1960s by bare-chested school students (male and female), policemen and colonial servants.

Until 1965, there was a legal colour bar for drinking in public bars and whites-only clubs, which Hughes helped to confront with Solomon Islands colleagues. Hughes’s plays and poems in the late 1960s and 1970s express the inequalities and racism experienced by Islanders—the poem ‘The Good Servant’ begins, ‘I am Master, thou art Boy’ (Hughes 1969a). Solomon Islanders’ hardships and punishments in the school system and Colonial Service created a bitter legacy and hostility towards white men (araikwao) among early leaders such as Solomon Mamaloni, Peter Kenilorea and Baddeley Devesi,214 who complained of their treatment at the hands of expatriates in schools and the Colonial Service (Gina 2003; Kenilorea 2007; Chevalier 2015b). After Independence, resentments turned to hostility against international government organisations and their advisers who did not do the bidding of the government, including Hughes when he was Central Bank governor and later a consultant.

Chinese people (often called waku)215 were also subject to racist attitudes by colonial authorities and Solomon Islanders, something that has continued since Independence. ‘Old’ Chinese families who arrived during colonial times are better integrated into Solomons society but are also resented for their wealth, money laundering and influence with politicians, including through bribery, to form governments and unseat reformist governments (Moore 2008; Braithwaite et al. 2010, 101). ‘New’ Chinese, who arrived recently from mainland China, are especially resented for sharp business practices, selling shoddy products and rude manners. Other Chinese identities are Malaysian Chinese businessmen who are resented for corrupt and unscrupulous interests in logging, casinos and fishing fleets.

Ethnicity has proved more significant than race since Independence. Ethnicity refers to ‘cultural values and norms that separate a group from other groups around them’ (Giddens 2009, 1118).

214 The first Chief Minister, Prime Minister and Governor-General respectively. 215 ‘Waku’ from the Cantonese wah kiu (‘residing outside’) is widely used in Solomon Pijin for all Asians (Moore 2008, 64).

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There are multiple ethnicities, with more than 80 local language and dialect groups in an archipelago arbitrarily drawn together under colonial rule. This diversity is further complicated by marriage and migration, which have created ‘a dense countrywide web of relationships’ (Brigg 2009, 156). The web of ethnicities can be glimpsed at the level of provinces, islands and language groups. Indigenous case study participants came from seven provinces, 15 islands and 21 different language groups. Their ethnic identities were mixed by parents with different ethnic origins, learning different languages and growing up in different places. The spouses of 14 participants came from different islands.

Ethnicity can be visualised as ‘concentric circles of allegiance’ (A. Smith 1991, 24) stretching across clan, village, language group, island, nation, Melanesia and, finally, the Pacific region. This elasticity is expressed in the term wantok (literally, one language) which has many levels of association depending on where a person is situated and who they are with. The further away one’s place of origin, the wider the pool of people who are regarded as wantoks (Foukona and Allen 2019, 314). Multiple ethnicities create a kaleidoscope of relationships in the Solomons at micro-, meso- and macro-levels. Ethnicities influence cultural practices, languages, inheritance, land rights, kinship, marriage and adoption. Ethnicity intersects with gender, often determining what a woman will inherit and whether she will live with her husband’s family (virilocal) or her family (uxorilocal). However, the influences of ethnicity and cultural traditions have changed with economic development and urbanisation, demonstrated most clearly by Afu Billy, a Kwaio woman who has freed herself in Honiara from many of the cultural restrictions of one of the most conservative ethnic groups. Nursing officers also revealed how they were socialised as students to ignore ethnic identities, or negotiated cultural taboos dealing with patients of the same or different ethnicities.

Ethnicity shapes politics, including voting behaviour in national and provincial elections (T. Wood 2015). The three participants who stood for election (Billy, Sitai and CS 1979) needed to claim ethnic origin and relationships within a constituency or province, but as Billy’s narrow loss in 2001 showed, other factors come into play, not least gender and access to funds (T. Wood 2014b). Ethnicity also shapes the formation of the national government, which requires not only a majority of elected MPs but also representation of most if not all provinces to prevent instability and accusations of ethnic bias. Sitai belatedly became a cabinet minister because Mamaloni was also from Makira and could count on his allegiance and thus bring someone from a different province into cabinet.

Although often referred to as the ‘Ethnic Tension’, the root causes of the Tension lay in social and structural inequalities between provinces triggered by poor government policies, leadership, and other unaddressed socio-economic development grievances (Roughan 2000; Kabataulaka 2001;

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Bennett 2002; Hughes 2003a). Unresolved resentments gave rise to violence between different ethnic groups in Honiara in the 1990s and a civil war between Malaita and Guadalcanal in 1998. Ethnicity of parents and children (including adoptions) determined whether people could stay and whether their property was safe in Honiara during the Tension.

8.4.11 Class, status, and big-men

In the case studies, I use ‘class’ to denote differences between groups of people based on income, wealth, and status (Larmour 1992, 96). Anyone who completed secondary education in the 1960s and 1970s could be called part of an elite. The term has often been applied to the families of politicians, churchmen, teachers, and public servants (Moore in press). Such secondary school education no longer defines an elite in an era of mass education and urbanisation. Barbara et al. (2015) define a middle class in Melanesia using multiple criteria, including income and expenditure that does not depend on subsistence; formal qualifications and occupations (professional, managerial and administrative); stable jobs; patterns of consumption and access to consumer goods; urban residence and networks; and levels of political participation. All the case study participants meet most of these criteria and can be defined as middle class.

Education was critical to participants’ life chances and significant status was attached to education credentials. Credentials created opportunities for further education, employment, promotion and income. John Roughan commented on the advantages of education, writing that ‘[the] educated child … won the job, the overseas university place, the government position, etc’. (Roughan 2007b). The advantages gained in one generation were often passed on to the next, which can be seen in the education credentials of most participants’ children in the case studies.

Traditional ways of achieving status are still relevant in Solomon societies. Big-men roles have changed with colonial rule and Christianity, but the values persist beneath the veneer of modern- day life. Status and power are still gained through competition and gifting, while chiefly leadership systems are inherited. Anthropologist the late John Naitoro (pers. comm 1997) observed that Solomon Islanders learned from the white man that power resides in the office with the man behind the desk. Expatriates with colonial power and white privilege became the new big-men in the colonial era. From their offices in the Secretariat and district centres, they wielded considerable power, including by promoting favoured individuals based on their provinces of origin or possession of overseas credentials.

In the post-independence era, versions of big-men and chiefly leaders became evident in the political elites of which Sitai was a part, and which Hughes and Roughan both worked with and

240 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History critiqued.216 A political class of leaders and administrators—almost exclusively Indigenous and male—became the new elite and were central to political and economic power (Bennett 2002, 13). Big-men, and occasionally big-women (big mere), could also be found in bureaucracies among middle-class professionals, managers and administrators. As we saw with the nursing leadership, the system was adapted after Independence with the new big-men and big-women recommending favourites (wantoks and classmates) for appointments, promotions, overseas training and contacts after retirement.

8.4.12 Colonial continuity and change

The lead-up to Independence (1978) saw radical changes in the racial composition of politics and administration as small groups of Solomon Islanders took over, but the institutions and procedures stayed much the same. The Independence constitution established Solomon Islands as a constitutional monarchy with a governor-general representing the Queen as head of state.217 A Westminster political system was adopted with a parliament and cabinet government. Many British parliamentary procedures and conventions have been inherited, including the positions of Speaker, a Hansard parliamentary record, White Papers and the committee system. Two of the case study participants had been members of parliament (David Sitai and CS 1980M) and ministers in the cabinet system of government. Direct links with British colonial bureaucracy include positions such as Permanent Secretary and Undersecretary, which are still used, as well as the position of Secretary to Prime Minister and Cabinet, which Tony Hughes temporarily held in 1974, as did John Roughan in 2006–2007, a remarkable coincidence.

A further continuity with the colonial era derived from membership of the British Commonwealth, one of 16 former British colonies and territories remaining linked through a range of Commonwealth networks and organisations. As head of the Commonwealth Youth Program in the Pacific, Billy enjoyed diplomatic status and represented Commonwealth organisations at national events. She personally escorted the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2012 on one of the state visits occasionally made by members of the royal family, including Queen Elizabeth II (see Chapter 4, Fig. 4.3). Like most Solomon Islanders, Billy is a great fan of royalty and thrilled to have twice met the Queen. Loyalty to British royalty is reinforced through Queen’s birthday and New Year’s honours, submitted for approval to the British government and including knighthoods, Members, Officers and Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (MBE, OBE, CBE) and the British Empire Medal (BEM). There is a hierarchy of titles and awards (‘gongs’) with finely

216 These leadership systems continue to operate at community level but are less visible to outsiders. 217 In contrast, former colonies Kiribati (formerly Gilbert Islands) and Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides) both have republican constitutions.

241 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History graded distinctions for those from former colonies. Among the participants, Helen Barrett was awarded an MBE and Alice W 1972 a BEM, while Tony Hughes refused an OBE, which he regarded as insufficient reward for his contributions.218

Historical, symbolic, and emotional ties notwithstanding, the ties between Britain and its former colony have altered since Independence, mainly for economic reasons. British aid to the Pacific declined and was partially transferred into European Union funding for former colonies. New relationships were created with closer regional networks, such as the South Pacific Commission, Pacific Forum and Melanesian Spearhead Group, and donor countries including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Taiwan (recently replaced by mainland China). Although Solomon Islands is formally independent, economic neoliberalism and relations with the outside world continue to dominate small nation-states politically and economically (R. Connell and Dados 2014). Reliance on donors and indebtedness to international financial organisations such as the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank requires compliance with rules of the international economic order determined by former colonial powers in their own interests. 8.5 Conclusion

The social history in the chapter brings together analysis of the life and career histories with other historical sources to provide insights into changes and continuities at multiple levels of Solomon Islands society and structures. I have shown how participants’ oral histories, life histories and collective histories are connected to broader social, historical, and geographical contexts. Oral histories from just 34 participants have helped to recover, understand, and explain micro- and meso-levels of social history. However, much of the macro-level social history relied on other historical sources—published histories, grey literature, online data, and written work by Roughan and Hughes.

I have developed a social history framework with three axes (social-structural, historical, and geographical) to locate content and themes from the case studies at different levels (micro, meso and macro), in historical periods and events, and different places. This framework situates social themes and changes that are illuminated by examples from individual and collective histories along with other source materials.

The most significant features of social history were the impact of Christianity and the mission churches, the growth of government services (especially from the mid-1960s), and the dominance

218 One of the informants, Sir Dr Nathan Kere, was made a Knight Commander of St Michael and St George (KCMG) on the Queen’s official birthday in 2014. The abbreviation KCMG is irreverently known as ‘Kindly Call Me God’.

242 Chapter 8 Content and context—recovering Social History and importance of western education. These changes created new opportunities and careers for men and women born during and after the war, while subsistence ways of life continued in the villages. The colonial system, in which the missions were instrumental, was racially structured and formed the context in which the expatriate participants worked and in which Indigenous participants grew up, were educated, trained, and began their careers.

The backdrop to individual and collective histories has been the enormous growth of Honiara and a rapidly growing population—the elephants in the room and the backroom—two of the most significant features of post-war Solomon Islands social history. Both have driven change and generated pressures on families, institutions, governments, and land in both rural and urban areas. Migration to Honiara has brought problems of unemployment, poverty, crime, poor housing and services, and public riots that were almost unknown when participants first came to town. Migration to Guadalcanal by outsiders, particularly Malaitans, was a root cause of the Tension that brought the country close to collapse. Less salient in the oral histories, but evident from written work of participants, has been the commercial (over) exploitation of the land through plantations, logging, palm oil and, more recently, mining, which have been drivers of the modern economy but also of migration, environmental damage and social unrest.

Continuities as well as transformational changes and seismic events were evident in the social history. Christian beliefs and colonial ideologies were firmly embedded in individuals, groups, institutions, bureaucracies, and the national constitution. Islanders have in large part maintained customary control of their land, and their Indigenous languages and oral cultures have remained strong. Artisanal skills, subsistence agriculture and fishing continue to sustain Islanders in the modern era. Big-men and chiefly systems of leadership have been adapted to modern bureaucracy and politics. Male hegemony, highly discriminatory taboos and domestic violence against women remain deeply entrenched culturally, socially and politically. Despite these continuities, and a geography that often appears little changed, the three case studies reveal how profoundly the society, economy, and environment have changed over the past 75 years.

243

Chapter 9. Conclusions

9.1 Introduction

This final chapter of the thesis draws together answers to the research questions, contributions made by the thesis, conclusions and lessons learned, and recommendations for academic and community oral history research.

Section 9.2 summarises answers to the two research questions that have guided this study: how can oral history methods preserve individual and collective histories? and what aspects of social history can be recovered through oral history? Section 9.3 highlights the contributions that I consider that this research makes to oral history methodology and to the social history of Solomon Islands. Section 9.4 presents my reflections relating to: the value of oral history; insider and outsider positionality and its influence on this research; whether this research recolonises oral history methods and how they might be decolonised; the value of social history; and practical lessons learned. Section 9.5 provides recommendations to encourage academic and community oral history research in Solomon Islands and other post-colonial contexts in the Pacific. 9.2 Answering the research questions

This research has sought to answer two broad and exploratory questions:

1) How can oral history methods preserve individual and collective histories in Solomon Islands contexts? 2) What aspects of social history can be recovered using oral history methods?

9.2.1 Preserving individual and collective histories

I have collected and preserved individual and collective histories in three case studies with people who worked during and after the colonial era in in Solomon Islands.

The first case study (Chapter 4, Four Corners) records life history interviews with two Solomon Islanders (David Sitai and Afu Billy) and two expatriates (John Roughan and Tony Hughes) who were significant public figures through their work in government, church, and non-government organisations. It brings together their individual life histories and writings, and notes the political, economic, cultural, and social differences in the contexts that affected them, particularly relating to gender, education and the organisations in which they worked.

244 Chapter 9 Conclusions

The second case study (Chapter 5, The Fauabu Sisters) is a group history of Australian missionary nurses who worked together from 1968 to 1984 at Fauabu, the second mission hospital established in the Solomons. Their individual and group histories reveal how they were bonded by their gender, profession and religious faith. The oral testimonies—combined with published sources, documents and photographs provided by the Sisters—recover not only their time together but also the history of Fauabu hospital and its significance in the history of Anglican Church of Melanesia.

The third case study (Chapter 6, Nursing in the Solomons) is a collective history of 25 Solomon Islander nurses who trained in the colonial era and witnessed many of the changes to nursing and to medical services from 1967 to 2016. It contributes to the history of nursing in the Solomons in the colonial and post-colonial eras by synthesising oral testimonies, individual career histories, published and unpublished documents and statistics contained an nursing registration database.

Each participant has had their life and career history preserved individually in the form of recordings, transcripts, and interview summaries. The contents of the oral histories in each of the three case studies were then analysed collectively to understand the contexts in which the participants lived and worked, and which in turn shaped them.

Oral histories are easier said than done. While not unusual for academic research, the long process of interviewing, processing, and analysing the oral histories has uncovered the complexity of oral history methods. This led to the development of the Visual, Spatial, Oral–Aural, Text, Numerical and Digital (VSO-ATND) model to assist in understanding and framing oral history methodology. The model divides oral history methodology into different domains and can be applied to oral history projects more generally, as discussed in Section 9.3.1.

9.2.2 Recovering social history

I have explored what aspects and levels of social history219 can be found or recovered through oral history methods, supplemented by and compared with other data sources (Shopes 2011, 15). The case studies illuminate changes and continuities in Solomon Islands society at the micro- (individual and group), meso- (institutional) and macro- (national and international) levels. For example, the two nursing case studies provide a great deal of personal (micro) and institutional (meso) level detail about nursing and medical services. They reveal individual agency in choice of careers within the context of the post-war expansion in the provision of nursing, medical services, and education.

219 Reiterating that social history includes the history of social groups and whole societies, analysis of the life of social groups, social processes, and forces and factors of change and continuity (Social History 1976, 1–3).

245 Chapter 9 Conclusions

They also reveal the major influence of missionary churches and how deeply embedded Christianity has become at all levels of Solomon Islands society.

The case studies further reveal the influence of social and structural factors—education, professional training, gender, religious denomination, class, age, race and ethnic identity—and how these have impacted the lives of participants and institutions. Racial differences between expatriates and Solomon Islanders and ethnic differences among Solomon Islanders were deeply entrenched in the colonial and post-independence eras. The personal and institutional histories reveal the extent of male hegemony and misogyny in gender roles, discriminatory taboos, disadvantages in education and employment, and domestic violence.

The testimonies, and particularly the writings of Hughes and Roughan in the first case study, bring into view the many difficulties and challenges facing a post-independence small island-state in the Pacific with only natural resources, subsistence agriculture and aid to depend on (Roughan 2000; Hughes 1998/2013). They point especially to the consequences of unscrupulous exploitation of the environment by local and foreign interests, through copra and palm oil plantations, logging, oil, fishing and, more recently, mining, which have shaped the political economy and driven corruption. The role played by expatriates in shaping the provision of nursing and medical services and the RAMSI intervention is evident through the two nursing case studies, and reminiscent of power relationships in the pre-independence era. Some of the forces driving the profound social changes in post-independence Solomon Islands—rapid population growth, internal migration, and urbanisation—were less salient in the case studies but were elephants in the (back)room (as John Connell 2011 has called them), generating pressures and feeding deep resentments that led ultimately to the Tension. 9.3 Contributions made by the research

Section 9.3 highlights the contributions that this research makes to oral history methodology, to the social history of Solomon Islands, to students and scholars of Solomon Islands and oral history, and to a wider audience if this thesis is made digitally accessible.

9.3.1 Contributions to Oral History

Many complexities lie beneath the umbrella term of oral history. These include: multiple narrators; managing interview logistics and permissions; intersubjective dynamics; the nuances of how stories are performed; what is said and what remains unsaid; and the processing and interpretation of interview content. These complexities can be confusing for non-specialists.220 Oral history literature

220 For example, Abrams’s otherwise very useful glossary in Oral History Theory (2016, 175–177) does not include a definition of oral history.

246 Chapter 9 Conclusions is often difficult, with jargon and theorising from literary and cultural studies derived from completely different contexts to Solomon Islands and the Pacific.

I have used a number of distinctions221 with a view to clearing pathways through the oral history ‘terminological jungle’ (Morrissey 1984, 13), not only in this research but also potentially for others using oral history methods. I have sought to clarify terms that are used in oral history and other disciplines that use interviews. Distinctions are made between oral history, oral tradition, and oral testimony, and between life story, life history and career history. I have also created what I believe to be an original distinction between primary oral history (collection of primary oral history data), secondary oral history (curation of primary data) and tertiary oral history (analysis of curated data).

The VSO-ATND model brings added coherence and clarity to the many complexities relating to the primary, secondary and tertiary phases of the oral history research. The model is an open one, with options to expand on aspects and domains of particular interest to researchers and oral historians, such as memory, emotions, and narrative. The model could be applied to academic, institutional and community oral history. As far as I am aware, it represents an original way to understand oral history methodology.

This research also contributes through the specific oral history accounts produced in the three case studies. Individual life and career histories have been collected, corrected and returned to participants for their personal and family use, one of which has appeared as a published obituary (Chevalier 2015a). A longer version of Helen Barrett’s life story in Chapter 5 was sent to her family for her funeral eulogy in November 2019, parts of which were used in published tributes (Rogers 2019; Pinder 2020), and again for centenary celebrations of her birth in March 2021.222 No doubt there will be more occasions when the oral histories can contribute to obituaries and posthumous tributes. And depending on the degree of access that can be negotiated with institutions, the oral histories can also be used by scholars and students in their research.

9.3.2 Contributions to Social History

The three case studies contribute to the social history of post-war Solomon Islands through the 34 individual histories and two collective histories, together with the themes analysed in each case study and discussed in Chapter 8.

The life histories in the first (Four Corners) case study include four prominent individuals (two Indigenous and two European), covering their backgrounds and lives in the colonial era and after Independence. Their private and public lives provide insights into changes in gender equality,

221 See Glossary of Terms [insert page number]. 222 I was also able to send the Fauabu history and associated photographs to the Anglican for the 90th anniversary celebrations of Fauabu hospital in 2018.

247 Chapter 9 Conclusions politics, the economy and the environment. The two nursing case studies contribute to the history of nursing and medical services dating back to the founding of Fauabu hospital in 1928, providing views of the changes in health and treatment of diseases from infectious and non-communicable diseases. The Fauabu sisters case study contributes to the history of mission hospitals, nurse training and the work of medical missionaries. The Solomon Islands nursing case study contributes to understanding institutional tensions and power dynamics between the health professions, as well as the longstanding influence of expatriates and international organisations in Solomon Islands.

The social history framework developed in this research allows multiple aspects of social history in post-war Solomon Islands to be viewed within a unified analytic space comprising three dimensions: social-structural, historical, and geographic. The capacity to zoom in and out along each axis brings connections, changes, and continuities into view.

On the social-structural axis, the micro- (personal and group) level shows connections arising from shared personal experience, places, and events. The meso- (institutional) level connects social and cultural factors including gender, religion, race, ethnicity, and island identity, as well as revealing continuities and changes in the institutional structures since the colonial era. The macro- (national and international) level brings into view broader societal forces or factors such as colonial and post- colonial government, trade, technology, and neoliberalism.

The historical axis provides a timeline of historical periods and events of national and international significance which shaped individual lives, social groups, and institutions.223 The geographical axis situates the physical places and spaces that shape memories and constrain lives, careers and identities. The influence of geography is evident in the oral histories through memories, locations of home, work and travel, and destructive changes to the environment due to cyclones, climate, and exploitation.

9.3.3 Making contributions accessible

Shopes (2016, 264) argues that the subjects of oral histories might reasonably expect to read what was said about them. I would additionally argue that methods and outputs should be accessible and comprehensible beyond academic or specialist audiences. I would like this thesis to be useful and understood by non-specialists who may want to use oral history methods in similar contexts or who are interested in Solomon Islands history more generally. The oral history and social history

223 Recalling Marx’s famous quote, ‘Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past’ (Marx 1852/1963).

248 Chapter 9 Conclusions narratives, the oral history model and the social history framework have been presented in ways that hopefully will make them accessible to a wider audience.

After academic examination and corrections to the thesis, several adjustments can make it more accessible. The first will be to make the corrected thesis available (by chapter and as a whole) through internet sites, including academia.edu, reseachgate.net, the Solomon Islands Information Network, 224 university library sites and archival institutions in the Solomons. The second will be to signal to readers those chapters (for example, 1, 4, 5 and 6) that may be of more interest to non- specialists and those chapters that more theoretical (3, 7 and 8). And third, after a suitable recovery period, I intend to turn chapters into articles for oral history journals and societies, which can bring the case studies, visual models, and frameworks to the attention of other historians. 9.4 Reflections and lessons learned

In Section 9.4, I present some key lessons learned and reflections arising from this research. These relate to the value of different types of oral history; insider and outsider positionality and its influence on the research; whether this research by an outsider recolonises oral history methods; and the value of social history.

9.4.1 Practical lessons learned

The long research journey exploring oral history has taught me much about the theory and practice of oral history, including practical lessons that are worth emphasising. The first is that primary oral history (interview and recording) may be all that is needed to ensure that histories are not lost. Secondary and tertiary phases of oral history may be done later, depending on their value and interest to others, or not at all. Like photographs, oral histories can now be recorded with widely available audio and video digital devices. Even if recordings are not of optimal quality, like photographs in this thesis, they capture the past and preserve a person’s unique voice and identity. As Paul Thompson notes (2000, 1), recording life histories has a social purpose beyond a research project—namely, to acknowledge a person’s life experiences and their contribution to society.225

The second major lesson is to interview elders as and when opportunities arise. My decision to interview the Fauabu sisters was prompted by learning that Helen Barrett was still alive and alert at the age of 93. Her life history would have been worth recording as primary oral history independently of this research but three years later would have been too late. Interviews with her

224 https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/solomon-islands-information-network, 225 Outside of this research, I have done oral history interviews with five informants in their 80s and 90s— three family friends in Australia and two American veterans of the Battle of Guadalcanal.

249 Chapter 9 Conclusions led me to record histories with her less-known Fauabu sisters and recover a history of Fauabu hospital. Like a treasure hunt of undetermined length, oral histories can be collected serendipitously and may grow into larger collections.

The third major lesson is to keep oral history projects to a manageable size. In retrospect, the collection of oral histories for this research was larger than optimal given the time and complexity involved in secondary and tertiary phases. The process of organising, conducting, and processing interviews required more time and resources than any other qualitative research projects I have undertaken. It would have been better to have limited the number of participants and the number of interviews per participant. I recommend a protocol similar to the Australian Generations Project of two sessions over four to five hours in total, followed up by phone or email if necessary.

9.4.2 The value of oral history

Oral history methods are a powerful means of democratising history—its content, process, and audience (Shopes 2014, 258). Oral histories can provide information and perspectives from almost any cadre of society, yielding insights into lives lived within families, institutions, and national and international structures. The richness and nuance of individual voices, stories, and visual expressions (in the case of video recordings) are preserved along with expression of emotions and humour. Recordings resonate more directly and deeply than written words. Once recorded, interviews can be replayed at any time and distance by narrators, family members, interviewers and researchers, and—subject to release agreements—can be made available to secondary audiences. Clips from audio and video recordings may be played at any time, even at funerals, and provide source materials for obituaries and posthumous tributes.226 Such contributions from the oral histories have important social and emotional value for participants’ families, friends, and wider communities.

Technological advances since the 1990s have further democratised oral history by making recordings more accessible for personal, community and academic purposes. Internet sites and social media platforms offer new ways to archive and access oral history collections. However, the unequal availability and costs of digital technology and the internet also create a digital divide based on rural and urban histories, wealth and age. The ease of copying and transmitting recordings has created new ethical issues relating to properly informed consent and release of oral histories on internet sites. In countries like Solomon Islands, unapproved transmission contravenes safe

226 In 2020, an old family friend (Robert Mark) died and I re-listened to the oral history I recorded with him in 2015. Being able to listen to him while writing a tribute to him for his funeral reinforced both the historical and emotional value of oral history.

250 Chapter 9 Conclusions custodianship of Indigenous knowledge (Sanga and Reynolds 2020). Asking narrators to transfer their rights to oral histories at the time of interview does not protect against compensation claims for cultural offence caused by an oral history. I therefore recommend a precautionary approach, seeking permission for the release of recordings only after narrators have had the opportunity to correct interviews and can be assured of safe storage of their oral histories.

Oral histories are usually interesting and useful as historical evidence but cannot be relied upon exclusively because memories are inevitably imperfect. Narrators may misremember, mislead, be silent or silenced by their past. They may be unaware or unconcerned with what was happening in the world beyond their family and work. The variability of oral accounts may bring their reliability into question—because what is transmitted orally does not always remain the same compared with written versions (Moore 1978, 42; Lal and Luker 2008, vii–viii). There may be significant differences between what has been said, what others have said and what is in the written record (Shopes 2011, 15). However, oral histories can be compared and supplemented by additional sources and accounts. The value of oral history as historical evidence is, therefore, as one source among others, and also in the ways that oral histories differ, how they are told, how the past is remembered in the present and how a person’s experiences in the past have affected them and still do so. It is both the evidence of and the meaning that people give to the past—their experiences, relationships, lives, careers, and identities—that make oral histories such a rich field for research.

9.4.3 The value of social history

While the history of Solomon Islands is well documented in the published and grey literature, the value of the social history in this research lies in contexts, changes and continuities revealed by a small number of individual histories. At the micro- to meso-levels, the histories reveal the intersections and impacts of multiple social factors, including class (particularly an emerging a new middle class privileged by education and employment); age and generational differences in life chances due to education; increasing life expectancy and longevity; gender relations and continuities of male hegemony, patriarchy and misogyny; colonial apartheid and gross inequalities between Europeans and Solomon Islanders; ethnicity and ethnic identities based on language, land and genealogy; and religious denominations and loyalties. The intersections of these factors provide a mosaic of contexts that have shaped individual and group lives.

At the meso- and macro-levels, the histories reveal structural changes from, and continuities with, colonialism, including in legal and public institutions, medical and education systems, the use of English as the official language and loyalty to the British royalty and honours system. The histories also reveal the mobility of Solomon Islanders, which began in the colonial era with the Pacific

251 Chapter 9 Conclusions labour trade and continued with internal migration for employment and, later, for education. Greater freedom to travel and increasing mobility after Independence led, on one hand, to increasing inter-marriage and mixed ethnic identities, and on the other hand to increasing provincial differences and inequities, which erupted into occasional riots in Honiara and eventually the Tension. Internal migration has led to Honiara’s growth in a pattern of urbanisation typical across the Pacific and associated with a range of intractable social problems, exacerbated by high population growth. The social history at macro-level extends to structural contexts of donor aid and development projects, international finance, and the influence of international organisations. These contexts reveal continuities with the colonial era, and although Solomon Islands is now an independent state in a much-changed international order, it is still a minnow swimming with sharks.

9.4.4 Insiders and outsiders in oral history research

The subjective nature of oral history accounts and intersubjectivity of oral history methods make it essential to examine insider–outsider positions in oral history research. Positionality is not a simple insider–outsider binary but, rather, a continuum along which narrators and interviewers/researchers are positioned relative to each other and to their cultural identities, experiences, professions and the topics being discussed. In the life history case study and nursing officers’ case study, I was positioned both as an insider—with knowledge of the participants and professional work—and an outsider—a white foreigner (araikwao), no longer resident in the country, and now doing research. As an insider interviewer, I was able to ask nurses specific questions and elicit stories that might not have been elicited by an outsider interviewer. There were topics that I did not raise because I knew participants would be reluctant to talk about—for example, traditional medical systems—or that I judged not to be the best use of precious interview time. With the missionary nurses, I shifted further towards the insider end of the continuum through my shared profession and experience in the Solomons.

In the two discontinued case studies (discussed in Chapter 7, Section 7.3), I had insufficient expertise and knowledge in the family history project and lacked the language skills in the ethnohistory case study. Both studies would have been more suited to an insider, or an outsider with expertise such as an ethnographer or folklorist. My decision to discontinue the two case studies was made easier by knowing that the family genealogies and kakamora stories will not be lost and will continue to be passed on. However, discontinuing these two studies came at the cost of losing connections with rural villagers in Makira and hence the opportunity to explore ‘history from below’ with a wider range of participants and social history. The decisions provide further

252 Chapter 9 Conclusions examples of how the power and control exercised by an outsider place limits on the shared authority (or co-construction) of oral histories by narrators, interviewers and researchers.

9.4.5 Recolonising or decolonising oral history research

Oral history methods appear to provide ways to decolonise research in post-colonial contexts by focusing on Indigenous voices and experiences. However, reflecting on the research journey and my dominant position as an outsider has led me to question whether this research recolonises (or neocolonises) oral history methods and, if so, how oral history methods can be decolonised in oral history projects.

As discussed in Chapter 7 (Section 7.3.4), this research can be regarded as recolonisation in several ways. First, the thesis is a product of my choice to study oral history in Solomon Islands as a part of a PhD. Decolonisation scholars from the Pacific and Australia view the university system as an advanced colonial mode of education and research:

Universities exist as haunted sites of neocolonial power and violence. They have historically functioned as imperial observatories to study and construct knowledge about Indigenous people, rather than producing work by, for and with Indigenous people. (Ahamal and Margioni 2020)

Pacific decolonial scholars argue that research methodologies inherited from the Northern academy are unsuitable because their theoretical underpinnings do not align with Pacific-origin thinking, languages or cultures (Smith 1999; Sanga and Reynolds 2018). From a decolonial perspective, I could be seen as reinscribing white male social privilege to extract Indigenous oral histories for academic purposes, to gain academic qualifications and honorific status. Employing oral history methods in an academic framework has required complying with academic procedures and protocols, such as literature reviews, research design and ethics approval, supervision and submission of the thesis to external examiners. Added to these external requirements have been my choice of interview methods and questions, my decisions to add and discontinue case studies, my approaches to analysis and interpretation, my creation of models and frameworks to support the research, my drafting of the thesis and my choice of other outsiders to comment on and help edit successive drafts.

Second, this research has explored mainly Northern oral history literature and methods, including ethics consent for interviews, release and copyright agreements, whose cultural relevance and enforceability I have come to doubt. Participants had limited control of how their histories and lives have been presented in this research. The much-referenced shared authority and co- construction of oral history applied mainly to the primary oral history phase and partly to

253 Chapter 9 Conclusions corrections in the secondary oral history phase of this research. Otherwise, control has remained with me, particularly with written forms of the oral histories and the tertiary oral history phase.

Third, this research was heavily weighted towards the colonial era by my choice of participants, most of whom I knew and who were public figures and higher-ranked nurses trained in the colonial era. Oral histories of less prominent people or nurses who dropped out of training or left nursing may have provided less favourable views of colonialism. My decision to discontinue two case studies also meant that different experiences of colonialism were lost and replaced with oral histories of missionaries who were essential to the colonial project. The oral histories of Solomon Islanders that remained were shaped by participants’ colonial education, professional training and the relative privilege these afforded them. As Thaman (2003, 10) writes:

Colonial era education and continuities deeply impacted Indigenous minds and imprinted superiority over Indigenous ways of knowing, views of who and what they are, and what are considered worthwhile to teach and to learn. The realisation that my research may have recolonised (or neocolonised) oral history has come towards the end of the research journey. I recognise that there are best and better practices developed for oral history research with and in First Nations communities in settler-colonial contexts such as Australia and North America (Srigley 2019). These practices can be adapted or assessed for the suitability to Solomon Islands contexts—in particular, to ensure Indigenous forms of representing history are respected, consent is properly informed and ownership of oral history recordings is culturally appropriate (Moeke-Pickering et al. 2006; Bawaka Country et al. 2016).

Decolonising oral history methods in research requires greater Indigenous control over interviews, curating the recordings and producing their own histories. With greater access to digital technology, people can become not just narrators of their histories but also interviewers, recordists, and researchers. Different forms of Polynesian and Melanesian oral storytelling can be captured that share knowledge and learning through dialogue and discussion. Solomon Islanders are very much at ease with ‘storying’ (tok stori), usually in a group, and perhaps chewing betel nut. Oral history methods do not have to be formal and prescriptive; they can be done in culturally appropriate ways, in different languages and situations. And if outsiders are involved, the key is that oral histories should be recorded with culturally appropriate methods and with the consent of, and control by, the people who tell them. 9.5 Recommendations

Several recommendations can be made from this thesis and the research journey behind it. The first is to promote and encourage the recording of all types of oral history, whether for family, community, or academic purposes. Interviewing and recording elders not only preserves individual, family and community histories but also enhances intergenerational understanding and respect. For

254 Chapter 9 Conclusions families and communities, I recommend inviting and encouraging family and community elders to be recorded talking about their lives, careers, photographs, and memorabilia. I would also encourage individuals, families, and communities to digitise existing recordings, photographs, and historical documents, which can then be shared and accessed with appropriate permissions. I also recommend recording oral history for social purposes—for example, with residents in aged care facilities by family members, staff, student health workers and local historians.227 Using oral history strategies in schools and further education as a teaching and learning tool can make many subjects more relevant and interesting for students, while creating opportunities to learn interviewing and listening skills and creative recording and digital techniques. Particularly in cross-cultural contexts, care is needed to ensure that consent and release agreements conform with cultural protocols and safeguard custodianship of the oral histories. Research with and by Indigenous people must always recognise and respect their ways of knowing, perspectives, and experiences.

Finally, shorter lifespans and the rising incidence of NCDs in Solomon Islands and Indigenous communities add to the urgency of recording oral histories while people are still able to tell their stories. Adding to the importance of recording the oral histories is the loss of not just people but also places due to climate change, which has already inundated and made some low-lying islands uninhabitable. In earlier decades, there were pressing concerns to record oral histories with Pacific War veterans as they grew old. Now the concern is to record oral histories from the generations who grew up after the Pacific War and were witnesses to colonial rule and actors in the transition to independence. Once recorded, the content and contexts of their lives—their libraries—need not be lost nor forgotten.

227 Residential facilities also practice reminiscence therapy for patients with dementia (Cotelli et al. 2012)

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Appendices

Appendix 1A Information sheet for participants

Information Sheet for Participants

Researcher: My name is Christopher Chevalier and I am a PhD student from the School of Sociology in the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Australian National University in Canberra. Project Title: Telling Stories: Oral History and Social History in Solomon Islands Outline of the research: Description and Methodology: My research is about using different types of oral history to help Solomon Islanders record both personal and social history. Oral history includes individual life stories; family histories, group stories, and also kastom (custom) stories. My research has two main questions: 1) What methods work well to collect life histories and stories of historical events in Solomon Islands? 2) What types of social history do we get by using oral history methods? I am funding this research myself except for a small grant from my university to help me with travel and some living costs. Participants: I would like to interview participants, especially people aged 50 years and over, who are interested to tell their stories and willing to share them with others. I aim to interview and record stories from about 30 to 40 people. Use of Data and Feedback: Oral history interviews are meant to be preserved and made accessible to future researchers and members of the public. Video recordings of the person telling a story are more interesting and more valued by families than audio recordings. If participants do not want to be videoed, then I will just make an audio recording of their interviews. After the interviews, I will write up a transcript or summary and give it back to participants to comment, correct, or edit things they do not want included in the story. We will agree on the story and what they want other people to be able to read or hear the story. Participants will receive typed copies of their story, plus copies of the video or audio recordings on CD, DVD, or MP3 for their personal use. I will analyse the stories and recordings for my research. This will contribute to knowledge on oral history and social history in Solomon Islands. I will use stories and information from the interviews for my thesis, research papers, presentations, articles, and chapters in books.

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If participants give their permission, researchers and members of the public will be able to see or hear the recording(s) and read the story(s) recordings through the Solomon Islands National Museum. A website may also be set up so people can hear or read the stories on the internet. This public access will require participants to give their permission in a signed release form. Voluntary Participation & Withdrawal: Taking part in the research project is voluntary. You can decline to take part without any problem or negative consequences. If you agree to participate in an interview, you can refuse to answer any question or talk about anything that you don’t want. You can stop at any time and decide not to take part from that point forward. If you do decide to pull out, the information you have shared will not be included in the research and will be destroyed. You can give your consent to participate on a written form or just say that you agree to participate on the recording. What will you have to do? If you agree to participate, I will interview you, usually one-to-one, and record the interview on video or audio, whichever you prefer. I will also take notes so that I get the outline of your story and details such as dates and spellings. When the summary of the interview is ready, I will ask you to read and correct the resulting story. I may also invite you to take part in a small group so you can talk about the past together with other. If you agree to be part of a group interviews, your information will be shared with other people in the group. Where and for how long? The interview(s) will usually take place at your home or another quiet location that we agree on. An interview will usually last from one to two hours and several interviews will be needed for a life history or family history. We will discuss how many sessions may be needed and agree after each interview when the next session will take place. Will there be any payment or benefit? I do not have any funds to pay participants. But you, your family, friends, and future generations will benefit from the telling your story(s) and having it recorded as part of the social history of Solomon Islands. Are there any risks? Talking about the past is usually interesting and enjoyable. But sometimes you may get emotional or upset talking about something from the past. You can stop the interview at any point or move on to talk about something else. I will help you to change the subject if it looks as if you are getting too uncomfortable. After the interview we will debrief and talk about how the interview went, what went well, what more you want to talk or not talk about. If you decide that you would like help in talking about or dealing with the events of the past, I can arrange for you to meet with a counsellor, Val Stanley, who is a trained social worker. Or if you prefer someone else, or you live far from Honiara, we can arrange for someone else who is experienced and would be helpful to talk to. Confidentiality of identity: In oral history the person telling their story is usually identified by name but you can choose not to give your identity if you want. However, it may not be possible to disguise your identity because people may recognise your face or your voice on the recording.

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You can choose one of three levels of identification: Full name: your full name is used in the story, recording, and in presentations and papers from my research. Pseudonym: you can be identified by another name or a letter in the recording and story. There is still a possibility that people might guess who you are from details in the story. Completely confidential (no name): no one will know your identity from the interview(s) or my research. Your identity will be stripped (taken out) story, research presentations and papers. I will not reveal your identity or details about you to anyone else but people may still try to guess who you are. Please note: We will not make the recording publicly available if you want your identity to be kept completely confidential. Also, your identity cannot be kept completely confidential if you take part in a group interview because other members of the group will know who you are. Confidentiality of information: You can also choose what information you want to keep confidential. During the interview, you can tell me to pause or stop the recording. After the interview, you can tell me if you want some details or names to be left out of the story. For example, the names of you and your children could be left out but the rest of your story remains. You can also make decisions later about details to take out after you have read the story and listened to the recording. Other people’s confidentiality needs to be considered if stories are made available to the public. People who are still alive could raise legal objections about statements that are published (although statements relating to dead people are not subject to laws of libel and defamation.) We will need to consider together whether any comments or statements about other people (third parties), if they became public, could be damaging or subject to legal action or compensation. Permission to access recordings and materials: One of the aims of research is to share oral histories with family and friends, other researchers, and the general public. After recordings have been made and the stories written up, I will ask you to decide who will be allowed to access the materials and to give your signed permission on a release form. You can put conditions on the use of materials. For example, you could allow your written story to be shared but not allow audio or video recordings or not be broadcast or transmitted on the radio or internet. You may decide that people will need to get your permission to use recordings on a case-by case basis. Several levels of conditions are possible:

1. No conditions: your interview, story and recordings can be shared with and used by anyone. 2. No conditions on research: the interview and materials may be listened to or read for research purposes by students, qualified researchers and staff at the Solomon Islands National Museum. 3. Conditions on listening, watching or reading the interview: anyone wanting to do so will first require your permission.

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4. Conditions on use of the materials: publishing or broadcasting of the recordings will require your permission on a case-by-case basis either through yourself or myself, the researcher. 5. Conditions on access locations: copies of the materials can be accessed through one or more locations— you, myself the researcher, the Solomon Islands National Museum; an internet web site; library catalogues and on-line databases.

Where will the information be kept? Video and audio recordings, notes and summaries will be stored on two secure (password-protected) computers and backup drives that can only be accessed by myself and my supervisor. Printed copies of materials will be stored in a locked filing cabinet. Summaries and recordings will be given to you in person or sent to your personal email address or a secure post office box. If you have given your permission, the Solomon Islands National Museum will store final copies of materials (stories, recordings, and photos). Materials may also be put on web pages on the internet but only if you have given permission for this. How long will the information be kept? I will keep copies of all materials securely stored before and after publication of my research. Materials that have been given released for public access will be permanently stored at the Solomon Islands National Museum. Any stories and recordings released on the internet can be stored indefinitely on web pages. Queries and Concerns If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact me when I am in the Solomon Islands on my mobile: 7492715. If I am back in Australia, you can contact me directly at: Christopher Chevalier, School of Sociology, Research School of Social Sciences, College of the Arts and Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. E-mail: [email protected] or by phone: [+61] 04 2761 0983

Or you can contact my local contact Grayham Tahu at E-mail: [email protected] or by phone [+677] 7479540 If you have further questions or concerns, please contact my research supervisor: Dr. Kevin White, School of Sociology, Research School of Social Sciences, College of the Arts and Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, E-mail: [email protected] or by phone [+612] 6125 4561. The ethical aspects of this research have been approved on 7/07/2014 by the ANU Human Research Ethics Committee. If you have any concerns or complaints about how this research has been conducted, please contact: Ethics Manager, The ANU Human Research Ethics Committee, The Australian National University, Email: [email protected] or by phone: +61 2 6125 3427

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Appendix 1B Consent form for participants

Consent Form for Participants Telling Stories: Oral History and Social History in Solomon Islands

Written consent – for participant to complete

I agree to participate in the Oral History research conducted by Christopher Chevalier who has explained the project and confidentiality procedures to me.

Signature: …………………………………………………………….

YES  NO I agree to take part in one-to-one interviews

YES  NO I agree to take part in a group interview

YES  NO I agree to the interview(s) being audio-taped

YES  NO I agree to the interview(s) being recorded on camera

I agree to be identified in the following way:

YES  NO Full name

YES  NO Pseudonym (by another name or letter)

YES  NO Complete confidentiality (please note: this option cannot be guaranteed if you agree to a group interview or being recorded on camera)

Signature: …………………………………………………………….

Oral Consent - researcher to complete

I, Christopher Chevalier, have explained the Oral History project and confidentiality procedures to the participant who has verbally agreed to participate in the interview and the items ticked above.

Signature: …………………………………………………………….

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Appendix 1C Release agreement form

Release Agreement Form Telling Stories: Oral History and Social History in Solomon Islands

Permission to access recordings and materials

I agree to allow permission to the recordings of my interview(s) and other materials produced from my interviews under the following conditions:

1. Unconditional: my interview, story and recordings can be shared with and used by anyone without needing further permission from me. YES  NO 

2. Unconditional for researchers: the interview and materials may be accessed for research purposes by students, qualified researchers, and the Solomon Islands National Museum. YES  NO 

3. Conditions on listening to, watching or reading the interview: anyone wanting to do so will require my written permission first. YES  NO 

4. Conditions on use of the materials: publishing or broadcasting of the materials will require my permission on a case-by-case basis. YES  NO 

5. Conditions on access locations: copies of the materials can be accessed via:

- the researcher (Christopher Chevalier) YES  NO  NOT YET  - the Solomon Islands National Museum YES  NO  NOT YET  - the Solomon Islands National University YES  NO  NOT YET  - an Oral History internet web site YES  NO  NOT YET  - On-line databases and library catalogues YES  NO  NOT YET 

Signature: …………………………………………………………….

Contact details (in case permission is required):

Email address:

Phone contact:

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Appendix 2 Alice Watoto – an example of a nursing career history

This appendix provides an example of a nursing career history with Alice Watoto (née Denairii) from her oral history interviews. Her history traverses both Fauabu and Nursing in the Solomons case studies. Her career also brings into view the disadvantages faced by female nurses and the courageous work done by some nurses during the Tension. Not all the footnotes were included in the version given to her but are shown [in brackets] for the purposes of content analysis and cross analysis.

Title: ‘From 16-60, I always wanted to wear the nurses cap’ Context: Alice Watoto (maiden name Dinarii) from Malaita worked in Makira for many years where I first knew and worked with her on the PHC program when she became the MCH/Family Planning Coordinator for Makira from 1989-97. She then moved to the same position in Guadalcanal, taking over reproductive health nursing from Sarah Ben from 1997 to 2010. She is married with five children to pharmacist Paul Watoto. Alice retired in 2010 but continued working on fixed term appointment until 2015. She was awarded the British Empire Medal for her services to nursing an community in June 2014. I interviewed her at her home in White River in Honiara and a year later in Kirakira where she has now retired.

Interviewed at White River 17 September 2014 and followed up Kirakira 2 December 2015 Recording 2hrs 48 mins

Alice Watoto, born at Malu’u, Malaita 22 August 1954 (aged 60 at time of first interview) Education 1963–1969 Standard 1–7 Malu’u Primary School After completing Junior and Senior Primary School at Malu`u in north Malaita. Alice should have gone to secondary school at Selwyn College at Ngalimbiu on Guadalcanal. However, her father had died in 1964 and her mother could not afford the school fees and her male relatives would not help because they favoured boys’ education over girls.

Alice wanted to become a nurse because at school the school nurse, also called Alice, had done small dressings on her legs and she was captivated by the nurse’s hat. One day when the teacher asked the pupils what they wanted to do when they finished school, Alice said she wanted to be a nurse and everyone laughed at her. The teasing strengthened her desire to do nursing and the headmaster told her she that she should get into the nursing school when she was older. The headmaster went himself to Fauabu Hospital to recommend her for training.

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Nurse training 1970–1972, Hospital of the Epiphany, Fauabu, Malaita Alice applied for nursing at Fauabu, the Church of Melanesia hospital situated north of Auki.228 She was only 16 years old instead of the required 18 years. Sr Helen Barrett asked if she would be a domestic until she was old enough to start. She did not want to work as a domestic so went home but soon after when the hospital introduced an entrance exam. She took the exam and passed with a score of 82%, ahead of other girls from Pamua and Bungana Church of Melanesia secondary schools. Only three girls got in with Standard 7 (Senior Primary) school education. 229

Alice was allowed to begin her training at Fauabu, which she thought was probably the best place to train and even more strict than in Honiara. Matron Sr Helen Barrett used to check and if a nurse had not completed their duties, she had to come back to the ward. The uniform, a blue dress and apron, and always to the fore.230 If nurses were off duty, they always sat behind those in uniform at prayers of gatherings. Time was very important, as well as devotions and cleanliness. Training was done by missionary nursing sisters - Sr Pamela Goodes, Sr Helen Morris, and Sr Patricia Halpin.231 Sr Veronica Kefu from Isabel had qualified as a nurse in 1969 and worked with Sr Helen Barrett for many years.232 The spiritual side was an important dimension in addition to the physical care. The day would start with prayers with the patients. Nurses were rostered into groups for organising church, dining hall, trading/marketing, and health. They prayed morning and evening, and church service was on Sundays when the nurses would bring the orphan babies and children to church.

The Hospital of the Epiphany had a male and female ward, plus a maternity ward.233 The beds were always clean and cleanliness was a big part of nursing at Fauabu. Each ward had one domestic but the hospital did not employ outside staff so before and after nursing duties nurses had to clean inside and outside, including the drains and weeding in the gardens. Training was practical and nursing care was literally from head to toe. On admission, the patient was checked from head to toe and different conditions noted. If the patient had head lice, they shaved their head and treated

228 The Melanesian Mission Hospital of the Epiphany opened on 16 June 1929 with forty beds in several concrete- floor buildings and an operating theatre (Solomon Islands Historical Encyclopedia 1893–1978). 229 These would have been some of the last entrants to RN training with St.7 education. Central Hospital had increased the minimum entry requirements to Form 2 in 1968. St.7 education ended in 1973. 230 See photos from Sr Helen Barrett. 231 In a separate interview Edith describes the rigorous standards and discipline at Fauabu. Edith was one of the Central Hospital trained nurses who did part of their Community Nursing training at Fauabu after 1975. The students rotated one week each with Sr Helen (satellite outreach), Sr Pam (maternity), and Sr Pat (leprosy). According to the Helen Barrett interviews, there was another Sr Pam (Crawford) who was a nurse tutor. Sr Marion Gray started as a tutor in 1973. 232 Veronica Kefu came to train at Fauabu in 1963 but fell ill and lost her leg below the knee. She was sent by Red Cross to PNG for a prosthesis and came back to Fauabu where she worked on the wards feeding the orphans before starting her training again in 1965. 233 The hospital also ran a leprosy settlement at Kwaibala (see Fig. 5.10 in Chapter 5).

299 Appendices any sores. It was almost an early version of integrated management of the patient many years later. Every Wednesday, a doctor from Kilu`ufi came to see referrals while more urgent cases were taken by ambulance to Kilu`ufi.

The hospital looked after orphans and the nurses learned everything about mothercraft except having the babies themselves. The orphans came from mothers who died in childbirth, or who were born to single mothers, separated parents, or mothers who just didn’t want another baby or a daughter. Because people knew of this place, babies came from other provinces not just from Malaita. Nurses gave them full care from day one and take them to church on Sundays. There could be thirty to forty babies who were cared by the nurses until adopted parents came to stay for one month to bond with the babies and learn how to look after them. 234 Babies usually stayed until they could walk and if they left earlier, they usually became malnourished and had to come back. Alice was already expert in mothercraft when she came to have her own children. She thoroughly enjoyed her work all through her days at Fauabu.

Fauabu trained nurses were recognised as nurse-midwives after an end–of-year hospital exam comprising four written papers and a practical, plus a final State final exam for the Solomon Islands Certificate, which was set by doctors in Honiara. There was a very good pass rate with only two nurses dropping out of her group of thirty after the entrance exam and only one failed the final exam. One or two fell pregnant in the second year and dropped out but not in her year. Training was effective and organised into blocks for each year. After an initial three-month block, then two and three-week blocks. The community health / satellite work was done all the way through their training rather than a block like the Honiara nurses. Their food and board were provided and pay was pocket money - first year $1.50 per month; second year was $3 p.m., and third year $6 p.m.235 Registered Nurse training finished at Fauabu in 1978 and earlier at Helena Goldie when the last group finished in 1974 when Alice was on holiday there.

Family and children She met her husband Paul Watoto in 1974 when she was working at Central Hospital and he began nurse training. He had to leave nurse training school in 1974 because of his relationship with Alice (their first child was born in March 1975) despite the fact that she was already qualified as a nurse. Alice went to Makira in September 1974 and Paul joined her there. Alice worked on all the wards and OPD at Kirakira hospital. Alice had their first two children in Kirakira, Paul Jnr in 1975 and

234 The orphans were usually adopted informally within extended families. 235 Compared with Central Hospital trained nurses 1970–72: $5 pm in first year, $9 pm in second and third year, which was increased to $15 pm during that time. Newly qualified government nurses earned $45 pm.

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Mary in 1976. They returned to Honiara in 1977 for Paul to begin training as a pharmacist. 236 He qualified as a pharmacist in 1980, which made it easy for them to work together in the same province. They had three more children: Judith in 1978, Josephine in 1981, and Ray in 1988. Paul Jnr went St Joseph’s School, Tenaru and did Form 6 at KGVI before going to Fiji to do a degree in Mechanical Engineering. The three daughters have followed their parents into health professions. Mary finished Form 5 and became a Registered Nurse and will complete a one-year Bachelor of Midwifery upgrade in 2016. Judith has also become a nurse after finishing Form 3 and training at Malu`u. She is upgrading to a Diploma of Nursing at Helena Goldie and will qualify in 2017. Josephine completed Form 6 and a degree as a dietician in Fiji and now works at the Nutrition Unit at MHMS HQ. Ray is the only one who did not finish his schooling and now works driving his own taxi in Honiara.

Postings and positions 1973 Probation year at Fauabu 1974 Central Hospital, Honiara 1974–77 Registered Nurse, all wards, Kirakira Hospital, Makira 1977–80 Central Hospital, Honiara (male ward and rotation) 1980–82 Gizo Hospital, Western Province 1982–84 Kilu’ufi Hospital, Malaita 1984–97 Kirakira Hospital, Makira 1988 Family Planning Training (4/12), Philippines 1989–97 MCH Coordinator, Makira, promoted to ANO (level 5) 1991 Promoted to NO (level 6/7) 1997 Promotes to SNO (level 7/8) 1997–2010 Reproductive Health Coordinator, Guadalcanal Province 2005 Realignment to Community Nurse Consultant (level 8/9) 2010 Official retirement (aged 55) 2014 Community Health Manager and HIS, Fixed Term Appointment, Guadalcanal 2015 Retired (aged 60)

Nursing career After her probation year at Fauabu in 1973, Alice went to work at Central Hospital in 1974 where she met Paul. She was posted to his home province of Makira in 1974 where she worked as a general RN at Kirakira hospital until 1977. When they returned to Honiara for Paul to begin

236 It is interesting to note that Paul was not allowed to continue but that this rule did not apply to AP. 1977F because her future husband had already qualified

301 Appendices training as a pharmacist, Alice worked at Central Hospital. From 1980-82 they were posted to Gizo where she also worked in the hospital. In 1982 she and Paul were transferred to Kilu’ufi Hospital where Alice worked Dr Martin Baker, Dr Bull, Dr Lilly, Dr Jimmie Rodgers (then a paediatrician) and his wife Dr Elizabeth Rodgers (then a woman’s doctor), by then they had already had a son and a daughter.

In 1984, Alice followed Paul to work at Kirakira hospital in Makira. In 1988 she went on a four- month course in the Philippines for Family Planning training and to learn how to put in Intrauterine Contraceptive Devices (IUDS). In 1989 she was appointed as one of the new Family Planning Coordinators who were created to be the liaison program officers for the MCH Unit in each province. This was her first promotion (to ANO) for 16 years (1974-89) and although she thought that they should recognize her, she had lacked the courage to discuss promotion with nursing bosses. Her promotion only came as a result of being chosen as a MCH Coordinator but in those days there were not as many positions in specialised program and in the nursing hierarchy as there were later. Preference was given to male nurses who dominated the nursing hierarchy despite a female head of nursing (Superintendent of Nursing Services, Margaret Luilamo). Also hindering her was the fact that she was trained at Fauabu trained nurse and did not have connections and classmates in the nursing hierarchy as others and therefore had not been selected for further training. Promotion speeded up in the 1990s and she was promoted to NO in 1991 after she was recommended by Dr Karl, an expatriate doctor in Kirakira who had relied on her greatly when he was on call and led to her having a phone installed at her house.237 Nearly 25 years after qualifying, Alice became a SNO in 1997 when she moved to Guadalcanal, the Cinderella Province.238

Alice was posted to Honiara in 1997 to work in Adolescent Health at the Reproductive Health (RH) Unit but instead was posted to Guadalcanal. Sarah Ben had resigned from Guadalcanal Province because of lack of promotion and was posted to the Reproductive Health Unit rather than lose such a reliable nurse. Alice was happy about this because it meant she was not stuck in an office and could continue as a community health nurse. When she arrived to work at Guadalcanal, there was no handover from Sarah and no files or records, so it took Alice six months to work out her program. This involved going out on satellite clinics three days a week, using the

237 [Had she stayed in Makira after 1997, she probably could have risen faster because she was more senior to Stephen Wakataku, who kept stepping into the shoes above him up thanks to a series of retirements in the positions above him, eventually becoming provincial Director of Nursing in Makira.] 238 Guadalcanal was a Cinderella province because it was neglected and exploited. After the Pacific War, Guadalcanal became home to national projects and to the national capital, which is dominated by people from other provinces, especially Malaitans. Provincial headquarters and services are based in Honiara through which all aid is channelled and government services are controlled but from which Guadalcanal benefits less than other provinces. These became root causes of the Tension 1998–2003.

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MCH/PHC outreach approach they had developed in Kirakira. Dr Jacqui Glennan was the Medical Officer, Jessie Fa`arodo was CNO and Gabriel Vagi PNO.239

In 1999 Alice did Public Service Management Training in 1999 and then in the realignment of nursing positions, she was designated a Community Nurse Consultant in 2005 but never rose to the upper segment of the composite grading. The realignments were unfair because nurses who had trained much later were appointed to the same level.240 Slowing her promotion after 2004 were newer nursing officers in charge having problems with administering the new system. Their job was to recommend nurses for promotion but they didn’t have the same knowledge of the public service procedures as before. But she says that it was mastering the work rather than positions that always mattered to her.

Alice reached official retirement age in 2010 but continued working for Guadalcanal Province until 2015 on fixed term appointment managing community health programs and also monitoring the Health Information System (HIS). She was able to employ and train a Form 6 school leaver to do the HIS work and was happy to retire in 2015.

Community health nursing She has enjoyed community health work very much and much more than working in the hospital. She loves to go out and talk to women, see children and hold meetings and workshops. Her work in Makira involved ten satellite points in the Kirakira area where they went three days a week (Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays), and did antenatal and child welfare clinics in Kirakira on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The catchment area was around 65kms of road along the coast from Warahito river east of Kirakira to Waita`a river on the border with Bauro to the east. They had good transport in those days and she would pick up the local nurse and go out with them to do the outreach clinics.241 A monthly schedule meant that they could keep immunizations on schedule and follow up immunization defaulters. They kept a register of all the nurses and could send messages through the clinics for children to come to catch up on their immunizations.242 She worked well with Reuben Ma`au, who was the driver and an outstanding VHW himself who could assist in MCH clinics—Alice later supported his application to do nurse training and he later became a nursing lecturer at SICHE.243 She broke her leg in 1991 in a canoe accident while touring

239 Jessie Faro’odo qualified in 1964 and apart from Suhote Sukihi was the only female to head nursing in a province until recently. 240 The realignment of nurses in 2004-5 abolished Nursing Officer positions and reduced the hierarchy while creating career pathways in four areas of nursing: Clinical, Community, Education, and Administration. 241 The Australian High Commissioner donated a truck dedicated for PHC in 1991 and Save the Children had provided a ray boat and engine for touring in 1987 and again in1992. 242 [An example of community health nursing best practice.] 243 Reuben Ma`au completed a Master’s degree in Nursing in 2014 from Curtin University in Western Australia.

303 Appendices and due to a badly set plaster cast caused plaster burn, she has suffered from circulation problems and cellulitis in that leg. Despite this handicap, she has done a great deal of touring and walking in Makira and Guadalcanal.

Primary Health Care began declining in the 1990s. At Guadalcanal Province, she used to tour the clinics and coordinate their work. She saw that nurses hardly went out due to lack of 1) money and 2) transport. In Guadalcanal, some clinic catchment areas were a bit far whereas in Kirakira, transport was regular, and clinics were provided with fuel for their own satellite clinics. In Guadalcanal, she could see from their monthly reports that most clinics did zero satellite clinics. Even if there was an engine and boat, touring by female nurses depended on whether their husbands were understanding and tolerant of them touring if they had children. Her husband Paul was always very cooperative about her touring and if she was late because of a breakdown he would contact the police to look out for her or organise alternative transport himself.244

Guadalcanal is a very big island and trucks can be used on the north side as far as Aola in the east and Lambi to the west. But on the weather coast (the south side) with different geography, clinics depend on fuel if they have transport to go out.245 One or two smart nurses did walk to satellite clinics. Alice herself did three- to four-hour walks herself going from clinic to clinic on the weather coast. She would take the nurse with her or go in the canoe if the clinic had one.246 Sometimes she was out touring for one or two weeks at a time. Even before the Tension, it was difficult and deprived area but she enjoyed walking village to village and talk to women and men. She even did antenatal screening in the home. Satellite work also depends on whether nurses enjoy getting out of the clinic, and also their family and whether they have small children to look after. The attitude of the nurse is important – they did it if they love their job and like to find out what was happening in their area. Nurses need to involve the community and if they can’t come, they have to apologise to the community. In Makira it was easier to arrange things with communities. There they really like satellite clinics whereas in Guadalcanal, communities are less participatory. Provincial politicians also tell communities that the province should pay them for community work.

In Guadalcanal, many women have their babies, sometimes eight, at home and 50:50 or 60:40 of babies are born at home with the help of their mothers and aunts. Alice did research and wrote a report on why women choose to birth at home. Some of the reasons they did not go to clinics to deliver were that they underestimated themselves and felt ashamed (the nurses looked clean and

244 By the 1990s her daughters were considerable older and able to look after themselves and her youngest child. 245 The weather coast is called Tasi Mauri or rough coast or sea, does not have roads. Walking tracks or walking over headlands are very arduous. Satellite clinics by canoe need calm seas, otherwise landings and launchings are difficult, dangerous and it is easy to swamp the boat and engine. 246 Role modelling or teaching community health by example.

304 Appendices they were not), nurses raused (scolded them), made them wait a long time, or favoured those who helped clean around clinic.247 If the clinic is good, then women will come but if women are not willing to come, then nurse has to follow them up.

Home births are OK as long as the mothers and babies are alive and well. In 1997 Alice did Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA) training in Guadalcanal with older women who already had experience. TBAs learned to recognize early signs of pregnancy, keep a tally for antenatal visits and medicines, such as tonics, and help women to deliver safely. 248 The TBA had to do it in a way that the woman’s brothers did not find out because customs in Guadalcanal are that the brother must not hear that his sister is pregnant or she has to pay compensation to the brother. The TBA could help by telling the clinic about their pregnant women or women who had just given birth. They could help woman deliver safely but also not to try to do difficult deliveries themselves but take them to the clinic. They were health educators for these mothers and some of the TBAs wanted to become nurses. The TBA training proved that it worked during the Tension because where there was a trained TBA, fewer women died and babies were born safely. In other areas, maternal deaths went up.

In Kusuba, a bush village in the Tangarare area, there were five maternal deaths in one month [!]. This was Harold Keke’s area and women were not allowed to move about to go to clinics, even if they were functioning. Gabriel Vagi and Alice went during the Tension travelling under a white flag. They arrived at Kusuba at 8 o’clock at night after a three hour walk in the mud. When they arrived, Harold Keke, the GRA boss, contacted Gabriel and checked whether they had arrived and Alice was glad that he was monitoring them. Before the Tension she had not done training for TBAs in this area because it had an Area Health Centre. So she and Gabriel held a five-day workshop but they had to ask the chiefs to set aside kastom so that brothers and sisters could discuss such matters together. What was happening was that women were pushing down too early and the TBAs/birth helpers were using pressure by holding the belly from behind and pushing down, which caused bleeding, possibly when it was face to pubis presentation, and the women bled to death. Having found out what had been happening, they explained the dangers of pushing too early and applying pressure, how to get woman to walk about to progress labour, how to do simple deliveries and when to refer. The nurses were instructed to put a date for delivery so that women and TBAs knew when it was getting near time to go to the clinics. There were no waiting houses for pregnant women at the clinics because they could not get the land to build them, even though

247 Report written by Alice with the help of Tracey Lee, it would be useful to find, scan, and reference this. 248 The TBA training program outline has been scanned and copied. Alice also has hard copies of reports she wrote during the Tension somewhere in her belongings.

305 Appendices there was World Bank funding for such things. After that workshop, there weren’t any more maternal deaths in that area.

Like PHC, the Village Health Worker (VHW) program also died out in the 1990s. In Makira the VHWs went for further training and upgraded to nurse aid posts. In Makira people went for it but in Guadalcanal it was tougher to interest them – they hear but don’t do. Previously trained VHWs worked if they were paid but dropped out due to non-payment. She and Gabriel had just trained a new set of VHWs when the Tension happened.

In Guadalcanal, clinics and communities have to be visited regularly and guided but they cannot be ordered what to do. Communities differ and this also depends on the leadership. Nurses need to make relationships with communities and work with leaders and groups. Priests hold meetings regularly and can inform people about the nurse and her visits. Alice targets women’s church groups to work with who hold meetings and then she can catch a good number of women. Giving a talk is one thing but the practice afterwards is a challenge. Catechists are also very useful and a good source of population data. Alice also likes to work with youth groups and youth leaders but males and females have to be separated for reproductive health education sessions. Alice really believes in working with community groups and leaders, who can work together with her programs.

It depends on the nurse herself. You have to show interest in people. You honour your clinic, you honour people, you honour the community. Newer nurses need to learn and be shown how to do community nursing. When they finish training and go to clinics and there are no satellite clinics, that is what they get used to. As Community Nurse Manager, she could show nurses how little touring was being done, down to zero, and how to do it. The more transport provided, the less touring is done. The logbooks show the fuel is finished and used up without touring. Now things are better because they have a system with a special supply of fuel for transporting patients which is refilled, leaving fuel for satellites unaffected.

Nurses need to follow up women who don’t come to clinics or satellites. Some don’t come because they have lots of children, others because they are lazy or don’t like the nurse. If you follow them up, you can talk with them to see if they if they want to have a tubal ligation, a loop, Depo Provera. In one area, Alice noticed from (clinic) reports a drop in family planning users so she followed up with community visits and found out that the nurses had started charging charge for family planning led to fewer users. Women want Depo Provera because they want fewer children, which make it hard for them to do gardening for earning money. The nurse found out that Alice had been visiting the community and asked whether Alice was coming to find fault. She didn’t raus or scold the nurse but told her that she was following up the drop in family planning and the women had

306 Appendices said it was because of the charge for family planning which they couldn’t afford. They shouldn’t be charged for FP even if clinic nurses usually charge for visits and record books. Sometimes there are shortages of Depo from the pharmacy and they have to advise mothers to switch to pills and condoms but they don’t like it. They prefer Depo(Provera).

The Tension During the Tension, Gabriel Vagi, Bartram Manu and Alice stayed in their posts but the CNO George Maebata, also like her from Malaita, ran away from work but stayed in Honiara at the hospital compound. Nurses would send notes and messages asking for help so was not tempted to leave and she stayed. She and Gabriel worked all the way through the Tension, Alice (from Malaita) in Honiara and Gabriel (from Guadalcanal) based in the CDC area. At first there was no access to Guadalcanal. Trucks were taken or damaged by the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF) and ships prevented from going round Guadalcanal. The Guale militants kidnapped a Solair pilot and agent at Mbabanakira and burnt the plane, which stopped any further supplies by air. At White River, the MEF broke and destroyed medicines to go to the other side of Guadalcanal. Then at Henderson airport, they broke into the air cargo depot and hijacked food supplies for the nurses and medicines, Solair refunded the supplies because Alice had the receipts. It was very difficult.

Their office was moved to the MHMS HQ after the MEF came into the Guadalcanal Provincial HQ office with guns and destroyed/ransacked their office - papers, computers, medicines. Alice was absolutely shocked. The MEF also came with guns to the MHMS office and demanded their truck which was hidden under canvas. She had nothing to work with, just empty tables because all their records and equipment had gone and had to start from scratch again with some computers they were given.

Gabriel and Alice got access to Guadalcanal by working through the Red Cross who were the only organisation permitted to cross. The Red Cross organised humanitarian food supplies and had hired the Princess 2 to take medicines round Guadalcanal to the clinics. Some food supplies got through by women from church groups who were given safe passage by Red Cross. Gabriel and Alice also worked with the Australian High Commission who helped to pay nurses and also the use of an Australian army barge at the Yacht Club and a helicopter one time. Gabriel and Alice concentrated on supplying medicines, food and money for nurses who were not allowed to move by the GRA and IFM.249 Gabriel, man Guadalcanal, was based at CDC on the Guadalcanal Plains – Alice would get the money for the nurses from the bank and Gabriel would get the money, at

249 Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army and Isatabu Freedom Movement

307 Appendices one time via an Australian army barge and then walk or canoe around the island to give them their pay and supplies.

She was subject to intimidation and militants used to swear obscenities over the radio. Militants used to watch her while she was buying supplies for the nurses and told her that she was from Malaita but helping those who had killed so many of her own kind. She told them they could get on with whatever they were planning but she was just going to do her own work properly. She told them, ‘It’s true, I am your sister but please allow me to work, I need to work so I can be paid too’.

Gabriel and Alice wore Red Cross insignia on their uniforms and to leave Honiara and enter Guadalcanal at Alligator Creek (to the east past the airport) and at Kakabona (to the west past the Tanagai Catholic Mission). On the way the MEF sometimes broke open the medicines and supplies. Alice took supplies such as nappies and supplies for mothers who had just had babies and food supplies for disabled people to the Guadalcanal side. She had to cross through the bunkers and gates at Alligator Creek to get over to the Guadalcanal side and then onto to the Church of Christ building at Mbalasuna where the premier and GP government was quartered. She had to persuade/explain to very young foot soldiers inspecting everything who the supplies were for and give goods equally to each side. On the Guadalcanal side, she was allowed through although she was Malaitan because she was Red Cross. She would be given food and fruits by the women and on the way back give some of the food to both sets of militants at the bunkers, and also share with her neighbours.

She forgot (ignored the fact) that she was a Malaitan and her husband stood by her and would wait up for her until she arrived back. Alice met with MEF leaders, Manasseh Maelanga and Jimmy Rasta to complain about being hassled and supplies taken. She wanted to make sure that their foot soldiers did not take matters into their own hands. When the two Guale militants were shot dead at Central Hospital, she was at Dodo Creek on the other side of Alligator Creek, they were told by the Guale side not to go back across the bridge because it had been dynamited. But they were lying and they crossed anyway. When the MEF used the navy patrol boat 04 (used to machine gun areas along the Guadalcanal coast), three men had died, one of them the brother of Jim Leni, a nurse who was in Aola. Jim was angry and swearing on the communications radio, telling Malaitans to go back to their island. Alice told Jim she didn’t want him to swear and asked him to be loving. Five MEF came into her office with guns looking for Gabriel and the truck but he was safe on the other side. She talked them down, saying they were her brothers from Malaita and their work was their business and to let her do her work.

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Her faith is very strong and she was not afraid to die – ‘taem fo dae hem i stae’ (the time to die hasn’t come yet) – and ‘it’s hard to shoot anyone when they are straight, unless you do something wrong’. When they went to Tangarare to address the spate of maternal deaths, she accepted the risk, ‘It’s my work – if I die, I die at work, it’s alright’. Paul agreed to her on this mission and wished her all the best. Although they had sent a message to Harold Keke to get permission to come, she and Gabriel were nearly shot on the way. They were intercepted by two canoes with a number of drunken soldiers, aiming guns and demanding medicines. She thought they were going to die. They were held on the water for hours, but they explained what they were doing and eventually were let through. Gabriel and Alice didn’t report what had happened to them because he (Keke) would have killed the drunken soldiers. Alice had given a lift to Father Augustine Geve, the local MP, to the Marine School just two or three days before he was murdered by Harold Keke.

After the Tension The Tension was a dark time and Alice was very happy when the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) arrived in June 2003 to disarm the militants. They established police stations around the island and she joined meetings in rural areas by RAMSI helicopter. After the Tension was over, Alice went to Japan and then was involved in restoration work, touring to areas of Guadalcanal except areas where rebel groups were still strong. All the radio and solar panels had been stolen. No Malaitans now work in Guadalcanal except for haf/haf or marit Guadalcanal who paid customary payments. There are still many traumatised women.

Changes in nursing Positive changes. There have been big changes since the beginning. Nurses are cleverer and smarter now. Theory has increased and gets more attention than practical skills. Nurses can give first line treatments that were Dr only drugs before. There have been new programs – Reproductive Health, Child Health, Eye, TB/Leprosy with nurses full of vision. She worked with good teams, Gabriel was a good coordinator, not bossy. Since the AusAid re-levelling (realignment) program, they now have operational plans with ‘what’s done, not done, why not done’. People work together with integrated touring (separate touring is wasteful!). Alice is also very happy to see what were satellite clinics that have become new clinics.

Negative changes. Clinic nurses do things their own way, some are keen learners but some stop learning. There is not enough time for nurses if everyone comes on tour. Sometimes nurses are absent from their posts. When she was monitoring the HIS (Health Information System) in Guadalcanal Province, she could see that most clinics were doing zero satellite clinics. She also sees nurses at Outpatients and clinical standards have gone down. In hospital, relatives are doing the nursing care these days.

309 Appendices

Discipline – sometimes the communities report nurses and are called in for a warning and advice. Before the nurse went in uniform to see the boss who was always in the office. Now the nurse may be chewing betel nut, hair, any style (enikaen). Alice has had to learn to accept nurses being scruffy, in mufti and unclean. A smart uniform means the nurse is prepared and organised. If the nurse is disorganised, the clinic is disorganised. It is harder now for Solomon Islanders to discipline nurses.

Population [prompted] Things go in line as population goes up. If a nurse is alone in the clinic, she stays in the clinic.

Disease pattern [prompted] – when she was training she maybe saw one or two cases of diabetes and heart disease. TB and Leprosy, malaria and sores were higher. Pneumonia in children is now higher due to smoking, weight faltering, and early weaning. Hypertension and diabetes have increased due to lifestyle changes – access to money and stores, some areas have poor gardens, poorer diets, and less access to fish.

Photographs

Fig. A1 Fauabu student nurses 1970–72 intake (photo: Helen Barrett collection)

Standing L-R: Agnes Dai, Agnes Bako, Alice Dinarii (Watoto), Hila Maena, Kelani Baera Kneeling L-R: Mary Aua (Apo), Rosemary Kile Sitting L-R: Delight Suiga, Susan Waita, Hedes Abira, Hilda Koban Bili, Penelope Gele Biroaka

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Fig. A2 Alice Watoto 1989 Fig. A3 Alice Watoto 2015 (photo: Malcolm Richards) (photo: author)

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Appendix 3 Participants and other informants

Case study 1. Four Corners Afu Billy, A.V. (Tony) Hughes, John Roughan, David Sitai Other interviewees: Lois Mamau, Kuria Hughes, Sasabote P., Warren Paia, Paul Roughan, Mary Sitai, Frida Sitai.

Case study 2. Fauabu Sisters Helen Barrett, Pam Goodes, Marion Gray, Pat Halpin, Helen Morris. Other interviews: Barbara Barrett, Alice Watoto, Edith Fanega, Fr Francis Tohe.

Case study 3. Nursing in Solomon Islands

Former Nursing Officers George Amo, Sarah Ben, Timoti Daonanita, Joe Denty (former HEO), Edith Fanega, Verlyn Gagahe, Bolton Hebala, Versilyn Isom, Philippa Kakasi, Margaret (Maelanga) Luilamo, George Maebata, Adam Oliana, Winston Pitikamoki, Albert P., Annie P., Belshazzar Sasa, Judith Seke, Charles S., Suhote Sikihi, Olive S., Isiah Tukuvaku, Gabriel Vagi, Stanley Waisi, Stephen Wakataku, Alice Watoto.

Other interviewees Prudence Filo (RN), Pam Goodes (nurse educator), Jacqui Guy (nurse educator), Michael Larui (Director of Nursing), Alby Lovi, (former HEO), Rueben Ma`au (nurse educator), Rosie Sisiolo (nurse educator); Dr Judson Leafasia, Sir Dr Nathan Kere, Dr Divi Ogogo, Dr Jimmie Rogers, Dr Elizabeth Rogers

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